From monstersitters to mermaids, Nneka Myers is inspired by everyday Black girls just like her

Seeing Black girls in cartoons makes my heart melt a little.

As a self-professed Disney fanatic I grew up re-watching the holy trifecta of The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King countless times. I could recite every word by heart and I knew every song.

I still adore those films, but the dearth of characters that look like me in a world I loved so dearly has always made me sad.

It's part of why my interest was piqued when I learned of a young Black artist named Nneka Myers.

Based in Toronto, Myers is a visual development artist and character designer at Nelvana animation studio — and one of their latest projects is Esme and Roy, which premiered last Saturday on HBO and Treehouse.

The show, which comes from the makers of Sesame Street, is about two best friends — a little Black girl named Esme and a monster named Roy — as they go on adventures in "monstersitting." Myers helped bring the character of Esme to life.

Outside of her 9-to-5, Myers makes comics, illustrates children's books and sells her personal art at conventions and expos. With more than 44,000 followers on Instagram, she's definitely a talent to watch. I spoke to her earlier this week about the new series and how she was able to carve a career out of her passion.

Tell me about Esme and Roy.

For the past two years I've worked from the visual development stage all the way to the end of the pipeline on Esme and Roy. I was one of the visual development artists, so I helped with creating the look of Esme in particular and the colours for the monsters and the overall textural look they tried to create for the entire series. It's like one of my little babies because I feel like I've had a really important hand in it.

So give me the 101 on what exactly a visual development artist does.

It varies from studio to studio, but a visual development artist generally creates the initial look, colour keys, costume and character designs. So, that artist could get the first hand at developing what the character might look like or what the environment or scene might have and the colours that would be the most impactful on an audience to get the story across.

The director and the lead art director and design supervisor would take that and bring that to their team and further polish it. So usually visual development doesn't technically stay exactly the same because it's gonna go through many hands down the line.

It sounds like you can't be too possessive of your work.

No, you can never be too possessive and that's the downfall of it. For me, I love making things, and when you have that first idea that you really love you hope that the client will like it. Ninety per cent of the time they might like 10 per cent, but you're gonna have to change a lot. You have to know that the criticism that they give isn't necessarily bad. [Your work is] just not matching their vision for this time.

What qualities make for a good visual development artist?

Hmm...good question. It really helps to be able to amend your style into different styles. For me, I work with preschool [audiences] predominantly so I have to make sure that [my characters are] really small and cute looking, round edges — whereas for older children I can get away with more details, more sharp edges.

When did you realize you were an artist?

I think, like with every artist story, it was when I was really young, but I didn't really think of what exactly I wanted to do as a career. In high school I was just afraid that being an artist wouldn't be a viable path, so I went toward graphic design instead. And it wasn't until the second month of university in graphic design, I was like: "I don't like this. I need to go back into art." It's been smooth sailing since then.

How did you know animation was the direction you wanted to go in?

I always loved Disney films and animation in general — like anime, Saturday morning cartoons ever since I was young. And I knew that was the one passion that kept me drawing.

What is your favourite animated film in terms of aesthetic?

A very important film for me that really made me decide that I wanted to do visual development was Wreck-It Ralph. That movie had so much colour, so many shapes — it was literally a mashup of every retro game you can think of in that one film, with all the characters having a different pixel look or texture look or 2-D look, and they were able to blend that all seamlessly into one universe. That told me that it didn't really matter if I felt that I couldn't reach one studio style. If I can make sure all the aesthetic [styles] blend with each other, I could make them look like they all [belong] in one universe.

It was like, I need to do this. Most people think [my favourite film] would be a princess movie or something along those lines, but it was definitely Wreck-It Ralph. It was such a gamer movie, but I loved it and it was the one that made me say, "I need to do this."

Where do you find your visual inspirations?

I think it really just comes from life. I like people watching a lot, so usually I see a lot of people that have particular outfits or certain hairstyles and I'm like, "Oh, that's really cute. I would love to add that." Or I might be going through a fashion magazine or on Pinterest and there could be a dress that perks my interest or an old photo from a vintage collection. And I think more of my inspiration, too, comes from just trying to draw the everyday Black girl. I know it's hard to find that in our media.

Are there a lot of Black women in this field?

For Black women it's still pretty rare. I think it's because for animations, we don't often see Black characters represented and that could be a factor as to why Black youth of today don't feel like this is a viable career. As opposed to acting — we still struggle for exposure in film and TV, but it's more common. In animation it's still more of a white-saturated field.

The number one question I get from Black parents at conventions, [they] ask me, "What advice can you give to my son or daughter because they want to go into animation but I don't know if they'll be able to earn money." I think that's the biggest worry. I tell them all the time: don't worry. As long as you put your passion forward, there is money in this field. It does take time to get up there but you're not gonna be a starving artist. The options are out there. It just takes a bit more searching but because of social media, it's a lot easier to get that exposure and make a career out of it.

Was that a question your parents had for you? Were they concerned?

Oh no. Actually they questioned why I didn't go for it and went for design. They were actually mad that I didn't go for it, which is really shocking. But my mom's been super supportive since day one. And even when I was questioning — why am I in this design program? — she's like, "Just do what you want to do and if you love it, I'm sure you'll find a job."

I didn't see those faces that I could relate to, but sometimes we just really have to take that risk. You don't really need to see yourself in that field to make it work for you. You can just go into that field and when people see that you're making that content, the work will come to you because your practice is one of a kind. And then you're gonna inspire other people of your culture, background or ethnicity to follow. It just takes that one person to take that one step.