ARTIST PORTFOLIO
BRITTANY MYERS
Gary Evans finds out how the American character designer landed her dream job at Netflix Animation working alongside her childhood hero
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os Angeles, 2018. Brittany Myers is starting work at Netflix Animation. Netflix hasn’t publicly announced its new animation division, so Brittany joins what is for now a small team on Sunset Boulevard. She’ll be designing characters for a film called Over the Moon, directed by Brittany’s favourite artist growing up, the artist who made her want to be a character designer in first place: illustrator and animator Glen Keane.
Over the Moon has a script – it’s about a teenage girl who builds a rocket ship to meet the mythical goddess who lives on the moon – but almost no artwork. This is where Brittany comes in.
Some directors provide their character designers with precise instructions, right down to the style of haircut and particular items of clothing, with reference pictures of people the character should resemble. Sometimes the instructions are less precise, more abstract.
Brittany previously worked on a project where she was told to design a character who was “a little spunky.”
Too little instruction can leave you feeling overwhelmed by possibility. Too much instruction is limiting. “With Glen,” Brittany says, “it’s kind of a mixture.”
FEI FEI
“Early concept design for Over the Moon’s Fei Fei. I wanted to explore what her space outfit would look like.”
© Pearl Studio/Netflix
SELF PORTRAIT
“Drawing for fun to capture what my days look like working from home.”
CHEERLEADER
“Sketches and exploration for a cheerleader character. Done to practise drawing poses and personality.”
“[When drawing people who are moving] it forces you to focus on the feeling more than anything”
CHANG’E
“An early concept of the moon goddess Chang’E to explore proportions and wardrobe ideas.”
Brittany gets to work on Over the Moon’s main character: 13-yearold Fei Fei. Glen gives a couple of visual instructions – the story is set in China – but the rest of his brief is about Fei Fei’s personality… those more abstract instructions. Brittany needs to turn these verbal instructions into character designs that tell a story.