Congrats Fall 2016 Mentees!

Our final mentorship program has officially kicked off!  We had almost twice as many applicants as any other session so we want to thank everyone who applied for the Fall 2016 session.  While we wish we could have accepted everyone, our mentors only have a limited number of time to participate.  After much deliberation, we are pleased to present our Fall 2016 Motivarti Mentorship Mentees!

Chris Perry (Brian Ajhar)

Janet Chong (Michel Breton)

Bosmat Agayoff (Michel Breton)

Daniella Rosu-Ortiz (Elsa Chang)

Meg Omac (Garrett Hanna)

Justin Kauffman (Garrett Hanna)

Maya Shavzin (Garrett Hanna)

Stephen Kissel (Meg Hunt)

Kayla Jones (Meg Hunt)

Alice Yang (Meg Hunt)

Steph Waldo (Ben Juwono)

Holly Szczypka (Taylor Krahenbuhl)

Izabella Abreu (Bobby Pontillas)

Rebecca McVeigh (Octavio Rodriguez)

Katerina Pantela (Evgeni Tomov)

Victoria Shifke (Evgeni Tomov)

Erin Shin (Nicolas Weis)

Brett Carville (Nicolas Weis)

Jessica Mao (Mike Yamada)

Janice Rosenthal (Mike Yamada)

Congrats again to our fall 2016 mentees!

Mentor of the Day: Michel Breton

It’s great to have the talented Michel Breton back as a Mentor for our final term! You’ve seen his artwork influence beautiful films such as Boxtrolls, Coraline and The Triplets of Belleville. Now you have the opportunity to learn from one of the top talents in the animation industry! Michel is a wealth of knowledge and ready to help lift a hardworking and determined Mentee to great heights.

He  isn’t necessarily looking for the most experienced artist, but his Mentee should be eager to learn, open to new ideas, and capable of handling constructive criticism. Michel has literally been all over this industry, handling nearly every design job you can imagine.  His experiences include (but are not limited to) Concept Art, Art Director, Character Design, Comic Strip Artist, Background Artist and Producer! No matter your own focus, if you have a passion for design in animation, Michel would be a great Mentor for you. Check out some of his work below!

by Michel Breton

by Michel Breton

by Michel Breton

by Michel Breton

He is ready to Mentor one student from anywhere in the world, and is additionally fluent in French! If you’re excited to jump into ten weeks of hard work and brilliant design, Michel is the Mentor for you!

Mentor of the Day: Evgeni Tomov

by Evgeni Tomov

We are excited to have Evgeni Tomvo return for our final Mentorship term! He is a beloved Production Designer, Concept Artist, and Illustrator throughout the animation industry. You may know him for his work on internationally acclaimed “The Triplets of Belleville”, “The Illusionist”, “The Tale of Despereaux” and “Arthur Christmas”. He is currently in development on new and exciting projects in Los Angeles! Evgeni is ready to share his knowledge with two Mentees for our Fall 2016 term!

When we asked Fall 2015 Mentee, Beverly Chen, about her time Mentoring under Evgeni, she had nothing but praise, “During this mentorship, I was able to pinpoint a lot of habits/tendencies I had developed that were not helping my images and with Evgeni’s guidance, I was able to address them. I feel like I have a new level of awareness in how to make my pieces stronger! I really appreciated that Evgeni was extremely generous with his time and patient in working with me.”

by Evgeni Tomov

by Evgeni Tomov

by Evgeni Tomov

Evgeni is accepting two Mentees from anywhere in the world! He is additionally fluent in Russian and Bulgarian! We can’t wait to see how much Evgeni’s two Mentees will grow under his guidance!

Mentor of the Day: Taylor Krahenbuhl

Although this is our final mentorship session, we still wanted to create the best list of mentors as we could and are happy to have two new mentors joining us and Taylor Krahenbul is one of them!

A graduate from Brigham Young University, Taylor began his career with a story artist in the talent development program at Walt Disney Feature Animation.  From there he went on to work as a concept designer for Disney Interactive, EA’s PopCap Games, and ArenaNet. He has also previously worked for Paramount, Duncan Studios, Blue Sky, and Reel FX as a character designer.  In 2015 Taylor was asked to come aid in the development for the new “Tangled, Before Ever After” series for Disney TV, which is where he is now working.

Taylor is taking on one mentee from anywhere in the world.  With a focus on character design, his ideal mentee is someone who is committed, hard-working and is willing to stretch him/herself in the world of character design.

Taylor plans on focusing the ten weeks around the needs of his mentee. “Dependent upon the artist and specific needs -the working plan will be structured around character design styles, keeping a sketchbook, and interjecting personality and story to your character design assignments. Each phase will be divided evenly over the ten week period.”

Learn more about Taylor over on his tumblr, and read this interview and this one where he discusses his background and process.  Then be sure to check out his profile page before applying to be his mentee!  We’re very thankful to have Taylor joining us on our final journey so we hope you take advantage too!

Mentor of the Day: Octavio Rodriguez

Interested in storyboarding?  Then Octavio Rodriguez is the mentor you’ve been searching for!  Octavio has been with Motivarti from it’s very beginning.  He has had nothing but fantastic reviews as a mentor and we’re grateful he’s returning to finish our program out with us.

Last session his mentee, Aaron Fryer, went through the program with fantastic results.

When asked how the mentorship went,  Aaron said, “I was most interested in learning to identify and focus on the ‘skeleton of the story’ and be able to build a story from the ground up, whether from an outline or for a short I’m making…I feel like over the course of the mentorship I’ve learned to clarify the beats in my storyboards, and to tell much more effective and concise stories in general. I think that, along with better understanding how to build the framework of a story are the biggest takeaways.”

Aaron wound up completing a new piece for his feature storyboard portfolio, cleaned up his portfolio in general, and complete a passing test for a Dreamworks feature story position. Aaron even informed Motivarti that he eventually wound up being promoted from a storyboard revisionist to a full time board artist for Dreamworks TV.  Congrats Aaron!  (check out some of his work below)

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 So if you’re looking to improve your boarding skills, be sure to check out Octavio’s profile and apply soon!