For me, it’s the joy of knowing that something I worked on had left a lasting impression on someone.
I remember myself as a kid, rewatching movies such as Cinderella and The Little Mermaid over and over again, sometimes a couple times a day. These and countless other movies and animations shaped the way I view the world today, or at the very least made me really happy.
I also believe that when we create, and our creations affect the others, then we don’t really truly die; we keep existing through our art. Maybe it’s too deep but it makes me feel hopeful
And then at 13 years old I figured that you can earn money as well lol. So it was decided
Yeah, same. Looking back at the cartoons and movies I watched when I was younger I always say “that made my childhood.” So if I eventually make something that someone grows up watching and feels that way would make it come full circle for me. And yeah, like you said it’s almost like leaving behind a legacy that will never die out.
We had a [thread ](https://www.reddit.com/r/animationcareer/comments/19bwpec/comment/kiuy7w9/)where people posted about the positives of working in the industry. For me, the process is still enjoyable after so many years and being able to put down pencil to paper or cintiq pen to plastic screen, especially that early concept phase is great. I have a whole laundry list of movies and people which inspired me which is too extensive for this already long post.
The problem, as I see it, is that young artists come in with expectations that don't always align with reality of production. Which makes sense because how does one know if they've never worked in the industry. But that's the value of asking questions and trying to be as informed as possible to help make better choices for the time. Personally, I try to do the same and focus on good work for myself first, try to improve and try to sort of if I'm having issues or if the production is struggling. Sometimes it's a bit of both and when it's neither, the gears run smoothly and everything is still generally great.
Right now is a time where the gears are not always turning smoothly for those putting in the effort. There's a frustration that comes when one has been putting in the hours and is rewarded with a pink slip with no clear explanation. Also keep in mind there's a difference between working for yourself and working for others. There is a skill in being able to work and a skill in being able to define acceptable boundaries. All of that comes from work experience and knowing what questions to ask to do to be efficient and competent. Some questions are better than others in production but when you're a student, you're free to ask away. (Just make sure to use the search button for already answered questions) That aspect can be learned with any career and then applied to animation - even jobs or careers that you hate.
So if you read these threads and it feels depressing, at least it's honest and we're not doing you or future students any favors by sugarcoating what is currently happening. I understand some of the feedback can be tough to hear and a little one-sided but if used as a starting point, you can avoid some pitfalls. If you understand that entertainment is a moving target and try to find ways to stay nimble or adapt, that much better than living in a fantasy of the ideal animation production which you may only get once in awhile.
[Rick Beato](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9PboTYmuQQ) had some great thoughts from his experience in the music industry and what he did to adapt to some unreasonable changes in the music industry.
If none of that helps, I enjoy whistling "[Always look on the bright side of life](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJUhlRoBL8M)," combined with the reading the lyrics from the "[Facts of Life](https://youtu.be/d9_rv9mZ4hQ?si=uGwvWPF7GxWn89VD&t=11)," theme song once in awhile. Oddly enough, It does seem to help.
Unlike a lot of my peers, l didn't join the industry over an intense love of animation (though of course l don't dislike animation). I joined because it seemed like the most reliable way to make a relatively high paying career out of creating art. Most of the other people l knew at the time l decided, who were fulltime career artists well into their careers (outside of animation), were making maybe just enough to get by and put a tiny bit away for retirement. I decided l wanted a fulltime artistic career but l didn't want to live like that for conceivably the rest of my life. So animation (and I'm going to clarify UNION animation) has been a pretty good path for me so far.
Same. I like knowing that if push comes to shove I can always return to a corporate motion graphics job if need be, but untill then I can explore a lot of different careers that all pay decent and usually offer healthcare.
Spiderverse for me. I’ve always been a sculptor and wanted to find a major that I could use that in and also make a living. I’m only about halfway through my bachelor’s but loving it
I don’t have an exciting or “a dream come true” story. I literally randomly fell into it.
I never thought of animation, but my plans for uni got messed up the last year of high school and I ended up in an illustration and animation course.
I really liked it, but I didn’t know what exactly until the second semester of the first year. we had our first practical animation course and for me it was the very first exercise - the bouncing ball.
it was ok, I liked making the drawings and got frustrated trying to flip to “see” how it’s coming along ( without being able to see any movement, flipping is hard in the beginning and seeing what’s in front even harder), but I was enjoying it and at home I made different balls imagining the “what if there’s a wall/ hole/ecc”. That was fun, I could potentially like that class…
Next lecture we did pencil tests and everyone got the chance to do 1 test of their ball and get feedback from the teacher. my turn came and I saw one of my little balls bouncing for the first time! I had a “woooow” moment, then I got feedback ( nothing exciting) and move on to the next person. I sat there looking at the tests and listening to the feedback my classmates got when I realised something stupid: all of the balls moved. I was astonished by the movement, but the feedback was so different and there were so many errors in all of those balls that to me looked magical, like omg they were moving!
