Bryan Sims is a Los Angeles based artist, a graduate of Art Center College of Design with a passion for visual development, story, character, and sketching.
He is currently designing at Disney TVA on Big Hero 6. Previously he worked at Wild Canary on the new Disney Junior show Miles from Tomorrowland.
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Get in touch with Bryan
- Website: http://bryansimsart.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bryansimsart/
- Tumblr: https://bryansimsart.tumblr.com/
Key Takeaways
“Stick to it if you are out of school and in “in-between” place, trying to find first job. Stick with it and keep working on your own artwork and try to get better everyday to move towards your goal!”
- Bryan wishes he knew that he didn’t have to go to an expensive school. There are many different roads to animation. There are a lot of smaller schools with strong programs that you can attend to develop your craft
- Bryan recommends to keep a strong network from the school, because in his case his schoolmates and friends spread out to Cartoon Network, Dreamworks, and Disney. He was able to get jobs thanks to them
- Bryan recommends the golden number of 24 pages for your portfolio. He used to have 32
- In Disney TV animation, everything is very separated, so know what you want to do and bring strong portfolio towards those areas. If you want to draw characters, show them figure drawing, life drawing, etc. If you want to do backgrounds show them background art, nature, outside painting, etc.
Resources mentioned
- School where Bryan went and now teaches: Art Center College in Pasadena
- Program for high school students that Bryan attended: CSSSA
- Smaller schools that Bryan recommends:
- Projects Bryan worked on:
- Illustrations for toy packaging – Skylanders
- Renegade animation studio projects
- Wild Canary animation studio – Tomorrowland – as a storybook artist
- Art tools
- Brushes in Photoshop
- Tuscan Red – PrismaColor Col-Erase pencils – he misses drawing traditionally
- Wacom Cintiq
- Pentalic sketchbook
- Moleskine sketchbooks
- Canson sketchbook / Strathmore sketchbook with spiral – he likes to draw big to fill pages
- Books
Special thanks to Bryan for joining me today. See you next time!
All artworks by Bryan Sims, used with permission
Episode Transcript
Announcer
Creative, artistic, happy! That’s you. There are endless possibilities for living a creative life. So let’s inspire each other. Art Side of Life interviews with Iva.
Iva Mikles
Hello, everyone, and welcome to the next episode of Art Side of Life where it’s all about how you can turn your creative passion into a profession. My name is Iva. And my guest today is an amazing illustrator character designer, a background and visual development artist from California, United States. He graduated from Art Center College of Design in Pasadena in 2012. And now teaches concept design in the entertainment design program there. He’s currently working on a Big Hero Six series at Disney TV animation. So please welcome Bryan Sims. And let’s get to the interview. So welcome everyone to the next episode of Art Side of Life. And I’m super happy to have Brian here. Hi.
Bryan Sims
Hi, thanks for having me.
Iva Mikles
How are you?
Bryan Sims
I’m good. How are you?
Iva Mikles
Good, good. And let’s start talking about the big round and some funny stories. We talked a bit before the recording as well. And maybe you can share some stories where you were creative as a child.
Bryan Sims
as creative as a child, I was I well, I think it all started with my my sister. I had a sibling rivalry. I think that’s what got me into drawing and art because I had an older sister who was better at me better at everything than me. So I remember one day, she drew a picture of the house. And I wanted to be better than her at something. And I remember I tried doing it and it was terrible. But then I realized that I liked drawing. And so I stuck to and I got a little bit better and better and better until eventually I was better than her. So that was like, like I I remember she’s older than me. And the one that I did was was almost sort of the same level as her and she’s three years older, and I was young. And I was like so that’s how I started. And I was obsessed with Disney as a as a little kid grew up in Southern California. So we go to Disneyland maybe once a year. And it was always like, unexpected when it happened. So it’s like that’s I’d always look forward to it. I never knew what was gonna happen. My parents weren’t telling me because I wanted to sleep the night before. So I was like, it could happen any day I wake up like, it’s today. And then I get to school.
Iva Mikles
It’s like, no, that’s another good thing.
