Too Draw to Think

I'm an animator/illustrator working at Make llc. in Minneapolis. Not a lot to say for myself other than the fact that all I like to do is draw and animate! If you have a question for me feel free to ask! 

[toodrawtothink]

Hey everyone!

It's been a while since I posted any art. I know I said I wasn't going to post non-professional work, but I guess I just don't know how else to live. Bleak as things are or not, I still want to share stuff I make with you all. Thanks for being here and sorry for the radio silence.

Also--have something new brewing I will be posting another thing in the next few days!

[toodrawtothink]

Just answering some questions

I've been getting a lot of mail backed up in the last several months about a few things. Thought I'd answer those most common ones.

q- When will you be posting more art? a- When I get some work I feel will be a good reel/professional piece.

q- Will there be more HOTO? a- No. I quit my job at Make. I will not be working with/associating with Make ever again.

q- When/will you release your film? a- if there are laws controlling AI usage put into place, maybe. Otherwise no. Not for the foreseeable future, sorry.

q- Is art school a good investment? a- No. It has not been for many, many years even before AI. Do art for fun. The professional world is gone and anyone who tells you otherwise is lying to you to protect your feelings rather than giving you sound advice. Go into something stable and financially viable.

[toodrawtothink]

My Sunny Side Down Episode 01 character animation reel! One of the last things I worked on at Make.

[toodrawtothink]

Hey all, just an update:

I will attempt to keep my words brief, so please bear with me.

the film is done, the sound is basically all there. Just some final professional mixing to do.

I'm not sure how I feel about releasing the film or any more personal artwork. it has become crystal clear how much artists are despised at large by a society that wants what artist's can create but is offended at the idea of an artist making a descent living off of their craft.

I'm not sure at this point that publishing any more personal artwork is doing anything more than training pattern learning AI models for company owners and business centric suits.

Still undecided what to do with the film since it did take roughly 10 years to make, but It is also only important to me and it will realistically not leave a lasting impression, so it really has already served its purpose.

Will update when I've made up my mind about the film, I just thought you all deserved an explanation as to why the film is still unreleased.

Thanks for supporting me for so long. Really appreciated it all.

[toodrawtothink]

I have exciting news...

As of last night, all compositing, animation, background painting, etc, has been completed! There is literally no more art to produce for the actual film.

So what's next? All that remains is to re-edit the music to the new timing of the film and have it professionally mastered. This could take a month or so. The next step after that is to complete an intro sequence that has minimal motion. My plan is to complete the film in its entirety before the year is out and then prepare for the festival circuit.

Within a few weeks, I will be dropping a trailer! in the meantime, please enjoy these screenshots from the film and imagine them in motion!

[toodrawtothink]

First episode of House on the Outlands just dropped! A show I designed, wrote, storyboarded, lead animation, etc on!

[toodrawtothink]

Isolated one of the shots that I did from start to finish. This shot was done over the course of roughly 3 days. We were in a rush!

All hand animated in Photoshop.

[toodrawtothink]

The intro was just released! I animated this whole thing in about 3 weeks.

Backgrounds were painted by my coworker Jackie Kim, and Emily Park helped me clean up and color the rough animation. The baddie lineup animation was the most fun I had in a while.

[toodrawtothink]

Hey all! Proud to announce that a project I've designed/wrote/storyboarded/directed at Make is finally ramping up to release. Check out the trailer!

PS. another trailer to a certain personal film will be dropping sometime early this year..

[toodrawtothink]

The company I work for, Make llc, is now using AI to generate backgrounds and imagery for our animated work. Our industry is normalizing the use of ai generated imagery which will vastly phase out the use of human artists to render artwork.

If you are aspiring to be a commercial artist I would strongly discourage going to school/college for any of it. Schooling will set you on average 100k+ in debt in an industry that nearly most animators will never see above 50-60k in yearly wages on the high end. Animation is a high debt, low income industry and it is only becoming more so.

