Recently Collabr sponsored a cross-discipline collaboration contest in partnership with the University of Trinidad and Tobago. We talked with illustrator and animator Kayden James, who collaborated with Shannon Young on an audio/visual album which became a winning entry in this contest. Responses have been edited for clarity.

Team Collabr: How did you get started in your chosen artistic medium?

Kayden James: I got started by discussing with Shannon the goals and scope of the project. From there we went through multiple designs for the characters and backgrounds, saw which one fit best and started refining them. The characters were then cut up into separate pieces in order to be rigged( process of preparing the character for animation by creating a digital skeleton that will allow me to manipulate it) and from there they were animated.

TC: Who are your biggest creative influences?

KJ: Some of my biggest creative influences are Stanley Lau aka Artgerm, Kienan Lafferty and Sakimi chan their tutorials helped paved the way of my artstyle with their livestreams, tutorials along with tips they were able to give me. Ryan James, my mentor helped a lot in hammering the fundamentals, managing my line weights, giving constructive feedback and showing me tips on how to create a quick and changeable workflow for my environments. Also attending Natasha Tan’s Concept Art Workshop a while back assisted me in breaking down materials and working out how to properly use reference of real world objects and molding it into something original and new.

Then CJ Xander and Anthony Possobon, I couldn’t have done the animation if it weren’t for them and their tutorials along with really helpful constructive criticism whenever I needed tips on refining it.

TC: How did you find your fellow collaborators for your winning entry, and how did you use the collabr app to work together?

KJ: Shannon and I met at UTT while we had a joint class for our BFA where we both needed each other’s skillsets. Utilising Collabr we were able to discuss our next steps along with the order of posting for when we were done.

TC: What did you like best about collaborating with your fellow students to make your entry?

KJ: Working with Shannon was amazing, it’s not everyday you get to collab with someone who shares similar tastes as you also having a project so captivating that makes you want to push past your limits as to what you can achieve. Even being given the creative freedom to experiment with certain styles.

TC: How are you going to use your prize money?

KJ: My plan for the prize money is to pay off the monthly subscriptions for the programs I use to work along with the plugins needed to run them.

TC: What was the most rewarding part of this whole experience for you?

KJ: The most rewarding part was the friendships made along the way and seeing how much we improved from before we started.

TC: What are your artistic goals?

KJ: Some artistic goals of mine would be to one day bring my characters to life in a comic based on Trinbagonian Folklore and then into an animated series. Also working one day doing concept art and illustrations for AAA games, VFX work on blockbusters and even working on 2D or 3D animated series/movies.

Kayden James is graduating from UTT with my Bachelors in Digital Media Arts in November 2021. 

Art portfolio:  https://www.artstation.com/kayden007

Job titles: Illustrator/Animator/Concept/VFX Artist/Compositor