Bryan Sims
But then I had a lot of friends that drew to an elementary school and we would draw a lot of like street fighters. And like Mortal Kombat, we would draw stuff like that. So I think that’s where it started from. And then eventually, in Junior High in high school, I got really, really into Disney and got obsessed with like the nine old men and Walt Disney. I was like the only like, high school kid giving presentations on all Disney. Like trying to do something cool. And I was like, well, Disney. But uh so I think in high school, I kind of realized I wanted to be an animation, I wanted to be an animator. And I went to the CalArts summer program Sisa for high school students. And I really fell in love with animation there. And I think that’s, that’s how my journey began.
Iva Mikles
Do you remember like the conversation with your parents or friends when you were like, Okay, I want to take this like professionally.
Bryan Sims
I think it was expected from a lot of people everybody would say, oh, like you want to go work for Disney when you’re like when you get older. And that was like my dream growing up want to work for Disney. I think there was a time when my parents wanted me to more go get a job out of high school, then to go to college, and then go try to pursue this. This career because when they’re my age had kids and like when they were in their early 20s. It was like, Well, this is what I did. I grew up like once I graduated high school, we got married and had kids and got jobs and like you should do that too. But I didn’t want to do that. But I think most people even my parents knew that that’s probably what I wanted to do.
Iva Mikles
Cool, cool. And was it difficult to get like a first job after college or How would you are kind of like the biggest turning points or decisions, what you had to do when you are like to get where you are now.
Bryan Sims
So, I went to, I wanted to go to Cal Arts for animation, and then decided against it and went to art center, because I wanted to hand draw animation. And it was at a time that it was dying out. And I saw that everything was moving into 3d. And I saw that Disney was closing down studios in Paris and forever the Florida. And I didn’t want to do 3d animation, I worked in Maya and I didn’t like it. So I went to art center instead, because I realized that I really wanted to design. So I went to art center, and went to the illustration program for entertainment arts, and graduated in 2012. And I got a job. So when you graduate, they do this kind of like speed dating, but with interviews with companies. So I got a job right away. So I started two days after graduation doing illustrations for like Toy packaging, for characters and for like, for Skylanders. And like a lot of like, toy products. And it was it was terrible. But that lasted only a couple months. And then I was out of luck for about six months, I had no work, I would get just like a random small, like, illustration job for like a week. And it nothing really happened until I got an email from somebody. So also when I was at Art Center, I had done a book illustration for some company. They were looking for a student to do cheap work. And I thought it was a perfect opportunity to get experience. And the guy that wrote the book was working for an animation studio. And he liked my illustrations did for the book, and recommended me for this job at renegade animation, doing these little illustrations for like their ABC Mouse. It’s like a preschool preschool thing. So that’s where it started. And then so I was getting work with that consistently until I got an email from while Canary, which was a new animation studio. I guess the one of the producers there had seen my work online. And I saw that they had been following me for a couple of months. And I was and they were a producer there and I was like I wonder what they do. They brought me in for an interview for a new show that they were doing called Miles from Tomorrowland for Disney Jr. And they had me do a test for it. And they like my tests. And they hired me on I was the first artists that they hired on to the production of the show. So I came in as what’s called a storybook artists because there’s no scripts really written at the point that are at that time, they just kind of had like outlines for scripts. And they had me almost do like beat boards like illustrating pitches that they would show the kids make sure the stories going like smoothly and reading well. And then once the show went into production, they moved me over to design but a lot of the designs I did for the the boards stuck to like the final characters and like some of the environments. So they saw my potential. And then I got so basically someone found me on and through through an art center website. And that’s how I got my first job.
Iva Mikles
Really cool. And so what was maybe like the best advice you ever received, or in also maybe the worst advice like over time when you are building your art career.
Bryan Sims
Best advice was, especially during the tough time is just to stick to it. Because there was times in the six months that I just wanted to quit. Because a month or two goes by and in new. You’d sending out emails every day, I would just be cold calling emails and like you finally hit a point where you’re like, Well, no one’s writing me back. And I’ve written everybody I can write I’ve tried for like every open position like I’ve tried for internships, junior positions, like anything I could apply for I applied for. And the best thing I could that I did is I just stuck to it. I went and I reworked my portfolio. I just kept working on my own work. And eventually I feel like I was improving because when you graduate from college, a lot of people expect to be A career ready or professionally ready, but that’s not the case a lot of the times, so you still need to work on your, on your stuff. If you’re is even even if you get hired right away, you should still be trying to improve. But I had those six months to really think about it, work on it, and rework my portfolio. And I think that kind of helped. I had an instructor at Art Center, and I kept bringing my work back to and he would kind of help me out. The worst advice I got, was, I had an interview for a it’s like one of the movie poster company to do kind of like sketch art, where you’re sketching up movie posters. And the guy looked at my portfolio, and he told me that I needed to go back to school, and that the work that I was doing was irrelevant and nobody does that type of work anymore. Yeah, and he said, it was basically like a, a basic portfolio for animation. And what he was looking at I guess, it didn’t it wasn’t the right fit for their company. But I what he was saying to me was the style of work that I was doing is not as like dead I need to go back to school I took the wrong major. He’s like we usually hire from this major at your school, not illustration. So that was the worst advice telling me to go back to school.
