Lauren Montgomery

Lauren Montgomery (born May 4, 1980) is an American animation director and storyboard artist. She is noted for her storyboard work for animated television and DVD movie features. She directed the Wonder Woman animated film of the same name, Green Lantern: First Flight, Superman/Batman: Apocalypse, Justice League: Doom, and co-directed with Sam Liu on Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths and Batman: Year One. She also worked on Young Justice and provided storyboards for Book 3 of Avatar: The Last Airbender for Nickelodeon. In 2012, Montgomery returned to Nickelodeon and the Avatar franchise as the supervising producer and storyboard artist for the sequel series The Legend of Korra. She previously worked as an executive producer and co-showrunner on the animated series Voltron: Legendary Defender with Joaquim Dos Santos, with the show ending December 14, 2018.

Early life
Lauren Montgomery became interested in drawing as a youngster and developed an interest in animation. In 1998 she enrolled in the animation program at Loyola Marymount University's School of Film and Television where she graduated in 2002.

Storyboards
Montgomery got her start on the He-Man and the Masters of the Universe animated by Mike Young Productions. Montgomery has done storyboards for animated television series' such as Ben 10 from Cartoon Network Studios as well as storyboard work for the television series Justice League Unlimited, for which producer Bruce Timm praised her work as being quite versatile.

Montgomery has also done storyboard work for the second DC Universe film production, Justice League: The New Frontier, based on the Eisner Award-winning graphic novel by Darwyn Cooke, DC: The New Frontier. She also worked on the Next Avengers: Heroes of Tomorrow and Hulk Vs animated features, Marvel Comics properties by Lions Gate Entertainment. Moreover, she worked on the G.I. Joe features for Reel FX Creative Studios and distributed by Paramount Pictures. She has also worked on the Emmy-winning series Avatar: The Last Airbender for Nickelodeon/Nicktoons.

Directing
Montgomery made her directorial debut by directing several episodes of the Legion of Super Heroes series, and was one of the three directors for the direct-to-video feature film Superman: Doomsday, directing the second act of the movie. In March, 2008, it was announced that she is the director for the direct-to-video Wonder Woman film from Warner Premiere. The animated feature was released on March 3, 2009. Furthermore, she is the director of Green Lantern: First Flight, which was released on July 28, 2009. Subsequently, Montgomery co-directed Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths (with Sam Liu) and directed Superman/Batman: Apocalypse.

Producing
Montgomery served as a supervising producer on Nickelodeon's The Legend of Korra, created by Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino. Previously, she provided storyboard work on Book 3 for the original series Avatar: The Last Airbender, also a Konietzko/DiMartino collaboration.

Illustration
Montgomery has released a sketchbook with comic book/animation artist Eric Canete entitled Beauty and the Beast published by Black Velvet Studios. She has also done various freelance illustration work such as illustrating a cover for Nickleodeon Magazine and a press release illustration for the Avatar series.

Style
According to Montgomery, "I was definitely influenced by the Disney films. Those were the drawings I was tracing and sketching during my early years. I would study each and every one of the princesses and draw them until I had them all down by heart. My facial features are still influenced somewhat by Disney characters. As I got older, I was definitely influenced by Bruce's style in Batman (referring to Bruce Timm and Batman: The Animated Series), and I started getting into anime, and some of the more subtle styles in anime drawing. The clothing is a little more detailed than the typical American animation – it's more believable, yet still simplified. It's the way they draw bodies and cloth that I kind of incorporate into my drawings, as well as certain aspects of how they would draw hair. So I'd say I have a few different influences in my art style."