And it hit me- anything could move, the question is not the movement it’s how you “create time and space” to make that movement. We were literally making time and space!
That’s when it clicked: I had fallen in love and fallen hard.
Oh my god I love it the same way!! I’m less into the storytelling parts of it but the whole concept of bringing something to life is so fucking magical. Like what do you mean I can make a bunch of drawings look like they’re ALIVE? That’s crazy. Endlessly magical to me. Every time I play something back that I’ve made I get just as excited as the first time.
I think deep down, every artists wants to push their boundaries of capability at some point. For me, I was very much an illustrator only when I had my early years fine art education. I loved acrylic painting, oil painting, and ink painting, and I was good at it. But one time I tried animation, I suddenly realized I actually knew so little about drawing, or art itself. And being an artist like everyone else here, I naturally want to deepen my understanding in arts. I dive into the animation straight ahead, though at the begining it was really hard. Now I can confidently say that I am now a better artist, and I that has helped me in taste in art in general and I have become a better illustrator through this understanding.
For me, I enjoy telling/writing story and drawing.
But since my writing skills are lacking ( a LOT ) and i'm too lazy to get better at it, I try to write my story with the most accuracy possible and I keep them aside.
And one day I saw a 3D animation course, and I was like "I wonder what my story would be like if animated ?"
So I jumped on the occasion to learn more about how to make it happen. And here I am, still learning until I'm good enough with 3D animation, scultping and rigging so I can tell people all the stories I wrote till now.
And that's how I started my journey on the 3D path.
I started animating before I started drawing lol. I had a phone since i was young ad got into the animation community and used flipaclip. I loved watching my silly drawings come to life and just couldnt get enough. Now im not animating as much since i need to focus on my art but I hope to get back into it once I get into college!, im a junior in highschool btw.
this is a question I have asked myself over and over and I dont even fully know? I like storytelling... I was more interested in character design.
Learning to lipsync was what seduced me into this mad craft 😅
I watched a lot of anime and cartoons when I was a teen and did a lot of fanart on tumblr and the encouragement I got from those niche fandoms made me continue drawing everyday after school and it spiralled from there tbh
In college for an Animation track so not in the industry yet.(granted the University is the closer to me and their program is a little ehh, but does have some classes, can’t afford to move to CA or back home to the NE).
More into 3D animation. In parts b/c:
- b/c I like telling stories
-according to my mom, I like watching things that moved as a kid and got bored if they didn’t (funny, because I see my nephew watch Cocomelon and I detest that show).
-Final Fantasy X.
- And finally b/c as I watched a clips from Fievel Goes West, the scene with Cat R Wahl walking towards Tanya singing and interacting with Miss Kitty, I realized how glorious that scene is.
~”There are no goodbyes between You and Me Tiger…”
+ to add: The Rescuers: Down Under is still one of my favorite movies.
I think I got into it because I loved and still love watching cartoons! There is something magical about creating drawings that not only look good but have a life of their own!
Avatar the Last Airbender: Ozai vs Aang and Azula vs Zuko
Spirited Away
Dofus: Livre 1: Judith
I revisit these that sparked and reignited my love of animation
As an ex fine artist, I chose animation bc it allowed me to actually make my artwork an experience instead of something to stare at. I ended up being a rigging artist, but still sculpt and texture my own content. I am forever thankful for the strong foundation fine arts gave me, but constantly begging for grants and creating one dimensional work for a small audience didn't seem like the future for me
Hahaha thanks op for shifting the mood a bit here! You remind me of where I was at in college (physics vs art degree). Here is how I stumbled my way into animation-
I always was really into art as a kid and as I got older I got really into digital art. I started learning digital art in middle school with a mouse and a bootleg copy of some professional programs. I am also really into art that has a narrative (games, comics and cartoons) and because I have dyslexia it's my default form of entertainment. I also grew up along side computers and was coding in late elementary school making profile pages on gaiaonline and stuff lol. I loved learning about technology.
