Today we’d like to introduce you to Rotimi Olowu.
Hi Rotimi, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
I have been drawing for as long as I can remember however I only started taking it more seriously in high school. It served as a coping mechanism for me and a way to escape from all the struggles I faced while growing up. My dad didn’t really support the idea of his son being an “Artist” and would oftentimes force me to learn math and science. He also coordinated with my middle school to effectively get me banned from drawing throughout my stay in middle school. I wasn’t even allowed to own a pencil. I still think it’s kind of funny how other kids were underage drinking and smoking but my heinous crime was trying to be creative and cope with my growing depression.
Later in high school, after I had managed to convince my dad to let me draw again, I met a friend Sam. Sam introduced me to anime and inspired me to follow my dreams of becoming an animator. We would make short comic books each semester and sell merch like t-shirts and posters based on the comics we made to our classmates. We made good money at the time and became known around campus as the Nari crew. After high school, I attended the Academy of Art University in San Francisco where I focused on perfecting my skills as an Animation artist. Being at the Academy was the first time I had ever been in a place where everyone was some kind of artist and it was inspiring. Only a short time would go by before I would have to rely on my premature art skills to survive. If I remember correctly, it was in my second year of college when I started doing freelance to survive. My dad’s company had sunk and my country Nigeria was facing a recession so all financial support from my dad stopped.
To survive, I developed an animated web series for youtube called “the best of us” that got me recognized by my school and brought a lot of clients my way. One of those clients was internet sensation and Tv star Landon Moss. Landon would go on to become one of my best friends and house me for about a year when I got kicked out of college for not being able to afford the fees. During that year with him, I built my resume as a freelance animator and put together a team of fellow freelancers to help me complete larger more ambitious projects. At the end of the year, my dad made enough money to pay for my last two years of college so I returned to the Academy of art and focused on trying to graduate. I finished college in the fall of 2019 and started working professionally as an Animation studio artist in the winter. Today I work as a background artist on a show called Tuca and Bertie and I am excited for what other possibilities life has to offer.
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey have been a fairly smooth road?
It has been anything but smooth. I had to deal with a lot of mental and emotional abuse from family and friends that got in the way of my art sometimes. I also had to deal with being homeless and broke a lot of times and having to make choices between eating and paying my rent. I think the hardest obstacle I still face is being international. I don’t know how else to describe it but extremely frustrating to the point it brings tears to my eyes. The amount of help and support you receive as an international student especially one from Nigeria is extremely limited. You can’t really do much. When you need money, you can’t simply get a part-time job at Mc Donalds because all work you do has to be within your selected major.
To make it even more challenging, when you finish college you have only about two months to find a job that correlates with your major or, you get deported. They are so strict on everything, even how much money you are allowed to make as an international. A lot of companies avoid hiring international students because they simply don’t want to deal with the paperwork. So I guess you are really on your own and a lot of people don’t understand that. I see a lot of people taking simple freedoms like job flexibility and renting apartments for granted. I have friends who if they don’t like the color of the carpet in their apartment can just up and move but I can’t do that. Only a hand full of apartments accept internationals and even then, we still have to pay about two times the deposit to move in. It’s been hard.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I do a lot. I animate, I design characters and backgrounds, I write and I direct. Right now, I think I specialize in creating backgrounds for animated TV. I am mostly known for directing and developing animated shows considering that was how I got my start in animation. My proudest accomplishment would have to be a top-secret project I’m currently developing with some help from a friend or two. I can’t say much about it now but it’s something I’ve been working on for over two years and I can’t wait to share it with the rest of the world. I don’t really think there is anything particular that sets me apart from others or makes me “special”. Maybe the way I draw a line might be different than how another artist draws a line. Ultimately I think it’s up to others to tell me what they think sets me apart or what makes me special to them because you can only see those sort of things looking from the outside in.
How do you think about happiness?
This is going to sound corny, but I get happy by the simple things in life. When I open my fridge and find an extra pack of Caprisun or hanging out with a friend talking about cartoons. I think we get so caught up chasing big things and dreams that when we are at our lowest even the simplest things like a Caprisun pack can make us feel like we are on top of the world.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.rotimiolowu.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/art_of_rotimi/
Image Credits
Photographer credit Instagram @madisonlin.jpeg
