Melissa Kalnitsky was born and raised in the city Pickering, located just east of Toronto. Melissa has this to say about what inspired her to study Illustration and why she chose to attend Max the Mutt:

“I am a cartoonist by nature who has a hybrid art style that draws inspiration from early 2000’s Cartoon Network TV shows coupled with Japanese anime from studios Gainax, Clamp, and many others.

Prior to being enrolled in Max The Mutt, I graduated from the Fine Arts Studio program at Centennial College. While I was at Centennial learning the fundamentals of art, perhaps the most eye-opening lesson I learned from being there, was that I wasn’t a fine artist at all.

I was, and I have always been an illustrator.

I knew innately that I was artist from a young age. I learned how to draw before I even learned how to write my name.
When it comes to my art, I always find to tell a story through everything I create, no matter how big or small the product. Additionally, I also have an inclination towards music, and love composing songs that I imagine would be playing during the scenes I script for my comics or illustrations.

Pursuing Max the Mutt just seemed like the most natural choice for me to make. Max the Mutt is a school that is specifically made for artists just like me. The ones who want to build the worlds, create the characters who inhabit them, and craft the narratives that brings it all to life.

The Illustration & Storytelling for Sequential Arts resonated the strongest for me. In my opinion, the Illustration program provides the best of all three worlds: it allows me to conceptualize my ideas, and set them in motion as I illustrate the continuous story piece by piece.

My biggest dreams are pretty ambitious…but they are very exciting to work towards. I want to be a character concept artist along with creating comic books that break ground in their respective genres, and if granted the opportunity, to adapt those same comic books into animated films or series, and play a role in the production of it all!

I see myself not only being a freelancer and self-publishing my own personal works, but also working in a studio, and being a part of team of like-minded visionaries.The one who will work together to grow a vast collection of magnificent projects that will inspire others to tell their own unique stories just the same.”