My advice is to stay out of debt and ensure you have career/life-trajectory flexibility.

[toodrawtothink]

Hello all! I'm sorry for the long stint of radio silence. I have been busy compositing the film. All animation is complete and locked down. It has been a long process of putting everything together. If I'm lucky I will be able to finish the compositing this year!

Anyways, enjoy this small loop of a shot from the movie!

[toodrawtothink]

Hey all!

The studio I work for just released this episode of a 4 part series! Go check it out! I animated half of the shots. I know I post 2d animation and work mostly on here, but I’m pretty proud of this as it was my first real step into animating 3D. Shots of mine worth noting are the shots where Kai is running through the forest, and the shot where she scrambles backwards on the ground. Did a handful more but I guess I’ll just have to make a reel! (Also still need to make a reel of my Klaus animations..)

Anyways, enjoy!

[toodrawtothink]

Heya, love your work and looking forward to seeing your film! I'm about to embark on a personal short film (going for some funding but may well not get it) do you have any advice for what you wish you could have told yourself at the start of the process? Also how long is your film going to be?

Hi!

I think if I could have done anything different it would have been to composite my film as I completed animation/background paintings. It would have made some aspects of editing/compositing easier. It's also such a slog to be compositing over 200+ shots in a row now, too. Also I would have made more thorough character design sheets for myself. I was kinda loosey goosey with it since I didn't have anyone else animating the characters but me, but I inevitably did naturally change how I drew the characters over time and that resulted in me revising a lot of work.

In terms of film duration, I am only completing the first act which is at roughly 11 minutes of full animation. I am toying with the idea of animating a simple, moody minimal intro though, which would probably put it at 12-13.

Good luck on your personal film! I hope you can get funding for it. I wasn't funded and it has taken me nearly 10 years to complete. If I could be bold enough to give you any advice, I would just say to make sure you're sleeping enough. My health is not what it used to be and I'm sure that can be traced back to my awful sleep patterns.

Best of wishes!

[toodrawtothink]

How do you keep up your motivation and discipline to work on a personal project for such a long time?

Hi there!

Great question. My answer may seem stupidly simple, but it just comes down to really, really wanting to make the project. If I didn't really want to make the film I would have just quit years ago. I also decided very early on in my career that I wanted to make animation and drawing a daily/nightly part of my lifestyle which I stuck to, so at this point the practice is habitual. I also pushed video games largely out of my life to make time for animation and I don't miss them, really. That said, there are times when I'd rather draw/work on anything else but my movie. But there are things you can do to keep it fresh as you go.

Since my personal film is a large project, there have been a wide variety of tasks and shots that I can jump around to at different points in the production timeline. Scripting, designing, storyboarding, animation, layout/background painting, effects animation, compositting, researching motion, audio design, etc. If I get sick of a particular part of the project, I just shift gears and work on a different part of it so that I'm always moving while keeping things from getting stale. Sometimes I stay focused on how on track I am with my milestones, and sometimes I like to work diligently in a vacuum.

The hardest part is near the end of production (currently) when you inevitably only have a couple of tasks left to do like compositing and editing. In that case, I commit to a schedule of few hours every night where I work on those remaining tasks between set hours. It really helps to set milestones and completion goals as you go. This can help you stay focused and also see the volume of work shrink as you progress. Although I try not to look at how much work I have left because that can drive you to madness. Definitely had a couple sleepless nights.

Anyways, there's my novel. Thank you for your question!

EDIT: I should mention that I also stay up till around 1am - 2am every night working on my film. I used to be up till 4am but living on only 4-5 hours of sleep every night took its toll.

[toodrawtothink]

An update!

Here is a smaller background quickly produced in a couple of days. There are 2 versions of each background in this scene so that the light can flicker from the flame in the lamp.

[toodrawtothink]

I animated A Shoggoth at work! Tekele-li! Tekeli!

[toodrawtothink]

Some Gifs of each shot/moment in the milk day animated video.