Student Spotlight - Kirstie Peacock

“I decided to enroll in iAnimate as I have been working in 2D animation for three years now, and I wanted to learn how to grow and enhance my animation skills to make the switch to 3D animation.”

Kirstie Peacock is from the UK, and now she lives in Toronto to work as a 2D animator. She is a full-time 2D animator at Thought Café, where she uses After Effects to animate characters and do motion graphics for the Crash Course educational series on YouTube. Kirstie is a passionate animator that wants to influence children globally with her skills and talent in animation.

Kirstie is studying 3D character animation for a feature film standard. She enrolled in iAnimate because she believes that student workshops in iAnimate will accelerate her career from 2D to 3D animation.

Student Animation Journey

Kirstie took the following Feature workshops for students at iAnimate:

• Feature Animation 1 with Stephen Melagrano - Steam Roller Studios
• Feature Animation 2 with Jim van der Keyl - Singing Frog Studio
• Feature Animation 3 with Mike Walling - Bungie Studios
• Feature Animation 4 and Feature Animation 5 with Angie Jones - Spicey Cricket Animation

iAnimate is an animation workshop with a series of assignments. Animation students will use the assignments to practice professional skills. This will help students to become better professionals. They'll also get feedback, reviews, and critique from experienced instructors.

Here is how Kirstie showed her creative way of doing her assignments at iAnimate:

1. I first start with finding an audio clip that I feel can act out excitingly. After that, I always try to find engaging something for someone to watch and has a different range of emotions that I could act out.
2. I then plan how I want the character to act by thinking about their emotions during the performance and seeing if there are any exciting expressions I could explore before recording my reference for the shot.
3. After I'm happy with my reference, I start animating by blocking out my shot and getting the key poses right.
4. Once I'm happy with the blocking, I then move on linear and spline to refine the movement between the poses, get the breakdown keys in, and finalize the timing of the shot.
5. The last step in my process is to polish my shot by cleaning up any problem areas in the curves and making sure that every part of the body and face is moving ideally.

Kirstie learned the importance of acting out a shot and how beneficial using reference is for every shot she started. One of the strengths that she learned at iAnimate is how expressive acting is key to a good reference.

Kirstie's Student Reel

You can reach Kirstie via:

Q&A with Kirstie Peacock

iAnimate: What do you think of your online Instructor(s), and how did they help you?

Kirstie: Angie helped me push my ideas further and bring my characters to life. She is also incredibly supportive and shared my passion for every shot I worked on.

iAnimate: How did iAnimate help you to evolve as a character animator?

Kirstie: My instructors gave fantastic feedback, which has helped me see the finer details in my work and polish the shots that I didn't have before.

iAnimate: What kind of animator do you consider yourself after taking your workshop?

Kirstie:

“After taking classes at iAnimate, I feel as though I'm confident enough to take on challenging shots with a different range of emotions and performances. I'm ready to start any shot head-on and not shy away from animating a complicated piece.”

iAnimate: What kind of animation project do you want to work on?

Kirstie: I would love to work in a feature film or at a studio where I can continue learning and growing in my character animation.