Iva Mikles
And what would you advise young artists or young creators now when they are just building a portfolio and they want to go for either the studio or just if they want to do what do you do now? What would you advise them to start with
Bryan Sims
being a young artists, I’m now there’s a lot of small schools you can go to the one thing that kind of bothers me is that I went to a really expensive school and I took out a lot of loans and I paid them off for a long time. And you don’t have to do that. Because now there’s a lot of options. There’s like CDA, there’s laughs I think is one in LA there’s a lot of programs out here to get you started in that direction. And to help you with your portfolio some of my teachers from Mark center teach at these places and like CDA, there’s working professionals so they they know what they’re looking at and what studios are looking for. So I would say those are good option if you don’t want to do the big CalArts Art Center because I’ve met people in animation that that didn’t go to these big schools was like you don’t have to go to like these brand names and then my advice is just be what I was constantly told when I was a student is just to keep draw drawing, draw everything around you and just just don’t stop doing it always have a sketchbook with you.
Iva Mikles
And what about the portfolio like if I want to go work for for Disney or other studio How would you build your portfolio how many pieces maybe would you put there or what you know, would you look for if you are hiring someone for like a team with you?
Bryan Sims
Well, at what I’ve heard is there’s like a golden number like 24 pages I think is the good amount to have. I tend to have like 32 Mines all over the place. But especially for I work at Disney TV animation, so everything there is very separated. So know what you want to do coming in because they have different positions if you want to paint there’s background painting and there’s a color stylist who paints all the props and characters. There are designers there’s prop designers character designers background or layout so going with a strong portfolio geared towards towards one of those they get kind of confused when they look at my work because I like to do everything I like to draw. I like to design characters and backgrounds and I like to paint them and and they don’t really do that Disney TV. So if you want to be a character designer, draw a lot of characters make sure that your shapes are being pushed the characters are being pushed, there’s good gesture good poses have life drawings in it. A lot of figure drawing, I got to figure drawing workshops weekly to try to improve and I struggle every time but a background painting have I would say, have backgrounds, painted backgrounds, but also paint from life, go to parks or go somewhere with interesting lighting painted. And depending on what you want to do gear your portfolio towards that, and have a lot of like, don’t have a bunch of backgrounds, if you want to be a background painter and then throw on some characters, that’s gets confusing to the person that’s looking through your portfolio.
Iva Mikles
Yeah. And do you have like a favorite tool? Where do you work with like, favorite pencil or, like, I don’t know, Intuos or Cintiq, when you’re creating your
Bryan Sims
artboards command Z. I’m doing prop design on Disney and I’m working on Big Hero Six. So there’s a certain style that everything has to have. So we’re constantly just doing the same line over and over and over until it’s perfect or like certain curves are like it. Like that’s, that’s not my favorite tool, but it’s one I use the most. There’s there’s brushes that I I love to use in Photoshop. But traditionally, my favorite thing to draw with is, let’s call this a color erase pencils. But the I think the Tuscan red.
Iva Mikles
And indigo blue, everyone is using the red that
Bryan Sims
I don’t like that one. I like the Tuscan red. So when I was in school I wanted, I wanted just my work to have that and I would go in and buy all the Tuscan reds every couple days and get new ones and I would just fly out because I would go through them, I would use them a lot. And I get really upset if I go in there and there was none. I wouldn’t buy a mole. But I buy like a majority. But that one that specific color Tuscan red. I love it. I miss drawing traditionally, because it’s a I have a different style. And I draw traditionally then when I’m working on a Cintiq because like when you’re drawing with a pencil or you’re drawing sideways, the Cintiq can’t really do that I have to be very direct and
Iva Mikles
and they also have like a favorite sketchbook you take around with you or yeah, when you are in cafes drawing people.
