With over 300 million views, the first episode of The Amazing Digital Circus has become the most watched animated pilot in YouTube history. Since its October 2023 premiere, the viral smash hit has broken into meme culture, TikTok, fan art communities, and beyond. It’s also become representative of a growing model in the animation industry — full-length, independently produced YouTube shows pulling audience numbers that rival major studios.
A pioneer of the model and home to The Amazing Digital Circus, YouTube giant Glitch Productions also recently became the home of DigiPen alum AD Taeza, the studio’s new senior storyboard artist. “I knew I always wanted to experience working at an indie studio at least once, but I don’t think I could have ever predicted being in a spot like this,” says Taeza, who recently earned her first Glitch credit on the studio’s multimillion-viewer hit series, Murder Drones, and began storyboard work on upcoming episodes of The Amazing Digital Circus. “With such a small team, oddly enough, it’s reminiscent of my time on game team projects at DigiPen!”
Taeza came to DigiPen’s BFA in Digital Art and Animation program in 2017 with a passion for anime- and manga-influenced design, action poses, and a fledgling interest in the idea of storyboarding. “I didn’t fully understand what that job entailed until I took the ART 350 Intro to Storyboards class my sophomore year,” Taeza says. “That really locked it in for me. It was the perfect way to combine all the stuff I love — animation, storytelling, and martial arts.”
One whirlwind of a day during the summer after her 2021 graduation, Taeza got her first taste of viral success and her first industry job at the same time. “I woke up at something like 11 a.m. on a random Wednesday in July, saw that #PortfolioDay was trending on Twitter, thought to myself, ‘Oh yeah, I should probably post something for that,’ and then moved on with my day,” Taeza says.
That night, she was astounded to discover her Twitter account “absolutely busted” with an avalanche of notifications, alongside an email from Australian animation studio Flying Bark Productions asking if she was available for work. “Apparently, my #PortfolioDay tweet reached their radar, and they thought me a good fit for [animated series] LEGO Monkie Kid. A couple weeks later, I was officially brought on as a junior storyboard artist,” she says.
Collaborating remotely with Flying Bark from Redmond, Taeza earned her first professional animation credit on Disney+ animated Marvel series Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur, as well as her first storyboarding credit on fantasy martial arts cartoon show LEGO Monkie Kid. “My experiences working on Moon Girl and Monkie Kid were, for the most part, a lot of learning and a lot of being starstruck by the people I had the pleasure of working with,” Taeza says. Despite collaborating remotely, Taeza attributes her Flying Bark colleagues for her “exponential” growth while working on each series. “It still feels surreal,” Taeza says. “It was a higher honor than I can describe to work on both shows, and I learned so much about art, animation, and working on a full production during that time. Specifically, boarding on LEGO Monkie Kid for sure molded my approach to action nowadays.”
Taeza’s recognizable action style on the show — snapping from one explosive moment to the next with rhythmic flair — started earning her a growing, vocal group of fans online. One action sequence emblematic of her distinct style earned her 15 thousand likes on social media. The viral post showcased an impressive sword-and-gun duel she soundtracked with a Spongebob meme remix of Kero Kero Bonito’s song “Flamingo.” “It’s always nice to connect with others who enjoy the same kind of art, and even nicer to have those people enjoy the most ridiculous, brain-rotted joke art I can come up with,” Taeza laughs.
The talent on display, however, was no joke. In the spring of 2023, shortly after her contract with Flying Bark ended, Taeza was approached by Glitch Productions seeking out her work as an action specialist on their hit show Murder Drones. The comedy horror series follows a robot civilization in a post-apocalyptic world as they unravel the mystery behind a strange group of machines bent on exterminating them.
With impressive 3D animation, twist-filled storylines, and nearly half-hour runtimes, the show feels like a major studio TV production, but it’s all independently produced and free to watch on Glitch’s YouTube channel. Glitch’s slate of successful, high-production series like Murder Drones, Meta Runner, and The Amazing Digital Circus has turned them into a major presence not just on YouTube, but the animation industry at large.
Taeza earned her first Glitch storyboard credit in March on episode seven of Murder Drones, which has already amassed 18 million views so far. “I’ve learned so much about horror since working at Glitch,” Taeza says. “I used to not really engage with horror as a genre prior to that, but working on Glitch shows busted that door wide open. I’m having a lot of fun learning how to integrate that into my personal work more.”
Glitch decided they wanted to integrate Taeza into their own work more as well, offering her a full-time senior storyboard position at the end of 2023. Today, Taeza is responsible for storyboarding work not just on Murder Drones, but also The Amazing Digital Circus and Glitch’s upcoming new series, The Gaslight District, as well. “So far it’s been a blast!” Taeza says. “With such a small team, I feel a lot more involved and in-tune with not just my own department, but most of — if not the whole of — production.”
It’s a unique perch in the industry that Taeza says DigiPen helped her prepare for. “The most relevant skill I use at work that I picked up at DigiPen would probably be adaptability, and being able to think and act on a specific intent,” Taeza says. “If you can get the hang of visually communicating exactly what you want to most of the time, you’re that much better equipped to work in a production setting. I find that to be really valuable.”
With millions of Murder Drones viewers enjoying her work at Glitch and fans singing her praises online, Taeza’s studied production prowess is already making a big impact in the industry. “It’s really, really cool to see,” she says. “It’s just fun to have people enjoy something you made or participated in the making of!”