Alleanna Harris

A common sentiment shared by a lot of the guests I’ve had on the podcast is that you can’t be what you don’t see. That starts at a young age, too — think about the book covers and other visuals you saw as a child and how that’s shaped you to where you are now. Luckily, there are dope illustrators like this week’s guest, Alleanna Harris, who are creating images that captivate and inspire kids so they can truly see themselves.

Alleanna and I went over some of her recent projects, including a portrait of Will Smith she drew in front of The Fresh Prince himself. She also shared her process on how she conveys a book’s story through pictures while also making them stunningly appealing. Later, Alleanna talked about growing up in South Jersey, attending UArts, spoke on the benefits of being represented by an agent, and told me what she appreciates the most about her life right now. Alleanna is a rising star, and according to her, a career in the world of illustration is possible! (So keep drawing!)

Interview Transcript

Maurice Cherry:
All right, so tell us who you are and what you do.

Alleanna Harris:
I’m Alleanna Harris. I’m a freelance illustrator from South Jersey. I mainly illustrate picture books, but I also do editorial, commercial, advertising, chapter books. I illustrate a lot.

Maurice Cherry:
How’s the year been going for you so far?

Alleanna Harris:
It’s been going pretty well. It’s kind of different than last year. Last year, I took on a lot, and the year before that, so I’ve been trying to just chill a little bit and take on less just so I could align myself with projects that I really want to do.

Maurice Cherry:
Yeah, I find that a lot of creative folks I’ve talked to just on the show and off the show, they really started the year off kind of slow. Like, they’re really kind of easing into 2023.

Alleanna Harris:
Definitely, definitely. That’s what I’ve been doing my best, just picking things that I really, really like that I’m really, really into.

Maurice Cherry:
Well, based on all that hard work that you talked about before, I hear that congratulations are in order. There’s a book that you illustrated that won in the Black Kidlit Awards, is that right?

Alleanna Harris:
Yep, yep. It won best biography in the first Black Kidlit Awards ever. It’s called Marvelous Mabel. It’s about the life of Mabel Fairbanks. And she was the first Black figure skater, just the first Black famous figure skater. She came up in 1930s, 1940s, New York City. So it’s basically about her early life and all the things that she went through while trying to learn how to figure-skate, and it actually won. And it was the biggest surprise ever. I just went on Instagram and people were like, “Hey, Alleanna, you won,” and I was like, “What?” And I looked and it said, “Best biography,” and I was like, “Oh my goodness, I can’t believe I actually won.”

Maurice Cherry:
Oh, congratulations.

Alleanna Harris:
Thank you.

Maurice Cherry:
I also saw, just from peeking around through social media, you also recently did some work with Pentagram, which is a extremely well-known agency. How was that project?

Alleanna Harris:
It was pretty awesome. They emailed me and they said that they wanted some work done in the picture-book style for an animation for the Gates Foundation, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. And basically, they said that they wanted me to illustrate a character named Abeo, and she was about six or seven, and they wanted a good representation of a kid in early elementary school just so that they could show it to policymakers. And it was up to me to come up with the character and what she looked like and how she moved around. So I actually ended up illustrating a lot of the key frames for the animation and a lot of the assets, the things that she’s holding, like her books and pencils and different formulas. And it was a really amazing process. I got to work with the great folks at Pentagram and another animation studio named Kong in the UK, so that was really, really awesome.

Maurice Cherry:
How long did that project take, just overall?

Alleanna Harris:
You know what? Animation… Well, actually, that would be more advertising. Those kinds of projects are really, really fast-paced, so that took about, I would say, under a month, maybe about three weeks. So it was-

Maurice Cherry:
Wow, it was fast.

Alleanna Harris:
Yeah, it was really, really fast, but it went really well. It was pretty straightforward.

Maurice Cherry:
Well, since we’re already getting into your work, I want to keep going down that road. We talked a little bit before we started recording, and you mentioned that you started professionally as an illustrator in 2017, but prior to that, you were, I guess, testing the waters, maybe, on Etsy. Is that right?

Alleanna Harris:
Yep, that’s right. I started right after college in 2015. And it was funny because my mom, she said, “Well, if you’re right out of college and you want to do this illustration thing, then you know what, I’m going to give you two years so you could figure it out. Do your best to figure it out in two years, and if not, then you could go right into probably, like, a master’s program.” So I was like, “Okay, I really have to figure this out.” And the best thing that I could think of was to just sketch and draw what’s around me or things that interested me. So I did a ton of sketches of places in Philly, and I also did a ton of illustrations of different Philly foods, and different pop-culture things, like living single in a different world. I ended up putting them on a Etsy shop, and it actually did well as soon as I started offering those prints. And that’s where I got my start.

Maurice Cherry:
How was Etsy like? Was it a good platform for you to, I guess, test out whether or not you had a market for your work?

Alleanna Harris:
Yeah, it was really good. I was really surprised, actually, because when I put them on, I was pretty convinced it would take a long time. It’s crazy, but it was a week, only a week that someone first bought one of my prints. And I actually think it was a Ferris Bueller print that was my first sale. And then around that same time, I started sharing my illustrations on Instagram, too, so I started building an audience on there.

Maurice Cherry:
Is that the one where they’re at the Sears Tower and they’re leaning over and their foreheads hitting the glass?

Alleanna Harris:
Yes. Yep, that was the one.

Maurice Cherry:
I love that one. That one is so good. It’s so good.

Alleanna Harris:
Thank you. Thank you. That’s the one I did. That one, and then I did different ones of Cameron’s… I think it’s Redhawks jersey, Sloane’s white leather jacket, and then Ferris’s shirt/vest combo, and that did well, too. So, that was kind of my start on Etsy.

Maurice Cherry:
Now, you mentioned earlier, when you were working with Pentagram, that they wanted, quote, unquote, “a picture-book style.” What does your process look like for illustrating a picture book? I would imagine it’s probably different from working with an author than it is working with a company or a nonprofit.

Alleanna Harris:
Yeah, definitely. Well, for picture books, it can actually take a long time. It could take a year or more. Because I don’t actually work directly with authors; I usually work directly with the publishers. So I usually get those projects through my agent. My agent, Alex, she usually emails me with a manuscript and she’s like, “What do you think about this? Do you like how it sounds? Are you interested?” And then I look over it and then I say yes or no. And then if it’s a yes, then I look over the manuscript again, and then they might send me these thing called art notes. Usually they’re within a template for the book, so usually they place the text within the book so that I have a place to sketch everything. And then they give me art notes, which basically tell me what to draw.

But lately, they haven’t been giving me art notes. They’ve just been saying, “Okay, here’s the manuscript, and go for it.” So, I just sketch things, whatever comes to mind, whatever I think fits the story best, and then I send it back to them. The editor and the art director go over it, and then they come up with feedback and notes, and then I revise. Usually it’s a bunch of revisions, just a cycle of revisions. And then I go to final art, I start to add color. Sometimes I do rough color, I just place colors around, and then they give me the “Go ahead,” and then I fix that up. And then it’s another cycle of revisions. And then after I finish the final color, I usually go over it again. And then that’s it. It’s a long process, but it’s totally worth it.

Maurice Cherry:
And you mostly work with the editors, that’s interesting. For some reason, I thought you’d be working more closely with the author since it’s their words and everything.

Alleanna Harris:
I know, and usually… Well, when I started, I thought that would be the case, too, but no, I work directly with the art director and then the editor. Usually it’s both of them together. For my last couple of books, I talked to the authors after the process. It’s really funny. I usually don’t talk to them, not unless it’s through the editor.

Maurice Cherry:
And I would imagine the authors are… I mean, do they like that process, I guess? I don’t know. I guess that’s not really for you to decide, huh?

Alleanna Harris:
Not really. Usually, I guess they rely on the editors for that. If they have things that they want me to include, if they have reference photos or other things like that, they send it through the editor, and then I work from there.

Maurice Cherry:
Interesting, interesting. Well, I guess if the author’s writing the book at that point, they’re like, “Look, you got it from here.” No, I mean, I guess it sounds like the authors are happy with it. I would imagine that would be kind of awkward if you do all this illustration for the book and the author’s like, “I don’t know if this is really what I wanted for the book.”

Alleanna Harris:
Yeah. Oh, no, that would be so awkward. But I mean, I would work with it and then I’d get it to a place where we’re all happy. But yeah, they leave it up to the editor and the art director. I’d say for one of the books, it was actually a early reader, and it was about Geoffrey Holder, the actor and Broadway star. I actually had to go through a lot of revisions for that one just to get it to a place where the author was happy with it. It wasn’t that she wasn’t happy with the art, but it was just a certain kind of feeling that she wanted, because he’s from Trinidad and she just wanted it to have that homey, bright feeling, just, like, Caribbean feeling. It took me a few revision cycles to get there, but I got there, so she was happy with it.

Maurice Cherry:
Well, to that end, when you’re illustrating for a book, is it more about trying to accurately convey the story, or is it about making something, like you just mentioned, making it more visually appealing?

Alleanna Harris:
It’s both because you want the reader… And usually the reader is a kid. You want kids to want to know what they’re looking at, and two, to feel something from the book. So it’s usually my job to get it there, to get it accurate enough where they know who they’re looking at just by their parents, but also, it’s up to me to make it look good enough in terms of color and mood so that it really affects the readers.

Maurice Cherry:
Well, yeah. I mean, you said it’s a picture book, so the picture has to be sort of the primary focus almost, it sounds like.

Alleanna Harris:
Right, right.

Maurice Cherry:
Yeah. Aside from that Geoffrey Holder book you mentioned, was there ever a particularly challenging illustration you had to create for a book, whether it was technical or just getting the look and feel right?

Alleanna Harris:
Oh my goodness, yes. It was actually my first picture book called The Journey of York. I’d say it was more like a oil painting-type style. It was way more realistic. And it had a lot of different landscapes, and all the people had to look really real. So it took a lot of work to get it to a point where it looked right. It had all these different locations in the Pacific Northwest and all this vegetation and all these people. And it was just a lot of going back and forth with my art director, Laurie. It took a lot of research, too. They actually sent me a book, and I do not remember the name of it, but it’s somewhere in my bookcase at back of me. But they had to send me a book, and it had a lot about the clothes that they wore during that time. It also had some examples of the places that Lewis and Clark went, because it was basically about the enslaved man that went along with them, and it was basically the brains of the operation alongside with Sacagawea. So, it was just a lot to that artistically.

Maurice Cherry:
Now, I want to get more into your work and your career. There’s some really dope things that you’ve done that I want to talk about. But before we get there, let’s learn more about you. Now, you’re originally from Philly, but you were raised in South Jersey, is that correct?

Alleanna Harris:
Yes, yes. I’m Philly born. My parents are both from Philly. And I was raised in South Jersey, about 20-30 minutes away, Northeast. So, Philly is really important to me. Yeah, just raised in South Jersey and in a very, very close-knit family. It was a pretty cool upbringing. The town where I was raised in, it’s predominantly Black. I mostly went to Quaker schools growing up. And for those that aren’t familiar with Quaker schools, it’s basically Christian, but they believe that the light of God is in everyone, and they don’t have worship services. They just sit in silence for a little bit of time weekly. They’re known for just very rigorous academic programs. So, I went to Quaker schools for K through 12, kindergarten, all the way through 12th grade, and it was really a awesome experience.

Maurice Cherry:
Did you do a lot of drawing as a kid or as a teenager?

Alleanna Harris:
Oh, yeah. I’ve been drawing forever. When I was little, when I was a toddler, I would just scribble in all of my mom’s legal pads. Every single page, I’d just scribble. Like, turn the page, scribble, turn the page scribble. And then she’d go to work and then take out her legal pad, and then all of them were just covered in scribble. When I got a little older, I would always doodle in the church programs. By the time I got to middle school, I would keep a sketchbook with me. And my mom and my grandma were super supportive because they’d always be like, “Did you remember to bring your sketchbook? Always remember to sketch.” And I would just sketch everything that was around me. In high school, I was more of an academic-type kid. I was very math and science-y. So I didn’t really take a lot of art classes, but I always kept that sketchbook next to me.

Maurice Cherry:
Now, that’s interesting. You mentioned that about being more math and science-y, but also into drawing and art. Is that kind of what initially pushed you into architecture at Temple?

Alleanna Harris:
Yep, that was it. Because I was into math and science, but when I was trying to decide what to do, I was like, “I need something with a artistic bent,” and I thought that would be architecture. So, I got into Temple. I was in their honors program, actually, and I was also accepted into their architecture program at their Tyler School of Art. It was a really, really great program, but I did not enjoy it one bit. I thought that’s what I wanted to do, but I got there and I was like, “I don’t really enjoy this like I thought I did.” I mean, I did well, but I was like, “No, there’s got to be something other than this I could do.”

Maurice Cherry:
Yeah, I can imagine… I mean, when I went to school, for example, I went to study computer science, computer engineering at first because I wanted to be a web designer. Now, granted, this was late ’90s, early 2000s, so web design was not… I don’t want to say it wasn’t a profession, but it certainly wasn’t one that you could, I think, really study in a lot of schools. Most schools just didn’t even have a curriculum for it. And I remember taking it that first semester and talking to my advisor about it, and he was just like, “Oh, the internet’s a fad. You don’t want to get into that. Nobody’s going to be interested in that.” And he’s like, “If that’s what you want to do, you should change your major.” So I did change my major. But you went even further. You completely transferred schools.

Alleanna Harris:
I did, I did. I’m pretty sure everyone thought, I don’t know, maybe that I was a little bit crazy, because they’re like, “You’re at Temple, you’re at a great art school. What are you doing?” I had a really chunky scholarship that I was just not throwing away. But yeah, I need something more creative, so I actually ended up looking up other schools, and I found University of the Arts. And it happened to be on the other side of Broad Street. Temple University is on North Broad, and University of the Arts is on South Broad, on the other side of City Hall. So, I looked them up and I saw that they had an animation program, and I was like, “I think this would be really great.” I sat my mom down, I was like, “Listen, I have something to tell you.” And she’s staring at me, like, “What is wrong?” And I was like, “I want to go into animation.” She’s like, “Oh my God. Okay, that’s fine. Just figure out how to apply and we’ll just go from there.” So, I went to the Open House, I applied, and I actually ended up getting a bigger scholarship there than I had at Temple.

Maurice Cherry:
Whoa, look at you.

Alleanna Harris:
I know. Thank you. But it’s like, who knew? So, I ended up at University of the Arts as an animation major, and that’s where I graduated from.

Maurice Cherry:
How was your time there?

Alleanna Harris:
Oh my goodness, I loved it. It was different from Temple because, number one, it’s smaller. It’s private compared to Temple, which is public and it’s bigger. But it’s smaller, but it’s right smack dab in the middle of Center City, so right on the Avenue of the Arts. It doesn’t have a campus, it’s just within everything. This is within Center City. So, when I got there and I got to the dorm and everything, which is basically like an apartment, it was kind of culture shock because you have to learn how to navigate. It is kind of like “living as an adult,” quote, unquote, even though you’re in college. So it was just interesting having to meet people again because… I transferred, so I didn’t get to go to orientation, so I had to meet people.

It was really great because I always liken it to Fame, the school in Fame, because UArts has so many different majors. It’s just such a comprehensive arts university. It has musical theater, and fine arts, and film, and photography. And then I tell people it’s like Fame because we would sit in the dining hall and then people would just start singing and dancing and everything and just be in the midst of that. But it was a really great time. Just so many creative people, so many things to do, so many great professors. It was really awesome. I enjoyed it. I made a lot of great friends, still friends with them today.

Maurice Cherry:
Now, do you feel like it really sort of prepared you once you graduated and got out there working as a creative?

