I’ve wanted to be an animator since I was 15. I’ve been an artist for way longer, but the first time I watched Dreamworks’ How To Train Your Dragon, I knew I wanted to use animation as a medium to bring my art to life. I wanted to tell my stories using this new skill I was going to learn.
So I sat down with trial versions of multiple software to practice animating. I rotoscoped, and traced, and did everything I could as a fifteen-year-old with little to no exposure to the industry until I could build a portfolio enough to get me into a college course that would teach me animation. And that was exactly what I got to do in 2016 when I started my bachelor’s in Animation. I worked hard for four years. Maybe too hard towards the end because I was burnt out. This medium that I was so passionate about no longer felt comfortable. It felt daunting and scary. I felt stuck because there was a part of me four years of hard work later, that believed I still wasn’t equipped enough to work in this field professionally. This was around the time Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse had come out and I was so backed up into a corner by my own fears, it felt like it was that or nothing for me (silly), So I took a break from it.
I specialised as an illustrator instead and rekindled my love for art through that. I spent my time during the pandemic establishing myself as an illustrator and character designer. I animated something for myself once a year so I never forgot what it actually meant to me. And then I decided I was going to take a chance with being an animator once again and chose to do my masters in the same field. And I moved countries to do this.
Even though I’ve done a few of the exercises in this blog before, redoing them over the past few months in this course when I’m a little more confident in my art and talking to people who are equally passionate about this medium has brought me newfound joy. Learning the basics of 3D animation, experimenting with different software, trialing stop motion animation again – It’s all been a breath of fresh air after two years of hiding from it.
I’m only two terms into this course and we’ve mostly been working with the basics, but I’m already less scared of concepts like clean-up animation and perspective now. I’m still learning to enjoy the process and learning my limits so I don’t end up burnt out again, but so far my reflections here have been positive. I’m hoping that I continue to work and interact with the medium in ways that keeps my love for it alive because all these years later, I would still love to tell the world stories of my own using animation.