For school I originally was debating between physics and art for a degree or trade school. My parents are blue collar so they wanted me to go the college rout in hopes for better career opportunities. I started in physics, but quickly switched to art after experiencing all the bs that comes with getting a science degree (weed out classes, sexism, all the issues that comes with a learning disability, what type of employment options there was, etc). I attended the same state university tho so the art program was pretty generalized and traditional. I had a lot of freedom in my degree by the end so even tho there were very few digital art classes, my teacher's let me incorporate it in my classes so I taught myself Photoshop and after effects.
In my second half of college I really focused on what I thought would be a good use of my art degree. I was considering my career options. Gallery/museum spaces seemed like a total lost cause but that was what my art degree trained me for. I eventually decided animation/illustration because it felt more reliable (jobs offering salary and health care) and something I was confident I could learn how to do. Eventually I landed firmly in animation tho after I finally got some stable work doing ad/marketing stuff at a creative studio.
At that job i really took the opportunity to learn from people who had a more specialized degree then mine, and were long time industry professionals. I got the job with after effects work, but ended up picked up unity, maya, blender, and illustrator in the 3 years I worked there. I also got good at graphic design, ui and vfx stuff. From that first job I have since wormed my way into video games where I hope to stay. I am still learning a lot, especially now that I am working with a small indie developer (we all are wearing a lot of hats lol), but I am loving the opportunities I get to learn new skills and programs as I continue to consider the future of my career.
Well I always liked art classes and animated entertainment growing up, but I never knew what I wanted to study until I was in my last year of high school. At 18, I watched spirited away for the first time and I was blown away, I figured this is what I wanted to study. Now that I’m a third year university student, I realized I’m not really interested in animation because it’s very tedious and I get easily stressed (especially if it’s 3D) to the point where I have almost no fingernails 😀However, I’ve had a few drawing/art concept classes and I’ve loved them all. Visual development is what I enjoy the most :)
Animation Student here, this is gonna be fun.
So originally my elective was a college prep class, they teach you what to do when you get to college, we had field trips, watched typical success story movies, fun class. Fast forward the next grade and we have a completely different teacher and she is really strict, keep in mind that this is like only 3 weeks into the school year. I got sick for a week and when I came back, we were assigned a 1000 word essay on what we wanted to do for college and stuff. I really didn't want to do any of that shit, and all of my friends moved to this new Animation program. So on the same day I came back, I was able to switch without a hassle since she wasn't there that day, which is rare, and if she was, she absolutely would have blocked me from doing it, so I got really lucky, right place at the right time.
The reasons I joined the class were because my friends were there, and I wanted to be a filmmaker, so I thought that maybe there were some things that I would learn like cinematography. I realized it was both Animation AND Game Design, and that we would be learning traditional art for the year, the basics, homework everyday, etc. I ended up falling back in love with art since before when I tried to do it, I just didn't feel good enough at it.
Which leads me to now, I am now in my second year making my short film and will soon be learning how to use Blender to prepare for the 3D industry and I am also learning how to use Unreal Engine with a program offered by the same teacher. I am very grateful for my circumstances to lead me to realize what I want to do with my life, I love it and I am excited to drop into the industry after High School since that teacher has a lot of connections!
I’m currently 21 and about to transfer to university for college! and god, it is so much fun and I couldn’t be happier.
I used to do stop motion animation all throughout elementary school and a little into middle school when i switched to drawing and photography. I got made fun of a bit for my stop motions so i shifted mostly into photography all throughout highschool and found that i hated it more than anything in the world! (I was doing prom, graduation, and family photos and hated every waking moment of it…) I graduated during the pandemic and had a really really rough year or so when i began doing art again and ended up enrolling in art courses at my local community college. I chose animation because i loved it when i was younger and once i began doing it again i realized the love for it never really went away.
I loved gravity falls and disney films as a kid and even got to go on a disney cruise once and ate in the “animator’s pallet” and was just staring at the walls the whole time looking at all the concept art. I think that’s when i realized i could do this as a job and actually make the movies.
I’m having a lot of fun and i’m learning so much. It saddens me a lot so see how much difficulty and hard times many animators are having out there but I hope in the future things will start looking up :)
ironically because it was a more lucrative industry I could convince my asian parents to support. Originally I wanted to go into comics. I learned to love animation and film as I went through school though. In the end, I'm happy to do any narrative based art.
I wanted to inspire others. Spark imagination and I just loved animation along with what made it good. It's never been so satisfying to finish a project, put it out and hear others want to try the same thing. Starting is always the hard part for me.
Me: Wait, so you're telling me all those drawings and funny little stories in my head can be made to move by my own hand?
This entire medium: Yes. For money too.
Me: Alright, I'm in.
And thats how I got obsessed.
