We recently connected with Shauna Cunniffe and have shared our conversation below.

Shauna, looking forward to hearing all of your stories 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’m currently working full-time as a character and prop designer for the Irish studio, Telegael. I’ve been there for well over 3 years now. It honestly still feels like I’ve only been there for a year with how fast time flew by.

I guess the start of my journey to my career choice would be when I took a chance and applied to a Gaming and Animation course in a University in the nearest city to me. At the time, I fully believed I had no chance whatsoever in getting in. I dropped out of school when I was 16, and struggled to get a job and just drew art to sell at conventions to make money. There was no portfolio submission at the time I applied so all I had going for me was my cover letter, which as you can see was pretty lackluster. To me it was like doing the lottery, I genuinely believed I wouldn’t get in, but at the time, and still believe in, taking a chance even when that little voice inside your head says no. I still remember the shocked disbelief I felt when I got the acceptance letter, I re-read that letter probably 100 times thinking I misread it.

Getting accepted into University was the best thing to happen to me. Not only did it lead me to getting a career in the Animation field, but I met my closest best friend who encouraged me a lot in art and to open up more. In 3rd year, we had a whole semester for internships in which I was very fortunate to have gotten work with Telegael. While the part of Animation that I wanted to do was Storyboarding, I ended up working as a character and prop designer during my internship, which I am forever grateful for as it made me fall in love with it. I never properly touched prop design before and I honestly wouldn’t have ever done so if it wasn’t for Telegael. I ended up learning so much in those 4 months. The first production I ever worked on is a preschool show called Zoonicorns which is out now. It was such an enjoyable production to work on. When the internship was coming to an end and I was getting ready for my summer break, I remember getting a email. I guess I did something right with my work, because I ended up getting a offer for a paid summer job, and then once Summer was coming to an end, they offered me paid part-time. Still there now. Yes, it was quite stressful working a job while also studying and trying to complete assignments to a high standard in my final year, but I wouldn’t change a single thing.

Yes, of course there’s a lot I know now that I could have done to speed up the process in getting a career in Animation, like what studios look for in portfolios, and to not limit myself to one set career choice in the career field like only storyboards. But I truthfully wouldn’t change a thing, since I never would have met the people I know now, I wouldn’t have had the experiences that helped me grow as a person and an artist.

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

Well I’m a pretty boring person haha. My passion is of course art, I’ve always been the arty type as a kid. I remember wanting to be either an animator or a archaeologist. Which are quite the opposites of each other but as you can see I went down the art side.
Though Art was pretty much just a fun hobby to me, it wasn’t until I was 13 that I really started drawing characters, thanks to a school friend who introduced me to anime and video games like Final Fantasy. I remember wanting to draw like her so desperately, that I use to draw at any given time, even forgetting to do my homework every so often to do so.

In my late teens, I kind of gave up that dream of getting a job in Animation. I dropped out of school at 16 due to bullying, so I never believed I could get into the field due to not having a leaving certificate or a college degree. Instead, I ended up focusing on selling my art at Conventions like Comic Con or the smaller anime Conventions around my country. It helped me so much honestly, I was able to get more confidence in myself and in my art seeing people willing to buy my art. So I kept going, it wasn’t until I watched the animated show Gravity Fall, that it made me fall in love with animation again and the behind the scene process. Then a year later at 24, I saw the University course for Animation and Game design, which I got in and the rest is history. While I was there mostly for the Animation side of the course, the game design part was actually surprisingly fun! I even did a Game-Jam that was for college/university students in my last year that was sponsored by EA. Somehow, my messy buggy game won 3 awards, which I still have no clue how. I’m still proud of that project and I’m definitely planning on getting back and finishing that game at some point in my life.

I guess for me, story telling is such an important part of my art. Whether it’s from my job in Animation, from illustrations, comics, game design or even just simply writing. There is something so captivating about escaping to another world outside our own. I have so many stories and ideas that I want to bring to life, but its just the struggle of finding the time to do them all.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

For me, working in animation, there’s something really mind-blowing about seeing your work on a TV or Movie screen. Even if it’s something small like designing a tree or a background character. Seeing my designs come to life in a story alongside the many amazing and talented artists is truly the most rewarding and gratifying feeling ever. Art in general, can be quite a lonely career if I’m being honest, well it was for me when I was younger selling my art. The only real interactions I had with people in terms of art was at a 2 to 3 day events a couple of times a year.
Compare that to working for Telegael, where I’m interacting and working with colleagues everyday on the latest projects. Getting to see everyone’s work alongside my own, melding together to create these delightful stories.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

Probably the biggest lesson I had to unlearn was not using references. I was pretty much chronically online in the art side of the internet. This would have been early 2010s, and I remember that there was this mindset back then that you weren’t a true artist if you used references. People would criticise each other if you mentioned using references in your art process, which was frankly ridiculous when you think about it. I remember they use to say how using references was somehow the same as straight up tracing an art piece. It was probably why I it took me a long time to improve when I was younger. It was only when I ignored that criticisms that I actually started to improve. Though if I am being honest, I still have that habit sometimes.

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