Bryan Sims
I have some teaching right now my TA just got me this little one. And it’s so nice. It’s I don’t know what it is. pen pencil like it’s really, really nice. It’s small. Yeah, they usually right now I’m going through I got this like, it’s pretty nice, like moleskin I think those are really great. But then there’s ones that they have at the school that I haven’t been able to find anywhere else. But I haven’t I just started teaching there again. So I need to go back and look, but it hasn’t been since I’ve been at school. I think they’re like 12 By not 1412 by 16.
Bryan Sims
They’re pretty big. Yeah, that sounds like giant sketchbook.
Bryan Sims
Yeah. And the pages have a certain field. I don’t know what brand it is. It could be like Canton, maybe. But it’s pretty big. And they’re the ones that have the spiral bound. So you can flip it. And but the hardcover,
Iva Mikles
yeah, so yeah, I didn’t know what is the name, but I know, I think I can find it. Like I put the the show notes afterwards.
Bryan Sims
Yeah, like I get really excited when I walk in and I see it. I’m like, Oh, I gotta buy it. Because I like to draw. I like to draw pretty big and just explore. And I like to fill pages with just dirty sketches, like rough sketches. And that gives me the kind of the room to do it. But also like the paper has a really nice feel when you use those terracotta Prisma colors.
Iva Mikles
Do you have like a favorite thing you always do when you’re designing characters? Or maybe what is the thing you kind of learned over the years? Like what is the most important?
Bryan Sims
Hmm, well, the thing I do the most when I’m drawing characters is I’ll make the expression while I’m drawing it and they don’t realize I’m doing it. Like I noticed a lot of times I used to sit around the story artists that my the last place I was at. And you could see when they’re trying to draw certain expressions. They do it too. It’s like you’re trying to feel where your muscles are pulling. Yeah, like the when I’m doing characters, I tend to I don’t know if it’s good or bad. I always start with the heads. I was trying to get good head shapes. But that’s that’s something I would do as a as a student too. And it was I wouldn’t always draw like to here to the chest and up and it always looked like I was scared to draw the rest of the body. But usually I try to figure that out. Sometimes I’ll just start with basic shapes for the, for the bodies. Usually, there’s a story moment, if I, if I’m doing like an illustration, and there’s characters in it, I’m usually not thinking too much. I’m thinking about the design, but I’m more interested interested to see what’s the best way I can pose these characters in a way that tells the story that I’m trying to tell. And usually, when I’m doing illustrations, I have a short amount of time because I’m doing it in my free time. So so I could probably spend a lot more time designing each element out. If I if I had all the time in the world, I would do that with designing the characters or design background, I then said do these rough sketches and drawings, and then I tighten those up a little bit, and I’ll pay them so when I’m doing the characters like that, it’s more like a storyboard artists would draw the very scratchy, very rough and just trying to get the gesture and poses, right, rather than focusing on the entire design.
Iva Mikles
So when you are when you have like, I don’t know, bathe character do you always use like, I don’t know, sharp shapes and then these like inking pose, and all of that, that is my thick stuff.
Bryan Sims
Sometimes I work on Big Hero Six, I, the style is very sharp, all the all the characters have a very, like sharp, there’s a lot of overlapping lines, like so I’m, I tend to be like when I draw now if I’m just drawing characters, I’ll tend to do that. All my characters lately that I’ve been sketching, they’re all very sharp, but then, but then I have to snap myself out of it. Because that’s the style that I’ve been working on, like all day. And sometimes they’re sharp, sometimes I like to keep them very if it’s a if it’s a bad guy I like like dry and kind of like heavier like, like one of my favorite villains growing up was mad mad at him. And she’s not very sharp. She’s very round. And like she’s kind of wacky. And I think I like to design if I’m doing villains that they have that sort of sense to it. Like they’re kind of silly. And not these just like dark evil. Like, I can never work in video games because I probably would just make everything very silly and not very, like intimidating. Scary.
Iva Mikles
Yeah, so they wouldn’t be like too dark or like the whole world and everything.
