Today we’d like to introduce you to Jules Premus.
Hi Jules, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I’m a character designer working remotely on the upcoming animated series Young Love at Sony Pictures Animation. I also teach in the Digital Animation program at Kennesaw State University. Some of my previous design credits include Marvel’s Hit-Monkey and Netflix’s The Liberator. I’m also a big Trekkie.
I got into drawing as a kid because of the children’s book author Lois Ehlert – I loved the pressed leaves and the eyestrain of her colors – neons alongside desaturation and black placement. I used to do these little Crayola studies from her book Circus.
I come from a big family of Sicilian New Yorkers, so growing up, I was surrounded by cousins. My first memories of character acting were these elaborate sagas we’d play out in the backyard about witches, cryptids, and time travelers – only breaking character when it got dark out and the aunties made us go inside to help with the fried zucchini flowers. It was like Craig of the Creek, like this mystical experience I craved more of, and that wonderfully weird and imaginative time is still coded into the DNA of everything I create.
I ended up going to undergrad for creative writing and then got my M.A. in sequential art at SCAD. In the program, I discovered I had a specialty for character acting and design, so decided to make it my full-time job. My art career in Atlanta took off 8 months after graduating when I was accepted into the ASIFA-South Incubator. This internship program introduced me to the community of artists whom I consider family today, and also opened many doors for me with both local companies and L.A. studios.
I also ran a character design mentorship with SCAD and led a mixer event with ASIFA-South, both of which gave me experience with public speaking and art demos. After 3 years of working in the industry on various projects including Hit-Monkey, The Liberator, Best Fiends and Young Love, KSU reached out to me, and I started teaching with them in January while continuing to freelance for Sony. I’ve discovered a love for teaching and sharing the craft. There are so many talented and motivated students at KSU and a really dynamic faculty that cares about them. While I still love working in the animation industry, it’s been a great change of pace to try something new.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Definitely not a smooth road. In the past couple of years alone some pretty wild stuff has happened – in the summer of 2020, the apartment complex I was living in burned down, and I evacuated with nothing but the clothes on my back. It was pretty harrowing to lose everything so suddenly, especially my sentimentals, traditional art, and books I wrote as a kid, but I’m eternally grateful to my community for coming together and getting me through it. I felt I was starting fresh in many ways, and more than ever I cherished my relationships with loved ones and let myself be more playful with art again.
I’ve experienced a lot of sudden losses in life, and that definitely translates into the subject matter of my personal projects, including themes of the supernatural and ghosts. Grief coexists with hope for me and has become inextricably linked to my voice as an artist. Negotiating those contradictions are what I think makes for compelling work.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
A character designer’s job in the animation pipeline is to transform written descriptions or thumbnail sketches into a new character with life and personality and in a style that blends cohesively with the show. It’s an incredibly satisfying puzzle game for me to solve.
Many artists I admire have described the process of character design as “meeting” a person that already exists outside of yourself, and it really does feel like that. It always takes my breath away every time the expression works – it’s alive! It’s a fun challenge to make lines on a page evoke these very complex and tender emotions. That’s a hard thing to quantify exactly and it’s something I’m proud of developing a keener sense for over time.
I also enjoy weaving lots of details into my designs, especially with costuming and hair. I’m a big fan of Walter Wick’s work for the I SPY series – and I love drawing in little details for viewers to discover like a treasure hunt. It’s also why I resonate really deeply with media like Cowboy Bebop and Metal Gear Solid – so much love was poured into fleshing out the specificity of those character designs, their choice of clothing, gear, and posture – that type of thoughtfulness makes for really memorable individuals.
What quality or characteristic do you feel is most important to your success?
Having a constant hunger for learning and evolving and surrounding myself with like-minded people. My friends and I constantly exchange books, shows, movies, games, comics, and art techniques. Studying the masters like Mary Blair, James Gurney, Shiyoon Kim, Yoji Shinkawa, Genndy Tartakovsky, and Toshihiro Kawamoto helps me have new breakthroughs in my own process. I make time every day to draw for myself and chip away at my personal projects.
Several companies I’ve worked for offered remote work and didn’t require relocation to cities I couldn’t afford to live in. That’s helped on a socioeconomic level, but from a worker’s perspective, the industry as a whole still has a way to go to become more inclusive of all voices. Luckily, a lot of us in the community are really passionate about increasing local accessibility to education and career opportunities.
Something I practice more of nowadays is taking proper breaks to go outside, stretch, eat, and sleep. It’s important to take care of ourselves and our bodies in the long run. At KSU, I’m like this little Italian grandpa with my students, “Have you eaten? Are you hungry? Are you taking breaks?” It’s so easy to fall into overwork, and I want them to learn from my experience that you make your best art when your body is well rested and fed. I hope I can encourage these healthier habits in the next generation of working artists and that normalizing these principles will help them feel empowered to advocate for themselves and each other in the industry.
I owe a lot to the teachers who gave me the space to discover my own identity and cultivate that potential. I’m always going to love being a student of this craft.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.julespremus.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iguanadonis/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/iguanadonis1
