Emma Shanks

Specialising in 2d animation, character design, and illustration, my work often revolves around characters within all sorts of fantastical worlds. While my personal work in particular shows a preference in drawing somewhat realistically proportioned characters, I also enjoy branching out into other styles inspired by the many artists and animated shows I love. I've almost always taken a lot of artistic inspiration from Howl's Moving Castle, Pokemon, the art of Shigenori Soejima, and Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse, though nowadays I probably take the most inspiration from independent artists that I discover online or at artist alleys. The vast amount of prints and artbooks I have scattered around my bedroom often encourages me to continue developing my illustrations and character designs.

When it comes to animation, I especially love animating characters talking and interacting with other characters. Exploring and breaking down the way an individual character expresses their emotions is often when I have the most fun - The little habits, body language, and facial expressions are always fun to explore and I find that these things can make a character much more relatable. Despite my specialisations, I like to keep a working knowledge of as many parts of the 2d animation pipeline as possible, both in order to accommodate for the technical aspects of these other areas and to benefit my own animation and illustration work.