How did you become an animator?
I’d been drawing forever, since I was a kid. One of my main hobbies was listening to music, daydreaming and drawing these kind of music videos for the songs that I would listen to. I started animating around 2019. I was in the military then, for a stretch, and I used the money from that to buy this huge iPad. I had seen lots of videos online of people using Procreate, and I thought, “Okay, there must be some hype behind Apple Pencil and Procreate.” I can never just ignore trends in any space, especially if it’s in my niche. At the time, I was only at around 50,000 followers on Instagram, and it was just for art tutorials.
Before animation you ran art tutorials?
Before animation, I was doing “How To Draw” videos, and before that, for about five or six years I was doing tech videos. Talking about the newest phones, doing reviews etc. That never really took off, but it’s still something I’m very into.
I’m interested that your practice has been really driven by social media. How did you transition from the tech videos?
The tech videos were what I initially got into, but then I saw that animation was becoming something really big, and I thought, “Well I’m good at drawing, I might as well figure this out.” I did not expect to do as well as I did.
I’d been drawing forever
When you started animating, did you feel that you’d found your niche?
Honestly, not really. It’s something that I do, but it’s not something that feels sustainable for me or for my mental health. It takes a long time to produce animations by yourself, so it’s one of those things for which you need to have a team if you want to make something serious. I would like it if I was big from tech, or maybe even blogs, I’d prefer that. Because longevity-wise, my career in animation may not last long. It’s very hard to consistently create.
It’s interesting though that the thing that’s hardest for you, is the thing for which you have the biggest following.
It’s not the hardest for me, it’s just that it’s too time consuming. I’m really good at animating. I’ve talked to a lot of Disney artists and they’ve said, “You’re up there, you’re very, very good and you’re using your talent so minimally; you can do so much more with it.” It’s something like a gift and a curse, being really good at something and then it not being something that feels sustainable. The thing I do love about animation is that you can create whatever you want.
Also, part of what makes it a love-hate relationship is that it’s so hard to get paid. You need to really be making long form videos to make money. At the beginning, when I was chilling, living with my mum and not worrying about money, it was fine. But when you’re out in the real world it’s different. With animation, it’s like there’s a deadline that you need to post at least once a week. Those posts that I can create once a week are only 15 seconds long. So it’s very tough unless you have a team.
What do you look to for inspiration?
Every animator, and every movie that comes out, basically. Not just animation either, because most of my inspiration actually doesn’t come from animation, it comes from reality. I love movies, and I get super stoked when I see a big movie, Top Gun or something like that, seeing the different angles they use, not very many cartoons will do that.
Animation is copying reality, so if I only look to cartoons I’ll see cool things, but sometimes I need to see something crazy cinematic, to encourage me to go nuts.
A lot of animators out there are only going off what they’ve seen in animation, and then there’s those few animators who are doing something that’s different. I saw a video recently that really inspired me. It had crazy angles, and the way they animate is so full of emotion. You don’t see that so much today.
You make a good point of the need to look outside your medium so that it doesn’t all become this self referential thing.
Yeah, if you stay in your medium, you’re not going to really expand what you do. There’s always a point that comes in a trend where everyone’s doing the same thing.
Is it important to you to be outside of trends?
Yes. I try to mix whatever’s going on into my videos, but I don’t like to follow one-off trends. If there’s a big album or something coming out, I don’t necessarily see it as a trend. I’m like, it’s music, and a lot of music lasts long, you never know what’s going to last forever. I like making music videos, those are maybe my favourite things to produce.
As for trends in animation, it’s fun to put them in as easter eggs but not as the main video, because inevitably later on I’ll get hate. Someone will comment, “This thing is dead.” I’m like, “This video came out when the trend came out! So stop being so mean.”
Deadlines get you out of your comfort zone
I feel like your practice has been so conditioned by, “How can I make money as a creator on social media?” If social media didn’t exist, what do you think you would be doing?
I think I would be making movies, I would rather make movies or cartoon shows. Maybe DJing as well, because I like making music. If I had all the time in the world that’s what I would be doing instead of social media. I really don’t like social media at all.
But do you feel with your generation, that you’re kind of trapped in social media?
Yes and no. I know another animator, he’s a big inspiration of mine. He has a Netflix show now, and he started on YouTube with his channel TheOdd1sOut. So social media can make things possible, and with a lot of social media careers now, you’re even more famous than some actual movie stars. Then in terms of social media, I like YouTube, I just don’t really like the rest of it all.
When it comes to an animation, how do you know when something you’re working on is finished?
I put myself on a deadline. When I give myself a deadline, it makes me work more like a studio, and I think that studios end up getting these crazy, cool animation tactics when they force themselves to have a time limit. Deadlines get you out of your comfort zone. You have to fix things quickly and change things fast. So I don’t know that I feel something is finished, it’s more, “Okay, now it’s time to start the next one.”
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