Alleanna Harris:
Yes, definitely, because it allowed me, just going there, to take different types of classes. I had my animation… my core classes, but I was also able to take film classes, and I learned a lot in those. And just the things that I learned within my film classes, it directly applies to how I see illustration, just my point of view. I also took illustration classes. And actually, my illustration classes, that made me realize that I really wanted to go into illustration more than animation. So for sure, definitely. Definitely.

Maurice Cherry:
Yeah, I can imagine that kind of environment because, one, there’s so many different creative disciplines happening at once, but then also, like you mentioned with that lunchroom example, you’re getting to see people exhibit their craft. You have the possibility and the potential to go into anything else just by getting inspired from being in that environment, which I think can sometimes be a lot different when you’re at a traditional liberal-arts school because you’re so locked into your major.

Alleanna Harris:
Yeah, definitely. I agree.

Maurice Cherry:
Yeah. And then as you said earlier, after you graduated, for your early career, you started out with just, I guess, freelancing, starting out on Etsy, seeing if you had a market for it, and then that’s sort of where things took off. But you said you started professionally in 2017. So what were those first two years like after you graduated from UArts?

Alleanna Harris:
They were really interesting because I did things on Etsy. I was starting to build an audience on social media, but I was also doing commissions for friends and family members. So there’s some people who were like, “Hey, can you do this cover, because I have a book coming out,” so I do stuff like that. So, I did a lot of commissions. I even taught senior citizens how to paint. I would go to assisted-living places and we would have little paint-and-sip nights. And that was fun. That was interesting. I also do stuff like that. And actually, closer to 2017, I illustrated a book. Well, my cousin worked within the Philadelphia School Board. And she was working with someone who had a company that had to do with the school board, and she wrote books. So she was looking for an illustrator, and my cousin was like, “Hey, my cousin is an illustrator. You might want to check her portfolio out.” So she did, and she checked my portfolio out and she liked it, and she was like, “Hey, can you illustrate this book for me?” So, that was actually my first experience illustrating a book, and I absolutely fell in love with it. And actually, that was the main experience that made me want to illustrate books.

Maurice Cherry:
Nice, nice. Now, you’ve said that… We talked about this before we recorded, but you said there are a lot of different paths when it comes to illustration as a career and that you can make it lucrative. It sounds like for you initially, you tried out a bunch of different things, like you were teaching senior citizens, you were doing Etsy, you were doing commissions. What are some of those paths that people can take if they’re looking to pursue illustration as a career?

Alleanna Harris:
There are a ton of different paths. I guess just thinking about my major, I was an animation major, so most of my classmates, they ended up going the animation route. They also illustrate, but they’re within story of the animation. So they come up with the storyboards, they come up with the plot points, they do stuff like that. And then I also have friends that are animators now. So, you can definitely go that way.

Within illustration, I know people who illustrate commercially, so they do different advertisements or they work with brands like Google or Apple or Adobe.

I know people who work within art licensing, so they do the patterns that go on clothes or that go on different products.

There are just so many different ways you can go. Or, like me, you could go into picture books, or you could do comic books, and there are just so many different ways you can go.

Maurice Cherry:
And it sounds like, I guess maybe once you get further along on one path, you can maybe bounce between others. Like, if you’re doing picture books, maybe you can also do editorial illustrations or something like that.

Alleanna Harris:
Exactly, yeah. Yeah. There’s a lot of leeway. There’s a lot of leeway because some people can look at your work and be like, “You know what? That will work over here. Do you want to try it out?” That happened with me. Someone from… I think it’s called the Phoenix International, they’re making a graphic novel about Ida B. Wells, and they’re like, “Do you want to work on this? I know it’s a comic book, and I know that you do picture books, but do you want to work on it?” And I said, “Sure.” And I ended up doing a graphic novel. But yeah, that’s definitely how it happened. You could just kind of jump from style to style.

Maurice Cherry:
And I would imagine your process probably still mostly stays the same, even if you’re doing these sort of different types of illustration.

Alleanna Harris:
Yep, yep. Yeah, it pretty much stays the same. You’re right.

Maurice Cherry:
Now, I’m curious to get your take about AI-generated art. That’s a discussion that has really popped up, I’d say, within the last, I don’t know, I’d say, four to five months particularly, once people started using… what was the app called? Lensa?

Alleanna Harris:
Yeah.

Maurice Cherry:
And they started making those AI-generated avatars and putting them out there and everything. I don’t know, the discussion around it, I think, has been so interesting because I’ve heard from artists that are like, “I hate this. This is theft. I can’t believe this is happening,” that sort of thing. And then I hear it from the average layperson that is surprised for two things. One, that the art looks nothing like them, which, I mean, yeah, you had a computer do it, that makes sense. But then secondly, they’re more perturbed that they had to pay for it.

Alleanna Harris:
Oh yeah.

Maurice Cherry:
Like, you paid money for that? You gave them how much money? And I would see people on Twitter and stuff searching around, trying to find a free alternative because they didn’t want to pay Lensa. I think it was $8 or $10 or something like that. So they’re like, “Well, I found this Chinese app called Meitu, and I can do it there for free,” and da, da, da, da, da, and all this stuff.

From your perspective as an artist, Midjourney, Stable Diffusion, all these AI-generated art’s algorithms and apps and stuff like that, what are your thoughts on all that?

Alleanna Harris:
I have so many thoughts. First of all, well, just, I guess, the bottom line, I’m not a fan. I’m not a fan because some people want to use it to replace working artists. I saw this big thread on Twitter with this guy who used… I think he used Stable Diffusion to make a picture book, and everybody was getting on him about the picture book because all of his characters, they weren’t consistent. It just didn’t look right-

Maurice Cherry:
Oh, yeah, I saw that, I think because he also used ChatGPT to write the book.

Alleanna Harris:
Yes, that’s it. That’s it. Yeah, I’m not a fan because it is theft because it needs other people’s work, at least Stable Diffusion does. It needs other people’s work to create art. So why don’t you just actually pay an artist to actually do the art instead of stealing the work to make something out of it? Also, I feel like using AI, you’re not really being an artist, you’re more being a client because AI is doing the work. You’re telling it what you want it to do instead of you actually actively doing it. I know it’s less work to tell software to do what you want, but the process is the biggest part of making the art, and you’re taking all the process out of it.

Maurice Cherry:
There’s a friend of mine, he’s an art director at an ad agency, and he’s been learning Midjourney and been posting the results on LinkedIn and stuff. And it looks nice. I find that the AI art has a particular style-

Alleanna Harris:
It’s a look.

Maurice Cherry:
Yeah, it’s a particular look. Very stylized, heavy shadows, all the art kind of looks the same regardless of who the subject is. But he’s been taking a class. Apparently people have written classes about how to ask the right prompts to get it to do the right thing. It’s so interesting seeing how far people are willing to take it, I think, just to see what the possibilities are.

Alleanna Harris:
Yeah. Well, there are so many ways that we could use AI that would help or make our lives easier, but I just don’t think that that’s the best way to go about it. It’s like, why don’t we use AI to figure out our taxes or do the work that we don’t feel like doing, having to do bookkeeping or something like that. But the actual art part that really takes a human to do, you’re taking that away. I’m not really a fan, but hey.

Maurice Cherry:
Yeah, it’s so interesting, at least from what I’m seeing people trying to do. I think it does unlock some people’s creativity that doesn’t necessarily have the skill-

Alleanna Harris:
It does.

Maurice Cherry:
… to maybe take the idea that they have in their head and really draw it, or even spend money to get someone to draw it. So they’ll say, “Oh, well, let’s see what AI can do.” I saw… I think this was on TikTok. Someone had done a Racebent Addams Family, where the Addams Family is all Black, so then they had all of the… Gomez and Wednesday and Morticia, et cetera. It’s like, “Oh, that’s interesting.” And then you look at all the comments that are like, “Somebody needs to take this to Netflix.” I’m like, “Netflix already has both the movies and the new series.” Not saying that they couldn’t do this, but what is… I think when people see that, one, I don’t know if they’re under the assumption that the person created it, but two, if they were to take it to that extra level, that’s when you got to get humans involved.

Alleanna Harris:
Exactly. And you were talking about the level of skill. That’s so true, because I think people want to avoid, I’m going to say this, but the ugly phase, when your work doesn’t look that good, when you’re still learning. But you can’t avoid it. To make good art, you have to make bad art first. That’s also why I’m not a fan, but yeah. You kind of skip over that phase where you’re just learning the materials, learning… If you work on a computer, you’re learning the software. You skip over that to try to make art that’s presentable. And you can’t.

Maurice Cherry:
I do have some writer friends that are using it just for character sketches. It helps them to take the character that they’re writing about to visualize it. So they’ll do it for that purpose, but they’re not going to take that and then go to a designer or an illustrator and say, “I made this on Midjourney. Can you touch this up,” or “Can you do XYZ?” I would imagine some people will go that route. Don’t do that. But I can see some useful applications of it, as long as it doesn’t get too… The person creating the picture book, I mean, come on.

Alleanna Harris:
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. It’s like, if there is a way to do it without stealing other people’s work and styles, then that would be interesting to see. But I just don’t like that a lot of the different programs are stealing other people’s work, and not even paying them for it. They’re just taking it, “Oh, I like this person’s style, so I’m just going to plug it in.”

Maurice Cherry:
Yeah. Well, I know Getty is suing… I think they’re suing Stable Diffusion-

Alleanna Harris:
I heard.

Maurice Cherry:
… because one thing that Stable Diffusion does, and I guess all of these algorithms or AI things do it, is, they’ll take the watermarks, too. Getty Images always has that big rectangular watermark across their picture. And so there are AI-generated images that have malformed versions of that, and Getty’s like, “Ah, ah, I don’t think so. You got to pay us for that.”

Alleanna Harris:
Yeah, exactly. And there’s this thing going around on Twitter. People were saying, “Oh, maybe you should plug in Disney and see what happens.”

Maurice Cherry:
Because yeah, you can feed stuff to it to make it better. But to what end is this going to come from? Because I’m starting to see applications of folks using AI for music, for example. I think Google has this beta program out now where you can give it a couple of phrases and have it generate music in a particular style, which I know musicians will hate that. But it’s interesting how far we’re trying to take artificial intelligence in a way that subverts human creativity.

Alleanna Harris:
Exactly. Along with creativity, it makes you think of ethics, too. Like, where exactly do we stop? When is it okay, and when is this not okay? It’s a bigger conversation.

Maurice Cherry:
I mean, educators now are already having to deal with that with ChatGPT. I’ve been talking with a couple of educators now that are just like… Some are still trying to wrap their heads around it, others are already changing their syllabi to say, “Don’t do this.” And we’re starting to see school districts and stuff crack down on it because students… And this is to a point where, in an educational perspective, this is really dangerous. Students don’t know the difference. They don’t know the nuance or the particular human parts of this. They just see it, it’s like, “Oh, this can do my homework for me.”

Alleanna Harris:
Yes. Yes, you’re so right. It’s really something to see. It’s so many new developments in such a short amount of time. Technology.

Maurice Cherry:
I saw this while going through your Instagrams. I was doing research, but you even got to draw Will Smith in front of Will Smith.

Alleanna Harris:
I did. I did. I did. It was crazy because the folks at Harriett’s Bookshop, they contacted me and they were like, “Hey, we’re having this book tour stopping in and we were just wondering if you’d work with us in setting it up.” And I was like, “Oh my God. Of course.” So as I was working with them and getting everything set up and working with possible drawings, I was like, “Okay, something’s up because, one, this project is really rush. It’s going really fast. So I feel like this is someone important, and I don’t know who this is.” And then I emailed them and they were like, “Yeah, we figured we’d let you know. It’s actually Will Smith. And this is a Will Smith’s book.” And I was like, “Oh my goodness.” So, they were like, “Okay, so people from Westbrook-

Maurice Cherry:
Westbrook, Westbrook, yeah.

Alleanna Harris:
Yes. They’re like, “Westbrook is going to call you and they’re going to ask you to do a portrait, and you’re going to say yes.” And I was like, “Okay. Okay, I’ll say yes.” And I actually had to meet with them and send them past sketches to see if they approved. And then they told me, “Well, we’re going to show this to Will, see if he likes it.” And I was like, “Oh my God, you’re going to show it. He just [inaudible 00:39:17] to be Will Smith as just Will. Okay.” So, they showed it to Will Smith, they showed it to Will, and he liked it, and I ended up sketching him in front of him at the event.

It’s funny because I didn’t get to finish the sketch because the whole day was actually pretty hectic, but I was able to give him a drawing that I did. And I actually have the process video up on my Instagram, too. I was able to give that to him and he’s like, “Wow, that’s definitely me.” And I was like, “I know.” But it was great to just be able to say hello and shake his hand and say thank-you. And just to see how it went in person, it was just amazing. That was an amazing day.

Maurice Cherry:
Is he Philly royalty?

Alleanna Harris:
Yes, without a doubt.

Maurice Cherry:
I’ve always been curious about that because, I mean, so much of… Of course, his early story has been about in West Philadelphia, born… We all know that. But then I think so much of his professional career has been wrapped up in Hollywood and California. I was just curious about that.

Alleanna Harris:
Oh no, he’s definitely royalty. And actually, before he got there, it’s just tons of people. There was even a guy dressed up like him in his Fresh Prince days. Like, the striped shirt on, the sideways cap. These would people that are like, “Oh, we walked so far to be here.” And there are people from the Carolinas, I think, they were just waiting for hours. And he pulled in and people were just losing… 6abc was there. They’re like, “Fresh Prince returns.” He’s definitely Philly royalty, no doubt.

Maurice Cherry:
Wow, nice. Now, you’re represented by The Bright Agency, and The Bright Agency reps, a ton of animators, artists, and authors. How did you go about getting representation, and what are the benefits for you as an artist of being represented by an agency?

Alleanna Harris:
It’s funny, it was actually pretty serendipitous. My friend Loveis Wise, they’re a illustrator. They’re really amazing. We went to college together. We both went to UArts. They were a illustration major. And they told me, they said, “You should join Women Who Draw. It’s a really great website. It’s basically a database of women illustrators. You just put a piece of your work there and you say your name and different things about your identity, and then people go there and look for artists.” And I was like, “Okay, cool. I’ll do it.” So I uploaded my info. And not too long after that, I’d say months, my first agent, James Burns, he said, “Hey, I like your work. Is there anything that Bright can do for you?” And I was like, “You got to be kidding me, because it’s…” Actually, Bright was the agency that I was looking at when I was starting to plan, sending out my artist postcards. And the fact that he found my work on Women Who Draw and then reached out to me was absolutely amazing. So, from there, I said yes, and I’ve been represented by Bright ever since.

Maurice Cherry:
What are artist postcards? What’s that? Is it, like, a calling card of some sort?

Alleanna Harris:
Basically, yeah, you put a strong piece of art. It could have different themes. It could be seasonal or just whatever piece of art that you like most. And you put that on one side and then you put your information, your name, website on the other side, and you send it to art directors or agencies. Basically, if they like them, they keep them and they keep you in line for projects.

Maurice Cherry:
Okay. So you use that to sort of shop yourself around a little bit.

Alleanna Harris:
No, I didn’t even start. I went on, I put my stuff on Women Who Draw, and he found me there-

Maurice Cherry:
And they came to you.

Alleanna Harris:
Yeah.

Maurice Cherry:
Okay. Okay. What are those benefits of being repped by an agency? I would imagine it sort of just takes a lot of the admin stuff off of your plate.

Alleanna Harris:
It does. It really does. That’s what I like most because contract stuff that goes through them, they have people who specifically work on contracts. So I could go to my agent even about payments or deadlines, and they could talk to the publishers and the companies on my behalf. It’s just great having someone in your corner who knows the field better than you do.

Maurice Cherry:
And then all you can do is just draw and get paid.

