Alice Peacock is lighting up the regions with her 3D animations

Alice Peacock is one of the Riverina’s quiet achievers.

Originally from Leeton the animator, motion designer and illustrator has been working on both local and national projects from her base in Wagga.

From telling local stories and producing animated “explainer” videos, Alice has expanded into large scale “projection mapping” and has exhibited at Sydney’s Vivid Festival.

“I went to CSU here and studied animation,” she says.

“But then it’s that choice – do I move to the city or do I stay here and try and make something work?”

Unlike many in the media industry, Alice resisted the pull of the big metro markets and has benefitted from the increasing shift towards working online.

“I stayed here and I started running my own business, doing animation and motion design services for businesses and agencies,” she says.

“I work with local businesses but people all over Australia as well. Like many things these days it’s not regional-specific because everyone’s learning how to work online.”

While the COVID-19 pandemic took a big toll on the television and film industry, Alice says the solo nature of animation work was a positive.

“Talking to a lot of my film and TV production friends over the last few years, they unfortunately lost so much work because everything got cancelled on them,” she explains.

“I was lucky because I can just work on my own in my home office, I don’t need a whole production team.”

Alice says she was drawn to animation as a great way to express herself creatively and to tell stories in a highly engaging way.

As well as working with businesses, she is able to create digital artworks and tell community stories, too.

“I’ve worked a bit with Wiradjuri elders helping them tell their stories as well as a few other community groups,”she says.

“It’s such an accessible way to tell stories and get them to an audience.”

After establishing herself as a 2D animator Alice decided to challenge herself and applied for a 3D “Projection Mapping Masterclass” with the US-based Limelight Academy and was one of just six people selected from around the world.

She created a piece called Digital Odyssey that was projected in Chatswood as part of the 2019 Vivid Festival in Sydney.

Alice is also passionate about bringing this kind of new-technology artwork to regional areas and has had her work projected during the Lost Lanes Festival in Wagga and Lighting Up the Lane in Griffith.

She is currently showcasing a projected piece in the Civic Centre forecourt during the Festival of W.

“It’s just a homage to Wagga and they’re really just reflections of a lot of different aspects of Wagga,” she explains.

“They’re all things you might be familiar with but then there are also more subtle and abstract interpretations of smaller things like architecture and visual motifs around town that you may or may not recognise every day.

“I’ve been trying to bring more of that kind of work into regional areas because it’s really cool to see and it’s a shame that you often have to travel to large cities to see that kind of work.”

She’s also sharing her skills through a series of workshops for the Freeze Youth Short Film Festival.

“It’ll be good for the participants to be able to have another medium to help tell their stories or express ideas,” she says.

“A lot of them may already come with a creative skill set like drawing or painting or photography and this is another way to use those existing skills, but turn it into animation, which should be really exciting!”

Her advice for young animators?

“It’s not a thing that’s for everyone, because it is quite time-consuming and challenging but it allows for so much creativity,” she says.

“So yeah, just give it a go!”

You can see Alice’s work projected onto the Wagga Council buildings during the Festival of W during the July school holidays or visit her website.