Bryan Sims
Yeah, I don’t remember what the quote is. What is like, villains aren’t really bad guys have just like misunderstood or
Iva Mikles
they always have the reason for it. So yeah,
Bryan Sims
they’re really not that like Captain Hook peer pans is picking them picking on them all the time. Like, yeah, you should feel bad for these these guys in the end.
Iva Mikles
It’s true. I agree. And I just wanted to ask you about some book recommendations or some other places to learn from, as you mentioned already some schools and then people have so many options about them maybe character design, like what would you give as a gift maybe?
Bryan Sims
What what does that give as a gift? One of my favorite books, I’m sitting by my books a book that I use a lot during Art Center. And a little bit after is I was obsessed with the Peter to save. And he has a sketchy passing it’s called a big thick book. That book is always there’s character designs in illustrations. And you see his sketches to like the final illustrations those that’s probably been my favorite book to look at. Like over the years I still love like if I’m not feeling very inspired. I usually will turn to books and that’s one that I go to a lot. Also the Disney toy they call these these books, the Disney archive Series. I love these books. These are great. The whole set. I would give these as gifts. You can see I use a lot there’s a lot of Yeah.
Iva Mikles
So what is it you are looking for in the book when you are doing the notes? Do you look for the pose or the story moment or what do you mark
Bryan Sims
sometimes I love the way that somebody painted something. So it’s probably like a lot of like Ivan Earl. It’s like tagged in there. It depends, like in the animation one I, that’s all poses, but I tend to, like put little things on poses that I do. Like. I like to do backgrounds and I like to do characters. So like anything that inspires me, I’ll tag it, unless I’m doing a specific project. And I’m like, Oh, I could use this towards what I’m doing. Like, if I’m doing like a small town, like, a lot of times, I keep trying to. Sometimes I’ll give myself little assignments, like stories. So like, I’ll do like Tom Sawyer. Like, I’ve read the book. So like, I’ll try design the little town that is no like a general store from that era. And then, like, a lot of times, I’ll pull from whatever movie can fit that most. Sometimes it’s it’s live action. But like, Lady in the tramp has a nice feel to it. It’s that’s a little bit modern. But some of the town like the shots of like, the train yard are really nice. So stuff like that. If it fits the world that I’m trying to think of. I’ll tag it. I’ll see. I’ll see what they did and how they use it, and what kind of lighting they have, how they frame certain images.
Iva Mikles
What about the projects you’re working on now, and something may be exciting coming up, which you can share, which is maybe not confidential anymore.
Bryan Sims
I’m doing tests for other shows at Disney right now. But I can’t really talk about those. I am working on big hero, we’re coming to the end of the first season. And so I’m excited for that to come out. I think the show is amazing. There’s a lot of really, really good artists that are working on it. And the story is really, really good. If you’d like to move you like to show I think it comes up November. So a couple of months from now. So November 2017. And I’ve seen a couple of the first few episodes and it’s I love it. Like if I didn’t work on it, I would watch.
Iva Mikles
Like, yeah, it’s good.
Bryan Sims
Yeah, it’s good. And then the thing I’m most excited for right now is I just started teaching at Art Center in the entertainment design program, so I mean, if there’s any young students out there that are young artists that are looking for a school, the road to go to art center.
Iva Mikles
When do you when do you start there
Bryan Sims
is I have so we’re in the middle of week two. So I have class Monday nights. So I’ve had two classes so far, oh, terribly, it was my first time teaching. And the last one went way back.
Iva Mikles
And so you will have eat all the time, once a week, and it will continue this year, next year. So people can sign up also later on, or they always have to sign up like now or in a half a year.
Bryan Sims
Well, for Art Center, you have to get your you have to apply to the school and be accepted into the it’s the entertainment Design major. They have an ever new animation track where they’re kind of gearing it where you can make your own little films and stuff. And I’m teaching second term students. So it’s kind of like a foundational class. And it’s called concept design. It’s going to be called concept design two, because they have one and two. So when you if you do decide to go to art center, it’s it’s through that track. Yeah. It’s once a week, and I wanted to do it this first semester and see if I’m even any good at teaching. So far, so good. Like, I think they’re understanding I got their first homework assignment back this week, and they came back with a really good work. And I like the direction that it’s going. So hopefully it just gets better and better. And then I can continue this moving forward.
Iva Mikles
And what about your personal project? Are you creating some new art brings or other stuff people can get from you or some online classes you will share later on? Maybe?
