The Broken Tangent Animation Podcast

On our first episode of the New Year we talk to my good friend and Lead Character Artist at Blind Squirrel Games, Scott Army. As a Lead, Scott has a lot of fantastic gems of knowledge in this episode. We talk about how he made a complete career change to start into the Video Games Industry. From game testing along side me on the original World of Warcraft. To developing character art for remastered Bio Shock. Scott has a great view of what it takes to be successful in this field from many different lights.Enjoy the episode and I hope you are well and have a healthy and safe 2021!

In this special LIVE version of the podcast, we get to speak with Avengers, and The Last of Us 2 Senior Animation Artist, Aaron Schultz. I met Aaron through the power of Twitch as another fellow Animator who was streaming his process live. So because of this, we felt it was a cool idea to do a LIVE podcast on Twitch and hold a Q&A session with the audience.

In this episode of the Podcast we get to speak with a good friend of mine, Senior Animation Artist Casey McDermott. I met Casey back on my days in the Blizzard Animation Department (aka Cinematics). We talk about his beginnings in this Industry and how he’s used the method of “Fail Often;Fail Early” to learn everything he about Animation in Video Games. From demo reel stand outs to the teaching methods of Animation its all in this episode!

Mike Tanzillo is a Senior Lighting Artist with eleven years of experience at Blue Sky Studios. With titles like: Ice Age, Epic, Rio, Peanuts, and now Spies in Disguise, Mike has so much knowledge about this Industry. Mike is also one of the co-founders of the Academy of Animated Art which is an online school for students looking to become Lighting Artists. We talk to Mike about his humble beginnings in pursuing a career in Lighting and what it's like running a school while supervising large sequences at Blue Sky.

Ever wanted to learn about sound and sound design? On this episode, we speak to another one of my long time Blizzard friends. Senior Sound Designer Jon Graves has worked on World of Warcraft for almost 10 years, StarCraft 2, WarCraft 3 Reforged, and is currently on the Hearthstone Team.

From automating tens of thousands of tests a day, to manually writing scripts for specific testing. Long time friend and fifteen year Blizzard Veteran Mike Powell gives us a glimpse into how he got into this career.

From creatures, Realm Lord's daughters, Animation Bootcamp talks, and GDC speeches, Lana strives to deliver the best of anything she puts her creative mind to. She is driven and hyped about the art she creates for Blizzard Entertainment as a Senior Animator on the Heroes of the Storm Team. In this episode, we sit down with her and dive into the behind the scenes of how she got her start in the Animation Industry.

From illustrations to book covers, Peter does it all at Blizzard Entertainment. Starting his career as a free lancer and an Associate Designer at Disney Imaginering found himself drawn to this game called “StarCraft”. Peter fills us in on his SC passion that eventually lead to him speaking on the phone with Chris Metzen about a job at Blizzard Entertainment.

We talk to James about how he started in music before going into animation. His workflow and how he deals with the stresses of being an animator. We also touch on demo reels, interviews, and many other things!

This is a brief introduction of who I am and what this podcast is hoping to become.