Today we’d like to introduce you to Sabrina Mati.
Hi Sabrina, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I grew up in Chatsworth, California, and have been drawing cartoons since I was 4 years old and have always wanted to work on 2D animated TV shows. I was highly inspired by anime, Disney movies, Cartoon Network, and video games as a child. I graduated a year early from high school in 2009 to jumpstart my education towards Media Arts and Animation at the Art Institute of Hollywood in California, where I received a Bachelor’s Of Science Degree. My first foot in the door in the animation industry was a Production Internship on the show Adventure Time (Season 5) at Cartoon Network. Thanks to my college, I received lots of training in programs like the entire Adobe Suite, 3D programs such as Maya and Zbrush, as well as editing programs such as Final Cut Pro and more. I was well versed to accomplish many tasks in animation production and eventually landed my first official job as a Digital Production Assistant on Uncle Grandpa at Cartoon Network. After 2 years of doing production work while simultaneously working on my art portfolio at Concept Design Academy in Pasadena, California, I began testing for art positions. My first official art position was on the show Rick and Morty as a character design/layout artist. I’ve dabbled in background design, character design, prop/effect design, and design cleanup throughout my entire career in animation. I’ve worked for studios such as Cartoon Network, Starburns Industries Inc., Titmouse Studio Inc., Rick and Morty LLC., Stoopid Buddy, Bento Box, Netflix, and Rough Draft Studios for about 11 years now. For a couple years, 3 colleagues of mine and I got together and created a Youtube channel where we podcast about Animation Success Stories. We would interview guests from many different positions of the animation pipeline in the industry and ask them stories about how they got to where they are today to teach viewers that no path is the same (and that it isn’t always necessary to go to college to land a job in animation). We inspired and helped many through our podcast and reached about 2K subscribers.
While hiatuses have gotten longer in between show gigs since the pandemic, I decided to learn a new skill and take on the world of tattoos. I was inspired by other animation artists that also were tattoo artists, such as Natalie Hall and my former coworker, Gary Keroglyan. For 6 months, I did heavy online research on my own and learned on fake skin and fruit in my own home. I tatted myself for my first human canvas, and when I felt ready, I took on my first tattoo apprenticeship at Famous Tattoo and Body Piercings in Ventura, California. There I apprenticed for 8 months until they felt I was ready to graduate and receive my tattoo license. As California was no longer financially a place I felt I could thrive in, I felt the need to explore another state outside of the box I grew up in. After living 30 years in Los Angeles County, California, I finally decided to move to the beautiful state of Texas in the DFW Metroplex. I am in love with the Southern culture here and feel as if I am surrounded by more like-minded people. Former colleagues at my last tattoo shop gave me a recommendation to work at Boss Frog Tattoo, which is now where I tattoo full time here in Mckinney, Texas. I have been tattooing officially for 2 years now. My favorite styles are blackwork illustrative/minimalistic tattoos that are very linework heavy. I love designing girls, insects, and animals for my flash work. My personal favorite tattoos to take on are anime-style tattoos. The transition from animation to tattooing felt convenient since I have a background in design and art. The biggest challenge has been gaining confidence in myself every time I lay the needle to skin. I still currently work remotely in animation as well, whether it be freelance or full-time gigs.
