Kim Belding
I was raised with my parents and sister in a small town across the Canadian prairies. Cartoons are something I had a passion for since day one.
Whether it was making my dad painstakingly draw Slimer for me as a toddler, to learning how to use the VCR to record over our home videos with cartoons (in retrospect, I probably shouldn’t have done this). I learned to read by watching Looney Tunes cartoons with the closed captioning turned on. As soon as I learned how to put a pencil to paper, I never stopped.
I was self-taught, and took no formal drawing classes until college. My childhood was spent studying and drawing as many cartoon characters from the funny pages as I could. As a result, I consider my style to be a mix between all of these characters.
There are a few that come to mind regarding my achievements so far. One is having my artwork published in a Garfield book celebrating his 40th anniversary. Another is seeing my name in the credits on the animated children’s series Louis Says, and having my Impractical Jokers fan art featured at their official booth outside of San Diego Comic-Con.
For newcomers, I say: Make sure you have fun with it! If drawing is something you don’t have a passion for, you will NOT make it far in this industry. Also, don’t beat yourself up and feel like you’ll never be as good as the “masters”. Having big aspirations is important, but what matters most is that you can bring something to the table that no one else can.
Currently, I’m focusing on my full time work as an animator and storyboard artist, and producing my webcomic Picpak Dog. There is a project I’ve been approached with that involves designing a board game, but that’s in very early stages, and we’ll see where it goes.