Meet The Artists: Peter Keahey

Nice to meet you! My name is Peter Keahey, the founder of Life Lines Animation. I thought I should make a post to introduce myself. I’ve been a part of the Animation industry for the last 12 years, ever since I graduated college. Primarily I’ve been a storyboard artist and I’ve worked on TV shows, commercials, movies and online shorts.

I graduated in 2012 with a B.F.A in film photography and visual arts, very intent on making animated programs. I grew up in the midwest, went to college on the east coast, and now live on the west coast. I’ve been all over!

Why did I get into art in the first place? I’ve been drawing for literally as long as I can remember, which is about 3 years old. I was very encouraged by my parents to keep going. Even if in the early days it was just cheering on a scribbling child, it made me want to keep going. Also it was just super fun to draw.

As a kid I used to keep a sketch book in my parents car so that after we got out of the movie theater I could draw my favorite scenes right away.

I always gravitated towards moving works of art. I would wake up on Saturdays to watch a 3 hour block of cartoons, back when that was still a thing. I loved, and still mostly like, to play video games. I wasn’t as into more serious or dramatic works, but few kids are. I grew a taste for them thanks to my local art house theater, but my favorite mobies were always animated or heavily used special effects, I just thought they were so impressive.

My favorite film is, was, and will always be Jurassic Park. It hit theaters when I was at the PEAK of my dinosaur phase, so it’s always had a death grip on my whimsy. I also loved the movie aliens (yes we watched it way before we should have). As a kid I didn’t find it scary, because I loved the creature design so much! I had lots of alien and dinosaur toys. Cartoons and creatures were the way to go.

But I didn’t really know what I wanted to do until I was in 5th grade. That year, Toy Story was released, and I quickly decided I wanted to make animated movies like that. For a long time my dream was to specifically work for Pixar, but as I got closer to entering the work force, I decided any job in animation would be good.

I spent my last semester of college in Los Angeles and I transitioned from an internship to a job when my semester ended. I’ve mostly been steadily employed since then, barring a few dry spells and Hollywood strikes.

I’ve worked on things like Bojack Horseman, Tuca and Bertie, Final Space, and currently I work on Bob’s Burgers.

And that about sums up my art journey!