Outside of my drawing career, I have a huge passion for dance. I have been doing both pole fitness and regular dancing since 2015 and have performed at shows with my first dance studio, The Choreography House as well as two events at Titmouse Animation back in California. I am currently a student at WREXX Dance Studio in Allen, Texas. My absolute favorite genre is contemporary, where I feel I can release a ray of emotions through body movement. I am also a musician. I’ve dabbled in violin, piano, guitar, and singing. Today, I mainly have fun doing simple guitar covers and occasionally love going out for karaoke. I dabble in photography and makeup as well for fun. My ultimate passion outside the arts is reading books all about mental health, metaphysics, spirituality, astrology, and psychic abilities. I wish to someday teach contemporary dance on the side for adult beginners as a form of meditation/movement therapy. I love researching many modalities for holistic healing and try to tie it all back to my own life and my art. Emotional intelligence is one thing I strive for behind everything I do in life as I believe it is the solution to many problems we have as humanity.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It definitely hasn’t been smooth. I have always been a type A personality and grew up a straight-A student in highly gifted magnet education programs, so hard work and discipline is far from foreign to me. In adulthood, the biggest battles I have fought were my own mental health struggles, such as perfectionism, burnout, and establishing boundaries as a human being and an artist. I have a bad habit of taking too many projects on, not saying “no,” getting upset with myself if I feel something isn’t perfect and eventually burning out. I have a strong love-hate relationship with drawing. When I do it as a job, I find myself not ever wanting to draw for fun in my own free time and remembering to “play” for my inner child. In animation, I stopped taking design positions and eventually strictly took on cleanup positions for the sake of my mental health. Competition for gigs show after show began wearing on my confidence and my self-identity. I felt it wasn’t worth turning out designs 40 plus hours a week only for you to become another cog in a larger machine of an animated TV show where mainly writers, actors, and directors receive recognition and awards for their hard work. I preferred to save my creative energy for outside my job and trained myself to seek only my own approval rather than approval of others when it came down to my skills (rejection is never easy). I felt happiest when I would draw things I wished to where there was no pressure of pleasing anyone else but myself while also exploring more art styles outside of any tv show I would work on for months straight. Making people happy by sharing my art or simply inspiring others to create art was just icing on the cake. Every time I am requested to create art for people, a part of me feels a fear of failure and disappointment, and there are times I subconsciously form mental art blocks and end up not creating anything at all. I overanalyze everything I create for people to the point where some days, I wish to abandon art altogether because of the amount of pressure I put on myself. In tattooing, these feelings increase since I am permanently marking people’s skin. I am my own worst critic, and if I feel I didn’t do my best on any tattoo, I will take those feelings home with me and sleep on it. I have immense respect for long-time tattoo masters. I strongly believe this is the hardest art medium today solely because of this.
Other than confidence as a tattoo artist, I am currently battling shops and other long-time tattoo artists telling me what styles I should or shouldn’t do or how to run my services (after being in an industry for 11 years that also controlled my art as we never really drew things other than what show styles we were told to draw). I am currently trying to maintain artistic freedom in this field and running my services the way I wish to for the sake of my mental health and remaining in a good relationship with art. There are many times I will turn down projects not only because they are not my forte but because I genuinely don’t have fun doing them. I strongly feel it is important not only for myself but for my clients to make the entire experience enjoyable. Drawing artists are not printing machines, and our self-worth is very fragile when it comes to our art. We are humans, and many people don’t realize we need to be nurtured to keep producing, and art is a form of self-expression. Animation and Walk In tattoo shops both struggle with these concepts as they enforce deadlines, working long hours, and producing “quantity over quality” for the sake of money. As a jack of many trades, I am a strong believer in honing in on something you wish to specialize in and excel at it rather than being an amateur of many styles. In animation, we never had to learn all departments of an animation pipeline unless becoming an art director was a main goal. I only worked in black and white and mainly did character design for the most part, so in tattooing, I prefer to stick with illustrative black and grey styles while also taking my time to produce the best results. I am constantly being told to do “everything” to become a “better tattoo artist” when I do not strive to become the “best” in this field, and I am also not in this for the money. I am perfectly happy honing in on my favorite styles and becoming known for them so I remain producing art in the long run rather than quitting out of depression and frustration.
Other than art blocks, perfectionism, and burnout, the last few years have been a struggle socially in this political climate we live in today. As someone who does not involve myself in politics so much, living in LA, California, it was hard to have any personal opinions/belief systems about simply anything without others labeling you to a political party or dehumanizing you while connecting anything related to social justice. I constantly felt like I was walking on eggshells and felt the need to simply converse less and hide many aspects of myself around people. I already grew up as somewhat of an outcast, and it only got worse since the pandemic. Nowadays, simple disagreements or misunderstandings amongst each other leads to a lot of dehumanization and ending of friendships or even work relationships. As a huge mental health advocate, I wish to see a world where we all can feel free to speak our minds without being attacked, judged, or even have job opportunities taken away from us. Authenticity is something we all need, as well as being more compassionate towards one another and creating safe spaces to express ourselves. Unity is so important today when it comes to living in a country that is constantly being divided and pinning groups of people against each other. I hope that someday, people remember at the end of the day, we are all human living a human experience together in a traumatic world.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I am predominantly a digital artist these days. I personally create designs in illustrative black and grey styles for the sake of producing print work (i.e., Redbubble Products) as well as tattoos. I mainly specialize in minimalist or illustrative blackwork tattoos, and love to take on cartoon/anime styles. People find that my strengths lie in clean linework when it comes to my tattoos. In animation, these days, I mainly do pre-production cleanup work either in Adobe Photoshop or Adobe Animate. I create final line styles for characters, props, and effects which then goes to the color department before all assets get shipped to another country for Animation. In my animation career, I am most proud of working on shows like Rick and Morty, Solar Opposites, Disenchantment, and having been a small part of Adventure Time. I am proud of how young I got my foot in the door and how many years I have been working in an entertainment industry, and absolutely love meeting fans of shows I have been a part of. I am also proud of sharing my craft with other communities, such as my pole/dance community, my karaoke go-er community, my tattoo community, and all my family and friends. I am the most proud when people reach out to me about starting a new hobby or artistic endeavor and tell me I inspired them to do so.
