Alice O'Brien
I’m an animator who specializes in 2D and stop motion animation. I like to work in both digital and traditional mediums, and where applicable, synthesizing the two excites me! Not only does it bring me joy to create, but the more I create, the more it becomes my unique style of animation. I hope to bring my creativity and handmade touch to your project– no matter the medium!
With a twinkle in my eye, I’m a determined soul who moves through life looking for my next big project. Whether it be from walking through the woods, daydreaming in my apartment, or people watching in the city. These eyes are always on the hunt for creative inspiration.
I graduated in the summer of 2022 from UW Stout, with a Bachelor's Degree in Entertainment Design Animation. After graduating, I found myself mostly working on smaller personal projects, pet portraits, and digital commissions of characters. Nothing too big was happening yet... But then I moved back to the Twin cities! I got some temporary gigs to pay the bills, started working on The Power of Storytelling project with my client, got into painting murals, then got engaged! I'm also applying to places where I can sell art from my MurkyMermaid.art booth. Which, the range of things I'll be selling is just as much of a beautiful ADHD mess of mediums as is the rest of my art career...
I started with colored pencils and pens, usually hiding the paper underneath my schoolwork I'll be honest. A friend let me use her Wacom tablet, which got me into drawing digitally. From there I discovered brush pens, which is probably what got me into watercolor painting. When deciding what I wanted to go to college for I thought "I want to learn how to make my art move", and that's when I found my appreciation and passion for 2D animation. I thought for half a second that maybe I should minor in comics. But instead I ended up initiating an independent study course, so that I could learn how to animate in the medium of stop motion.
I've been fascinated by stop motion animation since I was a kid, and I think the fact that they didn't teach it at my college only made me want it more! So, when it was finally time for my senior capstone project, I went all out on A World Contaminated. Mashing all of my favorite mediums together; freehanded 2D animation, rotoscoped 2D, stop motion, constructing physical models that interact with 2d characters in the scenes, dripping paint into water for the background, creating my own sound effects out of whatever I had laying around. In a previous project I Want You to Want Me, I animated trees moving with acrylic paint for the background, which was exciting for me since I've always wanted to try my hand at that!
To sum up, things seem to be falling into place. I have all the building blocks for a successful career in the arts, and now it's up to me to decide what I want to do with them. Which brings me back to The Power of Storytelling, what an amazing opportunity this is for me to use all the skills I've learned thus far! And I'm so excited to see where it all takes us both in each of our creative careers.