Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Adrian Carrillo. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Adrian, thanks so much for taking the time to share your insights and lessons with us today. We’re particularly interested in hearing about how you became such a resilient person. Where do you get your resilience from?
I get my resilience from life’s obstacles and hardships. We all go through tough times, and we must choose how we react and then respond to life’s challenges. I have had many heartbreaks with close calls in the art industry, as well as in my personal life with incredibly traumatic events in the recent past. Yet, every time I fall I give myself enough time to grieve and slowly pick myself back up.
Art has been a saving grace in my life. I would escape reality by drawing non-stop as a child, always being told to stop drawing in class by teachers or to stop drawing and go to sleep by my parents! Comic books were a plague upon my parents wallets, but to me comics became an obsession. Later, as a teenager I got into punk rock and graffiti, I joined many graffiti crews, and played in a number of bands in the San Diego music scene. Both put me in the strangest, and at times, very questionable situations. I was also going from job to job, not very happy with the direction of my life. Drawing and painting were always a meditative space for me through these young years, somewhere in the recesses of my mind I knew I had to do something with it. After grinding out 5 difficult work years at a laboratory, I reflected on how I was living and felt that I had to make a choice on what life goal I was going to invest my time and energy on.
I went back to school at San Diego City College to work on my artistic abilities, studying under the wonderful Wayne Hulgin. My goal was to make something of myself, to dream big with a newly radicalized mind thanks to the exposure I got at SDCC and its very progressive programs that teach students to be more and shoot for the stars. Eventually, I transferred to CalState University of Long Beach School of The Arts. After that, it was a dream like journey wrought with a super healthy dose of adversity! More than one can chew, really.
Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?
Here comes the odyssey, buckle up buddies!
During my time at CSULB in the amazing BFA Illustration program I was exposed to the beautiful world of art production for animation. One of my most influential professors, the late Everette Peck, unlocked within me the desire to pursue animation as a passion, and later as a career. While I was studying under the wonderful staff at CSULB, I produced the first issue of my comic book WUNDERSTEIN that I co-created with my family member, Christopher Bengtsson.
We poured everything we had into it, leading to an invitation from my brother from another mother, Dr. Carlos Kelly, to attend Sol Con at The Ohio State University as a participant in their convention that focused on amplifying the comic book works of BIPOC creators. At Sol Con I showcased my work on WUNDERSTEIN and my other comic book Vasilias Life. Got to meet a ton of like-minded creatives and many comic book/literary titans that impressed upon me the reality that POC’s can and do have the ability to make their dreams a reality.
In that same year, I was also lucky enough to attend the very first Lightbox Expo in 2018 as a fresh CSULB School of the Arts graduate, where I came into contact with LXIA, Latinxs In Animation!
After COVID locked everything down, and I had to go back home to San Diego, I took interest in storyboarding as a career path. I began to take classes with greats such as Ruolin Li and Justin Copeland, also building a portfolio and applying for work at the same time. I wasn’t getting any responses, so as an industry saying says “go to your own”, I went to my own and reached out to the absolute goats at LXIA. They were partnered with NETFLIX in the incredible diversity promotion program they operate named NAFP, NETFLIX Animation Foundations Program – Where I was mentored by the incredible Film Director Lynn Wang.
Lynn was real with her mentees but also super nurturing to our development as story artists. Giving us priceless story lessons, sharing industry level work with us, simulating storyboarding tests for us to take, and blessed us with guest lecturers from streaming/television, and feature animation. I walked away from her mentorship a stronger artist with a realistic understanding of where my skill level was and learning from Lynn that I had to do work beyond just improving my storyboarding skills. That social component of being a successful artist is something I’ve really struggled with in recent years, but I pressed on, overcame my social anxieties, and networked my butt off at Lightbox 2022.
After the NAFP mentorship I continued to work on my portfolio. All the while I was dealing with a depression I had fallen into due to traumas from recent years. It was hard but I continued forward. In early 2022 I began working with an NGO, Jewish Family Service of San Diego, helping migrant folks entering the U.S. seeking asylum. This blessing brought me the stability I needed and exposed me to peoples experiences that were a whole universe worth more difficult than my own. If migrant people can cross deadly jungles, survive destabilizing and violent western foreign policies, and endure the myriad of hardships that lay before them and their dreams – then surely I can find the willpower to chase my own dreams too.
But at this point, I was worn down by rejection emails, and mostly crickets from studios. Hitting wall after wall was doing a number on me, I flat out just wanted to give up. I thought maybe its time to settle, climb the corporate ladder at my job and try to enjoy the rest of the movie on autopilot. BUT NAY! That’s not who I am or what I do, I hadn’t gotten this far to just walk away and call it quits.
I thought hard about what I really wanted to do with my life and decided to double down on animation. I took more classes at Animation Collaborative with instructors from Pixar, who helped me level up my work tremendously! I sought the mentorship of my instructor, and unparalleled Story Artist, Louis Gonzalez after meeting him at Lightbox 2023.
After accepting me as a mentee, this man pressed me to rise to the challenges of life as a determined individual. He put the fear of God into me with his words and I immediately returned to my work on WUNDERSTEIN, with a newly reignited passion for comic book making, infusing core ideas of animation and plusing up my creations overall. Long story short, I went on an odyssey thinking I would end up working in animation only to find that all roads lead back to my original love, COMICS!
I’m getting closer to finishing the current chapter of work on WUNDERSTEIN, and wow let me tell you, finding that work life balance has been quite the challenge! Still, when I look at the work and see how it’s evolved, taken on a distinct voice of its own reflecting the blood sweat and tears I’ve poured into becoming a better Story artist – I admit to myself, “Doesn’t matter how long it takes or how difficult the path is, its worth it buddy!”
Seriously, I feel amazed at how the many hands that I’ve passed through molded my mind and my abilities. I’m eternally grateful and indebted to everyone that has been kind enough to teach me something new.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
Three qualities that I believe are indispensable to anyone on a journey of self actualization is to listen, observe, and recreate. Listen to those who have done what you want to do with your life, be critically present in your decision to check your ego at the door and give the entirety of your attention to the knowledge and experience of the accomplished.
Observe what happens around you, don’t live in a bubble, absorb the lessons being taught to you by those that see the potential for greatness in you. Engage that energy within you and put it out there! Understand that you are part of a whole ecosystem beyond yourself. Observe the world, and create.
Recreate the conditions that have allowed for successful people to be in advantageous positions in life, its not impossible and yes it is imperfect. Building up consistency takes a lot of time and patience. There will be obstacles and setbacks, but you can always make small decisions every day that become cumulatively positive in their impact on your life.
Give life the ol’ KI-YAP!
Before we go, maybe you can tell us a bit about your parents and what you feel was the most impactful thing they did for you?
I think I’ve always been a pain in one form or another, I don’t think I can thank my parents enough for all they have endured from me. But something that comes to mind is how my parents helped me work through depression. It’s ugly, it’s hard, it’s heartbreaking work, but they did it. They held me up and said “keep working on your art, keep chasing your dreams”. Well here I am now completing the work I started years ago, working towards publishing WUNDERSTEIN along with my other comic books and hopefully exhibiting my work in the convention circuit in the near future. It wouldn’t be possible without them. Thank you Moms and Pops!
Also, all WUNDERSTEIN images are property of Adrian Carrillo and Christopher Bengtsson and subject to copyright protection.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.adriancarrilloart.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adriancarrilloart/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adrian-carrillo-91b941b5/
- Other: https://coffeecomicsnstuff.tumblr.com/
Image Credits
Adrian Carrillo
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