While your professors might say that doodling in class is an unproductive use of time, Emerson College film production student Jody Steel has managed to receive national media attention and job offers after intricate doodles that she drew on her leg during class went viral.
One year ago, Jody posted her first piece of leg artwork (a portrait of Walter White from the hit TV show Breaking Bad) online, which received almost half a million views. Since then, Steel has produced about a dozen more doodles depicting animals and people, such Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke and actors Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Aaron Taylor-Johnson.
Jody even managed to impress her professors when she doodled during class. “I noticed she was sketching during class—usually a no-no—but her work was so good, as were her grades,” Professor Cynthia Miller told Emerson College Today. Rather than requesting that Jody pay more attention in class, Miller ended up recruiting her to draw the illustrations for her steampunk anthology book, Steaming Into a Victorian Future, which won the Peter C. Rollins Book Award in Popular Culture Studies. On top of this, Jody has received various freelance job offers to produce illustrations for marketing projects across the globe.
Claiming that each drawing takes 45 minutes to an hour to complete, Jody says, “My most marketable skill is that I’m able to draw fast.” This goes to show the importance of using the Internet as a resource to promote your skill set; you never know who you might impress!