Meet our Emmy-Award winning Art Director Stephen Robinson! When he's not customising radio controlled vehicles and chasing his cat around his beautifully tended garden with his quadcopter drone, he's creating sumptuous visual delights for little ones to feast their eyes on. We managed to grab him away from all this creative productivity for a few minutes to chat about how he got involved in animation and looked through some of his previous work on one of our childhood favourites, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles!

How did you get into animation?

I had been studying Fine Art Painting in college and thought I’d be continuing as a painter afterwards, but a couple of months after graduating, harsh realities started to bite and I didn’t feel like I had enough passion to pursue painting as a career. My dad said ‘get a job!’  and luckily I heard from a friend that Murakami Wolf were hiring in Dublin. I knew about Jimmy Murakami from ‘The Snowman’ and ‘When The Wind Blows’ so I was pretty excited to take a chance and apply for a job, despite having no experience.

I was interviewed by Jimmy and he gave me a job in the Layout dept. The TV series ’Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’ was in production when I joined, and it’s funny to be working with colleagues now who were big fans as kids.

TMNT old-school painted backgrounds, acrylic on card:

TMNT, Turtles Lair Background

TMNT, Sewer Background

TMNT, Cityscape Night Background

We had the amazing opportunity of being trained by some great ex-Disney \ Hanna Barbera masters, like Dan Mills and Annie Guenther.

Being interested in painting I got the chance to try out Background painting. I liked this best and have stuck with colour and lighting design since, I found that it was a great path towards art direction.

TMNT, Lab Colour Key

TMNT, Channel 6 Street Background

So I kind of slipped sideways into animation, having had a vague interest in it back then, but I soon grew to love it!

How long have you worked in the animation industry?

I started in 1989 so that makes it over 25 years (just ‘doing the math’ so you don’t have to).

What's your current role and what does it involve?

I’m an art director, so I am responsible for the visual aspects of the production I’m on.  This typically involves contributing to the initial visual development with the commissioning client and the director, then on to supervising the assets through the design and build process (i.e. characters, sets, props and FX), and lastly to the final picture edit, where we make final tweaks with powerful picture editing software, Autodesk Flame, making sure the completed episode looks as good as we intended.

Practically speaking, this involves sketching and painting concepts initially, then later giving notes to the artists via the asset tracking software Shotgun. The production people keep track of the assets through the approvals process making sure they are approved by the clients in time for the episode delivery dates. This is a huge task; there were approximately 2000 assets in props alone across the 112 episodes of Peter Rabbit!

As well as the assets, each shot needs to be approved, so I need to make sure they are visually correct, that the right assets are used, continuity is good, colour good etc. In the 2 seasons of Peter Rabbit there were approximately 22,500 shots, each one viewed about 10 times each!

What are your biggest influences/inspirations?

In animation, I think Miyasaki’s films have impressed me the most. My favourites are ‘Laputa’, ‘Nausicaa’ and ‘Spirited Away’. I just love the sensibility of them; they have a different flavour to most western animation, like tea versus a malt shake, both good!

There are so many brilliant artists who have worked in animation, but at the moment I’m really admiring the work of Eyvind Earle and contemporary artists Lou Romano and Kevin Dart.

What’s your favourite tool to use and why?

In work - Wacom tablet with Photoshop. I used to work with paint on card when I started in animation, and I kind of miss the energy and tactile quality of that work. I don’t miss the set-up time you had to spend though, with Photoshop your productivity is hugely improved, and you never run out of paint!

Outside work - Dremel 4000, it’s a really reliable and versatile tool for making stuff.

What advice would you give someone considering getting into animation?

Look at all the jobs that are available within animation, there is such a variety. It’s difficult when you’re young to know exactly what is going to sustain your fascination, but try to get in at your own skill level and then it will be easier to see how the rest of the processes work up close.

It often happens in Brown Bag Films that a person’s aptitude for certain areas not related to their current position is noticed, and they are given the opportunity to stretch. You’ll eventually find your area of interest!

What do you like most about working in animation?

I love the buzz of working together with people to create something, and the satisfaction of seeing the final result.  It’s a real thrill when you see that kids are big fans of the shows.

What’s been the most challenging thing about working in animation?

TV schedules can be quite punishing, and there are often many things that need your focus all at the same time. A pet hate is when an asset slips through the approvals safety net because of time pressure, but should have looked better, it tends to haunt you every time you see it. The challenge is to identify the most important stuff to do right now yourself, and the stuff you can trust someone else to look after.

I’m really grateful to the production people who tell me where I’m supposed to be at a given time because I get immersed in a task, and time seems to dissolve. They remind me that the schedule hasn’t however!

We have an awe inspiring array of talented people working here and a fantastic collection of personalities. Things can get stressful, but there’s a great family atmosphere in Brown Bag Films so there’s always something silly going on that lifts the mood, not always family rated.

Outside of animation what are you most passionate about?

Apart from Martha (awwww!) and kids (awwww!), I love making things; we spend a lot of time looking at screens these days so it’s important to me to do things that don’t require a screen to enjoy.

I’ve made a garden that gives me a lot of satisfaction, and makes me feel quite mature. It’s good for wildlife, for instance Honey Badgers.

But I also love customising radio controlled vehicles using scrap, and flying quadcopter drones, this keeps the impressively large '7-year-old' part of my brain very happy.

Some footage from chasing the cat around the garden with the quadcopter drone:

Are you interested in getting into animation? Keep an eye on our Behind-the-Scenes and Tutorials pages for more interviews and #TopTips!