Featured Pro Portfolio: Leticia Gillett
Leticia Gillett is a Character Development Artist at Netflix Animation, currently based in Los Angeles. Before moving to the United States to study at Gnomon, she worked in Brazil as a 3D generalist in Archviz and Character Creation. To date, Leticia’s work experience includes roles at Disney, Blizzard Entertainment and Dreamworks.
Check out Leticia’s ArtStation-powered portfolio website.
“It’s the best professional platform in my opinion for presenting your portfolio. (And no, Artstation did not pay me to say that!) It has a very simple and efficient layout, which makes it easy for recruiters to navigate when evaluating portfolios.”
In this interview, Leticia shares what it’s like working at her current job, her portfolio tips, favorite work, and more.
How did you get your first job as an artist?
I was working in an architecture company at the time but I always wanted to work making characters. I’m from a small to medium sized city in Brazil called Recife and at that time, there was this awesome commercial house called Z4 doing super fun stuff for TV. So I did a bunch of personal work in my free time, sent my portfolio to the company’s email, and crossed my fingers basically. If Z4 didn’t take me to work for them, there was literally no other cool place to work for. Thankfully they did reply to my email and I got my first job as a junior character artist!
What do you think makes a strong portfolio?
For me, I always try to make pieces that speak to who I am and what I like to say with my art. I think if you follow your heart and what brought you to make art, that will bring people to connect to your work at a higher level. When I focus on not just the model but also on the storytelling part of the piece, it helps me to express my view to people and make connections.
Tell us about one of your favorite projects in your portfolio.
My favorite piece on my portfolio is the funeral.
I had so much fun doing it and playing with asymmetrical modeling and storytelling with the lights, colors, and shadows. Pushing the story is always something that I like to try to do. I think I did well on this one. It tells 3 stories: one on the right warm side of the piece expressing gossip and a non-emotional state, the left cold side of the image is the family story of pain and realization of life through death and the middle of the piece is a little boy with a red flower representing hope and the continuity of life.
The piece is based on a concept by Sergey Ishmaev.
What does your current day-to-day look like at your job at Netflix?
My job at Netflix Animation is awesome! I work with some amazing 2D artists at the character development department helping create appealing characters that will work in 2D and 3D for movies and/or tv shows. It is a very creative and collaborative job. You have to be a great character artist but also very good at communicating. I do a lot of experimentation and ideation 3D sketches so we can find the best option for the character to add on to production.
See more of Leticia’s work on her portfolio website. Find out more about ArtStation premium websites here.