Today we’d like to introduce you to Justin Brown
Hi Justin, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I grew up in south central Los Angeles. I’m the youngest of four children, so many of my interests and hobbies are influenced by my siblings. Art has always been a big part of my family, both of my older brothers loved to draw which ultimately led to me falling in love with it as well. I can’t remember a time in my life where I wasn’t drawing, its always been a part of who I was growing up.
Me and my brothers were heavily inspired by video games and animation, a lot of my art growing up was directly influenced by cartoon and videogame characters. I always wanted to make animations of my own, but never had access to the proper tools until my 7th grade year when my school started offering an animation class. Unfortunately, my school ended up scrapping the class before it even finished and we didn’t get to go over much, but a few months later my parents got me a Nintendo dsi and it came pre-loaded with an animation software called “flipnote studio”. It was a very simple program, but it allowed me to really explore the possibilities of animation. I was addicted to this thing and would spend countless hours throughout the day experimenting and creating animations.
Once I got to high school I stopped animating as much and began to focus more on traditional art. My high school art teacher got me involved in these weekend art courses at Otis and Art center from 9th-12th grade which really boosted my draftsmanship. I hated school, so waking up on a weekend to go to class was excruciating but I really enjoyed being around other artist and improving so the sacrifice was worth it. I started attending CSUN straight after high school majoring in animation but I was unsure exactly what I wanted to do career wise. At this time I really took advantage of the animation software the school provided us with, so I just assumed working as an animator was the way to go. During my third year I was offered an internship opportunity to help work on a short film one of my friends was producing for Sony called “Grampas wheelchair”. It was a great experience and I learned a lot, so I started getting involved in online animation groups and working small freelance gigs during my free time between work and school.
Overtime I started liking the idea of storyboarding as opposed to working as a key animator, and eventually I made it my main focus. During my last two semesters at CSUN I really started developing my storyboard portfolio and studying successful storyboard artists. My last few months before graduating, the art department hosted a career day event and my professor set me up with a portfolio review from Will Ruzika who was a fantastic story artist and industry veteran. He really liked my work and told me to give him my contact info for a potential storyboard position after I graduate, and a few months after graduating I was contacted by Roosterteeth to work on season 2 of “Gen:lock”. This was both exciting and scary as I had no professional experience in storyboarding and didn’t know what to expect, but everyone on the team was very supportive and I learned so much working with them.
This kick started my career as a story artist and I’ve had the opportunity to work on shows like “mech cadets” and “X-men 97”. Currently I’m looking for my next opportunity as a storyboard artist and working on personal projects in the meantime, and when I’m not working on projects I keep myself busy playing drums or making music.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
The life of an artist is very interesting, its not the most conventional route career wise and its very easy to fall into a cycle of self doubt. I never had the best grades growing up, in fact my middle school experience consisted mostly of me drawing in class. I had a serious problem with applying myself and it took a while for me to realize that good work ethic goes a long way. I eventually got it together by high school but there was another problem that lingered throughout my artist journey and that was people doubting my career choice. Whether it was family or friends I constantly dealt with people downplaying my desire to work in animation. I would often hear things like “Artist don’t make any money” or “your major is a joke” and it could be discouraging, but most of the time this was rooted from a place of ignorance as most people are not educated on the subject of jobs in entertainment.
Working in animation can come with its own set of challenges as well, I’ve had to deal with things like underpaying freelance, harsh deadlines and overworking. On top of that, imposter syndrome made me feel like my work was never good enough. But even with all these obstacles, I still love working in animation and I’ve grown so much as an artist and person working through the hardships.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I am a storyboard artist
My job is to bring the script to life visually by roughly figuring out shot choices and acting beats. I’ve always loved action, so its mostly what I specialize in but I’m constantly trying to expand my skillset. I often put an emphases on timing and movement in my storyboards, which I think comes from my time animating in college. Definitely working on X-MEN 97 is something I’m very proud of, I had the opportunity to work with some of my favorite artists on that show.
What does success mean to you?
I think success is very subjective and depends on what specific goals you have. If you genuinely enjoy what you’re doing in life then you’re already successful in your own right.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://jbmadboi.wixsite.com/justinbrown
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jb_mad_art/
