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Molly
 
Photo by Leoni Combrink

Molly Buglass-Clapham is the 2017 winner of the ‘Light and Dark’ National Animation and Design Competition  

Rowan Milburn —

How a last minute decision to enter a character turned into winning a national animation competition and $10,000 worth of prizes. 

Molly is a real Hagley College success story.  She is a student in the Hagley School of Animation and Design. Earlier this year, Molly entered a National Competition called ‘Light and Dark.’ The entry involved Molly drawing a character that displayed polarised emotions. There was a range to choose from, but Molly settled on the idea of serenity and rage. The reason for this was that Molly had a character in mind that would suit. She had started the design of the character in class, where they were working on some drawings. She really liked the character and started fleshing the character out when she had some down time in class. She continued to work on the character and recognised that this character would be perfect to submit. The character had good potential for emotions, which makes it suitable for the competition.

Molly entered the drawings and followed the competition updates on facebook during the early stages. The top 20 winners were announced first and Molly was stoked to see her name up there. You see, Molly nearly didn’t enter the competition as she entered last year with no real success in terms of a placing. Anyway, she got busy, went off and did some work and when she got back on facebook she freaked out not only to see her name in the top three but with a gold medal beside it! She was rapt and couldn’t stop smiling. The prize was massive. She won $2000 cash, a large monitor useful for drawing, art supplies, a voucher and a scholarship for the first year of study at Animation College. Molly doesn’t intend to take up the scholarship as she is planning on studying at Massey University next year doing a Bachelor of Creative Media Production, which is a three year degree.

Molly came back to Hagley for the Animation course after leaving to study Year 11 at Ao Tawhiti. Because she is technically doing Year 13 now, straight from Year 11, she is also studying English at Level 2 so she can achieve the University Entrance literacy requirements.

Molly has always been passionate about drawing and then moved into the field of digital art and fell in love with it. She did it all the time and saw herself getting better and better at it. She wanted to be like the people online that she was inspired by and she was also motivated by people telling her that she was good at it.

Molly’s piece of advice for Hagley students is if you are passionate about something, pursue it.

She considers herself lucky that she has followed her passion. It has enabled her to do a course that is quite different to regular school. Molly sees a major advantage of the Animation and Design course over regular schooling as being that she can focus and work on one area for a prolonged period of time. She has become used to this way of working and finds it more difficult to get work done in a short, restricted time period. The course has also enabled Molly to have good friendships with her fellow class members as they spend most of their days together as a group. She also recognises that she will be well prepared for University as there is an element of independence to the course and the way it is taught and structured.

I finished the interview with Molly by asking her what she will be doing in five years time. With admirable honesty she concluded that she really has no idea and that she will take things as they come.

As refreshing as it is to know that Molly doesn’t have it all figured out yet, as I come away from the interview I don’t doubt that success and Molly are likely to go hand in hand. Not because she is clearly a very capable animator and designer, but because she is motivated to succeed, has a strong work ethic, and a passion for being creative.

Congratulations, Molly, on your success in becoming the 2017 winner of the ‘Light and Dark’ National Animation and Design Competition.