Today we’d like to introduce you to Ricardo Munoz.
Hi Ricardo, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
Well, I’m from Alabama and I’ve been drawing since I was very young, and I have LOVED animation for nearly all my life. I was always fascinated by the worlds made through animation, and the stories that came with those worlds made me never want to leave. I think it was a big source of distraction in my youth; I’d always get lost in whatever story I was obsessed with at the time and sometimes crafted my own. I knew even then that I wanted to be involved in Animation in some way, I just didn’t know-how. I didn’t learn how to animate until undergrad where I attended Time-Based Media (TBM) classes. There weren’t too many TBM classes at the time so I eventually fell into sculpture. But I still wanted to keep incorporating animation into my work whenever I could, I was hooked. It was through these sculpture classes that I started to explore specifically Stop-motion animation.
The medium allowed me to make the worlds that I have always fantasized about and bring them to life in a way I hadn’t previously thought possible. Being able to bring creatures and characters to life in a real and tangible way in our real world is something that I could never get over. Strangely satisfying. I finished my BFA and after a year of failed attempts to break into the industry, a lot of soul-searching, and only a few distractions, I decided to make the move to California and attend the University of Southern California (USC). There I met incredible professors and mentors, a cohort of amazing and inspiring artists, and learned a lot more about my craft as both an animator and a storyteller. Today, I’m a USC graduate and finally dipping my toes into the industry that I sought after all these years. I’m both working for clients and developing on my own projects and stories that I hope to share with everyone soon.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Oh, not at all! A constant struggle for me has always been over ambition. Whenever you get an idea going, sometimes you just want to take it over the moon and beyond. Well, this happens to me very often and it has gotten me in a lot of trouble, especially when I was starting out. It’s lead to many early projects that crashed and burned, and while that was absolutely devastating and discouraging, I feel now that they were important lessons that shaped how I grew as an artist. So, learning my limitations, deciding where I can push myself and where I might need to tamper down my expectations has been a practice of trial and error for me, and still is today.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
Well, I’m a stop-motion animator that primarily specializes in character, creature, and performance animation. When it comes to my personal work, right now I have a fascination with exploring animated horror and stop-motion monsters. I feel that stop-motion creatures are now somewhat of a lost art due to what is demanded of the medium right now, and it is a practice that I want to keep up within my work. I also feel that Horror as a genre has a lot of opportunity in animation that I think is still untapped. Imagery, emotions, expression, all these things in the genre I think can be enhanced with animation, and it is what I look for in my films. Right now, I am working on a Horror-Western film that incorporates a little body horror and is also a creature feature. I look forward to sharing that when it’s ready!
We love surprises, fun facts and unexpected stories. Is there something you can share that might surprise us?
When I was in undergrad, I got really into metal arts. I soldered and learned how to pour molds, in fact that’s how I made some of my first puppets. It’s been a few years since I’ve been in a metal art workshop, and I do miss it. I hope to come back to it someday.
Contact Info:
- Email: ricmation@gmail.com
- Website: http://rickymunoz.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ricmation/
- Other: https://vimeo.com/377206066