Bryan Sims
I don’t know anything about online classes. I’ve done CTN once. So I have it was it was I stopped prints from that, but currently don’t have anywhere where you can like purchase them. Usually people are just kind of messaging me if they’re interested in a print and then I just sell it that way I can I’ll send it to them. But current projects between work in the class are both taking up just about all my time. So if I get any little time to do like just a quick sketch or a quick Character illustration, I tried to fit it in. I’m trying to do the assignment with the class to kind of give them examples of what I would do if I was taking the class as like little demos. So I think that’s the only real thing that I am constantly working on outside of work. But it’s maybe like once a week, I’ll do like an illustration on I posted to my Instagram and Tumblr. I try to post once a week, maybe once every two weeks. I’m not too much on top of it.
Iva Mikles
You do networking, if you are like, not super active on social media? How do you find the new paid projects? Or, like, as you said, like, okay, when you are going for this main job type, or kind of what do you leave from as well?
Bryan Sims
Well, I live from, I have those two jobs. So those are like my main source of income. And typically, I hear of other jobs through friends from school, like we’re all working in the animation industry. So I have friends that are at Cartoon Network and DreamWorks and wild Canaria and friends there, I mean, and you’ll start to the longer you work in the industry, like everyone kind of spreads out, and you kind of have feelers everywhere, like you’ll have, you’ll know somebody somewhere, eventually. So if job postings do come up, you can always talk to your friend about it that’s at that studio, or, Hey, I hate to be that person. So I try not to do that. That’s, but sometimes, you have to do that. I realize a lot of times, knowing somebody who works on the show or know someone that does work on the show, is a much better way of getting a job than to just be apply through their website, or it’s good to know who you’re talking to, and to have a good recommendation from somebody. So that’s how I got a bit Disney, a friend that was working there, and she happened to know someone that was on speak here.
Iva Mikles
So to know people and just talk to others and just make connections. And they also know you right? So they know how you work? And what is your kind of like work discipline and like your other like art styles and stuff, so they can actually recommend you in a good way. Yeah,
Bryan Sims
I think it’s, it’s much easier. Once you’re in once you get your first job, it’s it’s much easier, moving forward to get more jobs. It’s just getting that first job that seemed like the toughest thing in the world is like, I just wanted to get my foot in the door anywhere. And then and then I would work work hard there and just hopefully, like do well and make a lot of connections. Yeah, it’s but just getting to that first job is that’s that’s always the tough part.
Iva Mikles
So then we just have to keep motivated and just go through the beginning.
Bryan Sims
Stay motivated, stick to it. Don’t Don’t Don’t give up on it.
Iva Mikles
And what would be the thing you kind of wish you knew before you started the whole art career or kind of like advice to young self.
Bryan Sims
Huh. Maybe the thing that I talked about before is you don’t have to go to a school like Art Center to get into animation that there’s there’s different roads to get there. That’s that’s like a financial advice that I give my younger self like you don’t need to kind of get loans out to or you don’t have to, like, get loans for the next 1015 years. Just to get into this industry that there’s there’s like other ways to get in. Yeah. But make Yeah, it’s it’s as tough as I thought it would be. It’s one of the things that I’m still working on and working towards. I’m still not where I would like to be. So that that motivates me and, and is driving me forward in my career. I’m hoping that it’s going to lead where I’m at now is going to lead to something where I do want
Iva Mikles
it sounds really good. And I wanted to ask you about like if there is something which simplifies your life, something you bought recently, or like a tool medium or software?
Bryan Sims
No. I don’t know. That’s a dumb question. There’s there’s nothing I’ve gotten recently. I do there is something that I do want to get is I want to get the iPad Pro, the one that you could draw on Yeah, I think once I get that then I could say Yes, I got the iPad. Pro is so cool. And I’ve drawn it all the time.
Iva Mikles
You can go outside and just throw everywhere.
Bryan Sims
Yeah, that sounds amazing. Because I remember with like with my phone or I have an older iPad, and they had little stylus, like a stylus that you could you could buy for it that you could use to draw. Yeah. And it was terrible it like it did not work at all. So I have a friend at work that has the iPad Pro , and I’ve seen it and I’ve like drawn with it. And it’s it’s really nice. It’s like using a Cintiq.
Iva Mikles
Yeah, I need to try it as well.