Alleanna Harris:
I love it. It’s so much help.

Maurice Cherry:
Well, I mean, that’s the dream for all creatives to be able to have the freedom to do that. Like, just do your work, get paid, and not have to worry about all the in-between stuff. So that’s great.

Alleanna Harris:
Yes. Yes, yes. It’s definitely a blessing. I’m definitely grateful to work with them. It’s really awesome.

Maurice Cherry:
Now, you’ve got a couple of books that are coming out a little bit later this year, right?

Alleanna Harris:
Yep, yep. I have two. The first is Good Things by Maryah Greene, and that’s a picture book about a boy named Malcolm. Lives with his dad, and I believe it’s in Harlem. [inaudible 00:44:33] grandma, and his dad actually passes away, so he has to learn how to take care of the plants that his dad left him. And it’s a really good book about grief, and about plants, too. I got to illustrate a lot of plants because Maryah is a amazing plant doctor in New York City. So, there’s that book. These books come out in August, I believe, the 1st of August. There’s also Recipe for Change, which is by Michael C. Platt. And he is pretty young. I believe he’s in his late teens or his teens, but he’s a chef. It’s a cookbook. And I illustrate different foods in different scenes, based on the civil rights movement. And each of the recipes align with the scene. So you have a recipe and a story and a portrait, and it’s really, really educational. So, I have those two coming out in August.

Maurice Cherry:
Nice. Are they both available right now for pre-order? Because I want to put links to them in the show notes so people can check them out.

Alleanna Harris:
They’re about to be. Recipe for Change is actually about to be open for pre-order in the first week of February, and I am still waiting on word for Good Things.

Maurice Cherry:
Okay. Well, hopefully by the time this comes out, which will be right around mid- to late-February, we’ll hopefully have links to both of those, but we’ll certainly mention them, as well.

Alleanna Harris:
Awesome. That sounds great.

Maurice Cherry:
Yeah. How do you stay motivated and inspired with your work?

Alleanna Harris:
You know what, I just think it’s a part of my personality. I’m really self-directed. I have a lot of family support, especially from my mom. And there are certain things that I just want to see on the world, and I want kids to be able to see themselves in books. And that drives me. That’s always the thing that pushes me. So I have no lack of passion or drive. That always pushes me.

Maurice Cherry:
Do you have a dream project of sorts that you’d love to do one day?

Alleanna Harris:
Oh my goodness. I feel like I have a lot of dream projects. I’m always into little-known stories of figures that we definitely should know about, but we don’t. So I love picture books that have to do with subjects like that. But I’m also interested in going back into animation. I’m not leaving picture books, but going maybe into the visual-development part of animation, maybe character design and maybe, one day, art directing, that would be amazing, for a animated series. That would definitely be a dream for me. That would be amazing.

Maurice Cherry:
Is this a series that you’d create yourself?

Alleanna Harris:
Ooh, I’m open to it. I didn’t even think of that, but now that you say it, yeah, that would be great. It could be existing, too, but any way that I could art-direct or do character design, that would be a dream.

Maurice Cherry:
What do you appreciate the most about your life right now?

Alleanna Harris:
I just appreciate being able to use the skills that I’ve worked on. I guess I could say gifts, too, just to be able to use them to help people learn and just give them material to look at, just new books and being able to help kids read and learn new things. That’s just a blessing, and I never would’ve thought that this would be what I do as a career, but I absolutely love it. I love being able to sit down in my room and just draw and then actually have it turn into a book, into things people see on bookshelves. That’s just amazing to me and I’m just forever grateful for it.

Maurice Cherry:
Where do you see yourself in the next five years? What kind of work would you like to be doing?

Alleanna Harris:
Definitely more picture books. I guess, along with the animation thing that I just mentioned, I could actually see myself working on a series. But other than that, I could see myself doing more commercial work, kind of like what I did with Pentagram. Actually, last year, I illustrated a gift card for Target. It was a Christmas gift card. I can see myself doing more of that, more brand work. But yeah, those are the things I could see in the future.

Maurice Cherry:
Oh, nice. We just had Domonique Brown. She has a company, a lifestyle company called Domo, Inc. And she has a collection… Yeah, part of her collection’s at Target now for Black History Month. She also did a few cards for American Greetings, I think it’s a card company. She did some cards for them, too. So, I could totally see your work in that vein. That would be great.

Alleanna Harris:
Thank you. Thank you. I would love it. That would be so great.

Maurice Cherry:
Well, just to wrap things up here, where can our audience find out more information about you and your work and your books and everything? Where can they find that online?

Alleanna Harris:
Sure. Well, you could go to my website. It’s alleannaharris.com, A-L-L-E-A-N-N-A-H-A-R-R-I-S, .com. And I’m also Alleanna Harris everywhere on social media, so you can find me on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, even Tumblr, TikTok. You can find me all those places. Alleanna Harris.

Maurice Cherry:
All right, sounds good. Well, Alleanna Harris, I want to thank you so much for coming on the show. I think that just the work that you’re doing is so inspired and really, I think, driven by your own particular creative passion. I mean, as a kid that grew up reading a lot, reading competitions and all that stuff, there is just such an importance on children’s books that I think sometimes gets lost in the shuffle. And so the fact now that we have so many Black artists, especially like yourself, that are creating the books with authors that children are going to read, that are going to help shape them into becoming the people of tomorrow, I think is just such an amazing and inspiring thing. And your work is just so beautiful, and-

Alleanna Harris:
Thank you.

Maurice Cherry:
… I’m so excited to see what you do next. And like I said, we’ll put links to your books in the show notes. So, thank you so much for coming on the show. I appreciate it.

Alleanna Harris:
Thank you so much, and thank you so much for having me. This was great. I really enjoyed this.

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Magnus Atom

With a name like Magnus Atom, I had a feeling I was going to be talking with someone extraordinary. This award-winning motion graphics designer and commercial artist has an impressive roster of clients, including Headspace, Viceland, Playboy, MTV, and Lil Uzi Vert. On top of that, he recently received a coveted Young Guns award! Very impressive!

I caught up with Magnus a few months after his win, and he talked about working as an animation director with Strange Beast and settling down in upstate New York after a recent stint in Miami. He also spoke about going to the “Fame” high school in NYC, how his father inspired him to be an artist, and what he’s got his sights set on for this year. With a name like Magnus Atom, I’ve got a feeling we’ll definitely hear more from him in the future!

Transcript

Full Transcript

Maurice Cherry:
All right. So tell us who you are and what you do.

Magnus Atom:
Hey, so yeah, my name is Magnus Atom. I’m an animation director and I work globally with brands and clients to bring their brands to life with motion graphics and design, illustration, and tying that all in with animation. So…

Maurice Cherry:
How has 2022 been going for you so far?

Magnus Atom:
It’s been interesting. I mean, it’s been as good as it could be, I guess, this year. I mean, it’s been another one. But yeah, I started off… My wife and I, we actually went down to Miami for New Year’s and I’d never been there. So that was an interesting start. I was 100% sure I was going to get COVID and then I didn’t. So I don’t know how I’ve… It seems like everyone has been getting it so far, but somehow my wife and I, we’ve dodged it. So it’s been good. I mean, I’ve been busy working. I just moved to a new place. So I’m actually living in upstate New York in this town called Saratoga Springs. And so it’s definitely a departure from what I’m used to because I grew up in New York City. So this is more country, a little bit suburby, kind of small town living.

Magnus Atom:
And so I’m sort of… We just moved into an actual house [inaudible 00:03:43] renting, but it’s definitely a departure from the New York City one bedroom, 600 square-foot apartment. So now it’s like, “Oh, we have a place with space and yard space.” So it’s been interesting adjusting to it. So yeah, it’s been really an interesting start. So living in a new place, I definitely… I don’t really know anybody, either. So it’s also acclimating to the fact that I’m far away from a lot of friends and family. So trying to start fresh, I guess, is… Yeah, 2022 has been year of starting fresh.

Maurice Cherry:
So being in upstate New York, is it still pretty easy to get back down into the city if you need to?

Magnus Atom:
We picked a place that was sort of close to the city. So actually, I’ve never lived in Saratoga Springs or even really been to it. I visited it like once before we moved here. But we visited it and it was like, “Oh, this is…” It has enough stuff going that we didn’t think it would be super boring. And also it was close enough to the city that I can still visit my parents and my parents can come visit us. But it’s about two hours on a train or like two and a half hours driving.

Maurice Cherry:
That’s not too bad.

Magnus Atom:
No, it’s not bad. But in the wintertime it’s… sometimes you’re just… And especially if it’s snowing or inclement weather, it can be a little… a trek, I guess.

Maurice Cherry:
Let’s talk about the work that you’re doing now. You’re the animation director at Strange Beast. Tell me a little bit about the studio and what a typical day is like for you.

Magnus Atom:
Sure. So I’m actually an animation director at Strange Beast. So the way Strange Beast works, it’s kind of unique. I don’t see a lot of this sort of setup in the States, but it’s a little bit more popular in Europe. So the way their setup works is, they have a bunch of animation directors that they’ve sort of signed and… kind of a year-by-year basis. And so if you visit their website, each animation director has a very specific sort of style and a distinct voice, I guess, that they… It’s very specific to them. And it’s a little different than what you might find in the States where some of the big animation houses like Buck or Giant Ant or some of these other names, the animation directors don’t get as much recognition.

Magnus Atom:
It’s more of like the studio takes the credit and people go to the studio to work with that studio name. Whereas with Strange Beast and some other studios like ours in Europe, people come to Strange Beast to work with a specific director. So whether that’s Caitlin McCarthy or Anna Ginsburg, they want to work with those specific animators and they have to go through Strange Beast to work with them. And so it’s a pretty cool setup because it gives you the flexibility where… I’m not full time, by any means. And I have a lot of flexibility whether I want to take on a project that they give me.

Magnus Atom:
So just to kind of give a mock scenario of how it would work, say a client wants to make a… I don’t know, a 30-second spot for TV. And they want an animation director from Strange Beast and they don’t really know which animation director they want to go with. So maybe they’ll pick out a few different animation directors. So maybe me and a couple other people on the Strange Beast roster. And then maybe they also want to look for some animation directors from other studios as well.

Magnus Atom:
They’ll probably… They’ll pick a bunch of people. And then we’ll all sort of pitch to… We’ll pitch for the project. And that usually involves creating style frames and written treatments and sort of a pitch deck and presenting it to the team. And all this is sort of… I don’t get paid for any of that stuff. So there is sort of a pros and cons of this kind of method where it’s… In this situation, I might have to do a bit of work to create some style frames and deck building. And if I don’t win the bid, then it’s like I didn’t get paid for it. But at the same time, it can be really an interesting process.

Magnus Atom:
And so another scenario would be, they would come to Strange Beast and they’re like, “Okay, I really want to work with Magnus Atom specifically.” And maybe I’m busy because I take on other freelance work outside of Strange Beast as well. So I can tell them, “Hey, sorry, I can’t work with you right now on this project.” And so they might go to another animation director or they’ll… Maybe the stars will align, which happens less often than I would hope… But sometimes the stars will align and I’ll be like, “Okay, I’m free and I’m ready.” And they’ll be like, “Awesome. We want to work with you.” There’s no pitching. “We just want to work with you.”

Magnus Atom:
And so from there, we’ll sort of… We have some producers that are full-time at Strange Beast and actually, lately, Strange Beast had a bit of a transition in terms of the heads. So actually, the woman who was running it, Kitty Turley, who’s amazing, she actually stepped aside for a little bit because she’s gone on maternity leave and there’s another producer who has come to sort of take her place. And so she sort of oversees everything at Strange Beast as like an executive producer. And then underneath her is a bunch of other producers who might be working on different projects. So they’ll be assigned to one project at a time. So yeah. So from that, we’ll sort of create a budget. They’ll tell us what the budget is and we’ll tell them, “Okay, this is what’s feasible. This is what can work.”

Magnus Atom:
And we’ll talk about timelines, the yada yada, all that… the more production-level stuff. I’m personally… I don’t really have to deal that much with it, which is really nice because the producers, they get to just handle that. They get to interface with the client in terms of all the numbers and stuff. And for me, I might start off a project by trying to create style frames. So I’m like, “Okay, what is the look of this project going to be?” So for example, I just did a piece… But one of the pieces I just did for them was for Headspace. And so they wanted to create a animation series where each animation episode was directed by a different animation director. So each animation had its own kind of unique style.

Magnus Atom:
And so obviously, there’s a constraint that you need to work within. So Headspace has brand colors. Headspace has sort of guidelines that they kind of need… You can’t do super-grotesque, raunchy, rated X stuff. This could be for children. This is going to be very calm, meditative animation. So from there, you sort of think about like, “Okay, what can we do within the parameters?” Maybe we’ll start designing some frames and start developing the look and feel. And alongside that, we might be developing the storyboards. How is that going to play out? Before we even touch anything animation, we’re just going all into the planning of getting all the style and concept down. And then once that’s approved, then we’ll move on to another layer where we’ll start working on the actual animation; the production.

Magnus Atom:
And from there… Strange Beast doesn’t have any permanent employees, really, except for the producers. But we work with a roster of freelancers, which they’re… We have freelancers that we love to work with because they’ve proven themselves. We get along. And so we’ll call up some animators and maybe we’ll need illustrators. And it’s kind of a cool process because it makes it so that each project, we’re not constrained by the resources that’s… we’re limited… Maybe a house that has in-house animators… We have to work with those animators or we have to work with those designers.

Magnus Atom:
I would have a project where maybe I need animation that’s a little bit more Disneyesque. I have animators who are very good at that sort of style and I can call on those. Or maybe I want someone who’s a little bit more free-flowing style and I have people that who would come to mind and I would want to reach out to to work on that kind of project. So it’s a very sort of organic process, each time we go into a project. But yeah, I guess that’s sort of the overall, I guess, methodology of Strange Beast.

Maurice Cherry:
Interesting. It sounds almost kind of like a collective setup where people come together for the work or people may have to sort of pitch themselves for the work. Just because something comes into the studio doesn’t necessarily mean the entire studio works on it.

Magnus Atom:
Yeah, definitely. And like I said, there’s many animation directors, so… I haven’t even met half of them. I’ve worked with a bunch of them and everyone’s been super awesome. And even when I was working at their studio in London, there wouldn’t always be overlap. So I would have a project and then it might… another animation director would have a project and we’d… might overlap for a couple days and we’d get to talking. But for the most part, it’s sort of a project-by-project basis and Strange Beast is good at giving you the resources when you need it.

Maurice Cherry:
Hmm. Okay. So I guess when new work does come in and, say, you put in for the project, you’ve made a little deck or you’ve made some slides or something for it and you do get the project, you win the project. What does that process look like once you’ve actually started on it?

Magnus Atom:
Yeah. So the process once we’ve actually won the bid, it’s kind of what I was saying where you need to create the look, the style frames and the storyboards, and really just fleshing out the entire project. So Headspace, that’s an example. For that, we needed to… Well, actually, so that was an interesting, unique project because it was actually me and one other animation director, just because it was like, we had to do 20 minutes of animation in like two months’ time period. And so that’s a lot of animation. And so they thought it would be better if we have two animation directors who can sort of tag team it and approach it. So yeah. So for a project like that, that was fun because I got to kind of bounce ideas back and forth.

Magnus Atom:
So I worked with this animation director, Yuval Haker, and it was an interesting project because we had to both come at it with kind of our own style. But we also had to develop a style that was very unique to the project. So I would sort of start by creating a style frame and then I would send it to him. He would take that and he would sort of make his own style frame sort of inspired by that and then he would send it to me. And it was a very back-and-forth process. We did this dozens and dozens of times before we finally came down with a style that we’re like, “Okay, this is going to work.” And then once we come up with the style, so in that example, we were just hand-drawing everything in Photoshop using just brush tools.

