lesean_thomas

Years before “The Boondocks” and “Black Dynamite” I heard about a series that was being animated by a Black fellow like myself a few generations before my own, his name was Lesean Thomas. Battleseed was a series created by Lesean many Moons ago which came out at a midpoint in my career and it gave the extra push to work on one of my earlier pieces. This plus his later work on the comic Arkanium and the creator owned Cannon Buster cemented my interest and the rest is history.

Lesean Thomas, a man I consider as one of my limited Sifu’s. From my perspective a sifu happens to be a individual whom you learn a valuable less from that allows you to grow or reach a new level. I naturally do not consider many to a sifu but he gets that title from one brief discussion we had when I had the chance to sit down and chat with him on my path to re-inventing myself. After this discussion I was left broken as I was now unsure of myself, my future and the next steps I had to take to continue, it was a new look on life as I knew it pertaining to my goals. You have to understand I come from a mixed focal background. I have worked in post production as a 3d animator, I have worked as a web designer, I have been a game developer and I also have been the computer guy- the guys who can set up a network, who know how to debug your computer and just too much jazz but my real passion was animation as a whole, mixing 2d and 3d animation. Enough about me lets move on to Lesean Thomas an artist, animator, director and producer of some of the slickest breeds of new life that has hit the animation waveboard. If you have watched “The Boondocks” and Black Dynamite to name a few he had his hands in that mix. Remember large scale animation productions is a team effort not a one man band. It can be done but it may take a while to complete said process. Lesean Has paved a way for many young black youths that look up for a icon in their era that shows them that you can make it in an industry like animation or pre-production as it is deemed in the States as the whole 2d animation process is not done in the states but outsourced to other countries such as Korea, China or India. In his TedX speak he discusses his fears and what he had to overcome to make it to where he is currently today. He is the go to man in the animation process that bridges current korean animation houses with the State side pre-production locations. As for a body of work he has been involved with simply go here http://leseanthomas.com/

For more of my ranting read below but do check out the video and go on over to Lesean’s website.

In that time frame I knew of many comic artist whose style I loved EdMcGuinness, J Scott Campbell, Keron Grant, Sanford Greene, the late Michael Turner, Joe Mad, Pat Lee, Jim lee and Stephen Platt just to name a few that existed in my era or drew in a style I rather much enjoyed and of course there was Lesean Thomas. He was not only an artist he was an 2d animator someone doing what I loved or enjoyed or wanted to pursue. Something I soon realized was not a job in the states or to the level which I wanted to pursue. In my schooling 2d animation was likened to soft and simply playful nothing like the anime which I grew up watching. I do admit I loved bugs bunny and those gems of the golden era. There are a handful of animation directors from that era I respect but director from that era that I respect was Chuck Jones rest his soul. I also do admit Disney had wonderful animations but again that was not my pursuit. I wanted a more mature content similar to that of some of the more featured animated content out of Japan/korean shops. I wanted to animate like the artist that did Akira I wanted that fluid action I wanted that suspense. It did not matter how hard they had to work to create said content, that’s what i wanted to do.

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