Sophia Johnson
Professional Experience
Animator and Concept Artist, Aquest
New York, NY June 2024 - Sep 2025
Worked on creating a 1-minute 2D animation video for Aquest. Drew character designs and concept art for the world of Aquest, painted numerous backgrounds from scratch using Photoshop. Animated keyframes and in-betweens for many shots in Toon-Boon Harmony. Utilized After Effects to add cut-out animation, special effects, and compositing, combining different animation methods to create overall satisfying results. Edited sound in Premiere Pro later to finish the animation. Animated walk cycles, shooting cycles for robots in Maya and modeled props for a developing RTS game.
General Assistant, VIEW Conference 2024
Turin, Italy, June - October 2024
Worked as a general assistant hybrid for VIEW Conference 2024, helping with both partnerships, social media and marketing. Designed posters for online promotional activities and marketing using Photoshop.
Researched and reached out to animation studios, establishing partnerships between the conference and studios.
Video Editing Internship, Design & Customize LLC
Burlingame, CA June - August 2023
Created 3D and 2D animations for advertisement on Instagram. Modeled, textured and animated assets in Blender, and composited videos to match the brand. Added and edited stock library audio to provided footage and made many different designs of logo openings for each advertisement clip.
Graphic Design Internship, Dim Events
Chicago, IL Dec 2021- May 2022
Designed logos and fliers for advertisement, also created an art handbook guideline for the company using inDesign.
3D Animator Internship, FlashMonkey Inc.
Chicago, IL Dec 2021- May 2022
Designed the mascot of the company and created a 3d model based on it. Painted and rigged the model in Maya for animating. Made 3 demo animations to demonstrate the character and created an introduction video for the company.
Projects
Maya
Adobe Photoshop,
Premiere, After Effects
Toon Boom Storyboard Pro
Nuke
Substance Painter
Zbrush
Toon Boom Harmony
Clip Studio Paint EX
Languages
English (native)
Chinese (proficient)
MFA Thesis Animation Strawberry Meringue Cake
September 2024-May 2025
Achievements
2024 VIEW Conference, Turin, Italy
Panelist for Young People in VIEW: Storytelling and Climate Change
Education
School of Visual Arts
New York, 2023-2025
Master of Fine arts, Computer Arts
School of the Art Institute
of Chicago
Chicago, Illinois 2019-2023
Bachelor Fine arts, Animation
Worked from preproduction to finish for my 3D Animation film, Strawberry Meringue Cake. Handled all
story aspects, designs, concept art. Reached out and hired individuals over the world on a student budget
to collaborate and create music, sound effects, compositing, 2d FX and partial 3D animation, working as the overall director to supervise and give feedback on the style and exact shots. During production process, participated in the overall process of modeling, rigging, painting, animation, and the final compositing stage, creating a 2 minute animation film in the end.
2023 School of Visual Arts
MFA Computer Art Award Recipient
2019-2023 School of the Art Institute of Chicago
Merit Scholarship Recipient