Magnus Atom:
So once we were sort of comfortable with the style, we sort of then send it off to the client and the client will then have a bunch of notes and be like, “Okay, well, we don’t like the way this character looks. Can you slim them down?” Or, “Can you give them…? Take off these brands,” or whatever. Stuff like that clients are supposed to say. Then we’ll have that sort of back-and-forth process with the client. Then that’ll happen several times. From there, we start to organically build a style that both we’re comfortable with and that I’m comfortable making and animating and that the client is comfortable with. And so once we sort of create those initial style frames, and then we’ll start creating the storyboards where we’ll start saying, “Okay, this is what’s going to happen here. When the voice actor says this, we’re going to have the sun rise over the sunset and the swans are going to fly out of the reeds.”

Magnus Atom:
You have to sort of build out that very minute detail of what you think is going to happen. Because as an animation director, a lot of the times, I’m not actually touching everything. So you’re sort of building out a roadmap. Yeah. You’re building out a roadmap for… Then you give it to other animators who don’t animate in that style. And they’re coming in with very little knowledge and they’re basically… You’re giving it to them and being like, “Okay, build this.” And so there has to be a lot of… very little lost in translation. So they need to be able to see the storyboards and be like, “Okay, this scene is going to have a sun and it’s going to be rising. And the rays are going to be turning like this and the reeds are going to be blowing.”

Magnus Atom:
And then they’ll have that style frame that I made of that exact scene. And so they’ll know, “Okay, this is what I need to animate and this is what the final style should look like.” We go through this process where we have the storyboards laid out for the entire… whether it’s 20-minute project or 30-second project. And we then create a style frame of what it should look like for each key moment, whether it’s a different landscape or a different character. And so that whole process is… It can be very time-consuming because obviously, there’s a lot of back-and-forth. You’re basically just creating the style and the playbook for the entire animation. So from there, once you’ve finally gotten that and you’ve got it approved, the client loves it, you like it, and then you can just go straight into the animation.

Magnus Atom:
And then that’s when you start reaching out to your animators; you’ll be like, “Come on board.” And designers, if you need background designers or illustrators. And then you just go on full-on production where you’re like, “Okay, these rough animators are…” And when I say “rough animators,” there’s several layers to the animation process if you’re doing this sort of illustrative style. So there would be the very rough, hand-drawn, loose animation where it’s not fully fleshed out, it’s not final line work, but it shows the movement. This is how the character is going to move. And this is the weight and this is how the waters are going to ripple. But just in terms of… Think of it like a rough sketch of a painting. Before you do the final painting, you probably want to do a bit of a rough sketch underneath. That’s what the rough animation is.

Magnus Atom:
So that’s a process. And then after you’ve gotten that down, then you’ll have another layer of animation and that’s what we’ll call cleanup animation. And then a lot of times, those two animators, the rough animator and the cleanup animator, won’t even be the same animator. So the rough animator has to create it in a certain… They have to create the rough animation in a certain way that any cleanup artist can come to it and be like, “Okay, all I have to do is trace over this rough animation in the final line work. Because now I’m trying to make it look final.” It’s basically… We’re just trying to get it from the rough animation to the final. And that’s actually even a longer process, surprisingly.

Magnus Atom:
But it’s kind of like building, I guess, a car. You don’t start by just building the car. You have to start by thinking it out. You have to think about the production, the budget… And then you have to think about the schematics and the layouts and the materials. And then it’s this iterative process that slowly over time, a bunch of different people with a bunch of different skills all are coming together to sort of build this final animation that has that sort of initial style frame and idea that you sort of created. Or, and when I say “you,” me as an animation director sort of created from the get-go. Yeah.

Maurice Cherry:
That is quite a process. I think it probably helps to have a client that really is tuned into working with creatives to be able to go through all of that with so many different steps and working with so many different people.

Magnus Atom:
For sure. I mean, it’s definitely not for the impatient. And yeah. Animation, it takes work. People think… There’s a running joke in the animation industry; it’s like, “Just press the animate button and bring your character to life.” And it’s like, no, it’s a process, for sure.

Maurice Cherry:
Yeah. I want to get more into really how you learned about animation. So let’s take it back into the past a little bit. I want to learn more about sort of your origin story now. You’re from NYC originally. Is that right?

Magnus Atom:
Yeah. So I actually… Well, I was born in Hawaii, but I grew up in New York City.

Maurice Cherry:
What was it like growing up there for you?

Magnus Atom:
Well, so I grew up in Brooklyn. And so I lived in… When my family first moved here from Hawaii, they didn’t buy a place. We were renting. So when we first moved here, we were actually living in Park Slope. And if you know New York City, you know Park Slope is a super-expensive, super-nice, ritzy neighborhood. To hear tell, it was not like that when we moved here. I actually hear it was quite dangerous when we first moved here. So I spent my early years, like in elementary school, in that area. But as rent started increasing, my family ended up having to move from Park Slope and we ended up moving to an area called Ditmas Park around Flatbush. And I didn’t spend a lot of time actually in Flatbush, per se. I went to middle school there and I had a lot of friends there, but when I started going to high school, my high school was actually in the city.

Magnus Atom:
So I actually spent a lot of my youth just in the city, whether it’s… was Midtown where my high school was, or… I spent a lot of time in Chinatown. And it’s funny because New York City, it’s kind of a place where you kind of need money to do a lot of things. And also when you’re a kid, there’s a lot of things that New York City offers to you that you just can’t have access to because you’re under 18 or you’re under 21. So a lot of my youth was spent hanging out in parks in Chinatown, playing sports; like playing handball and… That’s where a lot of my friends hung out.

Magnus Atom:
So in terms of living in New York City, to compare it to… I guess I can’t really compare it to anything else because I only had one childhood. But I would say that it was nice having such a diversity of people. It was something you didn’t think about. I wasn’t thinking, “Oh, I’m the only person of color in this area.” I was surrounded by all different ethnicities, all different cultures. And so, I mean, it was funny, even at my lunch table in high school and middle school, it was like the UN. It was like… I literally… every ethnicity. It definitely gave me a lot of experiences in terms of the type of people I met. I had… I guess parents tried to take me to cultural events when they could afford it. But for the most part, it was good.

Maurice Cherry:
Well, I mean, New York City sort of has that reputation of being a really big melting pot. So it sounds like that definitely was what your experience was like growing up. And you mentioned high school. I don’t want to gloss over… You went to a pretty well-known high school for those who might be of a certain age, like myself; the Fame school, LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts. What was it like going there, knowing that it had such a reputation?

Magnus Atom:
I never took school seriously until I finally got to college. But high school… I guess, to backtrack just a little bit… My dad always wanted to train me to be an artist. So I never really pushed myself in terms of art, but my dad was always the one who was on my ass about like, “You need to do this painting, you need to…” I don’t remember if it was every night, but it was definitely several times a week it was like, “Okay, get onto your corner and do your painting.” It’s like I didn’t have a choice. It was kind of, I guess, like a typical parent would tell you, “Go and hit the books.” My dad was like, “Go and paint.”

Magnus Atom:
When I was applying to high school, I think I already had an edge over the other people who applied because a lot of the other applicants, a lot of their body of work was maybe school assignments. And you can tell when something’s a school assignment or something’s done outside of school. And so I think that really helped propel me into it because I already had this sort of formal training from my dad growing up. So when I finally got into high school… You had to apply to get into it. You had to take an actual test; an art test. You had to show a portfolio to teacher and they would ask you about it. So it’s definitely… It was a lengthy process to get in. But when I actually got in, I didn’t take it all too seriously.

Magnus Atom:
So funny, my grades were actually terrible. In the first year, freshman year, I think I failed three classes and I had to do summer school for the first time. That wouldn’t be the last time. And I kind of goofed off a lot. But in terms of the people I met, it wasn’t your typical high school experience. And I think that was sort of the thing I took away from it the most was, the people I was surrounded by were musicians and other artists.

Magnus Atom:
And although maybe not every single person was passionate about art and wants to be an artist… I’ve never seen Fame, so… But [inaudible 00:26:48] I think I’ve seen clips and people are dancing on tables and singing in the hallways. There was singing in the hallways, but it wasn’t… People weren’t dancing on the tables and… But people genuinely… Talking to other people I’ve met outside of LaGuardia, in their high school experience, I’ve heard it’s very much cliques. Like you got the jocks and you got the cheerleaders and… At least this is what I’m kind of imagining other high schools to be like. Like the kids who wore Abercrombie and Fitch. And then you had the skater boys.

Maurice Cherry:
It was high school.

Magnus Atom:
Yeah. It was high school. But for me, there was a little bit more emphasis on being unique, I guess. It wasn’t forced. No one was telling you, “Oh, you got to be unique.” It was more like people were proud to wear clothes that they just made themselves. Whether it was good-looking clothes or not, it wasn’t… It didn’t really matter. Cool, if you had started your own little fashion T-shirt brand in school and you wore your own jeans that you had messed up with paint. So that was sort of the vibe. I guess everyone had this unique sort of voice.

Magnus Atom:
And there was definitely a lot of talent. Looking back, the amount of talent at that school… You don’t realize it when you’re in the moment. As a kid, you don’t know what to compare it to. But looking back, I went to a performance… They do these concerts that the instrumental majors and the vocal majors and the drama majors will put on. And these are not like normal high school productions. I’ve been to many Broadway shows. These are on par with Broadway productions. These, they’re good. And it goes to show, because a lot of them end up working in that field afterwards. So yeah. I mean, that was my experience. I met a lot of really cool artists. Most of my friends, if not all of them, were just artists.

Magnus Atom:
So it was cool to bounce ideas off of. And I did a little bit of graffiti when I was of that age. And my first clothing company was with some of my best friends. We just decided to create a small clothing company. And so we’d create stickers and merchandise and we would sell it to our friends and other people. And we even dabbled in making music. It was a really creative, I guess, environment to grow up in.

Maurice Cherry:
Yeah. So we were talking before recording about like, “Oh, yeah,” I said, “the Fame high school.” You’re like, “Oh, yeah, it was a movie.” And I’m like, “Well, it was a TV show. It was a movie first, then a TV show. Then there was Fame LA and then another movie.”

Magnus Atom:
Wow. I didn’t know it was such a series. I literally just thought it was a movie and I feel kind of ashamed because so many people have been like, “Oh, you went to the Fame school?” And I’ve never even seen Fame.

Maurice Cherry:
Oh, you should check it out. It’s a pretty good show. And a movie. I mean, I remember the first movie, but not the second one. The second one was in 2009 or something, I think.

Magnus Atom:
Oh. Oh, well, that’s funny, because I graduated in… Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I did remember that coming out. Sure. But yeah, I graduated 2008.

Maurice Cherry:
Okay.

Magnus Atom:
Yeah. I’m curious to see it. I don’t know if it’ll actually be like the real life experience.

Maurice Cherry:
Well, after graduating, you went to Parsons, which is a very well-known school in New York City for fashion and for design and everything. And we’ve had a few Parsons alum on the show as well. How was your time over there?

Magnus Atom:
Yeah. So definitely different than high school, because like I said, in high school, I completely slacked off. I barely graduated by the skin of my teeth. Yeah. Terrible grades. And I actually just got into Parsons by the skin of my teeth. But when I got into Parsons, I sort of… Well, my dad told me, he was like, “This is your last chance. If you fail, if you flunk, there’s no point in you doing this. You don’t need to be in school anymore.” And so I realized, I was like, “Oh, okay. This is like, it’s serious time.” And so I took it very seriously.

Magnus Atom:
So actually, funny enough, I guess it’s kind of serendipity, but when I was applying to Parsons, I hadn’t heard back from them for… Yeah. I sent in my application and I hadn’t heard back. And it was like, time was passing, months were passing. And I was like, “Ah, I wonder whatever happened.” And the girl I was dating at the time was like, “You really need to check on them and see what’s going on.” And I was like, “Okay.”

Magnus Atom:
So I went down to the office. I was like, “Hey, what’s going on?” And they were like, “Oh, so you actually got accepted, but they didn’t send out some sort of letter,” or maybe I didn’t get it. And so by the time I went down there, all the applications for the basic… I forget what the term is for most art majors that go into Parsons, but… That was all filled up. And they were like, “We feel really bad and you did get in and we have this experimentative… a new program that we’re creating called Design and Technology that we still have some spots open for. And if you want to go in through that, it’s a different curriculum.”

Magnus Atom:
And so rather than going in through the traditional route where you have to go through graphic design and you have to learn all these very fundamental principles and… It was more of a DIY sort of route, where you get to kind of… It’s kind of like a Choose Your Own Adventure. And the whole idea is, it kind of merged a whole bunch of different, I guess, topics. So you had coding, coding within art, and then you had web design and then you had more experimentative… It was anything that you could think of where it’s design, but also plus technology. So you even had some sound designers in that mix. And so I went into that not knowing what I wanted to do at all.

Magnus Atom:
I thought maybe I was going to do graphic design. I knew I had to pick something at some point and time was ticking. And so when I went in, I was like, “Okay, I’ll try graphic design.” And that was not for me. I was like, “This is not my thing.” And then I did like… I really loved illustration and that was something I always did passionately on the side. But it wasn’t a choice, in terms of what I can do. They didn’t offer… If I wanted to be illustration, I would’ve had to completely do a whole new curriculum. And I would’ve had to start over or something. So I was like, “That’s not an option.” And then there was web design. I was like, “Okay, maybe I want to be a web designer.”

Magnus Atom:
And I think I got into it because I had some illustration stuff and I wanted to put it on a website. And this was before Squarespace and all those kind of templated websites where you could just upload your images. Kind of still had to know some coding. There was a WordPress, but I never really liked the whole WordPress thing. So I thought maybe I would do some web design and… I even took an internship in web design and realized… I got pretty far. I learned… I knew HTML, CSS, a little bit of JavaScript. I realized it wasn’t for me, either. Staring at lines of code for like 12 hours a day was just like, “Okay, this is not my thing. I’m going to burn out doing this.” And then the second year of Parsons, I had a good friend who… He had a little bit of animation experience that he just did from high school.

Magnus Atom:
I think he was kind of a go-getter; he just tried interesting stuff, tried new stuff. And so he already came in knowing a bit of animation. And so he was a close friend of mine. And I saw what he was doing and I was like, “Oh, that’s… kind of looks fun. That looks interesting.” And so he convinced me to take the Motion Graphics 1 class. And so I was like, “Okay.” It was just learning After Effects; basic After Effects. How to make shapes move and text move on screen; simple learning how to use the program. I took the class and I immediately was like, “This is pretty cool.” Because I liked illustration already, but it was the first time where I can take my illustration and have it come to life.

Magnus Atom:
And I took it very seriously too. A lot of people I knew… So I was… I lived in New York City, so… And I couldn’t afford to live in the dorms, so I lived at home. And so a lot of people I knew, they were living at the dorm life and they were partying a lot and… I was very jealous of like, “Oh, man, you get to live with three roommates and 200 square feet? Oh, man, I’m so jealous.” I really was. But I didn’t have any of that. And so I spent a lot of my time just working on my school projects.

Magnus Atom:
And so I think putting a lot of that work in early, I already saw… The amount of work I put into it, people were noticing it. I think the first time I was doing artwork or something that was kind of unique to myself. And people were like, “Oh, this is really good.” Before, people would be like, “Oh, yeah, I like this illustration,” or “I like that painting.” I was doing those kind of because I had to, almost. This was the first time I was like, “I want to do this.” And then people were telling me that they think it’s really good. And then also I was in these animation classes and it was already better than a lot of the other animators who were in that class.