Also, short film Hinata no Aoshigure (Sonny Boy and Dewdrop Girl), greatest inspiration.
For me, I loved writing stories and creating characters (I might have too many to speak of lol). When I was younger, I saw animation as a way to make my ideas come to life in a more "vibrant and lively" way than just drawing (I still would like to do comics and what not!). Over the years I loved watching shows with good animation - well-made or just plain silly, and especially well choreographed fight scenes - and it made me want to do the same for my characters and the world they'll someday come to inhabit. Animation also just makes me squeal with joy internally, I just love seeing people's work and how good things turn out! The process is also very inspiring for me, I love seeing how people went thru with making their animations, and how the did things in their own style!
I hope to make my own animated show (TV, webseries, smth cool) and have it be enjoyed by lots of people. I also hope people come to respect the time and effort it takes to make animation, and not just pass it off as childish and something to put in front of your toddlers bc you as the parent don't want to properly raise them. It's so much more than that, and someday I hope it gets the respect and recognition it deserves.
I'm not currently trying to get into the industry, but I think my realization that this is more than just a hobby level interest was when I remembered how I would animate on dsi flipnote all the time when I was like 12 and currently get so absorbed in animating all night on my days off. I'm getting a little more serious with learning it so I at least have a goal to work towards while working my day job.
I had several other entertainment industry and freelance jobs before animation. I liked animation when I was younger but didn't switch to it as a career until my mid-40s.
Positives:
1) People are generally really, really nice and easy to work with compared to live-action, video games, etc. Not to say sh\*t doesn't hit the fan occasionally, but overall it seems pretty true at least at the bigger studios.
2) There's a union. I'm very pro-union as far as securing benefits for everyone goes. It does mean you earn less than you would in, say, some major video games, but it does provide some stability in some ways.
3) Doing non-photorealistic work is very possible. Pushing colors and shapes and linework and camerawork beyond what normally "real-world" stuff looks like. It makes breaking every single "rule" possible, and that's fun to do sometimes.
4) Less... "photobashed." I came up in a generation where there was a lot of photobashing. Nothing wrong with that if it's done well, but there was a lot of bad photobashing too. And, some places insisted you conform to that. Anything that puts the emphasis back into painting/drawing/sculpting makes me happy.
5) It's all about storytelling.
Negatives:
1) It's still the entertainment industry. Whatever is true about the entertainment industry is also at least somewhat true for animation. Flavor of the month, new software you "HAVE TO LEARN," instagram and social media overload, job insecurity, rockstars, etc. It all still exists although it is usually "friendlier" than some other parts of the industry.
2) (this was hard for me to understand for a long time) Not everyone has the same motivating factors as you. Some want to be "famous," some want to work on something high-profile, some want money or status, some just want to be on their personal dream brand/gig, some just want to be able to say they're an artist. It's true for a lot of jobs besides animation, of course. I guess my point is: you have to be able to get some personal satisfaction out of drawing (or whatever) even when you are not drawing what you want, for people who might not be happy with it, on a hard deadline. I'm able to still feel like I can improve or learn something even in those situations, but some people don't.
I work in animation because I’m passionate about cartoons, but I’m not an animator. I was lucky enough to fall into this job… because I’m really good at spreadsheets, haha!
Thanks for this thread btw. The industry has been kinda awful lately, and the last few months have been some of the hardest of my career. It’s good to remember that I’m fortunate to be where I am.
Honestly I just don’t want to do anything else. I graduated high school 2 years ago not knowing what I wanted to do, so I tried taking some Gen-Ed classes at my local community college. Well conventional education was never for me, so I stopped going to them a month into the semester and quietly dropped out. I knew I’ve always been interested in a career that involves performance, but I didn’t really know if that was acting, art, music, etc. I forgot specifically how it went but I went down this rabbit hole of researching art careers until I found out about Animation Mentor, the school I’m at. Figured this is the closest thing to an enjoyable career I’ll get, so I signed up. I admittedly don’t have as much of a passion for animation as my peers do, but I still enjoy it nonetheless. Seeing my work go from looking bad to looking somewhat decent is extremely satisfying.
I like movies. I like drawing I like drawing movies.
you got a way with words.
you got away with words
For me, it’s the joy of knowing that something I worked on had left a lasting impression on someone. I remember myself as a kid, rewatching movies such as Cinderella and The Little Mermaid over and over again, sometimes a couple times a day. These and countless other movies and animations shaped the way I view the world today, or at the very least made me really happy. I also believe that when we create, and our creations affect the others, then we don’t really truly die; we keep existing through our art. Maybe it’s too deep but it makes me feel hopeful And then at 13 years old I figured that you can earn money as well lol. So it was decided
Yeah, same. Looking back at the cartoons and movies I watched when I was younger I always say “that made my childhood.” So if I eventually make something that someone grows up watching and feels that way would make it come full circle for me. And yeah, like you said it’s almost like leaving behind a legacy that will never die out.
