Sabrina Claman
M.F.A. – 1st Year
Motion Design & Animation | Storrs
Hometown: Calmar, Iowa, USA
UConn location: 132 Bishop Center
Email: sabrina.claman@uconn.edu
LinkedIn: https://toaddoesnot.wixsite.com/portfolio
M.F.A. – 1st Year
Assistantship: Digital Media & Design TA, and English TA
Education: B.F.A. in Drawing and Japanese Minor, University of Iowa, 2020
Language(s) Spoken: Japanese 日本語
Area of Research / Artistic Focus: 2D and Hybrid Animation, Visual and Story Development, Alternative Storytelling
Sabrina Claman is a first-year M.F.A. candidate at the University of Connecticut in the Digital Media & Design program where she is focusing on 2D animation and storytelling.
Graduating from the University of Iowa with her B.F.A. in Drawing with Honors and a minor in Japanese in 2020, Sabrina transitioned to Grasshorse Character Animation Studio where she worked on many regional and national projects until joining UConn’s DMD Department in fall 2023. As an Artist and the Studio Media and Communications Manager of Grasshorse, she gained valuable experiences working with clients, mentoring interns, and building her portfolio through directing, animating, storyboarding, and designing for various commercial projects.
Sabrina has worked as a Freelance Artist since 2016, leading her to work on book illustrations and comics which she is passionate about. Her current webcomic, Dawn of Maw is on Webtoons as a collaboration with Arlorosa Films.
Developing stories through written and visual formats to create authentic, impactful, and often reflective experiences motivated Sabrina to join the DMD community. As a highly empathetic person, she wants to create work that generates human connection, fosters kindness, and encourages people to experience the world through others’ eyes. In Sabrina’s creative research, she aims to elevate the quality of storytelling and communication that can be achieved through multimedia work, such as in books, comics, animation, and other publicly accessible forms of art.
She currently works as a Graduate Assistant in the DMD Department, where she teaches DMD 2200 Motion Design 1, DMD 1002 Foundations in Digital Media II, and the First-Year Writing Program as an English TA.
Selected Achievements:
- Directed and animated a short story through Grasshorse on behalf of the SYFY Channel’s 2022 National Women’s History Month Campaign.
- Received a 2019 Summer ICRU Grant through the University of Iowa for a creative research project, “Daily Life of an Iowan Farmer” comic series.
Industry Experience: Freelance Artist since 2016
Artist & Studio Media and Communication Manager for Grasshorse Character Animation Studio 2020-2023
Fun Fact: I make AMAZING handmade pizza crust. So good it’s illegal. It is a blessing and a curse, because I’m not supposed to eat gluten.