Magnus Atom:
So there I think it created sort of a feedback loop of: People are saying you’re good at this. And I’m enjoying it so I feel kind of proud. So I feel like I have to do it even more. It ended up just becoming a thing where I’m… I ended up taking a whole bunch of animation classes and I wanted to learn everything about animation. I started off just learning After Effects, but then I was like, “Oh, I want to learn how to do stop motion. I want to learn how to do CGI; 3D animation.” And then within 3D animation, I was like, “Okay, I want to learn how to do dynamics. I want to learn how to do lighting and modeling and character rigging.” And I was like, “Oh…” I discovered cel animation for the first time, where you can actually just draw on a screen, rather than having to draw it on paper and then scan it in, and move it around in After Effects like moving images; it was like, “Oh, you can bring things to life Disney-style.”

Magnus Atom:
I was just fascinated by every different aspect of animation. And not only that, how can you combine all of these different things? So how can I mix CG and cel animation? Or how can I mix stop motion and cel? Or… And I even went so far as to take sound design classes because I was like, “I want to make the sound and music to my own animation.” So I was sort of just gathering all these skills, just because it was really fun to do. And I was like, this is… Seems appropriate. I wasn’t thinking… I was thinking I want to make a career of this, but it was more of like, “I’m doing this because I’m just super-fascinated by all of these different aspects.”

Magnus Atom:
Yeah. I think learning all those different things really helped me. And so I think by sophomore year, I definitely knew what I wanted to do. And by junior year, I actually… I felt like I was just ready to hit the workforce. I actually had a lot of teachers who were really helpful in terms of my early getting off the ground. So one of the classes I had, it was an intermediate animation class, learning concepts. And so one of the projects was for creating a mock commercial for a product or for a brand. And at the time, I was super into the whole vinyl toy scene; Kidrobot and even like BAPE and all that stuff was super popular.

Magnus Atom:
And so I really loved Kidrobot so I was like, “Okay, I’m just going to make an animation about one of their toys,” which was that iconic money… If you don’t know it, it’s… kind of looks like a white monkey that you can draw on; customize. So I made this animation, it was like a 15- or 30-second animation. It actually ended up… The teacher brought in some professional, I guess, people she knew from her professional circle to actually critique us in the finals. And so a lot of them… Some of the critiquers came in and they saw it and they were like, “Oh, this is really… You made this by yourself? This is definitely top-level… At least almost studio-level stuff.”

Magnus Atom:
And went so far where I sent it to Kidrobot and I was like, “Oh, I don’t know. I might not hear anything.” I think it was a couple days later, one of the directors of operations, they reached out to me. They were like, “Hey, this is awesome. Can you do something like this just for us for this other product that was coming out?” And so that was sort of my first step into a client project that I had gotten just by myself; no one else. So Parsons, I think, set me up in a way where it’s like, I met a lot of really interesting people, a lot of other interesting animators who also wanted to do what I did. Yeah, it was kind of like LaGuardia where it was a very creative atmosphere that was fostering my creativity.

Maurice Cherry:
And of course, now, you’re well-known animation director with Strange Beast. So clearly, even just getting that spark from doing the work at Parsons and learning about it has propelled you to where you are right now. The way that actually I had heard about you was because you won an award back in 2019 from The One Club. You won the Young Guns award, which is usually given to young designers. I think they do it every year. They have a Young Guns 17, Young Guns 18, et cetera. Where were you when you got news about your win?

Magnus Atom:
Yeah. Well, just really quickly, I actually won it this last year. But it was called Young Guns 19. I was actually sitting in the same spot I am sitting in right now. I was just at home when I read the email that I won. Actually, when I read that I was the finalist, I didn’t even know that I was a finalist. My executive producer at Strange Beast just texted me and she was just like, “Hey, congratulations on being a Young Guns finalist.” And I had… I didn’t even know I was a finalist and I was like, “What? Awesome.” Yeah.

Maurice Cherry:
And have things kind of changed for you since you won the award?

Magnus Atom:
Not really. I mean, yes and no. I’ve had a lot of people reaching out to me to try to pin me down for a full-time job. Actually, funny enough, this one company I’ve always wanted to work for… When I was starting off in my career, I always wanted to work for this animation studio. And I reached out to them early on and they never even got back to me. And it was always a dream to work for them. And then after I won, they reached out to me and they were like, “Hey, do you want a full-time job?” And actually, I turned them down because I’m enjoying freelancing and doing the whole thing with Strange Beast so much. So it’s funny how life works like that, I guess.

Maurice Cherry:
Wow. I’m curious about that because we’ve had other award-winning designers on the show and I’m always curious to know if things really change once you get the award. Does it open you up to bigger and better jobs? Does that mean you get more press? Do you get representation? I’m just always curious about that because I feel like it’s still kind of 50/50. Sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s not. Sometimes the award can be kind of the thing that… Not hold you back, but it can end up being a bit of a curse, in a way.

Magnus Atom:
Yeah. That’s interesting that you say that. After I won the award, I felt like all of a sudden, now there’s like a spotlight on me. I feel like I can’t really mess up, you know what I mean? Because it’s… A bunch of people now know my name in the industry. I’m not just, I guess, a nobody at this point. But at the same time, it was very liberating because it’s something I’ve always wanted, was the Young Guns. Ever since I was in college, I wanted to win this Young Guns award. And it was definitely like it was a dream come true for my twenties. So when I won, it was sort of liberating because all of a sudden, I didn’t have to think of, like, “Okay, I need to do this animation because I have to… It has to fit into my body of work so that I can win this award; the Young Guns award.” Now I’m kind of like, “Oh, I can do whatever I want.” If I want to do something different, I don’t feel like I’m constrained to doing just animation anymore.

Maurice Cherry:
That makes sense. The award kind of… It’s the validation. And so from there, you can springboard to other things because the work that you’ve won that award for, you don’t really have to prove yourself. You’ve gotten an award for it. People have judged your work and said that it’s good to this caliber; to this standard. So it kind of does give you freedom to do other things in that way.

Magnus Atom:
Yeah. Yeah. That’s it, definitely.

Maurice Cherry:
Yeah. And now, speaking of other things that you’re doing, aside from Strange Beast, you have a fashion and art brand that you created called Yugen Goon. Tell me about that.

Magnus Atom:
Yes. That was a fun side project I actually created with my wife. Actually, I started concepting it many years back because… I work as a commercial artist. So this work that I put on my site and the stuff that I do professionally is definitely of a certain, I guess, content. It’s commercially viable. I always had this outlet of stuff I like to do outside of that. I like to paint. I like to do… I love doing pastel still to this day. I grew up my dad making me do pastels and I still love to do it. And I have all these fascinations with all this other stuff, whether it’s spiritualistic or tribal or different content from religious or spiritual stuff from around the world that… It probably is not going to make it into my commercial for Nike.

Magnus Atom:
So it’s like, I kind of wanted to create this separate thing where I was like, “Okay, this is going to be just me.” That… I don’t really have to answer to anybody. Actually, funny enough, I created it because I wanted to sort of just create a side hustle. Because I was like, “I want to make a bit of money on the side, just as a revenue source.” And it ended up being… I couldn’t just do something for the money. It ended up being like, “Okay, if I’m going to make something, I got to make it cool.” So I ended up spending a long time on it, way longer than I should’ve; years creating just the idea for… I guess I’m such a perfectionist, but… Actually, my wife helped propel me to really finalize it because if it wasn’t for her, I would just have just been aimlessly just creating designs and not even putting it out.

Magnus Atom:
And she was like, “Okay, just… You got to put it out.” It was a nice departure from my usual animation stuff, because I got to take the artwork that I was creating on the side and then kind of play around with some graphic design and illustration that I get to experiment and kind of have fun and do stuff that I’m like, “Okay, this might not be right, but it’s like, this is… I think it’s cool. And if I think it’s cool, maybe other people will think it’s cool.” The whole idea with Yugen Goon was, I wanted to create this brand that was sort of a world in its own. So I wanted have these different characters and all these different storylines and hopefully one day I’ll create an animation that ties in and kind of tells the story a little bit better.

Magnus Atom:
But I made up all these different gods that are depicted on the clothing. And even within the clothing, if on the inside label, there’s… unique poem on each… So you know where the tag would be on the inside of the… that apparel tag? Instead of having a tag, I have a poem. And it’s just kind of there just for the people who buy it. It’s not there to show off. It’s not there for anybody else other than the people who know it; know it’s there. So I kind of like this idea of creating this world where it’s just… It’s sort of like storytelling and it’s sort of constantly evolving. It draws on a lot of, really, stuff that I’m fascinated by, whether it’s cultural… tribal masks, African masks, or Japanese masks or things like holy scripts from like the I Ching. Stuff like that just fascinates me. So that’s kind of Yugen Goon in a nutshell.

Maurice Cherry:
Yeah, I was going to ask about what the significance with the masks might be.

Magnus Atom:
I haven’t even figured it out myself, honestly. Maybe if I ever have a therapist, it’ll come out and I’ll figure out why I’m so fascinated by masks. But I don’t know. I love the mask designs, whether… Of all cultures. Yeah. Japanese, Tibetan, Chinese, African, different African tribes… I think it’s kind of what they represent. And when you look into why they exist, they all kind of have their own unique meaning, but there’s kind of this connection that you see between all these different cultures that were separated by oceans. I don’t know. There’s just something beautiful, I think, to masks.

Maurice Cherry:
Hmm. When you look back at your body of work, is there any one project that really stands out to you the most?

Magnus Atom:
When I was working at Vice, I created this one piece called Bone Dance. I think it’s 15-, 30-second long animation. It was for Vice’s… They did a weed week where for a week, they would just air weed-inspired content. And they tasked us… They were like, “You can create anything you want, if it’s for weed week, and we’ll put it on TV.” Which is a cool brief. I don’t have that anymore. And at the time, even I knew, I was like, “This is cool.” But looking back, I’m like, “Wow, that was… You can create anything you want and they’ll put it on TV.”

Magnus Atom:
For that project, I was like, I came up with this concept of having these… Without going too deep into it, I wanted to create this thing that was a little bit trippy, but sort of high thought, kind of would make people think, because it would be playing late at night, hopefully while people are smoking weed and they’ll see it and be like, “Oh, that was different.” I didn’t want to just create regular weed bong stuff. So that was probably my favorite project because it was sort of… I had the most carte blanche. Still to this day, I look back and I’m like, “Oh, this is…” People see it and they’re like, “Oh, this is still super cool.” So yeah, I think that’s probably my favorite piece I’ve done.

Maurice Cherry:
Have you had any mentors or anyone that have really kind of helped you out throughout your career? And before you answer that, I feel like your dad may be one of them, in case you’re not going to mention him. Because you’ve mentioned him just in passing about how he’s really pushed you, especially early on, to be more artistic in this way.

Magnus Atom:
Yeah. I mean, that was… Yeah. I mean, you got it. It’s definitely my dad. I’ve always had teachers who are… They’re really helpful, but they haven’t stuck with me for the long haul, you know what I mean? After… I might keep in contact with some of my teachers after school, but not as much. So my dad has always been there. So I’ve always been able to tell him about what I’m doing and… He’s an artist himself. So I can… He gets it. He is… I don’t have to explain… He doesn’t have to be like, “Oh, so what is this animation thing?” It’s like, he’s always been super-supportive and pushing me to do that. So yeah. It’s definitely my dad.

Maurice Cherry:
Nice. What do you really appreciate most about your life right now?

Magnus Atom:
The thing I appreciate the most… Probably the fact that I’m safe and I’m healthy and everyone I know is healthy. I know… I have friends who have lost loved ones to COVID and it’s been really hard for the last several years for a lot of people. And so I’ve been super-fortunate that everyone I know is healthy and… Yeah. I guess that’s it, really. I mean…

Maurice Cherry:
Where do you see yourself in the next five years? I mean, it sounds like so far, your career has really progressed to a fantastic point. I mean, you’ve had this strong upbringing, this dad that really pushed you, now you’re doing this work at Strange Beast. What else do you see yourself doing in the future?

Magnus Atom:
It’s interesting thinking about it, because even if I look back at the last decade, I would never have imagined I would get to where I am here. Because my goals when I was younger is completely different now. Where I will be in ten years or five years, I have no idea. But the stuff that I’m super-passionate about now is not as… It’s not the same stuff that I was passionate about when I was in art school.

Magnus Atom:
So I think a lot of the stuff that’s really… still inspires me is working on my clothing company or if it’s… I’m really into this upstate living of repurposing… antiquing furniture and making it brand new, which is something I never thought I would be into. So yeah. It’s like, I still want to do… I still love animation; that’s still my path, I think. And in terms of where I see that going, I want to keep creating stuff that’s sort of in my style and keep it evolving. Keep doing work that I am passionate about that pays the bills. But on the side of that, I have other passions that is completely outside of animation now.

Maurice Cherry:
Well, just to kind of wrap things up here, where can our audience find out more information about you and about your work online?

Magnus Atom:
Sure. So you can visit my website. It’s just magnusatom.com. Or you can find me on Instagram, @magnus.atom. And if you want to see other Strange Beast artists as well as my stuff, you can just go to Strange Beast’s website, which is strangebeast.tv.

Maurice Cherry:
All right. Sounds good. Well, Magnus Atom, I want to thank you so much, really, for coming on the show. I think if there’s one thing that people really get from this, aside from just your incredible story, is that getting to where you’ve gotten has taken a lot of work. And that’s not to say that the road should always be easy as a creative, but what it sounds like to me is that you’ve really put in the work over the years and now you’re sort of at the point where you’re able to really kind of reap those rewards, which sounds, of course, really good to hear. I really am interested to see kind of what you do in the future. I mean, a lot of your work is already out there. I didn’t mention this, but there’s a Lil Uzi Vert video that you did also. So you’ve managed to amass a huge body of work, and I’m really excited to see what you do next. So thank you so much for coming on the show. I appreciate it.

Magnus Atom:
Well, thanks so much for having me, Maurice.

Steven Christian

Steven Christian’s motto is “create and conquer”, and that’s exactly what he’s managed to do with his career. While he started out as an athlete, a sports injury cause him to discover visual art, and he has reinvented himself as a multitalented cartoonist, podcaster, animator, and AR mobile developer. Oh, and he’s studying to apply to medical school. Talk about Black excellence!

Steven shared with me how he balances all of this, and talked about how the current times helped kickstart his career. We also talked about some of his projects — including the popular Pokémon Twerk Team — and he reminisced on growing up in northern California and detailed how his injury helped open his eyes to the worlds of art, design, and tech. Steven also talked about his Skillshare courses, listed some of his inspirations, and spoke about his dream collab and the hope of building more of a community around his work. Steven is a prime example of turning what could be seen as a tragedy into an amazing triumph!

Camille Selvon Abrahams

Camille Selvon Abrahams is a trailblazer in the animation industry. Not only did she co-found the first outsourcing animation studio in the Caribbean — Full Circle Animation Studio — but she also heads up animation studies at the University of Trinidad and Tobago and is the founding director of the Animae Caribe Animation Festival! And she’s still making history!

We had a pretty wide ranging conversation, and talked about her creative process, networking with other Black animators in the industry, the power of the African diaspora, and how she uses of storytelling to help with her work as a digital activist. According to Camille, we don’t need to ask permission to tell our stories, and I couldn’t agree more. Learn more about Camille and tap into your inner creative!

Joshua Leonard

I only recently heard about Joshua Leonard, but I had no idea about his inspiring life story until we sat down for this interview. Joshua is currently doing freelance animation work for Nickelodeon, but he is perhaps most well known for Team Supreme — a group of differently abled super-powered kids!

