My First Week at Nelvana

I was recently hired at Nelvana Ltd. here in Toronto on a five-month contract, and just finished my first week.

So far I'm really enjoying it. All the people I've met there are great and the environment is terrific.

My first couple days there were kind of strange. Normally when a person gets hired there it's for a particular series. But since I got hired there as an alternative to losing me to another company, they really didn't know what to do with me. I was basically shown my desk and then they said, "Alright ... have a good day."

So I set up some art books, and a couple action figures ... day-dreamed about the fact that my debt from last summer's L.A. adventure will be paid off completely in 2 months and fiddled around on the Unix computer that was in front of me.

Eventually they found some promo work for me to do, and then I was temporarily put on the design crew of a show called "Grossology", which is going to be fantastic when it's released. YTV for canucks, Discovery Kids for yanks.

I think I might be the youngest person working there though. Everyone else are seasoned veterans. The lady that sits next to me worked on Rock & Rule with Trevor Davies.

I'd take the fact that I'm the youngest as a bit of an ego boost if it weren't for the fact that they're all considerably better than me. I'm learning quite a bit though. I've had personal best designs three days in a row. Being around other artists, particularly those who know more than me, has really been helping.

Here's a sample character who's progressed over the course of a few days. He's just a background character, and I doubt he'll even be used in the actual production.

There are tons more. I don't think I've ever drawn so much in a single week before. I don't want to push my luck showing things that I don't know if I should though, so the old man will have to suffice for the time being.

I don't really know what I'll be working on after this. There are a bunch of projects I'd love to be a part of. Nelvana has really kicked it up a notch when it comes to hit new 'cartoon-networkish' type shows.

As for my home-life after taking a fulltime job ... well, that's another can of worms altogether.

Having freelanced for as long as I have, I've collected quite a roster of clients. And clients like their designer to do things for them, especially I've found, this week.

So I've been getting a good solid 4 hours of sleep per night, and the 3 hours of commuting each day doesn't help that at all (1 1/2 hour each way).

This weekend I'll be trying to get every possible thing I can wrapped so I can focus on a select few projects.

Anyways, that was my first week. I'll post pictures of my 'work space' as soon as I get all my toys and posters set up.