Cartoon Dreamer
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Would you like to help Abbey
reach her art and animation goals and dreams?
Help Abbey get her characters and their very important stories out to help other kids dealing with negative emotions, bullying and other difficult issues. You can make a donation to Abbey's art education and career goals by using the
Make A Donation button below.
Thank you so much for your support!
reach her art and animation goals and dreams?
Help Abbey get her characters and their very important stories out to help other kids dealing with negative emotions, bullying and other difficult issues. You can make a donation to Abbey's art education and career goals by using the
Make A Donation button below.
Thank you so much for your support!
Below is a letter to go along with application for financial aid - Digital Media Academy
Hello, my name is Julie...
My daughter Abbey's world is art, designing characters and the worlds they live in, developing the stories they have to tell and the morals and lessons she wants to teach through them to help other kids like her who are unique or sensitive and may have a hard time fitting in. She also has a deep love for the character design/animation/video game industry as a whole, and has hopes of creating her own animated series or working in the industry as a character designer or animator. She currently does character design through digital art using only her finger on her iPad Sketchbook (video HERE). She also takes local classes to improve her sketching and has started creating story boards and frame by frame animation in digital 2D. She has at least 6 show/cartoon ideas with original casts and storylines, the 3 that are more fully developed are "The 12 Year Mind," "The Guardians of Lampara," & "Psychedelic!” 1 of the 6 she says may work as a game design. She doesn't have a portfolio, but has started to file and organize her thoughts and ideas around her characters and stories; she keeps these files along with all of her many pieces of digital character art, story boards, and animations on her iPad. She has known exactly what she wanted to do with her life since she was 10 years old, has a seemingly unending imagination for character design, stories and worlds, and a true love for her own characters and stories – “my children” she calls them. We are desperate to get her the tools needed to get them all out of her mind, and iPad :), and out on the screen. But, there is more to Abbey than all this.
Abbey is gifted and her unique makeup gives her an insatiable love for details, and a slightly mature but quirky sense of humor :), and although her characters and art may seem simple at first glance, the details and development behind them are not. I believe that Abbey is creatively and imaginatively gifted – she gets most of the ideas for her characters and stories from her own very vivid and colorful dreams, she says "basically I dream in cartoons,"....thus her Facebook & Twitter name “Cartoon Dreamer.” Often her dreams reveal full casts of original and unique creature/characters - sometimes in full-color, with detail and dialog, sometimes in shadow or outline and a feeling of a time period, a quest, or the world around them. From there, using her own past experiences, unique interests, and detailed mind, she is easily able to develop them further.
Abbey has a truly creative mind and an unending imagination, but as her mother, I believe her real gift is her own moral character and emotional intelligence. She seems to have been born with an inherent morality and draws upon this when designing characters and reflecting on the good and bad she sees in the world. She also uses her own experience with deep emotional pain and other feelings brought on by severe emotional bullying and a subsequent emotional breakdown she experienced at age 9 in 4th grade public school. Since her breakdown and for the last 6 years, we have been homeschooling, and by expressing herself through her art and character design Abbey has been able to work through much of her emotional pain.* When she's not drawing or writing she loves spending her time reading and independently studying about behavioral science/psychology, myths and legends, crypto-zoology, video games, everything animation...and more - for fun and use in her creature character designs and stories. And, although Abbey's personality exhumes positivity and morality, her emotional intelligence and her own experience with deep emotional pain at such a young age, allows her to understand and draw upon a darker side of things as well when making characters and their stories. Although her sensitive-gifted makeup can result in limited stamina or energy at times, she is passionate and driven to create, improve, gain new tools and techniques, and get her characters and stories out to the world through animation.
*In addition to having a creative outlet through art and character design that has helped Abbey heal from her bullying experience and breakdown, in 2012 Abbey and I started a support group/Meetup for the social/emotional needs of gifted children in our area. Through our support group and meeting other kids who were like her and accepted her – Abbey is now doing awesome! She has inspired the other kids at our Meetup to start creating art and characters, and has even held her very own Peer-Taught Digital Art Class.