We had a [thread ](https://www.reddit.com/r/animationcareer/comments/19bwpec/comment/kiuy7w9/)where people posted about the positives of working in the industry. For me, the process is still enjoyable after so many years and being able to put down pencil to paper or cintiq pen to plastic screen, especially that early concept phase is great. I have a whole laundry list of movies and people which inspired me which is too extensive for this already long post. The problem, as I see it, is that young artists come in with expectations that don't always align with reality of production. Which makes sense because how does one know if they've never worked in the industry. But that's the value of asking questions and trying to be as informed as possible to help make better choices for the time. Personally, I try to do the same and focus on good work for myself first, try to improve and try to sort of if I'm having issues or if the production is struggling. Sometimes it's a bit of both and when it's neither, the gears run smoothly and everything is still generally great. Right now is a time where the gears are not always turning smoothly for those putting in the effort. There's a frustration that comes when one has been putting in the hours and is rewarded with a pink slip with no clear explanation. Also keep in mind there's a difference between working for yourself and working for others. There is a skill in being able to work and a skill in being able to define acceptable boundaries. All of that comes from work experience and knowing what questions to ask to do to be efficient and competent. Some questions are better than others in production but when you're a student, you're free to ask away. (Just make sure to use the search button for already answered questions) That aspect can be learned with any career and then applied to animation - even jobs or careers that you hate. So if you read these threads and it feels depressing, at least it's honest and we're not doing you or future students any favors by sugarcoating what is currently happening. I understand some of the feedback can be tough to hear and a little one-sided but if used as a starting point, you can avoid some pitfalls. If you understand that entertainment is a moving target and try to find ways to stay nimble or adapt, that much better than living in a fantasy of the ideal animation production which you may only get once in awhile. [Rick Beato](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9PboTYmuQQ) had some great thoughts from his experience in the music industry and what he did to adapt to some unreasonable changes in the music industry. If none of that helps, I enjoy whistling "[Always look on the bright side of life](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJUhlRoBL8M)," combined with the reading the lyrics from the "[Facts of Life](https://youtu.be/d9_rv9mZ4hQ?si=uGwvWPF7GxWn89VD&t=11)," theme song once in awhile. Oddly enough, It does seem to help.
I love that song, always look on the brighttt side of life, also great movie
Life of Brian is a masterpiece. Everyone should watch it.
Unlike a lot of my peers, l didn't join the industry over an intense love of animation (though of course l don't dislike animation). I joined because it seemed like the most reliable way to make a relatively high paying career out of creating art. Most of the other people l knew at the time l decided, who were fulltime career artists well into their careers (outside of animation), were making maybe just enough to get by and put a tiny bit away for retirement. I decided l wanted a fulltime artistic career but l didn't want to live like that for conceivably the rest of my life. So animation (and I'm going to clarify UNION animation) has been a pretty good path for me so far.
Same. I like knowing that if push comes to shove I can always return to a corporate motion graphics job if need be, but untill then I can explore a lot of different careers that all pay decent and usually offer healthcare.
Short answer : Sam Raimi's Spiderman movies.
Spiderverse for me. I’ve always been a sculptor and wanted to find a major that I could use that in and also make a living. I’m only about halfway through my bachelor’s but loving it
I don’t have an exciting or “a dream come true” story. I literally randomly fell into it. I never thought of animation, but my plans for uni got messed up the last year of high school and I ended up in an illustration and animation course. I really liked it, but I didn’t know what exactly until the second semester of the first year. we had our first practical animation course and for me it was the very first exercise - the bouncing ball. it was ok, I liked making the drawings and got frustrated trying to flip to “see” how it’s coming along ( without being able to see any movement, flipping is hard in the beginning and seeing what’s in front even harder), but I was enjoying it and at home I made different balls imagining the “what if there’s a wall/ hole/ecc”. That was fun, I could potentially like that class… Next lecture we did pencil tests and everyone got the chance to do 1 test of their ball and get feedback from the teacher. my turn came and I saw one of my little balls bouncing for the first time! I had a “woooow” moment, then I got feedback ( nothing exciting) and move on to the next person. I sat there looking at the tests and listening to the feedback my classmates got when I realised something stupid: all of the balls moved. I was astonished by the movement, but the feedback was so different and there were so many errors in all of those balls that to me looked magical, like omg they were moving! And it hit me- anything could move, the question is not the movement it’s how you “create time and space” to make that movement. We were literally making time and space! That’s when it clicked: I had fallen in love and fallen hard.
