Pick Your Prize! Animation and Interactive Media Senior Thesis

Dates: April 23 – 26

Reception: Wednesday, April 23, 5–7pm

Pick your Prize! A 2025 Animation and GTP (Games, Toys and Play) thesis exhibition. If you like comedy, horror, emotional films, or playing games with your friends, this show is the place to be! Showcasing a wide variety of media ranging from board games, video games, and short films, there is something for everyone. Take advantage of this opportunity to see up-and-coming animators and game designers show the culmination of their four years at Montserrat College of Art. Mark your calendars and enjoy the show… and be sure to Pick your Prize!

Deon Agyeman

Deon Agyeman is an illustrator and tabletop game designer based in Massachusetts and the founder of DevilDegg Games. Deon carries fond memories of very intense games of Uno, Connect 4, Sorry, and Monopoly that allowed them to be both strategic and cutthroat without totally ruining their relationship with friends or family. Deon aspires to replicate the same level of friendly ruthlessness in the board games they design. Deon’s repertoire of tabletop games includes Crooked Collectors, Pre-Diction, Live From Station 45, and Solar Derby.

Kaylee Blandin

Kaylee Blandin was born and raised in Dover, Delaware. Kaylee spent two years at Delaware College of Art and Design, before moving up to Massachusetts to attend Montserrat College of Art. From a young age, Kaylee was highly inspired and drawn to fantasy works like “How to Train Your Dragon” and “One Piece.” Kaylee likes to incorporate fantastical elements into her work and focuses on creating people, creatures and scenarios that exist outside of real life. More recently, Kaylee has taken the role of producer on different projects and has gained an appreciation and passion for the role.

Justin Christian

Justin Christian is an American-born animator with a heritage found in India. Though he likes to doodle, draw and paint, Justin’s main field of expertise is animation and cartooning. His program of choice is Blender where 3D and 2D come together to make interesting and unique animations. Outside of animating, Justin loves to go to the movie theaters with his friends and likes to read comic books where some of his inspirations come from.

Briana Costa

Briana Costa, as known as Starjellyfish, is a fantasy narrative storyteller, who uses her skills to create whimsical Illustrations and animations. She mainly focuses on creating storyboards and concept art. When she is not working on art, she probably has her nose in a book, playing video games or watching her favorite shows.

Lily Courtemanche

Lily Courtemanche is a 2D animator focusing on character development and color design. Lily’s goal with her work is to develop the character and personality through symbolism. She does this by utilizing particular imagery, such as flower symbolism, and color theory throughout her work. She enjoys creating characters that have more than two dimensions, creating a vast world that has a wide variety of characters. Lily specializes in character design and 2D animation.

Erin Cox

As an artist, Erin Cox loves experimental art, multimedia animation, and storyboarding. Growing up watching Cartoon Network shows such as Adventure Time and Regular Show and movies like Alice in Wonderland and My Neighbor Totoro greatly inspired her. Her goal is to give people an experience that relieves them from reality. Erin’s works center around themes of love, nostalgia, and surrealism.

Jack Hollis DuBois

Jack Hollis DuBois is an interdisciplinary artist who works in game design, digital illustration, poetry, and music composition. Jack uses his many creative outlets and love of research to navigate modern life’s infinite wiles and whims. Jack’s dream is to use artistically minded video games as a medium to explore the human experience, all that’s wickedly joyous, beautifully sorrowful, and deliciously bittersweet.

Scott Homer

Scott Homer is a 2D animator and illustrator who uses geometric shapes and digital tools to craft dynamic, expressive characters. Living in Massachusetts, he enjoys walking through local communities to admire the interconnectedness of natural and human-modified material. He uses these experiences to develop worlds that are either grounded in reality or illuminated by sci-fi or supernatural elements.

Wendy Morrison

Wendy Morrison is a 2D Animator and Character Designer who occasionally experiments with different mediums, including painting and stop-motion. Growing up in Mansfield, Massachusetts, she became entranced by various animated movies and shows that touch upon fairy tales/fantasy, adventure, and musicals. But her view of interests changed when she, at a very young age, accidentally stumbled upon media that fell into the horror genre, scaring her in the process upon first viewing. It was from there that those memories started to bleed into her innocence and nostalgia, inspiring her to create endearing, yet unsettling stories that are translated through her art.

Giulianna Nota

Born and raised in Burlington, Massachusetts, Giulianna Nota attended Shawsheen Valley Technical High School in Billerica, MA, where she pursued her love of art in the Design and Visual Communications program. Her passion for art began in childhood when she would often doodle on the back of worksheets in elementary school. In middle school, Giulianna discovered several cartoons which inspired her to create fan art and explore character design. By high school, she was developing her own original characters and stories, with a growing dedication to cartooning and animation. Now, as a passionate artist, Giulianna dreams of creating shows that bring the same sense of comfort and joy to others that her favorite series gave to her during hard times.

Quinn Schuyler

Quinn Schuyler is an intermediate programmer and 2D animator striving to create punchy, independent video games. He primarily works inside the Unity game engine, coding under the hood in C#, and creating pixel art assets using Aseprite. A vast majority of Quinn’s programming skills and understanding of his preferred engine are self-taught. When he’s not actively creating assets for his work, he enjoys playing/studying his favorite titles.

Ethan Smith

Ethan Smith is an art director and storyboard animator known for his dynamic use of forced perspectives and inventive character interactions. Born and raised in Houston, Texas, Ethan grew up immersed in the vibrant energy of early 90s and 2000s Cartoon Network shows. His passion for skateboarding, inspired by Tony Hawk, and love for bold, animated storytelling have carried him through his creative journey, fueling a unique approach to his work.

Aikira Taylor

Aikira Taylor was adopted and raised in Upper Marlboro, Maryland. Aikira (she/they) is a Storyboard and Character Design artist. Her art-making began when she was about six years old and self-published a book about who she wanted to be when she grew up. When she was growing up she watched a lot of cartoons and always wondered how each of her favorite shows were made. She thought maybe she could do that too. Within the animation pipeline, she would like to be a storyboard artist in the genre realm of fantasy, thriller, and comedy. In addition to creating digital work, she paints with acrylic, watercolor, and gouache. She likes to style her art using gore, thriller, fantasy, and a hint of mystery.

Unniqorn (Bella Unni)

Bella Unni, eponymously known as Unniqorn, is a traditional 2D animator who primarily specializes in character design and storytelling. She developed an interest in animation and cartoons at a young age, which has since influenced her art style, original characters and stories, and her lifelong goal to pursue a career in animation or a similar field. Unniqorn’s character designs and stories are influenced by her love for animals, sci-fi and fantasy genres, graphic novels and manga, and her desire to empathize, sympathize, and share her ideas with others; in addition to television cartoons and the animated works of studios such as Disney, Pixar, and DreamWorks, among others.

Taylor Whitcomb

Taylor Whitcomb is an animator, 3D modeler, and background artist who utilizes both digital and traditional mediums to produce his animations. His work places heavy concern on action in perspective, consistently defined and compositionally intriguing spaces, warped perspective, and the prospect of traveling through a vast location via the medium of animation. Themes present within his latest work, Animalia 5, include elements of science fiction, body horror, and apocalyptic progression.