We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Carissa Renard a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Carissa, thanks for joining us today. If you could go back in time do you wish you had started your creative career sooner or later?

If I could go back and do it all over again I would definitely try and focus on one thing. When I was growing up I was trying to do it all; play in my high school concert band, play piano in the side, work on my drawing skills in art class, etc.

It definitely felt like I was spreading myself too thin and not putting all my time into one specific area to improve my skills. I would definitely focus more on learning the fundamentals of drawing, practicing anatomy studies, and taking more classes to hone my draftsmanship abilities.

Carissa, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

Hi, I’m Carissa Renard and I’m a character designer & illustrator. I’ve working on several projects including animating short films and designing characters and props for short form animated content online.

I have always been fascinated by animation ever since I was young, and have wanted to work in the industry. Watching behind the scenes “how to draw this character” segments on Nickelodeon fostered my interest for what it’s like to actually make the cartoons I was obsessed with and set me off on my creative journey.

I am most proud of the animated short I made in college, as well as several character design sheets I have made over the years. Coming up with crazy ideas for new characters is so much fun, and the process of turning these ideas into art involves a lot of blood sweat and tears, but is incredibly rewarding in the end.

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

The best thing society can do to support artists and creatives is to take art education seriously.

When I graduated art school, I came to the realization that my skills were not good enough to get a job in this industry and I needed to fill that gap quickly. That’s where places like Concept Design Academy come in, where they offer classes taught by industry professionals often teaching techniques that you simply do not learn in most high schools or art colleges.

I believe we would get much more talented artists if we taught art the same way we teach music in public schools: you learn how to read music, how to play your instrument, and how to play other people’s songs before you start creating your own compositions.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

When I first graduated from college I was trying to get a job as a storyboard artist, but I was struggling a LOT making my portfolio. Eventually I took a character design mentorship class from Stephen Silver and I realized I preferred drawing characters as opposed to working on storyboards, and it turned out I was better at them too.

It felt wrong at first to give up what I had been working towards, but it ultimately made more sense for me to switch to something I was more passionate about.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.carissarenard.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/artofcarissa/P
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carissa-renard-7a446759/