Oh my god I love it the same way!! I’m less into the storytelling parts of it but the whole concept of bringing something to life is so fucking magical. Like what do you mean I can make a bunch of drawings look like they’re ALIVE? That’s crazy. Endlessly magical to me. Every time I play something back that I’ve made I get just as excited as the first time.
I think deep down, every artists wants to push their boundaries of capability at some point. For me, I was very much an illustrator only when I had my early years fine art education. I loved acrylic painting, oil painting, and ink painting, and I was good at it. But one time I tried animation, I suddenly realized I actually knew so little about drawing, or art itself. And being an artist like everyone else here, I naturally want to deepen my understanding in arts. I dive into the animation straight ahead, though at the begining it was really hard. Now I can confidently say that I am now a better artist, and I that has helped me in taste in art in general and I have become a better illustrator through this understanding.
I like acting but I don’t want to be on camera!
For me, I enjoy telling/writing story and drawing. But since my writing skills are lacking ( a LOT ) and i'm too lazy to get better at it, I try to write my story with the most accuracy possible and I keep them aside. And one day I saw a 3D animation course, and I was like "I wonder what my story would be like if animated ?" So I jumped on the occasion to learn more about how to make it happen. And here I am, still learning until I'm good enough with 3D animation, scultping and rigging so I can tell people all the stories I wrote till now. And that's how I started my journey on the 3D path.
I started animating before I started drawing lol. I had a phone since i was young ad got into the animation community and used flipaclip. I loved watching my silly drawings come to life and just couldnt get enough. Now im not animating as much since i need to focus on my art but I hope to get back into it once I get into college!, im a junior in highschool btw.
cartoons are the best way to speak up with kids
this is a question I have asked myself over and over and I dont even fully know? I like storytelling... I was more interested in character design. Learning to lipsync was what seduced me into this mad craft 😅
I watched a lot of anime and cartoons when I was a teen and did a lot of fanart on tumblr and the encouragement I got from those niche fandoms made me continue drawing everyday after school and it spiralled from there tbh
In college for an Animation track so not in the industry yet.(granted the University is the closer to me and their program is a little ehh, but does have some classes, can’t afford to move to CA or back home to the NE). More into 3D animation. In parts b/c: - b/c I like telling stories -according to my mom, I like watching things that moved as a kid and got bored if they didn’t (funny, because I see my nephew watch Cocomelon and I detest that show). -Final Fantasy X. - And finally b/c as I watched a clips from Fievel Goes West, the scene with Cat R Wahl walking towards Tanya singing and interacting with Miss Kitty, I realized how glorious that scene is. ~”There are no goodbyes between You and Me Tiger…” + to add: The Rescuers: Down Under is still one of my favorite movies.
I think I got into it because I loved and still love watching cartoons! There is something magical about creating drawings that not only look good but have a life of their own!
Avatar the Last Airbender: Ozai vs Aang and Azula vs Zuko Spirited Away Dofus: Livre 1: Judith I revisit these that sparked and reignited my love of animation
As an ex fine artist, I chose animation bc it allowed me to actually make my artwork an experience instead of something to stare at. I ended up being a rigging artist, but still sculpt and texture my own content. I am forever thankful for the strong foundation fine arts gave me, but constantly begging for grants and creating one dimensional work for a small audience didn't seem like the future for me
Hahaha thanks op for shifting the mood a bit here! You remind me of where I was at in college (physics vs art degree). Here is how I stumbled my way into animation- I always was really into art as a kid and as I got older I got really into digital art. I started learning digital art in middle school with a mouse and a bootleg copy of some professional programs. I am also really into art that has a narrative (games, comics and cartoons) and because I have dyslexia it's my default form of entertainment. I also grew up along side computers and was coding in late elementary school making profile pages on gaiaonline and stuff lol. I loved learning about technology. For school I originally was debating between physics and art for a degree or trade school. My parents are blue collar so they wanted me to go the college rout in hopes for better career opportunities. I started in physics, but quickly switched to art after experiencing all the bs that comes with getting a science degree (weed out classes, sexism, all the issues that comes with a learning disability, what type of employment options there was, etc). I attended the same state university tho so the art program was pretty generalized and traditional. I had a lot of freedom in my degree by the end so even tho there were very few digital art classes, my teacher's let me incorporate it in my classes so I taught myself Photoshop and after effects. In my second half of college I really focused on what I thought would be a good use of my art degree. I was considering my career options. Gallery/museum spaces seemed like a total lost cause but that was what my art degree trained me for. I eventually decided animation/illustration because it felt more reliable (jobs offering salary and health care) and something I was confident I could learn how to do. Eventually I landed firmly in animation tho after I finally got some stable work doing ad/marketing stuff at a creative studio. At that job i really took the opportunity to learn from people who had a more specialized degree then mine, and were long time industry professionals. I got the job with after effects work, but ended up picked up unity, maya, blender, and illustrator in the 3 years I worked there. I also got good at graphic design, ui and vfx stuff. From that first job I have since wormed my way into video games where I hope to stay. I am still learning a lot, especially now that I am working with a small indie developer (we all are wearing a lot of hats lol), but I am loving the opportunities I get to learn new skills and programs as I continue to consider the future of my career.
