Helen Benavidez

Helen Benavidez is a Mexican-American visual artist pursuing a degree in art and animation at California State University Fullerton. Originally from Watsonville in Northern California, Helen was emboldened to pursue a career in animation thanks to growing up in a household of fellow nerds where she was inundated with animated films, comics, and cartoons. Helen loved the fictional stories, especially those that included magic, swords, magical swords, and any mystery. These sensibilities also show up in her own work where she’s eager to write up a grand conspiracy for her drawn characters to fall into. Helen has experience writing and drawing, becoming a published author in 2017 thanks to the Bookshop Santa Cruz Young Authors Competition. In 2023, she finished her first animated short film “Closing Shift” which she completed as a solo project including writing, boarding, designing, animation, editing, and voice acting.