A Glimpse into the Workspaces of Linnea Kataja and Bellamy Luna Brooks
Linnea Kataja and Bellamy Luna Brooks are two talented artists working within the Japanese anime industry. Linnea serves as a keyframe supervisor, contributing to TV anime productions and popular VTuber media for groups like Hololive and VShojo. Bellamy, on the other hand, is a character designer, producer, and animation supervisor, known for her work on numerous TV and movie projects, as well as animations for online creators.
Their shared workspace reflects their collaborative spirit and passion for animation. “When I’m not in-person at an anime studio helping out with their projects, this is where I do most of my work,” Linnea explains. “My partner Bellamy and I have our work desks together, mine is on the left and hers is on the right.”
They wanted to create a cute and comfy atmosphere to work on their projects together. As keyframe supervisors, they help ensure that the drawings in the animation pipeline meet the required standards. This includes checking that characters remain consistent, the perspective is correct, and more. They also redraw frames to match the overall look of the show and assist directors in correcting parts of the animation when needed.
Bellamy also handles character design, while Linnea works on storyboarding for some indie animation projects. The desks they use are traditional sakuga and douga desks commonly found in Japanese anime studios. These desks come with small shelves on the right side for holding animation paper and a light table underneath for traditional animation. However, since most of their work is done digitally using iPad Pros and Clip Studio Paint, they rarely use the light tables.
The shelves on Linnea’s desk hold sakkan paper used in traditional animation for keyframe drawing corrections and timesheets. In Japan, every cut of anime uses a timesheet to time by the frame when certain cels are used. Anime is timed on 24 frames per second, so the number of cels is written on the slot where keyframes and inbetweens should appear.
Most of the shelves hold collectibles from artists Linnea admires, along with art and reference books that aid in creating animation. She often works on her own manga projects and illustrations after work. Recently, she has enjoyed creating manga by hand, so she keeps various traditional tools on hand for this purpose. She also has a phone holder set up to stream her process on social media if she feels like it.
Bellamy adds, “Our studio was born out of both passion and necessity. After our office was shut down, we could keep any furniture we wanted, so we decided to hold on to our traditional sakuga and douga desks.” The real challenge was transporting them. Hiring a moving company was too expensive, and a taxi was too small, so they ended up dragging the desks across Tokyo on foot. It was exhausting, but they never forgot the experience.
Their workspace is filled with personal touches and inspirations. Linnea has a collection of Kuromi plushies that she keeps at her desk to watch over her while she works. Bellamy’s favorite anime figures double as references for her artwork. A banner from The Lord of The Rings: The War of the Rohirrim movie premiere hangs in their studio, as both worked on it as senior animation supervisors.
Bellamy bought a plant from a store outside Studio Ghibli when she first moved to Japan, which she considers a symbol of her growth in the industry. After working on Dungeon Meshi as a keyframe animator, she purchased standees from the theatrical release of the first few episodes. She was the character designer and keyframe supervisor for the VShojo Nova trailer, and one of the character sheets is displayed in their studio.
Bellamy also bought a large wooden iPad stand to increase the surface area for her hand to rest, mimicking the feel of a Wacom Cintiq. Lanterns help keep the desk space lit up, and Linnea plans to install more cool lighting in the future.
Animated artwork created for VShojo Nova, which was art directed by Linnea, is displayed alongside Bellamy’s illustration for her self-published doujinshi Petals. A close-up of Linnea’s workspace shows her second monitor with a wallpaper by Yuyuco. She uses the second monitor to respond to work DMs, open references for animation, or simply to watch anime while she works.
Linnea creates most of her projects with a single iPad Pro, proving that the days of needing a big tablet with a powerful computer are over. Her indie idol horror manga, Idol Royale, is available in both English and Japanese. Bellamy gave Linnea a feather duster to brush away eraser shavings, and the cup contains inking supplies like nib pens and brush pens.
Linnea is a big fan of KAngel/Ame from the video game Needy Streamer Overload and created a small shrine to the character. The shelves of Linnea’s animation desk hold a lot of sakkan paper and timesheets, plus random items like Polaroids for her camera and an extra fan for the hot Japanese summers.