In tattooing, my animation background sets me apart from most artists. A lot of people can see my animation background in my work style. The fact I have a Bachelor’s Degree is also something that has set me apart from many tattoo artists when majority of the time, tattoo artists have started out fresh out of high school going straight into an apprenticeship learning specifically tattoo history and tattoo art. I had my apprenticeship as a 30-year-old adult after experiencing 11 years in another form of art, so my perspective of this art form tends to differ from old-school traditional tattooers when they have taken the traditional route, which consisted of more types of hazing environments and old school business mindsets of working harder, not smarter. I am also a person who tends to be obsessed with many passions and hobbies where most pour their livelihoods all into one. I am quick to say, “Drawing is not my biggest passion,” when most will say it is their whole world. It’s an odd thing to hear from someone with my success stories, but I strongly believe to stay detached in everything I do because if I let it consume my life, any little thing that goes wrong or doesn’t feel right will make me feel like my whole world is coming to an end. I keep myself open to many art forms, and I have the most fun constantly being a beginner at many trades. It reminds me to keep my inner child alive and reminds me to keep on exploring and playing as we all did when we were children. Mental health to me comes first when to most people strive to become the best and work long, hard grueling hours to earn their living. I strive to be happy.
Have you learned any interesting or important lessons due to the Covid-19 Crisis?
Yes, community and unity is more important now than ever. I strongly believe we need to reevaluate how society structures individual work lives and the work-life balance. We also need to spread more awareness about mental health as I believe (in researching a lot about the mind-to-body connection) that mental illness creates misalignments and disease in the body. My favorite books I love to share with people are “Metaphysical Anatomy” by Evette Rose (where she lists all ailments and diseases in glossary form and lists all emotional/trauma symptoms behind every illness) as well as Dr. Joe Dispenza books (where he constantly draws the scientific connection between our conscious/subconscious minds to our bodies and explains many hot takes as a neuroscientist and biologist that much of Western Medicine will not teach us). I strive to see an era where Western and Eastern medicinal practices work hand in hand with each other. People still believe that viruses just spread, and anyone can get them, and only pills and vaccines can cure them when in reality, we open up our physiology and energy fields to receiving them by constantly poisoning our bodies with stress, unhealthy foods/toxins, lack of exercise, and lack of awareness of childhood trauma. We are treating surface-level physical symptoms and not treating the root cause. Many people aren’t even aware of childhood trauma and how it has affected their minds, bodies, and energy fields today as adults. All of our traumas play out as a human collective and manifests into such crises. I personally believe Covid-19 happened for us, not to us. Our world pre-pandemic was not conducive to humanity/human health. We had to undergo Covid-19 to wake up and realize that we need to change many structures of society and governments today to prolong the existence of humanity on this planet. I hope more and more people dive into self-care, mental/physical therapy, as well as creating more community amongst each other. Isolation, disconnection, and loneliness will be the death of us all. Freedom and sovereignty is also what we lack when it comes to our governments around the world. They are all becoming forms of control rather than entities that serve and help us.
Contact Info:
- Website: sabrinamati.tumblr.com
- Instagram: instagram.com/sabrinamati_Art
- Facebook: facebook.com/sabrinamati.art
- Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/sabrinamati
- Youtube: youtube.com/sabrinamati ; youtube.com/animationsuccessstoriespodcast
- Other: sabrinamati.redbubble.com
Image Credits
Rick and Morty
Cartoon Network,
Starburns Industries
Animation Success Stories Podcast
