VanArts Animation graduate Stephanie Mahoney, seen here at her desk at Big Bad Boo Studios, has been steadily continuing her career in our local Vancouver animation industry since graduting in 2004.  Here is her story about how she discovered VanArts and how her animation career has unfolded since then...

Stephanie says, "I found out about VanArts through my high school art teacher, who had taken a summer intensive at VanArts and then started his own animation class.  His class introduced me to animation and made me realize this was something I could do for a living.  I looked into VanArts after graduation, found out they offered a part-time stop-motion animation course, and jumped at the opportunity.  The course was loads of fun and I took away more understanding of animation, so soon I decided to take the full-time 1-year program in 2D Animation.

After I graduated in 2004, I got hired 2 weeks later for my first job at Atomic Cartoons, doing post-production on Atomic Betty and a few episodes of Captain Flamingo.  I worked there for 9 months, and after my contract was up, moved on to Mercury Filmworks in 2006.  I was there for about 2 years animating on Ruby Gloom, until the studio packed up and moved their operations back east.  Soon afterwards in 2008, I was hired at Studio B Productions, where I animated on Kid vs. Kat and then on the second season of Martha Speaks.  As Martha was wrapping up, I heard that Big Bad Boo would be needing animators, so I hopped over there for 9 months to work on 1001 Nights.  When that contract ended, I bounced back to Studio B, where I am currently animating on My Little Pony, and recently did some weekend freelance work for Monster High.

VanArts has always been there for me when I needed a reference, or even a job.  I was lucky enough to assist a flash animation class once with my former instructor Paul Johnson, who I am also currently working with at Studio B.  VanArts gave me the tools I needed to be successful in the animation industry, and the life lessons passed down to me from the instructors turned out to be the most important things I took away upon graduated."