Joshua started our conversation with a little behind-the-scenes look at working with Nickelodeon, and we talked a bit about different animation styles and how long it can take a concept to go from idea to reality. Joshua also talked about growing up as a military brat, his early animation influences, and about evacuating Hurricane Katrina to make a new start in Atlanta. I don’t want to give away too much about our conversation, but make sure you stick around for Joshua’s words of wisdom in the second half of the interview, as well as an update on the status of Team Supreme! Joshua’s work has already caught the eye of some major players, and I’m so proud to be able to share what he’s doing here on Revision Path!

Links

Transcript

Full Transcript

Maurice Cherry: All right. Tell us who you are and what you do.

Joshua Leonard: Yeah. My name is Joshua Leonard and I’m a 2D animator and a character designer and I’m the creator of Team Supreme, which is an animated series in the works right now.

Maurice Cherry: All right. We’ll definitely get into talking more about Team Supreme. What’s your kind of average day-to-day work with like right now?

Joshua Leonard: Well, I wake up, first thing first, go to the gym, workout for about an hour, come home, do some character design work. I do freelance for Nickelodeon right now, really just working on Team Supreme. That’s really it. And the Joshua Leonard Foundation, we’re getting that up and running, so I just try to stay as productive as I possibly can-

Maurice Cherry: Okay.

Joshua Leonard: … until everything starts to kind of really take off.

Maurice Cherry: So with the freelance character design stuff for Nickelodeon, can you talk just a little bit about that, like what you’re doing with that?

Joshua Leonard: I can’t give the names of the show, anything like that. So basically, I graduated from the Art Institute 2018, summer 2018, and I posted something on LinkedIn, I think it was an artwork and it went viral. And one of the recruiters from Nickelodeon hit me up as I was walking into Home Depot where I worked and offered me a freelance position on an upcoming show. So I took that and it’s been a blessing ever since, man. So I really just… whenever they need character design and stuff, they kind of just reach out. So it’s not like a guarantee, but when it’s here, it’s great. So I’m real grateful for it.

Maurice Cherry: And that came just from a LinkedIn post?

Joshua Leonard: LinkedIn, man, yeah. I love LinkedIn. Social media, in general, is great for me. As long as you run it as a business and professional, I think it’s the way to go.

Maurice Cherry: Okay. So with Nickelodeon kind of just contacting you when they need you, I’m pretty sure, because I’m curious about this too, what does character design look like for a studio like that? Talk to me about the workflow. What does that look like?

Joshua Leonard: Absolutely. One thing that I do like about Nickelodeon, and I appreciate them coming to me, they like my art style and specifically, for the show that I’m working on, there are some African American cartoon characters. So that’s one thing that kind of makes me stand out, especially on LinkedIn. A lot of my followers and connections on LinkedIn like my art style. So that’s what Nickelodeon was looking forward to, and also Disney. So it’s pretty dope how they look for a specific style that would fit their certain cartoons, because a lot of these shows look the same, a lot of them shows use the same character design. And so I guess sometimes, you got to go out of the box and get different looks and styles. But what they do, they gave me a real slat image, real bland, real simple, almost like a children’s book for the artwork. It’s real simple. So they asked me to put my style onto this style that was already [inaudible 00:02:50] in the book, and that’s what I did, kind of just really hooked it up in my style. And they loved it.

Joshua Leonard: And when I went out there to Nickelodeon and when they took me on a tour and all of that, because I’m in Atlanta and Nickelodeon is way out there in Burbank, when I got out there, I was expecting to see my artwork on the wall. I would joke around with the whole team and just kind of laugh about how my artwork’s probably going to be on a wall with red X’s crossed through it, but they actually showed me a clip of the cartoon that they’re working on and developing and they made it and everything and it was my character. So it was so dope to see my actual character designs come to life like that. And it was in 3D too, so I’m like, “Man, you got to be kidding. This was [crosstalk 00:03:34].” So to see that, man, and like I said, I just graduated in 2018 and it’s just been a super dope ride, man, so far. So I’m real grateful for that.

Maurice Cherry: Wow. So that’s interesting that they start off with something simple, and then I guess you just have to redraw what they have or are you putting your own particular styles and things onto the images?

Joshua Leonard: No. No. So what it is, when I say I’m drawing, say, their character has a beard, he’s kind of buff and he’s wearing this outfit, that’s what I’m talking about. Now, I can draw whatever I want as long as he has the beard, this outfit, as long as they know it’s going to be this character, I can do whatever I want with it. So I’ll put them in a different pose and sometimes, they may want the character turn around, where you got to draw the front side, three quarter back. So it just depends. I’ve done a bunch of facial, different facial expressions and stuff like that. So it’s fun, man. I love it.

Maurice Cherry: Yeah. So it sounds like it just varies pretty much based on what they have, what they need to get done.

Joshua Leonard: Right.

Maurice Cherry: Let’s switch gears here just a little bit. I do again want to go into talking about Team Supreme and especially about the Joshua Leonard Foundation. I’m curious to hear about that, we’ll talk about that later. But tell me about where you grew up.

Joshua Leonard: I’m actually a military brat. So I was born in Miami and we left Miami after hurricane Andrew, went to Alaska. So I lived in Anchorage for a little bit, then we moved to Maryland. So I was in PG County for a little bit, then we went to Biloxi, Mississippi, where hurricane Katrina hit, so I got evacuated to Atlanta. So I kind of grew up everywhere, but born in Miami.

Maurice Cherry: Okay.

Joshua Leonard: But, yeah. So now, residing in Atlanta until I have to go to LA to really start production on the shelf. So.

Maurice Cherry: When did you move from Miami?

Joshua Leonard: Oh, man. Hmm.

Maurice Cherry: Hurricane Andrew was like, what, ’90…

Joshua Leonard: I think it was in ’90…

Maurice Cherry: ’92, ’94? [crosstalk 00:05:30].

Joshua Leonard: ’92. I think it was ’92. I’m not quite sure. I don’t really remember. I was a lot younger at the time, but I just remember riots. There was a lot of riots out there at the time. Yeah, it was rough. It was rough at the time in Miami.

Maurice Cherry: With all of this moving around because you’re, like you say, a military brat, moving from city to city like this, was creativity something that was a part of your childhood during this process?

Joshua Leonard: Yeah, definitely. So I’m the baby out of two more older brothers and one of my older brothers, he taught me how to draw Garfield when I was really young, I think I was in kindergarten. And I’ve always, once I learned how to draw Garfield, I just never stopped, never stopped, always drawing in class, getting in trouble drawing and even moving around a lot. I just, I never stopped. I’m real good at sports. I got recruited in D1 Football, track scholarships, play baseball, basketball, but I never stopped drawing. I always had that kind of that thing to fall back on. Even though as a kid, I knew I would be an artist, but I thought I was going to be a professional athlete, which I could have, blew my knee out. So everything happens for a reason. I’m grateful for that. I’m doing what I’m supposed… I’m put here to make this cartoon and change these lives. So I’m real, I’m thankful for that.

Maurice Cherry: What were some of your favorite animated shows and movies and stuff growing up?

Joshua Leonard: Yeah. So I came from a strict background, obviously, military, but mother was real religious, so I wasn’t allowed to watch a lot of crazy stuff. So I grew up on Looney Tunes, Chuck Jones, some Disney, some Nickelodeon. I watched Doug, I’m a big Doug fan, but mainly Looney Tunes. Man, I love Chuck Jones. I love the style that they put in into the Looney Tunes characters. And that’s kind of what made me fall in love with animation, like the frame by frame animation, because I’m a traditional animator. I do the frame by frame stuff, which takes forever, but it looks the most beautiful. So.

Maurice Cherry: When you say frame by frame, what do you mean?

Joshua Leonard: That is drawing every single frame, right? If you pause a film and it’s just step by step by step by step, that means every single drawing. So if I’m drawing somebody waving, I have to draw every single drawing. Right now, you’re seeing a lot of puppet animation on TV where they can just move the hand and then do this and it doesn’t look as good.

Maurice Cherry: Hmm.

Joshua Leonard: [crosstalk 00:07:52] which shows are kind of puppet animation because they’re real stiff when they move. And then you can also tell when Disney does their frame by frame animation, Cinderella and all that stuff, Aladdin, that’s all frame by frame. It’s beautiful to look at.

Maurice Cherry: Is the switch from frame by frame to puppet, is that just how the industry is going? Or is that because of technology?

Joshua Leonard: Yeah, it’s both. It’s both.

Maurice Cherry: Okay.

Joshua Leonard: So you have studios that is cheaper doing puppet animation. Because what you’re doing is basically 3D, except you’re doing a 2D character. So you have a… that’s where I would come in at, I would design a character, flat 2D character, and if somebody else would come in and rig it, and then rigging it is adding the bone structure inside it is, that way, they can move the puppet. You can grab this little elbow right here and make him raise his arm or make a wave or whatever it’s going to be, but, yeah. That’s why it’s a lot easier than drawing every single picture. You just draw one character and then you can move him around like a puppet.

Maurice Cherry: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Joshua Leonard: But I like old school, frame by frame.

Maurice Cherry: I really, when I was growing up, I really like, I like Looney Tunes. I really like Tex Avery.

Joshua Leonard: Tex [inaudible 00:09:02]. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, [crosstalk 00:09:04].

Maurice Cherry: Yeah. The Tex Avery cartoons, the wolf and droopy dog. I love [crosstalk 00:09:08].

Joshua Leonard: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. They had the good punch lines and yeah, they were definitely ahead at that time, Tom and Jerry, all of that stuff was really dope to me. So, [crosstalk 00:09:17].

Maurice Cherry: So because of that, I’m curious, how did that play a role in the development of your style of animation? You said it’s frame by frame, but did you get other influences from those series?

Joshua Leonard: I mean, frame by frame animation is frame by frame animation. It’s really, if you have to draw every single movement, you’re getting, you grab them from everywhere. But definitely, Chuck Jones, Disney, obviously, Fleischer brothers, Tex Avery, so yeah, I studied all of that stuff and it’s so many more. Aaron Blaise, he did a lot of stuff. I think he did the character design for the Beast in Beauty and the Beast, animated the Beast, so a lot of other animators that I studied, the cartoons that I watched and learned from. But yeah, definitely.

Maurice Cherry: So your brother teaches you how to draw Garfield, right? So he shows you this one character. When did you I guess first know that you are good at art, period? When did you first [inaudible 00:10:16], “Oh wait, I could do this, not just as the one thing that my brother taught me.”

Joshua Leonard: I think that’s about when, because I was real young. I mean, we’re talking about kindergarten. So I don’t know if I was five, I don’t remember how young I was, but once I drew that, I mean, it was just a straight headshot of Garfield and it’s easy to do. So ever since then, I’ve always taken an art class or some type of, anything dealing with art, I was taking it, but elementary school, middle school, high school, always to the art class and always aced the art classes.

Maurice Cherry: So you’re in Miami, you’re moving again between all these different cities, you’ve got this passion for art and animation, when did you I guess really decide you would pursue it? Because-

Joshua Leonard: Yeah.

Maurice Cherry: … if you mentioned earlier that you wanted to be an athlete-

Joshua Leonard: Right.

Maurice Cherry: … you got drafted D1, where was the split there between athletics and animation?

Joshua Leonard: Absolutely. So like I said, I was always… I come from an athletic background and so I think around probably high school, maybe 9th, 10th grade, I was getting a lot better at art. I was still trash, but I got a lot better. But I was still an athlete and I was still getting recruited and all of that, but it was a fallback thing. I knew I would go pro or do something like that, but at the same time, even me being a pro, I was going to still open up an animation studio or something like that. Probably high school while I can definitely learn a little bit more. But also, living in Biloxi, Mississippi, there’s not much to do out there. They got the military base. I actually started off as a graphic designer because there’s no animation in Mississippi. So that was kind of a hinder for me and I didn’t like that, but I do love graphic design as well, not as much as animation, obviously, but I do, I still love fonts and character fonts and all of that type of stuff and motion graphics and regular graphics.

Joshua Leonard: But when I came to Atlanta, that’s when it really got like, okay, this is why I’m here. This is what it’s going to be. This is what I’m supposed to be doing.

Maurice Cherry: Yeah. And you said that happened as a consequence of hurricane Katrina.

Joshua Leonard: Right. So what happened was 2005, I think, hurricane Katrina came.

Maurice Cherry: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Joshua Leonard: Yeah, 2005. So I got evacuated here. My daughter was also born during hurricane Katrina, so Katrina hit [crosstalk 00:00:12:35]-

Maurice Cherry: Wow.

Joshua Leonard: … August 29th, my daughter was born September 6th. So I was homeless. Yeah, I lived right on the beach. I was going to William Carey College in Biloxi Gulfport, and when I came back, it was nothing there, man. It was a slab. It was crazy, man. All those big mansions on the water, they were gone. They were gone. Have you big old 20 foot deep holes. And I mean, crazy, crazy, looked like the end of the world. But like I said, everything happens for a reason. So as bad as it was, I’m grateful for it. I mean, it was bad, like a movie almost. You couldn’t get water. You can only pump a certain amount of gas. I mean, it was a lot of people going crazy out there. But talking about bathing and the same bathwater as everybody else in that house with, I mean, it was rough, man. [crosstalk 00:13:25].

Maurice Cherry: Wow.

Joshua Leonard: So I got evacuated to Atlanta, daughter was born and I kind of just followed her and her mother back to Biloxi to kind of help them out. And now she’s here. So I came back and I’ve been here since 2014. Been the best, best thing ever. Ever since I moved to Atlanta in 2014, Atlanta has been so good to me. It’s been really, really a great move for me.

Maurice Cherry: Oh, that’s good. That’s good. So before that move though, between you sort of getting to Atlanta, had your daughter, then you went back to Biloxi, were you still working on animation during that time there or were you just focused on getting back to Atlanta?

Joshua Leonard: No. At that time I was just, I think I was just working.

Maurice Cherry: Yeah.

Joshua Leonard: So I started working at Home Depot. Yeah, the animation really started when I was in Atlanta. When I came, when I got evacuated here, I started to go to the Art Institute to see if I can get in. I didn’t get in, in 2005 during hurricane Katrina. But I was just glad, because I had too much debt, that’s the reason why, I had too much debt at the time. But just, when I came to Atlanta, then know they had a SCAD out here and art institute and all these animation studios, I was like, man, this is perfect. But I said, man, I’m going to do what I love to do and that way, I don’t ever have to retire. And that’s why I stayed with it and I don’t have to get… I don’t have to tackle these big old 230 pounds running backs anymore and get hit by big linebackers anymore. I can stay healthy and just draw, man. So, yeah.

Maurice Cherry: What was your time like at the Art Institute of Atlanta?

Joshua Leonard: It was good for me. It was good for me. And a lot of people, they have different, you read a lot of bad stuff and you read some good stuff. I think it depends on the person. I remember, man, when I went 2014, shout out to Mr. Myvett who was my president of that school at the time, he told me, kind of pulled me to the side, because I was on President’s List the whole four years I was there. I graduated with a 4.0 top of the class, I was the commencement speaker, me and Rep. John Lewis. We spoke, but I remember Mr. Myvett kind of pulled me to the side, he’s like, “Man, look, this school, you have to brand yourself. That’s what this school is good for. You got to brand yourself.” But I took that to heart and that’s what I did.

Joshua Leonard: I remember, I would go to class with sweatpants on and an Under Armour shirt, but I sat in the front, right up front, passed everything, straight As. And the more I did it every quarter, the teachers are like, okay, [inaudible 00:15:52], I got the tight shirts on with the muscles, okay, get straight As. He’s not playing around.

Maurice Cherry: Yeah.

Joshua Leonard: And I kind of let my teachers know, I was one of the oldest one who was in there anyway. And I remember talking to kind of my younger peers who weren’t really getting that work done, I’m like, “Man, you don’t even have to work after this. You just go home and play video games. Why aren’t these projects done?” I got to go home. I mean, I get off out of class, man, I worked full-time jobs. So I get up at 3:00 in the morning.

