ANIMATION
My first visual love and the origin of Ratjock
At 14 years old I sat on the school bus looking at a notebook full of my own doodles and wondered "What if they came to life?". At the beginning I would draw pictures with sharpie on printer paper, using a computer screen as a backlight to onion skin the frames of each doodle. After tracing in Microsoft word and piping through a png animator I had a finished product. Eventually I invested in Adobe Animate, allowing me to make countless animations that I used for self-expression and storytelling. I branded myself as "Ratjock" and began making social media content and merch (anything from t-shirts to enamel pins).
COOLMAN COFFEEDAN
and how I worked for my biggest idol
My junior year of high school, I had developed my brand "Ratjock" with animated videos coming out every week and a box of merch I would bring to school everyday. Amidst the chaos I looked towards another animator on Instagram for inspiration, Coolman Coffeedan. At some random point, I Dmed him offering to make an iMessage sticker app for free because why not. To my surprise he responded and I began working for him. After creating iMessage and WhatsApp apps, I was then hired to maintain his GIPHY profile and to bring his videos from storyboard to finished product. This experience gave me insight into how mass-consumed content is made and taught me how to work on tight project deadlines even when I spend all day at school.
GIPHY
From my work with Coolman Coffeedan, I learned about GIPHY's online database and how to upload my own animations to it. I soon became an approved GIPHY artist, and uploaded countless of my own animations. To my surprise, within a week I had gained over 500,000 views. A year later I had over 1.5 BILLION views with the number still climbing today.
