Teamie Spotlight: Andrew Lucas

Here is a little something about me in case you haven't heard my long rants at Kickstart parties. I'm famous/notorious for, "Back in my day ...," stories.

I was born in southern California, but spent a few formative years in England. Apparently, I learned to speak with an English accent, but lost it to my current abrasive 'Merican brogue. I also lived in Chicago near my father's Russian relatives, one of whom ran a bar in the Polish neighbourhood. As a nine-year-old, I enjoyed Grape Nehi sodas and pickled pigs feet there. Who lets kids into a bar at nine?

Then back to California where I discovered my love for playing the trumpet. I finished high school in Colorado, got a music scholarship to the University of Denver, but changed my major to fine art in my second year, where I felt I truly belonged. I'd been drawing since I was an infant, and was known as the kid who draws all of the time. After switching universities a few times, I landed a spot at the Rocky Mountain News, Denver's premier daily newspaper.

I always loved newspapers and newspaper art. This spanned a career that lasted 25 years, and was lucrative enough to allow me to travel to Europe many times to see the art museums and the paintings and sculptures up close..

But as newspaper art circled the drain, I decided to pursue a dream I'd had for decades of getting into the world of animation. I moved to Vancouver, spent a couple of years doing fine art and putting a portfolio together, and was hired at Atomic Cartoons in 2012 by none other than Jamie Turner.