Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Dani Woods. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Hi Dani, thanks for joining us today. Are you able to earn a full-time living from your creative work? If so, can you walk us through your journey and how you made it happen?

I am able to work fulltime as a creative through a few different ways. I am an animator fulltime, and I also do caricatures at parties. I started doing caricatures when I was in school at a theme park and as I got better another artist asked me to do a party with him. I thought it was really fun to do and started drawing at parties occasionally while in school. My first few were birthday parties, then I started meeting party and event planners who hired me for their events. I still work for many of these planners and I also advertise my own work so that anyone can find and hire me directly.

The first few years were a slow trickle, I relied on word of mouth and advertised on marketplace sites like kijiji. I worked a few contract animation and VFX jobs, when I was off between contracts I dedicated a lot more time into promotion for my caricature work. I tried speaking to others in the entertainment business and building my network, I think social media has been the biggest help for this. I should have started my social media presence earlier on in my career, but it is never too late. I consistently have people finding me now through instagram.

Right now I work fulltime as an animator and part time through caricature. After this past year, I think I could have comfortably went full-time as a Caricature Artist, however the Covid lockdowns we had in Ontario really put it into perspective how quickly that could change.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Hi, I am Dani! I am a party caricature artist and animator. I am also very enthusiastic about trying many different creative hobbies.

I have always been into games and cartoons, but I became serious about it when I was introduced to Anime in high school. I fell in love with Spirited Away, not only was the artwork amazing, but the storytelling was so different from any cartoon I had experienced. I started watching all kinds of Anime, eyeballing and drawing still frames from shows. I was so inspired seeing how much could be done within a cartoon and it wasn’t something that was made just for kids’ enjoyment.

At this point, I still didn’t know much about careers in art until Sheridan College did a presentation at my school. I thought, “wow, I could really do this” and started to look into animation as a career. Animation school is a great training ground for all sorts of artistic careers. My first art job was at a nearby theme park drawing caricatures in the summer. Many of my school friends worked with me, and also many different artists from all sorts of artistic backgrounds. I ended up staying for 5 seasons because I enjoyed it so much and it opened a lot of doors to working as a freelance artist.

I am proud of how I have grown as a person during all of this. I was very shy and embarrassed to show my work to anyone, and now I am able to speak proudly about my work and draw in front of hundreds of people watching. I think that while I am mainly an artist, I am also an entertainer. I love to talk to people as I am drawing to get a sense of their personalities and incorporate that into their drawings. It is really cool when I can capture subtle expressions and mannerisms!

In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?

I think it is important to encourage young artists. There is a lot of work in the art world and it can also pay very well! There are a lot of jobs that you wouldn’t even think benefit from a creative. It is always great to support local artists because they are also putting their work into the community and creating a more beautiful space.

Have you ever had to pivot?

There are two times:

First was when I lost my VFX job as they outsources most of their work to another country. I realized that nothing is permanent in this industry, even though I had a permanent position. I had been there for 3 years working long hours and unfortunately wasn’t able to dedicate much time to drawing. I wanted to get back into what I loved so I started taking classes and dedicated myself to improving my craft and getting an animation job. Friends helped me get into the studio they worked at and since then I have had a much better time finding animation work. I was able to do this because I continued work as a caricature artist part time.

The second was during Covid. Everything shut down in Ontario for months at a time, we would have a little bit of lesser restrictions for a few months, and then back to lock down. Our last one was in December 2021- April 2022. Every time this happened I had to contact all of my bookings and come up with a new plan. All of my clients have been great and we were able to work together to figure out what to do with their bookings. Some opted for a drawing instead, but many postponed until it was safe to get together. I put myself in my clients’ shoes and thought about what I would want to happen if I were in their position. This was the first time that I had to do anything like this with my caricature business and I think it grew because of how I responded and worked with everyone.

I think I am able to adapt so well to changes because I keep my options open. When I finish an animation contract, I rely on my Caricature work. When my Caricature work couldn’t be done during covid, I was able to rely on my animation work.

Contact Info:

• Website: caricaturedani.com, daniwoods.com
• Instagram: @caricature.dani

Image Credits
Jhennie Roguel-De Ocampo for the first photo