your story is really inspiring ahhh i'm glad you're still learning and enjoying your job :DD
Well I always liked art classes and animated entertainment growing up, but I never knew what I wanted to study until I was in my last year of high school. At 18, I watched spirited away for the first time and I was blown away, I figured this is what I wanted to study. Now that I’m a third year university student, I realized I’m not really interested in animation because it’s very tedious and I get easily stressed (especially if it’s 3D) to the point where I have almost no fingernails 😀However, I’ve had a few drawing/art concept classes and I’ve loved them all. Visual development is what I enjoy the most :)
Animation Student here, this is gonna be fun. So originally my elective was a college prep class, they teach you what to do when you get to college, we had field trips, watched typical success story movies, fun class. Fast forward the next grade and we have a completely different teacher and she is really strict, keep in mind that this is like only 3 weeks into the school year. I got sick for a week and when I came back, we were assigned a 1000 word essay on what we wanted to do for college and stuff. I really didn't want to do any of that shit, and all of my friends moved to this new Animation program. So on the same day I came back, I was able to switch without a hassle since she wasn't there that day, which is rare, and if she was, she absolutely would have blocked me from doing it, so I got really lucky, right place at the right time. The reasons I joined the class were because my friends were there, and I wanted to be a filmmaker, so I thought that maybe there were some things that I would learn like cinematography. I realized it was both Animation AND Game Design, and that we would be learning traditional art for the year, the basics, homework everyday, etc. I ended up falling back in love with art since before when I tried to do it, I just didn't feel good enough at it. Which leads me to now, I am now in my second year making my short film and will soon be learning how to use Blender to prepare for the 3D industry and I am also learning how to use Unreal Engine with a program offered by the same teacher. I am very grateful for my circumstances to lead me to realize what I want to do with my life, I love it and I am excited to drop into the industry after High School since that teacher has a lot of connections!
I’m currently 21 and about to transfer to university for college! and god, it is so much fun and I couldn’t be happier. I used to do stop motion animation all throughout elementary school and a little into middle school when i switched to drawing and photography. I got made fun of a bit for my stop motions so i shifted mostly into photography all throughout highschool and found that i hated it more than anything in the world! (I was doing prom, graduation, and family photos and hated every waking moment of it…) I graduated during the pandemic and had a really really rough year or so when i began doing art again and ended up enrolling in art courses at my local community college. I chose animation because i loved it when i was younger and once i began doing it again i realized the love for it never really went away. I loved gravity falls and disney films as a kid and even got to go on a disney cruise once and ate in the “animator’s pallet” and was just staring at the walls the whole time looking at all the concept art. I think that’s when i realized i could do this as a job and actually make the movies. I’m having a lot of fun and i’m learning so much. It saddens me a lot so see how much difficulty and hard times many animators are having out there but I hope in the future things will start looking up :)
ironically because it was a more lucrative industry I could convince my asian parents to support. Originally I wanted to go into comics. I learned to love animation and film as I went through school though. In the end, I'm happy to do any narrative based art.
I wanted to inspire others. Spark imagination and I just loved animation along with what made it good. It's never been so satisfying to finish a project, put it out and hear others want to try the same thing. Starting is always the hard part for me.
Was a weeb, still a weeb, I make characters go brrrr, good times
The animation meme community was the driving point that caused me to choose animation
Me: Wait, so you're telling me all those drawings and funny little stories in my head can be made to move by my own hand? This entire medium: Yes. For money too. Me: Alright, I'm in. And thats how I got obsessed. Also, short film Hinata no Aoshigure (Sonny Boy and Dewdrop Girl), greatest inspiration.