Maurice Cherry: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Joshua Leonard: And then I have all my stuff done and everything like that. So I’m trying to tell him, “Man, this school costs way too much money for you all to be playing around.” So I kind of went in there with the mindset, I’m out to kill all the competition I can up here while I’m here and everybody will know that I went to this school and that I did well at this school. And I loved it, man. I would tell my teachers, “Look, you might not be able to tell this person that their work is trash, but you can tell me. You got to be honest with me. This is going to make me [crosstalk 00:16:47].” So some kids didn’t like that. Teachers would get in trouble because they were too honest to the kids. I’m 100% with that. You got to… truth hurts, but you got to, if it’s trash, you let me know.

Maurice Cherry: Yeah.

Joshua Leonard: And they will let me know. I feel like this could be better. I said, “Okay, no problem. I’ll go back and change it. Let’s make it better.”

Maurice Cherry: So once you graduated, do you feel like the Art Institute kind of prepared you for the animation industry? Did they sort of get you ready for the next step of life?

Joshua Leonard: Yeah, absolutely. Because even as a freshman, I was already doing work for big time animators. I wasn’t getting paid, but I worked on a short film called Mila, which is not out yet, but what I did, and people, especially younger kids, I guess they think I’m joking on, I mean, LinkedIn and stuff like that, social media, all I simply did, I remember seeing a post on it on Twitter. It’s a short film, shout out to [inaudible 00:17:46], she’s the one that’s producing it and she worked at Dreamworks. So now, she’s over [inaudible 00:17:52] up in Canada, so big time animator that kind of mentored me that I met on social media, and all I did was send a message. I said, “Hey, I’m a…

Joshua Leonard: And all I did was send a message. I said, “Hey, I’m a freshman at the Art Institute… I love to help out any way I can.” Boom. And they wrote me back, “Hey, okay, well this is a kind of a free opportunity when I… This is just people that want to help out.” And I’m like, yeah man, absolutely. This is how I’m going to learn. These are industry people and that’s what I did and it’s been the best relationship even to this day. So matter of fact, if it wasn’t for [inaudible 0:00:00:27], she’s the one that helped me with my resume and because I had, my website was pure animation. She’s like, “Nah, take that off, you’re a character designer. That’s what you’re going to be known as a character designer. That’s what you’re the best at. Take the animation off, do this stuff.” My animation won best of show and all of that. You’re a character designer, trust, me, you do this. And once I changed all this stuff, that’s when Nickelodeon hit me up. So I was like, maybe [inaudible 00:18:51].

Joshua Leonard: Super dope, man. But yeah, I feel like Art Institute really helped me out. Me, specifically, like I said, the teachers were a 100% honest with me. So that’s what I was really grateful for. You have some teachers say, “Man, you can’t graduate from here and then get a character design guy.” I did, but I don’t think he was talking to me specifically because like I said, I went in there to kill all the competition. I wanted to really, I wanted them to know who I was. And anything I could do, I was asking questions. Anything, I can do this. It was too much money. You spending all that money, you better get as much as you can out of it. Ask everything you can, learn as much as you can. That’s what I did. But yeah, I felt like they really helped me out a lot.

Maurice Cherry: And I mean it sounds like you had a mission though also going-

Joshua Leonard: I did.

Maurice Cherry: … into school-

Joshua Leonard: Yeah, I did.

Maurice Cherry: Just to kind of give you just a little bit of background. So I’m in Atlanta too. I don’t know if I mentioned that or if I said that earlier-

Joshua Leonard: No, I didn’t know that.

Maurice Cherry: I’ve done some advising at the Art Institute of Atlanta. So they have this thing called the… What’s it called? The Professional Advancement Group or something like that. It’s something where basically the faculty at the Art Institute of Atlanta, they talk to designers and folks in the industry that are in Atlanta and they sort of like talk to them to get a sense of what are the things that we should be teaching students. The industry is changing a lot. And so schools can often be very lax at keeping up with that.

Maurice Cherry: And so they’ll ask us, “Well, what are the things that you’re looking for when you’re trying to hire? What are the skills that you want to see in? If it’s the web, of course the big thing is UX and product design or something like that. And there are people that come through that are traditional like visual designers, graphic designers, and the conversation tends to get more about, at least from what I’ve seen when I’ve went to talk to them, the conversation ends up devolving into just like nostalgia about their time there. Or it’s teachers complaining that the students don’t have enough initiative to do more things. And I’ll tell this to students too, when you’re putting your portfolio together, for example, depending on the position that you’re looking for, you have to be able to tell a story.

Maurice Cherry: You have to be able to show your thoughts behind why you’ve done certain things, what the certain decisions are that you’ve made in particular designs that you’ve done. Because otherwise it’s just a picture book. And anybody can take, like there’re all kinds of mock-up things that you can get on the web for free or for cheap. And you can just throw your logo in there and it makes it look like you did a professionally shot campaign or something. And that’s not the case. What was the rationale behind that? Why did you make these decisions? Did you talk with the client? Did this serve the business goals? And I mean that’s of course if that’s what you want to do with design, but it’s sort of boiled down to making sure that students go into school having that initiative that they need to get something out of this experience other than just a degree. And it sounds like for you, you went into it with a plan, pretty much.

Joshua Leonard: Yeah. And I feel like that’s, you had to, you had to, man. Because I mean that’s the mentality I had. I want to learn as much as I can, I’m spending this much money, I’m going to use every outlet I can. And I did work. I mean this was as a freshman man, I was doing work for NFL players, logos, anything that I could put on my resume as a freshman. I had business cards already. I wasn’t playing around man, I really wanted to brand myself at the school. And then once the school started noticing, they started getting behind me. Like, this interviews. I was getting interviews and they would put me on stuff and I mean just everything. Plugging me in certain things and it was really good for me, really good for me. So I’m real thankful for it.

Maurice Cherry: Nice. And so you’re here in Atlanta, a lot of the big animation studios are out on the West coast. You kind of alluded there a little bit about having to move from Atlanta to Los Angeles. Is that happening in the near future?

Joshua Leonard: So here’s what it’s going to be. People that don’t know the animation industry is less than 3% black in it. It’s really bad. The diverse is getting better, but it’s still really bad. I have Leonard Studios here, I have an LLC right now. So after I go out to LA for Team Supreme and we start production, I might have to stay out there for like two, three years. I’m coming back to Atlanta. I’m building a studio out here. I’m doing my Tyler Perry thing out here. I want a big facility, animation. I mean a real, real, that’s where I’m going to be investing my money in. I’m already looking at buildings and land and that was my thing like. And the crazy thing about Atlanta and LA, LA shows me a lot of love as far as jobs and stuff. Like I said, Disney had me out there, gave me the tour.

Joshua Leonard: I was going to be a character designer for Devil Dinosaur and Moon Girl on Marvel, but they went another direction, which is, that’s perfectly fine. I’m thankful that I got the opportunity to go out there. They gave me a tour, I got to meet everybody. Just for them to consider me. That was major, stuff like that. I did the special Olympics. Special Olympics flew me out to LA and I was in a high rise all the way at the top in a suite and I did an interview live with all these celebrities. Kobe Bryant’s sister was there with her daughter. I think she’s a chef or something like that. But I mean like LA showed me a lot of love. I can’t get a job out here in Atlanta at an animation studio.

Maurice Cherry: Really?

Joshua Leonard: [crosstalk 00:24:29] It’s crazy man.

Maurice Cherry: Wait, wait, wait, let’s talk about that actually because… So I’ve done, for folks that have listened to the show for a while, they know that, well, one thing that I try to do is I always try to talk to folks here in the city because Atlanta is this weird outlier in the-

Joshua Leonard: It is, it is.

Maurice Cherry: … creative industry and that for design animation certainly there’s something about Atlanta and the city and the culture that breeds this immense amount of creativity in a lot of different fields. In music, art, fashion, film, TV, et cetera. And there are certain industries that have taken advantage of that. Most notably probably television and film, but then like Zine or even like what you’re talking about with animation, it’s still something where you have to go to like New York or LA or somewhere else to get the opportunities and they’re not here. Which you would think Atlanta has Cartoon Network and Adult Swim. You would think, well I mean, that’s one company, but. I didn’t know that it was that… Is it bad? Is it really bad out here for animation?

Joshua Leonard: Did you know a lot of people don’t know this, there’s over 90 animation studios in Georgia.

Maurice Cherry: Wow.

Joshua Leonard: In Atlanta. Yeah. Yep.

Maurice Cherry: Wow.

Joshua Leonard: And I’m a part of a group called [inaudible 00:07:47]. So it was a lot of SCAD members and that’s the thing. I think that’s why I don’t really get looked at out here like that because I didn’t go to SCAD. I almost did. I’m like, Art Institute, way cheaper. I’m going to have to go here instead and we had SCAD teachers and all that. I know everybody over there at SCAD and, but yeah, and that’s, it’s crazy because you see a lot of SCAD people at these companies, Turner and Cartoon Network. And so I think it is, I’m still black for one. The animation industry is still going to be extremely hard for me to get in and I get that.

Joshua Leonard: But at the same time I have no problem with somebody who’s better than me. I will, 100%. You know what? You’re right. That was the right move. You’ve got a good dude right there. He’s better. [inaudible 00:26:31] But-

Maurice Cherry: Do you think-

Joshua Leonard: … and that’s how I have a chip on my shoulder right now.

Maurice Cherry: You do?

Joshua Leonard: I feel, oh yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And that’s why I’m building this studio. That’s where the whole Tyler Perry mentality came from. Like you know what? Man, if I can’t get hired, these other companies is going to have to… We’re going to have to battle. We’re going to have to battle and my cartoons are going to be better. That’s what’s kind of frustrating. I’m like man, with Team Supreme, not one studio in Atlanta? I would be jumping on this. But do you know what studios come? LA, Canada, all the other ones.

Maurice Cherry: Yeah. There’s big animation in Canada. [inaudible 00:27:08].

Joshua Leonard: Oh, Canada’s huge, Absolutely, yeah, they’re huge. And then Toon Boom, is a shout out to Toon Boom. They sponsor me. So I get software from them. But yeah, I mean it’s crazy. Atlanta has been great to me. Don’t get me wrong. I love it. I love, I’m real grateful for all my connects out here. Because I know a lot of people in the industry, especially the music industry, but the animation part of it is still kind of tricky. Still, kind of tricky. I’m like, man, look, I will be a janitor at Cartoon Network or Bento Box. Just get me in the door. I’ll leave artwork all over the place so they will be like, “Man, who does this?” I’ll make myself known. It’s, you can even get in. But then I got, I know people that just graduated that got hired at Bento Box this year. It’s like eh, it’s kind of frustrating. But at the same time I’m very patient. I know I have a good brand on my hands so I just stay with it, man. Just stay with the [inaudible 00:28:01].

Maurice Cherry: Do you think, because we’ve got an Art Institute and there’re other schools that have design programs and such. Do you think there’s maybe too much talent here and not enough work? Well clearly, There’s not enough work is what you just said, but. Do you think there’s too much talent here?

Joshua Leonard: No, I don’t think, I mean I think it’s a lot of talent, but I just think that… Here’s the thing. So my portfolio day, we didn’t have any studios come out to our portfolio day. I’ll be honest with you. None of them came. But-

Maurice Cherry: And what year was this?

Joshua Leonard: This is 2018 and I’m not mad at that because if the seniors are not putting out work that’s good enough, like the years before. Why would you waste the time? So I did my due diligence on my own. Like I said, I branded myself. I was like, look man, here’s my portfolio. Boom. As a, I think I was a junior, I got paid $6,000 to do a 32-second commercial for a client. This is, I mean I’m still in school and working full-time and running Leonard Studios, LLC with the NFL players doing this stuff and I was the best thing.

Joshua Leonard: And that’s just from social media. Me, posting artwork, $6,000 man, it’s easy. It took a while because I did… It was frame by frame animation. But I mean it is a lot of talent here. I still think it’s kind of cliqued up. I still think it’s kind of cliqued up with the whole SCAD and artists 2 thing. I do think it’s two different monsters and that’s fine. That’s fine. I’m all about being fair but I do believe certain studios will look out for their friends and their guys. That’s unfortunate, but it’s life, man.

Joshua Leonard: Well, I mean that same thing happens too, unfortunately in the design industry, that whole pipeline, companies and schools and like if you didn’t go to that school then you don’t get in. I’ve been in the design industry for a long time and I didn’t go to design school. I went to Morehouse here in Atlanta, majored in math, like I have no formal design background at all. Everything has been self-taught. And luckily the design industry is lenient in that way and that you can make a living without having actually gotten a degree of some sort in the field. But there are opportunities, I know that I’ve been shut out from because I didn’t go to design school and I’ve heard it explicitly. I’ll give you another example. I went to, not I went to, I had a job at AT&T, this was in 2000. Actually this might’ve been about the time you first came to Atlanta, this was in 2006. And I got a job at and AT&T in Midtown at the big tall AT&T tower.

Joshua Leonard: And everybody that was on the design team went to Art Institute of Atlanta. They were graduates, friends, et cetera. And I was the only one there that did not go to Art Institute. And I remember that first day, I’m like doing a tour and everyone’s, “Hey, what’s your name? Blah, blah, blah. Did you go to Art Institute?” That was the first question, not where did you go to school? Or when did you graduate from Art Institute? I said, “No, no, no. I went to Morehouse College.” “Oh, where’s that?”

Joshua Leonard: Oh, wow.

Maurice Cherry: I mean, well, like if you look out the window.

Joshua Leonard: Right, it’s right there.

Maurice Cherry: You see that green roof way off in the distance? That’s Morehouse. It’s here. So I get that. I totally understand that thing. But wow, I didn’t know it was still so pervasive. That sucks.

Joshua Leonard: It’s tough, man. And you know it was crazy. I got a couple friends that work at the CNN Center, so I got a good buddy of mine that he’s up there and he always sends me stuff. He’s like, “Man, you can do this way better.” Yeah, I could. And he like, “Man, look, send me your resume. I’m going to do this, Boom. I’m going to drop it off.” And we’ve done that like three times. Nothing. The one thing I do think I’m put here, actually, I know I’m putting it to create this cartoon and do this Team Supreme stuff.

Joshua Leonard: And I believe that’s why I keep getting shut out as far as Atlanta goes with animation [inaudible 00:13:50]. So it kind of gives me a little more motivation to just strictly grind on Team Supreme. Like I said, we got the book coming with some crazy technology attached to that. Just came from the Children’s Hospital of Atlanta yesterday. So we’ve got big partnership with them. I went and spoke at Novartis, which is a big pharmaceutical company in New Jersey, so they pay me, I went out there to speak at the disability mentoring day, had a blast. So it’s a lot of outside stuff that I get more… I like a lot more anyway, as it pertains to Team Supreme, it’s starting to really move.

Maurice Cherry: Let’s talk about Team Supreme then. Because for folks that may not know or may not have heard of Team Supreme, can you just tell us a little bit about what it is?

Joshua Leonard: Yeah, so Team Supreme is a cartoon that I’m creating about a group of kids who have a disability, but the disability is their superpower. So imagine a Marvel, but all of the characters are inclusive. So I have a character that has spina bifida. I have an amputee, I have a deaf character, my main character has autism. I have a deaf character, blind, sickle cell. So basically I wanted to create a whole universe of these inclusive characters, every type of disability, diabetes, anything and all these character would be the forefront instead of kind of hidden in the background, so. And that’s kind of where Team Supreme came from. I was like, man, you know what, for me being a person of color and growing up you didn’t see a lot of characters that look like us. I’m like, man, not only am I going to make a character that looks like me, I’m going to give him a disability and make this age a cartoon about disability and special needs.

