Today we’d like to introduce you to Natasha L. Barredo.
Natasha, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
On a dark, cold night on Valentine’s Day in the Philippines… a gremlin was born. That gremlin in time immigrated to the United States and watched a lot of Courage the Cowardly Dog.
Cartoons were instrumental in my upbringing. I was raised by a superhuman (my mom, hi mom!) all over Northern and Southern California and would tell me t.v. would rot my brain. I mean, true, but I learned some of my English from watching t.v. and seeing movies. I loved the theatrics of media, the drama of it all. From Filipino soap dramas to an episode of Ed, Edd, and Eddy, I was like, oh my god! What’s gonna happen! Do I have to draw what I think will happen next?! This yearning to know and tell stories lit my soul on fire. But, at the time I didn’t know, it still felt like just a hobby?
I went to community college and worked on getting credits and furthering my goal to transfer to a university and pursue a psychology degree. I, uh, ended up in art school. It was liberating, scary, cool, exciting, and very expensive – so I dropped out. From working multiple jobs while going to school and still managing to create art on the side, it was clear to me that art was very important and it was something worth holding on to.
For a while, I freelanced as a comic artist. I worked as a guest artist for web-comics, even did informational comics on load balancing, and eventually getting one of my own original stories published. Comics kept pushing me to explore other means of storytelling- which led me to animation. Animation was the happy medium of my love for art and my love for storytelling. It felt almost natural that I fell right into storyboarding, specifically. Like, of course! Yes, I love being dramatic with my storytelling AND drawing, I can’t believe there’s a job that mixes the two!
I feel super lucky and pleased to have had opportunities storyboarding in shows for studios such as Netflix and Cartoon Network. It has been an amazing, wild, and fulfilling experience so far and I can’t wait to see what else there is to do!
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
Art was not exactly the path my mom expected me to take. I grew up with little to no money, so going to art school and focusing on art as a career felt frivolous. But my mom knew how much being an artist meant to me and was and still is supportive of my decision pursuing it, as long as I put my heart into it. I did just that and more.
Trying to break into the animation industry is honestly a constant boss battle. From working hard to make yourself standout to handling the stresses of shifting production schedules and to being a brown POC in the workplace- yeah, life can feel like an obstacle course sometimes.
Please tell us more about your art.
I’m a storyboard artist for animation. I read through a script and create a sequence of images relaying visually what the story is describing. I set the stage, flesh out the acting or dance sequence, time and map out camera movements, and maybe squeeze in one of my jokes here and there.
Please go watch The Fly episode of Apple and Onion and let me know if you laughed at the mail delivery joke. One of my proudest moments as an artist, I feel.
What sets me apart from others? I’m not sure, I really love drawing and would just draw about anything that would come to my brain. Anything.
What were you like growing up?
Growing up, I loved to talk a lot about anything that I just learned at school or from whatever I read. I was a big “Did you know-!” kid. Always excited to share knowledge and to talk about anything that I found so profoundly interesting that day.
I’m the middle child of three so naturally, I loved to bother my siblings, whether it’s me fighting my older brother on who the best wrestler was while we watched WWF or trying to shower my little sister with affection only for her to say, “Go cuddle the wall.” (She loves me, by the way.)
Dancing, singing, and performing were encouraged during family gatherings so there may or may not be a videotape recording of my cousins and I re-enacting the entirety of Napoleon Dynamite.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/blahsatan
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/BLAHSATAN
Suggest a story: VoyageLA is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
