The Rundown Take
Animator Joshua Leonard on Leonard Studios, Team Supreme and Drawing Us Right — Winning at the Game of Life
The Game of Life series is where U Talk puts the spotlight on builders — and this one delivered. Devin and Larry Frank Jr. sat down with Joshua Leonard, CEO and founder of Atlanta's Leonard Studios: character designer, animator, and a man on a mission to change what animated characters that look like us actually look like.
Key Takeaways
- From Homestead, Florida to Atlanta by way of two hurricanes — Andrew displaced his military family as a kid, Katrina rerouted his life to Georgia.
- His brother Jason taught him to draw Garfield in kindergarten; a hyperextended knee ended the football path and turned a lifelong habit into a career.
- He graduated the Art Institute of Atlanta with a 4.0, has worked with major animation studios, and contributed to projects nominated for NAACP Image Awards.
- When he entered the industry, fewer than 4 percent of animation professionals were Black. That number — still in single digits — is the chip on his shoulder.
- His original IP, Team Supreme, features kids with disabilities as full-fledged superheroes. Studios passed; he kept ownership, and investors are circling.
Drawing Characters That Look Like Us
Leonard's signature is authenticity: full lips, wide noses, real hairlines — characters designed so their identity lives in the features, not just the color fill. He called out the industry shortcut of designing one face and swapping complexions, and the panel connected it straight back to childhood: Franklin from Charlie Brown, a Black character with none of us in him.
"When you see my character before it's even colored in, you're going to know who it is. That's the job — draw people how they actually look."
Team Supreme and Owning the Work
The story that went viral: a superhero team where the main character is autistic, flanked by blind, deaf and amputee heroes — designed cold and confident, "like Batman," never for sympathy. Disney and Warner Brothers passed on the pitch, and one studio rolled out a suspiciously familiar storyline a year later. Leonard's response says everything about the Game of Life mindset: he owns the IP, he's taking his time, and the work keeps opening doors — including a planned Good Trouble children's book honoring the late Congressman John Lewis, whom he shared a graduation stage with.
Game, Craft and the AI Question
The craft talk was a free masterclass: shape language (everything starts with a circle, square and triangle), gesture drawings, style guides, and taking notes faster than studios can give them. On AI, Leonard was measured — references are fine, but the flood of too-perfect art is coming, and the pendulum will swing back to hand-drawn work you can feel. His advice to students landed hardest: don't wait until senior year to network, and brand yourself, because the diploma alone won't feed you.
Find him at Leonard Studios and @iamjoshualeonard everywhere — and if you've got a young artist at home, he mentors. That's the game of life, won daily.