Abbey's Characters
It was after her breakdown and having to leave public school for homeschool at age 9, that Abbey first started to draw and then create digital art. She started to design characters obsessively; she drew every day, sometimes all day, and has continued this for 6 years. She has 100+ original characters along with ideas for storylines, animations, and possible game designs – in various levels of development. The first characters Abbey designed at age 9 were “The Positive Symbol Creatures.” They were made utilizing the mouse and the basic Microsoft Paint program she taught herself, she used the geometric shapes of the program to create her characters and it was through this medium that Abbey's artistic talents started to shine through. But as The Positive Symbol Creatures came to life, their names, developed personalities, stories and symbols, showed that there was something deeper that Abbey was trying to reveal through her characters. The Positive Symbol Creatures and their symbols created at age 9 are: Siren (Love), Electro (Light), Calabis (Courage), Cripter (Dreams), Myset (Music), Poptart (Laughter), Criock (Wisdom), Gixie (Balance), Katarat (Hope), and their leader Nip (Revolution - fight for change!). Abbey was not aware of it at the time, but it is very apparent to me now, that through these 1st characters she was working through some very difficult emotions left over from the emotional bullying and subsequent breakdown. She was creating in her characters, their personalities, their worlds and their true friendships, the positive traits she valued and inherently had always know to be right, but did not see in her friends that last year in public school. The Positive Symbol Creatures star in Abbey's show idea "The Guardians of Lampara." These are the Positive Symbol Creatures:
Abbey’s original 9-year-old renditions of The Positive Symbol Creatures, along with the original bios/stories Abbey created for them can be found HERE.
At age 12 Abbey created “The Negative Emotion Characters/Monsters.” The Negative Emotion Characters pictured below are the villains from Abbey's main show idea "The 12 Year Mind." They all have unique names and personalities that reflect a unique combination or rendition of the emotion they stand for and/or the way those emotions make Abbey feel. The Negative Emotion Characters are: Run (fear), Wrath (anger), Grudge (depression), Alliar (anxiety), Kinger (lies), Skryetch (perfectionism), Sprintz (stress), Poker (curiosity), Roma (lust), Bantch (annoyance), Gemdas (unwanted attn) & Virus (impurity) - narcissism, guilt & pride pending. These are The Negative Emotion Characters:
At age 12 Abbey created “The Negative Emotion Characters/Monsters.” The Negative Emotion Characters pictured below are the villains from Abbey's main show idea "The 12 Year Mind." They all have unique names and personalities that reflect a unique combination or rendition of the emotion they stand for and/or the way those emotions make Abbey feel. The Negative Emotion Characters are: Run (fear), Wrath (anger), Grudge (depression), Alliar (anxiety), Kinger (lies), Skryetch (perfectionism), Sprintz (stress), Poker (curiosity), Roma (lust), Bantch (annoyance), Gemdas (unwanted attn) & Virus (impurity) - narcissism, guilt & pride pending. These are The Negative Emotion Characters:
Abbey's original renditions of The Negative Emotion Characters created at age 12 showing how they make Abbey feel - can be found HERE.
Below is the main non-villainous cast from "The 12 Year Mind," they star along with The Negative Emotion Characters from above. Abbey’s two main characters Beethoven & Peter - are the stars of "The 12 Year Mind.” They both were inspired by her ever present, now worn and tattered, childhood stuffed animals that in early childhood were at times her only friends and accompanied her on all her adventures. In this show Abbey plans on focusing on the innocent and endearing journey of Beethoven and Peter finding and experiencing true friendship - although having nothing in common except the need for a friend. She will also share her experience with childhood innocence lost - when bullies and negative emotions came in, but how they were defeated through believing in herself and finding true friendship. She also wants to through this show tell unique kids like herself, "That they are awesome just the way they are, don't try to get mean people to like you or to change - just surround yourselves with those who accept you and uplift you." She also believes and wants to show through Beethoven and Peter's innocent and pure relationship that true platonic intimacy can be shared by just friends whether they are same sexed or opposite. Later in the story some of the character’s deeper motivations are revealed as they struggle to deal with family dysfunction, death of a loved one - an insatiable drive to remedy this, and more. This is the main cast of The 12 Year Mind:
Below is the main cast from Abbey's 3rd show idea called "Psychedelic!” All of the main characters for Psychedelic, the story idea and world, were developed from just one dream.
Abbey’s 1st Storyboards/Animations
Below you will find 3 animations Abbey made when she was 12 years old. She says she plans to remake the 2nd and 3rd ones in full color and song/story length now that she has recently figured out how to do 2D full-color animation - to her perfectionist standards :), on the iPad app she has been using to animate.
