We were lucky to catch up with Rajkamal Singh recently and have shared our conversation below.

Rajkamal, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.

In my career I’ve been fortunate to work on two incredible South Asian projects, Ghee Happy and Boons and Curses. To be able to break into the animation industry and having your very first project represent South Asians meant an incredible amount to me. Growing up, there weren’t any dedicated shows to represent south asians in children’s media. The most exposure I would receive was watching live action Indian soap operas. In animation there would be the occasional character that happens to be south asian, however, it was never anything beyond that. Both Ghee Happy and Boons and Curses were projects that showcased south asian characters and their stories. These projects are among the first steps into what our stories can look and feel like. Being a part of these projects is something my younger self never thought would happen, to be able to create the shows you wanted to see for a younger audience, is incredibly rewarding.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I’m a character designer and storyboard revisionist working in animation. My path into my first gig in animation was incredibly lucky. It was a matter of being and meeting people at the right place at the right time. It started by going to D23, a Disney expo revealing their new projects. While there, my group and I met an incredible family that was a part of one of the panels happening at this expo. That meet up ended up becoming a tour at an animation studio. Since then, I’ve kept in contact with one of the family members working in animation and would update her about any leads getting an entry level gig in animation. Before one of these updates, I got reached out to by Sanjay Patel asking if I had any story samples in which I had none. I replied honestly and it was left as it was. A couple months later, I reached out to the friend that gave us the tour, telling her what Sanjay said. This update ultimately changed my life. Her husband happened to be an executive producer on Ghee Happy which then led to the team taking a chance on me by giving me a test. Thankfully, I passed the test and managed to land my first gig in animation as a storyboard revisionist. This story is always so different for everyone breaking into animation, there is no right or wrong way to break in and sometimes it can be incredibly unpredictable and up to luck. I think if you take anything away from my story, it’s the value of friendships and networking. Even in places you might not expect, being a kind person will attract other kind people in this field of work.

As a storyboard revisionist in animation the workload can be given in waves. There are some assignments that have a ton of revisions due at the end of the day it was assigned. There are also assignments that have more time. Some examples of drawing assignments are cleaning rough drawings of characters in a storyboarded scene, clarifying the action of a character by adding an additional pose or two, drawing open and closed mouths depending on who’s talking. There are also technical assignments that involve adjusting camera moves, making sure details that are supposed to be in the background don’t make their way in front of character acting.

As a character designer I’ve only had experience working as a freelancer for Wildbrain and Tengen Studios. During my time there I was given descriptions of characters and a limit to how many drawings to provide for each character. The problems I would solve as a character designer were how could I have this character design visually convey an idea. During my character design process, it’s important for me to understand the characters I’m designing. I do this by asking myself questions like who they are, what they do in the story, why they do what they do, and how they do it. All of these questions give rich answers that help me figure out how a character may interact in any scenario.

As an artist in animation, I feel like a big cheerleader for my friends and colleagues. I want them all to shine and share my enthusiasm with them. During my years in this industry I’m very grateful and proud to continue to learn more about story and design. I want to tell believable stories through my character designs. I want the characters to feel alive or as if they are someone you have seen before. That is the level I constantly strive for.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

Understanding character design on a feature film level is an incredibly adverse journey. It took me many years to get to the level I am at with character design. At the start of my journey I had a vague idea of what it meant to be a character designer. It felt flashy and pretty. I didn’t realize how much effort, redrawing, and rethinking goes into designing characters for animation. I took three courses at animation collaborative over many years to gain a deeper understanding of the role.

I’ve had multiple encounters with people through-out my journey tell me to quit character design as a potential career due to its competitive nature. It was hard to not take these comments to heart. I refused to let that stop how much I could grow as a character designer. I’m very grateful to continue to grow and learn as I experience life and do things outside of drawing.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can provide some insight – you never know who might benefit from the enlightenment.

An aspect of being an artist non creatives struggle to understand, is how many years it takes to get to a professional level. It’s a lot more than just years of drawing, it’s also experiencing life around you and learning from it on an artistic and personal level. Trying other activities that excite you and inspire your craft. Being an artist can sometimes feel like being an athlete. There are days where we are performing at our best and days where we aren’t, however, regardless of our performance we are constantly growing with how we see the world and the people around us. Everything in our life influences and inspires us even if it doesn’t directly feel like it.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.rajkamalsinghart.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ruberduckyboi/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rajkamal-singh-598826149/