Today we’d like to introduce you to Xander Spangler.
Hi Xander, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
Hey, there! My name is Xander Spangler, and I’m the owner of LemonBot Creative. Ever since I was a kid, I always wanted to draw cartoons and maybe even make video games someday. After school as early back as second grade, I would spend hours drawing in my room creating comics, designing characters, and tooling around in animation software. When I went to Kutztown University in 2017, I was excited to make this dream a reality. But that’s when it hit me – this industry is oversaturated and the job outlook is bleak. Doing market research early on made me realize that almost no graduates would land a job, and that I would have to reroute. Instead of giving up and switching majors, I looked at the big picture and saw a way through: by starting my very own animation company. I spent college getting good at every skill and becoming a jack of many trades: I was proficient at 3D modeling in both Blender and Maya, sculpting in ZBrush, texturing in Substance Painter, and putting together final clips in Premiere. I even got pretty good at rigging and painting skin weights, which is essentially creating the bone structure that animators will then use to move the characters. By my sophomore year I had a very good understanding of the industry pipeline, and this would become useful for me to understand how the industry works.
The end of that year, I landed my first internship in Reading, PA with CrossTrainer Learning Mixed Reality. They are a renowned company that specializes in creating VR and AR experiences for practical applications as well as games, and I had the honor of working on 3D assets for a History Channel game called Knightfall 2.0. After that, I worked at NeoPangea in West Reading as a 3D modeling intern and had the honor of working on the Disney game Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway Adventure Kit. Meeting and working with people in the gaming and animation industry was crucial to understanding the asset and production pipeline, and what better client to start off with than Disney itself.
Senior year, I was applying to jobs, and very well knew that if I wanted to get a job that uses my broad “Applied Digital Arts” degree in any capacity, it would have to be in graphic design. Along the way with pursuing a career in games and animation, I accidentally got very good at Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign, and went all in by putting together a portfolio that uses that. After 2 years of freelancing nonstop while continuing at retail jobs (and getting to do the Disney College Program which was a lot of fun) I got my first graphic design job in 2023 at a Sir Speedy, where I got to design print-ready materials for a variety of clients. After a wave of layoffs, I continued my freelance while working part time at Rocky Springs Entertainment Center in Lancaster as their graphic designer. While I enjoyed that, I wanted to pursue full time employment and then went on to work for Cassel, a leading fleet graphics company out of Manheim, in early 2025. After about a year at Cassel, I went full time with my freelance and decided to take LemonBot Creative seriously. Founded in 2023, I created LemonBot as the label I work under as not only a freelancer, but a small company consisting of me and a small, dedicated group of talented individuals. Darrell Andrews, a talented character designer, Nathan Sanchez, an incredible environment artist, Julia Yaniger, a detail-oriented storyboard artist and animation generalist, as well as Emilio Alvarado, a 3D generalist and Unreal programmer who creates 3D characters and props like nobody’s business and builds entire games in UE5. Today, I have shifted my focus back to animation and gaming, as well as illustration work, and we have had the priviledge of working on an animated series called Desert Pub, a line of cryptid – themed illustrated tees called Screaming Sasquatch Gear, a comic series called Cryptid Chronicles, and our own upcoming Youtube Series called Despawned. I still work part time at my warehouse job to pay the bills, but my long term vision is to be able to provide myself and a team of people a full-time income through LemonBot’s creative projects. This journey has been incredible and I am looking forward to every step along the way!
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It has definitely had its challenges. I have struggled with OCD and anxiety my whole life and I unfortunately have ran into roadblocks where it was affecting my performance at work. I was actually let go at Cassel last year after having a poor hold on my mental health to the point where I was making so many mistakes and performing poorly that I had to be terminated. That was very much the wakeup call that I needed to take my mental health seriously and ever since then, I have been seeing a somatic therapist, using a vagus nerve stimulation device, meditating and journaling daily, and taking medication that helps with my anxiety. To this day, it has helped tremendously and I look forward to performing much better in my career and daily life.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
At LemonBot, we create experiences, ones that resonate with people. With the rise of AI, it is easy to create just about anything with the snap of one’s fingers, but that doesn’t guarantee that what you create will have a soul or deeper message behind it. The human experience and the things we all go through is what artists pour into their work, and we like to work with clients who create projects that incorporate that. As far as our own in-house projects go, we have two that are in progress: A show called Despawned, and a game called Shrune: A Sporific Tale. Both of those projects take so much of their core inspiration from my own lived experiences, and I hope that when people watch and play them, they get to relate to and laugh with these characters. Entertainment is designed as a mirror to reality in a way, and to create that, it must contain semblances of the human experience to be unique and resonate with people. That’s what we do at LemonBot, we are proudly a 0% AI studio and will remain that way.
Is there anything else you’d like to share with our readers?
Don’t give up on your dreams, but also don’t follow Mike Rowe’s advice about “never follow your dreams, take that level of passion with you and follow opportunities, yadayadayada”. Yes, follow your gosh darn dreams! But make sure that you have worked out the specifics early on. Figure out EXACTLY what niche you want to pursue if you want to go into the creative field. Take time to really do research, and if college is required for it, go, but honestly there are plenty of MasterClass courses and smaller programs like through the DAVE School if you’re looking to get into animation. Understand that it is a very oversaturated market, but don’t let that discourage you; instead, find a small and underdeveloped area where there isn’t as much as a bar for entry. For me, I found there to be room for more skilled creatives in the Cryptids/Bigfoot space, and that was through a lot of trial and error. But if I could change anything, it would be to go back when I was 17 picking colleges to go for “art” and I would narrowed that down way more than I did back then. The common thing you hear is that you can go to college, find yourself, switch majors multiple times, have fun, but I will tell you that is a lie designed to put you more in debt. Use your time in high school to figure out what you want to do, that’s what extracurriculars are for. Postsecondary education should be for you to pursue exactly what path you want to do, and if you need more time, take a gap year, or three! Seriously, it is crucial you don’t just jump into a major without having an idea of job outlook like I did. But if you want to get into animation and games or any creative area, my best advice is pick your niche early on.
Pricing:
- $1000 starting for a 1 minute animated video
- $200-300 for an animated series pitch bible
- $150 for an original character design
Contact Info:
- Website: https://lemonbotcreative.com
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/xander-spangler-423aa8377/?isSelfProfile=true
