Bailey Lester – 3D Animator & Motion Graphics Artist

Who are YOU?

My name is Bailey Lester and I’m a recent graduate from Indiana University Purdue Indianapolis’s Animation Major. I mainly work in 3D animation, but my degree had me cut my teeth on multiple other things as well such as motion design, video production, post production, story boarding and even painting. All of these fields helped me grow as an artist and to gain a better understanding how everything fits together to make a final product. I am continuing my education with the Animation Mentor workshop program and am currently halfway through the program.

What Am I Wanting to DO?

My current goal is to be able to get my foot in the door of the animation industry. To do this im shooting for internships with many studios in Animation positions or going for non animation focused roles to just get that first shot. Im hoping to have some type of job by summer.

What makes you YOU?

When I started my college career I was originally in a completely different field, computer programming. Through lots of factors I ended up in 3D Animation. I first went to college wanting to making video games through programming them and thus researched and honed my technical skills and computer literacy skills through this. I always had a knack for computers, but when I was in this degree I built my first computer, learned programming languages, and made some simple applications for personal use.

I also am a very large film & TV consumer, wanting to understand how they are made and what makes some of my favorite movies my favorite. so I self learned techniques such as storyboarding, cinematography, editing, writing, and things that let the visual medium of TV and film shine. Some of my favorites i even incorporated into my current work, be it inspiration or straight up homaging.

Due to these mixtures of things, I feel like I am uniquely positioned for my career choice. I have some technical background to navigate software effectively, I have personal interests and tastes that i want to grow and show my inspirations that are on my sleeve as well as push my work in other manners than just animation.