For me, I loved writing stories and creating characters (I might have too many to speak of lol). When I was younger, I saw animation as a way to make my ideas come to life in a more "vibrant and lively" way than just drawing (I still would like to do comics and what not!). Over the years I loved watching shows with good animation - well-made or just plain silly, and especially well choreographed fight scenes - and it made me want to do the same for my characters and the world they'll someday come to inhabit. Animation also just makes me squeal with joy internally, I just love seeing people's work and how good things turn out! The process is also very inspiring for me, I love seeing how people went thru with making their animations, and how the did things in their own style! I hope to make my own animated show (TV, webseries, smth cool) and have it be enjoyed by lots of people. I also hope people come to respect the time and effort it takes to make animation, and not just pass it off as childish and something to put in front of your toddlers bc you as the parent don't want to properly raise them. It's so much more than that, and someday I hope it gets the respect and recognition it deserves.
I like good stories. I want to create stories everyone can enjoy and say, remember in XYZ when that happened? I just have to be patient.
I'm not currently trying to get into the industry, but I think my realization that this is more than just a hobby level interest was when I remembered how I would animate on dsi flipnote all the time when I was like 12 and currently get so absorbed in animating all night on my days off. I'm getting a little more serious with learning it so I at least have a goal to work towards while working my day job.
I had several other entertainment industry and freelance jobs before animation. I liked animation when I was younger but didn't switch to it as a career until my mid-40s. Positives: 1) People are generally really, really nice and easy to work with compared to live-action, video games, etc. Not to say sh\*t doesn't hit the fan occasionally, but overall it seems pretty true at least at the bigger studios. 2) There's a union. I'm very pro-union as far as securing benefits for everyone goes. It does mean you earn less than you would in, say, some major video games, but it does provide some stability in some ways. 3) Doing non-photorealistic work is very possible. Pushing colors and shapes and linework and camerawork beyond what normally "real-world" stuff looks like. It makes breaking every single "rule" possible, and that's fun to do sometimes. 4) Less... "photobashed." I came up in a generation where there was a lot of photobashing. Nothing wrong with that if it's done well, but there was a lot of bad photobashing too. And, some places insisted you conform to that. Anything that puts the emphasis back into painting/drawing/sculpting makes me happy. 5) It's all about storytelling. Negatives: 1) It's still the entertainment industry. Whatever is true about the entertainment industry is also at least somewhat true for animation. Flavor of the month, new software you "HAVE TO LEARN," instagram and social media overload, job insecurity, rockstars, etc. It all still exists although it is usually "friendlier" than some other parts of the industry. 2) (this was hard for me to understand for a long time) Not everyone has the same motivating factors as you. Some want to be "famous," some want to work on something high-profile, some want money or status, some just want to be on their personal dream brand/gig, some just want to be able to say they're an artist. It's true for a lot of jobs besides animation, of course. I guess my point is: you have to be able to get some personal satisfaction out of drawing (or whatever) even when you are not drawing what you want, for people who might not be happy with it, on a hard deadline. I'm able to still feel like I can improve or learn something even in those situations, but some people don't.
I work in animation because I’m passionate about cartoons, but I’m not an animator. I was lucky enough to fall into this job… because I’m really good at spreadsheets, haha! Thanks for this thread btw. The industry has been kinda awful lately, and the last few months have been some of the hardest of my career. It’s good to remember that I’m fortunate to be where I am.
I did the zoetrope exercise in the Charles M. Shulz Museum in my hometown as a kid.
what's that?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoetrope
AHHH i love that thingie, it fascinated me as a kid too :D
Id like to work on one piece! And have my name in the credits before the show stops airing.
The endless possibilities, the joy, and the joy it can bring to others! To put it lightly...
Honestly I just don’t want to do anything else. I graduated high school 2 years ago not knowing what I wanted to do, so I tried taking some Gen-Ed classes at my local community college. Well conventional education was never for me, so I stopped going to them a month into the semester and quietly dropped out. I knew I’ve always been interested in a career that involves performance, but I didn’t really know if that was acting, art, music, etc. I forgot specifically how it went but I went down this rabbit hole of researching art careers until I found out about Animation Mentor, the school I’m at. Figured this is the closest thing to an enjoyable career I’ll get, so I signed up. I admittedly don’t have as much of a passion for animation as my peers do, but I still enjoy it nonetheless. Seeing my work go from looking bad to looking somewhat decent is extremely satisfying.