The 1st is an animation Abbey did to work on movement she calls the “Movement Animation,” starring all of The Positive Symbol Creatures in human/shadow rendition.
Video: Movement Animation
The 2nd is a rough/partial storyboard/animation called "Survive The Night,” starring The Negative Emotion Characters. It chronicles Abbey's experience with negative emotions, she plans to recreate this animation in full color/animation and song length, but it gives an idea of Abbey's story telling through animation.
Video: Survive The Night
The 3rd is another rough/partial storyboard/animation and is called "Clash Of Emotions,” also starring some of The Negative Emotion Characters. This is another expression of Abbey’s experience with bullying and negative emotions. It too is to be remade in full color/animation and song length, again although rough, this just gives a quick glimpse of Abbey's storytelling through her characters and animation.
Video: Clash Of Emotions
Abbey has many more characters already developed, along with ideas for stories and animations. Sometimes she gets discouraged because she sees other artists she feels are so much better than she is, but her passion and drive keeps her moving forward, and she just keeps drawing and creating every day. Just last week she came to me and told me that she had another dream with new characters, she said to me with great excitement, “There were 3 of them and they were gangsters again, but this time they weren’t part of a group, they were rouges, and they took care of a young girl, and they all had different colored gems on them. “Cecil,” the tall one who is like a humanoid plant creature had a pink jewel on his chest, the next one - the short one, was sort of a gremlin or goblin and he had a yellow jewel on his leg just below his knee, and the last one, he was really big and he was kind of like a grim reaper - with a plague-mask looking face, and he had a red jewel for one of his eyes. They all had Brooklyn accents and they were doing gangster type things like robbing stores and causing explosions – I have to go draw them before I forget!” She paused, “You know Mom, I guess I’m ok with not being the best artist yet, I know one thing for sure - I'll never run out of ideas for new characters and stories, I can't stop them from coming to me.”
My hopes are that maybe 3D animation and/or game design will become Abbey's tool of choice, and it will be through 3D that she will finally bring her characters and her dreams to life. Thank you for the opportunity to show you who Abbey is and for considering us candidates for financial aid. If you have any further questions, feel free to contact me...
© Express written permission required to use artist's work in any way.
The 1st is an animation Abbey did to work on movement she calls the “Movement Animation,” starring all of The Positive Symbol Creatures in human/shadow rendition.
Video: Movement Animation
The 2nd is a rough/partial storyboard/animation called "Survive The Night,” starring The Negative Emotion Characters. It chronicles Abbey's experience with negative emotions, she plans to recreate this animation in full color/animation and song length, but it gives an idea of Abbey's story telling through animation.
Video: Survive The Night
The 3rd is another rough/partial storyboard/animation and is called "Clash Of Emotions,” also starring some of The Negative Emotion Characters. This is another expression of Abbey’s experience with bullying and negative emotions. It too is to be remade in full color/animation and song length, again although rough, this just gives a quick glimpse of Abbey's storytelling through her characters and animation.
Video: Clash Of Emotions
Abbey has many more characters already developed, along with ideas for stories and animations. Sometimes she gets discouraged because she sees other artists she feels are so much better than she is, but her passion and drive keeps her moving forward, and she just keeps drawing and creating every day. Just last week she came to me and told me that she had another dream with new characters, she said to me with great excitement, “There were 3 of them and they were gangsters again, but this time they weren’t part of a group, they were rouges, and they took care of a young girl, and they all had different colored gems on them. “Cecil,” the tall one who is like a humanoid plant creature had a pink jewel on his chest, the next one - the short one, was sort of a gremlin or goblin and he had a yellow jewel on his leg just below his knee, and the last one, he was really big and he was kind of like a grim reaper - with a plague-mask looking face, and he had a red jewel for one of his eyes. They all had Brooklyn accents and they were doing gangster type things like robbing stores and causing explosions – I have to go draw them before I forget!” She paused, “You know Mom, I guess I’m ok with not being the best artist yet, I know one thing for sure - I'll never run out of ideas for new characters and stories, I can't stop them from coming to me.”
My hopes are that maybe 3D animation and/or game design will become Abbey's tool of choice, and it will be through 3D that she will finally bring her characters and her dreams to life. Thank you for the opportunity to show you who Abbey is and for considering us candidates for financial aid. If you have any further questions, feel free to contact me...
© Express written permission required to use artist's work in any way.
Abbey's - Original Characters & Some Fan Art