Joshua Leonard: Because I know everybody in the world knows somebody or has a family member. This will be so big that it will touch so many souls. And not only just motivate kids, but it’ll help the parents. And so that’s what it’s about. So I’m actually still developing it. I have Lena Waithe and Hillman Grad on board as producers and-

Maurice Cherry: Nice.

Joshua Leonard: … and Jason Weaver. So everybody knows Jason Weaver from Lion King. He plays Simba, he’s in ATL, big mentor of mine, great friend, shout out Jason Weaver. Shout out Lena and Richie. I have a writer that writes for the show Quantico. So shout out to Jazelle and she’s actually partially deaf. So super dope and I’m super excited about the next steps, which is us pitching to a bunch of studios, Disney, Nickelodeon, Netflix. So we moving forward.

Maurice Cherry: Nice. When I told people that I was interviewing you, the main question they asked me is, “when is Team Supreme coming out? When is it getting animated? When is it coming out?”

Joshua Leonard: Can you tell folks about the development cycle when it comes to animated works?

Maurice Cherry: Yes, I can. That’s a great question because it gets frustrating and I get it. Because this is, man I think I started touching on Team Supreme around 2014, kind of teased it and it went viral. Even that next year, they like, “When is it going to be available? When is it going to be out?” And I remember I was in two car accidents back to back days when I was at the Art Institute. The first one I was at a red light in a car, just totaled my car in the back. Had to stop. So I had to get five epidurals. So as I’m home I had my Cintiq on the bed and I’m drawing.

Maurice Cherry: So what I did, I animated a little one-minute clip. This is old, old and that’s what you’re seeing in the little preview and that’s why all the characters look totally different. Because I was still developing, I’ve learned some stuff. I was still learning how to animate so I was playing around with it. So the development process is long in itself. That can take a year or two. And then you’re talking about a cartoon like mine that’s so important and serious that you don’t want to step on any toes. My cartoons taking longer to make and create and develop because I have to make sure everything is 100% true to life. And it’s correct. The words that we use are true and the proper.

Joshua Leonard: Correct. The words that we use are true, and the proper words. We have to consult with people that have a disability, and specific disabilities to our characters. That’s another thing, so you’re talking to doctors and nurses and medical field industry people. It’s a lot of studying and stuff like that. Then you have to get the cartoon picked up, and that can take another year, or another two years just doing the contract, going back and forth with contracts and stuff, so it’s a lot. But my team is really excited about the next step, which is the pitching part of the process. We’re really close. Yeah, we’re really close to getting it picked up, and I’m really excited about it. Yeah, it’s a long process. It’s a long process, but I think for this show people will appreciate the length of this process, and see how important it is, because we don’t get everything right. So yeah, I’m really excited about it, but I apologize for the wait. Just bear with me if you can.

Maurice Cherry: I didn’t know UPS was going to be coming this late. I’ve been waiting around all day for them.

Joshua Leonard: Yeah.

Maurice Cherry: What was the last thing you were saying just now?

Joshua Leonard: I was saying that I just apologize for the wait, but with a cartoon like mine, everything has to be 100% correct, and I want to make sure it’s done right. I was saying how I think people will appreciate that we took this extra time to really consult with all of these different people. Disabilities are not just … Just making sure we’re getting everything right.

Maurice Cherry: It’s interesting you mentioned that it’s changed over time. Is that a worry when it comes to the development process, that you started out with things looking one way, and then maybe your personal style changed over the years bit by bit?

Joshua Leonard: Yeah. What happens is, I’m not worried. That’s just the development stage. You start off with some trash character designs, and I have a ton. Once I put out the Team Supreme, the art of Team Supreme, you’ll see all these bad designs, and these bad character models. The original, I had these kids, they were super young, kindergarten young, real cute, and big heads. But as I kept getting better with the drawing, more anatomy and stuff like that because I studied some more stuff, I started to get better, and just found my style that I really wanted to stick with, with this thing.

Joshua Leonard: One thing I was tired of seeing was the same look for cartoons, and they kind of joke around. I forgot what they call it, the [cow arts 00:02:30]? Just straight arms, the hands, real simple, but I get it. Kids don’t care as long as the writing is dope, and it’s colorful and fun. I get it, but hopefully we won’t have to do that for this one, because my characters, they’ve got meat on their bones, the fingers and the joints and all of that. But yeah, where I have the characters at now is where I’m happy.

Maurice Cherry: Got you. As folks who know, who have listened to this show for a while, I’ve personally had my own, I guess you could say, graphic novel idea that I’ve had for a long time. I’ve been like oh, I really need to find an illustrator to collaborate with, because I want to write the characters. I’ve come up with the characters, whether it’s just a matter of oh, well who do I find that can do the designs or something like that?

Joshua Leonard: Right.

Maurice Cherry: When it comes to that kind of process, because you’re the artist, how long did it take you to find a writer, to be able to get everything together with Team Supreme?

Joshua Leonard: Well, I’ve already … A lot of this stuff was done by me in the beginning. We had a whole … Team Supreme was supposed to be a short film. I was going to do a short film, and that’s why I was trying to raise the money so I wouldn’t have to work for a year. I was just going to animate the whole show for eight minutes by myself, backgrounds, everything, storyboard. I was going to do it all by myself. I didn’t raise enough money with the Indiegogo campaign. I think I ended up raising $6,000, which I’m super thankful for. I’m real grateful for that, but we had to go a different route. That’s kind of where we’re at right now.

Maurice Cherry: Yeah. Just so folks know, the animation, all of that, it takes time.

Joshua Leonard: Yeah.

Maurice Cherry: It’s not as simple as … I wouldn’t say as simple as one might think. I don’t know how simple they think it might be, but I guess maybe because we see so much animation now these days, I feel like we see much more animation now than we did when we were kids, between television and especially now with feature films and stuff. Animation is big now.

Joshua Leonard: It’s big right now. Yes, absolutely. Yeah, so frame by frame animation is what I was going to do. That commercial I was telling you about, the 30 second commercial? Just for 30 seconds it took me three months, but that’s me still working full time and going to school, just doing it whenever I could, after a weekend or so like that, but that was the whole process. I had to do tons of character design, I had to do character turnarounds. When you’re talking about a book or something like that, it’s still difficult to do. Then a lot of people don’t realize how expensive this stuff can get. Some people charge by the hour. Some people charge like, “Hey, do you want this? This is going to be a flat rate, $1,200,” or whatever they charge. I don’t know. I think as somebody … If you have your book, as long as everything is in detail you’ll save a lot of money, because you’re going to save the artist some time. I get a lot of people, “I need a logo.”

Joshua Leonard: “Well, what do you want?”

Joshua Leonard: “Man, I’m not even sure.”

Joshua Leonard: “Well, you’re going to spend extra money, because I’m going to have to do extra designs for you.”

Maurice Cherry: Yeah.

Joshua Leonard: What I usually do, I sketch something out. I don’t care if it’s stick figures. Sketch something out just so I’ll know where’s that in your mind, and then I’ll work around that. I’ll hook it up for you. That usually saves them a little bit of time. But as far as book illustration, I’ve never done one for a client, just because I don’t know … If it’s a serious client and they really understand the process, how the money and stuff works, and time and all of that, then I may think about it. But most of them want 34 pages for $500, which is not … The work is not worth the time I put into it, because it is a lot. You’re talking about backgrounds and painting and coloring, and character designers could add as well, so it just depends on the artist, I think.

Maurice Cherry: Nice. Okay. Let’s kind of switch gears a little bit. We’ve talked a lot about Team Supreme. We’ve talked a lot about just your story in general. I’m curious to know at this point where you’re at right now? Are you satisfied creatively?

Joshua Leonard: I am, yeah. I’m very satisfied. For me, like I said, just being out of school for two years, I’ve done probably more than a lot of people. I’m so grateful for that, because I know if I was in Biloxi I wouldn’t … Team Supreme still probably would have popped off, but I don’t even know if I would have made it happen if I was out there. You know what I mean? So where I’m at right now, I’m really grateful, man. It’s pretty dope. I have a lot of celebrity support behind it, so yeah, I’m very happy where I’m at.

Maurice Cherry: What keeps you motivated and inspired these days?

Joshua Leonard: Definitely my daughter keeps me motivated. Other artists keep me inspired. Seeing these kids, especially yesterday at Children’s Hospital, stuff like that is dope to me, man. I did not even want to leave. I met a little kid up there. Little kid had his fire red hair and he had fibrosis, I think he had. He came up with these little characters. He was telling me, “Yeah, I come up with these ideas for villains and good guys and bad guys.” I mean, really young kid, man. He might have been seven, and just his imagination was so dope. As they’re taking me on a tour of these places, they showed me this other little kid that drew two different pictures. One was him as a regular kid, and he has sickle cell, little [inaudible 00:43:47] kid. Then on the other side, it was him as a superhero. I was like, “That’s what Team Supreme is, man. That’s exactly why I’m doing this, because you guys do have super powers.” Seeing stuff like that, super inspiring, super motivational.

Joshua Leonard: Even when I’ve seen … If you guys are not familiar with Shaquem Griffin, he’s the one went to, I think … I know he’s from Florida, but he’s an amputee. He’s a linebacker, and he plays ball with half an arm. I remember he was in the combine, and they really doubted him. He wasn’t that good, and this and that. Then this dude ran a 4 340 at 230 pounds was unbelievable to me. To see that with just one arm, how in the world? 4 340, that’s Olympic speed, and if you’re 230 pounds running that fast? Super power, you know? Stuff like that, man, is really motivational to me, and very inspiring.

Joshua Leonard: I’ve seen a dude doing climbing a rock wall attached to his wheelchair. He had his seatbelt on the wheelchair, and he pulled the whole thing up on the rock wall.

Maurice Cherry: Wow.

Joshua Leonard: Man, crazy, crazy stuff. I’m thinking in my mind, why hasn’t anybody done anything like this? My thing is, I think it was out of fear. “Oh, I [inaudible 00:45:03]. If I don’t do it right, they’re going to rip you apart.” But that’s why I’m here, man. This is my project. I’m going to make it happen.

Maurice Cherry: Where do you think your life would’ve gone if you weren’t doing animation?

Joshua Leonard: Is that if my knee wasn’t messed up?

Maurice Cherry: Well, yeah. So you’d have stayed and been an athlete then basically?

Joshua Leonard: Yeah. I definitely would have played pro baseball and pro football, for sure. Like I said, my whole family is very athletic. My dad was a top running back coming out of Texas, blew his knee out. I’ve got a cousin Ray Butler that played for the Colts. Ike Forte, my uncle, he played for the Redskins and the Patriots. I’ve got a couple of cousins at Southern Miss right now. I’ve got one in high school that just graduated. One thinks he’s going to be going pro. He’s 6′ 4″, 350. Athletes are here, so yeah, I would definitely be a professional athlete somewhere.

Joshua Leonard: Oh, then in 2005 Hurricane Katrina came, but I was training as a boxer for the 2008 Olympics. But Hurricane Katrina messed me up, so I had to get evacuated out here and all this stuff, so it was a mess.

Joshua Leonard: In 2008 my best friend got murdered, so it really … That’s more motivation and more … Yeah, he was robbed and murdered in 2008, so that really motivated me and kind of inspired me to keep going. Matter of fact, Brent is the main character. He’s the dad in my cartoon. That’s that big dude you see.

Maurice Cherry: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Joshua Leonard: Everybody thinks that’s me. That’s not me. That’s my best friend. That’s me keeping Brent Jackson’s name alive. Good dude. He had a great heart, and he was real [inaudible 00:46:35], big dude, man, so that’s just me keeping him alive, and that’s how he was. He loved people, loved kids, but that’s where I get all my inspiration from, and motivation.

Maurice Cherry: What advice has stuck with you the longest? It can be life advice, career advice, anything like that.

Joshua Leonard: Life advice? Always stay humble. That’s from my dad, and he’s a big inspiration to me. Grew up poor in Texas, retired in the Air Force as a chief. He’s got three master’s degrees, a bachelor degree. He always gives me just life tips, right? “Hey, whenever you make it to the top, don’t forget to send the elevator back down,” stuff like that, so it stays with me.

Joshua Leonard: Let’s see. Career advice? Yeah, definitely just staying humble. You’ve got to … I was told animation studios and the industry doesn’t like those real shy people, especially an animation studio. They want to have fun in there. What I remember going to Nickelodeon, the first thing I noticed, everything was bright, colorful. Everybody was smiling. It was amazing to me. Then I went to Disney and they had puppies in each … People could bring their dogs to work and stuff like that. They want people with these personalities that fit. But man, I’ve gotten so many good career advices. Wow, that’s tough right off the top, man. That’s tough. I’d have to think about it a little bit more, but I’ve heard. That’s a good one. That’s a great question.

Maurice Cherry: Where do you see yourself in the next five years? I know Team Supreme is still in production right now, but we’re in the future now. It’s 2020. Come 2025-

Joshua Leonard: Billionaire.

Maurice Cherry: Okay. What is Joshua Leonard working on? What’s he doing? He’s a billionaire?

Joshua Leonard: No, I say that to say this. Money comes and goes. I’ve never really been … You obviously have to have money to survive, but like I said, that’s where being homeless comes in at. I appreciate the little things, so money, with $1 billion I’m all about helping people. That’s where the foundation and stuff come in at. The money’s going to come, especially with Team Supreme and what I do, speaking to students and kids and all of that stuff. I’m going to create the [steam 00:48:50] program. We do the field trips, I want scholarships, all of that type of stuff.

Joshua Leonard: But yeah, five years from now Team Supreme is probably going to be starting to work on a live action. It’s going to be major, man. This is a major project, and it’s limitless, really. It really is. But I just see Team Supreme really taking off real heavy, a worldwide household name. I mean worldwide. I get emails from Africa, Australia. There’s people thanking me for creating this for their son or their relative that has any type of disability, so super dope. I’m really excited about the next five years.

Maurice Cherry: Nice. Well, just to wrap things up here, where can our audience find out more about you and your work, and everything online?

Joshua Leonard: My website where they can find all the Team Supreme stuff is leonardstudios.com. That’s L-E-O-N-A-R-D, studios, S-T-U-D-I-O-S, dot com. Then social media is, ImJoshuaLeonard, and it’s just I-M-J-O-S-H-U-A-L-E-O- N-A-R-D. There’s two Joshua Leonards out there. There’s the one that … There’s the white guy that did the Blair Witch Project, so that’s not me.

Maurice Cherry: Okay.

Joshua Leonard: A lot of people-

Maurice Cherry: This is on Twitter or Instagram?

Joshua Leonard: This is on all levels. Yeah, it’s the same. As a matter of fact, if you add the … If you add that on Instagram, my Instagram has all of my sites on it, so you’ll be able to find the Team Supreme page, the Leonard Studios page, all of it, the website, email, anything.

Joshua Leonard: I also mentor kids or anybody. If you’ve got questions and stuff, I’ve got the email on there. I’m always open to give back and help people, so that’s about it, man. My main picture is me in a suit. I love wearing tailored suits, so you’ll see.

Maurice Cherry: All right, sounds good. Well, Joshua Leonard, I want to thank you just so much for coming on the show. One, for sharing your story. I had heard about Team Supreme a while ago, and I had seen the viral clips and everything. I was like, “Oh, this is pretty dope.” But to hear your story and to hear it in your own words, to talk about how you managed to overcome not just setbacks that have happened in life to you physically and professionally, but just even the emotional setbacks … Sometimes, especially in this industry where there’s not a lot of people who look like us, there’s not a lot of role models or people that we can look to for things. Still having the perseverance to move forward and to succeed, to not only do that, but just bring people up with you as well, to inspire the next generation, I think, is really, really awesome. Thank you for coming on the show. I appreciate it.

Joshua Leonard: Thank you so much for having me, man. I appreciate it. It was a lot of fun.


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