Once she graduated SVA Vivienne then moved to California and began developing the pilot for one of her projects. In the meantime, she worked as an animator on the show “Too Loud!” A show about two kids with large heads and loudmouths working at a library, which was created by Nico Colaleo and hosted on DreamworksTV. 

During this time she also created an animated music video for Kesha’s “Die Young” which she accredits to boosting the popularity of her youtube channel.

With the rise of her youtube channel, she began production of her first Pilot episode for Hazbin Hotel. A story revolving around Charlie, the Princess of Hell, who has a dream to overcome the overpopulation of sinners via Rehabilitation instead of the yearly purge. The leadup and eventual release was a big occasion for the animation community and the industry as Vivienne was a big-name independent animator creating her own small studio and self publishing not just one pilot episode, but 2 pilots within 2 months. In late October 2019 the pilot for Hazbin Hotel was released and gained 10 million views on youtube within the first 2 weeks.

The reception was overwhelmingly positive, this being the first adult-targeted animated musical published by an independent animator.
To keep the excitement going she unveiled and released the pilot episode for Helluva Boss. Another mature animated show inspired by shows like “The Office” and co-written by offensive youtube skit maker Brandon Rogers who also voiced Blitzo in the episode. 

Many other well-known voice actors were cast in this pilot from powerhouses like Richard Horvitz who’s roles include Zim (Invade Zim), Razputin (Psychonauts), Billy & Harold (Grimm Adventures of Billy and Mandy) and many more. Erica Lindbeck whose most notable role is as Barbie in the made for TV movies in 2016/17 as well as many voice credits in video games and plenty of English Anime dubs. Brock Baker is the last of the main cast credits, his notable work is as an impressionist and a YouTuber, he is often dubbed “the man of a Kajillion voices”.

For my Contextual Research Poster I chose the artist and animator Vivienne Medrano (also known as Vivziepop) as my subject. As someone who wants to create stories and lead groups to make them a reality she is an inspiration to me due to her being an independent animator who was able to create a small studio and create multiple Pilots.

But first, where she came from.
She is a Salvadoran-American, born and raised in Maryland, USA. She went to the School of Visual Arts (SVA) in New York and graduated majoring in traditional animation. During her education she created two animations.

First, her short film “Son of 666″  for her third year thesis in 2013.

Then her senior thesis film “Timber” in 2014 which won the 2014 Dusty Award.

Her unique style helped her garner a lot of interest which boosted the fan following around her webcomic “Zoophobia” which she started in 2012. It follows a human School Counselor with a phobia of animals who accepts a mysterious job which brings her to a secret paradise for all manner of fantasy creatures, cute and scary.

Although in 2016 she put her comic on an indefinite hiatus as she started working on other larger projects.