Cool! I went to art school in New Jersey- a small school for comic book art and animation called the Joe Kubert School.
Specifically as an animator, I worked on (at H&B) 2 Stupid Dogs, Johnny Quest, Johnny Bravo, Dexter's Laboratory, Powerpuff Girls, and a bunch of short cartoons. Also Duckman at K.C.
On my desk in the top pic, I can see an animation layout drawing taped to my desk from a scene around 5:32 of
this cartoon a 1-off short called "Ignoramooses" done for Cartoon Network.
It's kind of a shame, because even then everything was still done by hand, which in my opinion was more fun. H&B still did most things the old way- they still had an ink and paint dept. with tons of people creating cells by hand, tons of animators, bg artists, etc. All the art was shot under a camera stand directly onto film- almost nothing was digital like now.
My animation desk & disk were 1940's vintage and were used by generations of animators before me on everything from Tom and Jerry cartoons to the Flinstones etc. Stuck under part of it, I found some drawings from the Jetsons from the 1960's. I was really lucky to catch the tail end of a bygone era of animation- today almost nothing is done by hand, even with 2D.
Your friend picked a great career. Good animators are always sought after; it's not one of those creative careers where talented people have that much trouble staying employed. The studios can never find enough good people, especially those that really know the subtleties of the art.