Bryan Sims
Yeah, I was this week, I keep thinking about it, I need to go to Apple Store. And I want to I want to look at them and just kind of explore them. I want to trade my name and get a new one. So that’s the tool that I’m looking most forward to getting. And it’s also nice to show your portfolio on the screen is beautiful, like I just did. The desktop looks amazing on it compared to the iPad that I
Iva Mikles
Yeah, because I also have the old one and the I still want to try these iPad Pro because it’s like everyone is talking about leaving a good way. So I’m like, yes. Yeah. And what about the future? Let’s talk about the future. And in like five to 10 years, what would you imagine like yourself doing what would be your dream scenario, if you are not afraid of anything, and everything is going according to plan.
Bryan Sims
If five years from now, I think it was I would like to have worked in feature animation. That’s that’s always been my goal from like, as a kid to be working in feature, whether it’s at a small studio, or Disney or Sony, like candy anywhere. keep scratching. She’s throwing me off. But I would like to be working on feature animation. I’d like to the first job that I had working on Miles from Tomorrowland. I was doing, like bizdev on the shelf. I got to paint backgrounds and I got to do characters and I got to do a lot of I had the freedom to explore and design. And I really miss doing that. I do really love working at Disney but they don’t. They’re not structured that way to work like that. They’re very efficient, like one person does this pass it someone else does it. I finishes it. And I miss having control of my designs. And I know that like in future, that that’s the type of job that I would like to be doing. So hopefully, in five years from now, I could be working there. I love to still be teaching. Yeah, I think that’s that’s like the dream. Still for me is that’s what I’m working for
Iva Mikles
230 I was just looking into your dog, like, back and forth. And
Bryan Sims
she was so good the first time, and now she’s just wandering around.
Iva Mikles
And what about like, far, far future like 100 years from now? What do you do like to be remembered for?
Bryan Sims
Maybe I’ll still be alive technology. And I’ll look like Yoda be this tiny old artist man that’s just shaking and drawing still. Well, the thing that I feel most rewarded or just realizing is I do like, even though I’m two weeks in I like teaching, I think that’s more rewarding than when I post something and it gets a certain amount of likes or like it’s, I’m not doing something for me, I’m doing something to help other people and hopefully help them achieve their goals that I think that if I could influence people that way. And somehow part of part of me, whatever I teach them, they teach somebody else and that’s that spreads. That’d be great. I’m not so much worried about my own work being like, still around in 100 years, I’m sure well, everything’s digital. Hopefully everything’s still digital. Then there’ll be like, pulling up weird. They’ll pull up Tumblr, Instagram, they’ll be like Zynga like what is this?
Iva Mikles
And before we say goodbye, maybe you can share like last piece of advice or guidance and then we’ll finish the interview.
Bryan Sims
I guess just what I’ve said before it’s just stick stick to if you’re out of school and you’re at that in between place, trying to find the first job. Just stick with it. And just keep working on your on your on your own artwork. Just keep trying to get better every day. Perfect. I love it. I really Hey pain every day, just do something every day to help move you towards your goal.
Iva Mikles
Practice. Good. I like it. Perfect, then thank you so much again for being here. It was so much fun. And yeah, super cool. Thanks for having me. And thanks everyone for watching or listening and see you in the next episode. I hope you guys enjoyed this interview. You can find all the resources mentioned in this episode at artsideoflife.com. Just type a guest name in the search bar. There is also a little freebie waiting for you so go check it out. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a review on iTunes, hopefully five stars so I can read and inspire more people like you. Also, don’t forget to subscribe to Art Side of Life podcast because I post new interview every single workday. If you want to watch the interviews, head over to artsideoflife.com/youtube. Thank you so much for listening. Don’t forget to inspire each other. And I will talk to you guys in the next episode. Bye.
Announcer
Thanks for listening to the Art Side of Life podcast at www.artsideoflife.com
Hi, I am Iva (rhymes with “viva”). I am a full-time self-taught artist behind Art Side of Life® and a Top Teacher on Skillshare. I have 15 years of experience in the creative field as a concept designer, illustrator, art director, and now freelance artist, content creator, and art instructor. My goal is to help you get your creative groove on with Procreate and make awesome art through practical classes, tutorials, Procreate brushes, and guides on art tools, supplies and resources. About me »
