Golly, a new 90 seconds of animation! Someone call the press!

Since I wrote a bit of a write-up for the last one, I figured I’d keep the habit going. To be honest, I’m glad to finally be finished. The inevitability, I find, with creative projects is by the time you actually finish it you usually don’t even like the project that much anymore. Not to say I am not overall pleased with the end product.

I finished the storyboard around the end of July, so the animation itself took me about three months (and I took about a month to do other things after finishing the first short). This is unfortunately about twice as long as the last one, but I do think the production merits that to some extent. Since these shorts are as much an exercise as creative expression, my goal is to keep challenging myself and attempting things I am less comfortable with. The little square guy, for instance, gave me an opportunity to try some more challenging shots while keeping the essence of it simple enough that I could execute it. There’s more diverse perspective, more character acting, generally more everything. In my post with the last short I mentioned wanting to return to some other projects (it was originally made as an aside, after all). However for whatever reason I keep finding myself drawn back to this world. I can feel the aesthetic being developed and as much as I have an interest in telling less abstract stories, I really want to keep exploring this framework. It helps that it feels very natural, the spirit of these shorts very much a direct extension of myself.

One of the biggest things I’ve learned in this project, and that I relearn every time I work on a creative project (animation in particular) is to just GET IT DONE. Creation I find, is often less point A to B and more about refining something until it’s eventually “good enough.” So often I find myself frozen in place by the terrifying demon that is a blank page. Even if whatever gets put down is wrong, that’s already 100% of the way closer than you were before. Personally, I’m of the opinion this is driven by ego. Drawing something bad…well, it feels bad. I don’t /want/ to make bad art. Getting over that feeling, or rather the fear of experiencing that feeling, is a little hurdle to overcome every time I start a new drawing. The only way to get over it, to grow numb to it, is to…well, do it. (Also shoot a ton of reference.) While this might sound obvious, in my experience most of the best advice is. I also don’t think it’s an entirely bad feeling either.

What’s next? Well, I’m writing this as I hurtle towards Japan at 400 miles an hour. I want to take this month in Japan to absorb and grow creatively, so I have all the more to say when I come back. Mostly intend to do some life drawing, come up with new ideas, and write lyrics. When I get back I’ll be busy finishing up an EP and developing some music videos and other promotional stuff. I really wanted to release it before I left, but I didn’t have time to mix it, as I somehow always underestimate how slow of an animator I am. I think this is the first time I’m talking in much detail about this project, so consider it a super special preview for being one of the five people that read these. It’s a little over 20 minutes, with eight songs (five written by myself and three by my bandmate, though we developed all of them together). My partner in this project, Hec, is a bassist and has been a friend for many years. The project naturally evolved out of us just coming together to jam and slowly developing a few songs. Before we knew it, it was becoming a whole project. I also find having another person involved helps me actually finish (and eventually release) stuff instead of just sitting on it forever. After a semi-long absence from previous musical project, I found it really hard to return to putting stuff out there. Look forward to that coming mid November, probably a single or two before then. I think it’d fall under Indie? I’m bad with genres when it comes to my own work. Whether you enjoy it or not, I do think it’s my best work musically so far, and I’m already excited to work on the next release and try to push things even further.

Well, I’ve still got two hours till I land so I’m gonna listen to music and look wistfully out the window till I land.