I'm going to back-date these posts with random numbers until we catch up, but I promise they're coming more regularly!

Today I wanted to mention something that many lone artists need to work on in their...uh, well, work. That is the concept of NOT working as a lone artist. Art is subjective, so when trying to make something appealing it is helpful to take the advice and criticism of other knowledgeable people in your field. Keith Sawyer, a professor at UNC and an expert on creativity and learning, says "You cannot be creative alone. Isolated individuals are not creative. That’s not how creativity happens." He sounds like he knows what he's talking about. 

For the artists who are working on their dream project, alone in their dark and--let's be honest--kinda smelly room, it is vital that you get inspiration, criticism, or just pal around with other people during your day. Get lunch with someone, post regularly to art forums, or take a walk with your dog every hour. Seriously, my dog helped me figure out a solution that had me pulling my hair out just minutes before. He didn't save the file when he fixed the problem, but give him a break--he's a dog. I don't put those kinds of expectations on him. 

Besides the good Professor himself, I have two other people I collaborate with in order to make sure the project is the best it can be. I even joined a group that is tangential to animation because of the help I could get from its members. The Dallas Screenwriters Crew (part of the Dallas Filmmakers Alliance) had a table read event which I went to. I got great feedback and now I can be sure my script is better than if I had tried to do it all myself.

This doesn't apply to just artists, by the way. That very smart man I mentioned earlier says this concept applies to all types of work. So get out there and work with others, and don't let the haters get you down by saying you're not a genius because you have too many collaborators. It's your time to lemonade, baby.

To officially kick off the blog, let's first talk about the project itself. Around 2012, I discovered a YouTube personality called Professor Elemental. He's not just a steampunk hip hop emcee from the UK with a monkey butler, he's probably the most influential steampunk hip hop emcee from the UK with a monkey butler.

Probably. I haven't seen any official data for that claim, though.

I always enjoyed the imaginative world he created through his songs -- weird villains like his time-traveling great great great great great great grandson; weird situations like starting a rap battle with another "chap hop" artist; and of course, all this tomfoolery having to stop at 4:00 for afternoon tea. It's all so splendid.

However, all this was merely entertainment until his 2018 album, School of Whimsy. The track titled Make Good Art part 2 sampled parts of Neil Gaiman's commencement speech in 2012 (coincidence to the year I first heard about the Prof??). The message of the song rang loud and clear. So I set about making some 3D models and put together a pitch for a cartoon. He sent back a lovely email after seeing it, and said we should definitely collaborate! To top it off, about a week later he was set to do a show at a steampunk convention in Tucson. It's a 14-hour drive, but we couldn't pass up the opportunity to meet face to face.

We bought tickets to the convention, found a place to stay for the weekend, packed some camera equipment, and were off...to our destiny. Over a cup of gin-spiked tea, and a quick bribe with a Battenberg, we revealed that we were the ones from the cartoon pitch and he was blown away. Now, we already had agreed on collaborating, but going the extra mile to show our excitement and dedication for the project didn't hurt. For those looking to pitch a show, there's a big lesson here. Sure, the circumstances are a bit extreme. If you're pitching to Nickelodeon, you're not likely to catch an exec at a convention of cosplayers, impressing them with vegetable steamers glued onto VR goggles. But I knew my audience and knew it would pay off.

Finally, who is this blog for? In a sense, it's for artists who are or were in my position just a few months ago -- stuck in a job they hate, not getting to create the things that make them feel alive, and looking for some confirmation that it may be okay to follow your bliss. One part of the blog will be a sort of behind the scenes look at the production of an animated short. The other part will be tips, tricks, and tutorials in the various software that I use. 

So until next time, remember to make good art.

P.S. There is a rumor going around that this blog entry is a couple weeks late. I, however, submit the following response:

I quit my day job as a data entry and customer service rep. Not because of any issues I had with management, or the pay was too low, or even that I got a better job somewhere else. To be honest, it's probably the opposite since now I won't have any assurance of where my next paycheck will come from. I quit because I have the opportunity to create something - a pilot for an animated show.

But why leave my day job entirely? Why not just "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" and try to make the show after work? Seems like a big gamble to go from employed to pro bono work, hoping it will pay off later.

First off, I had already tried the bootstrap method. But my schedule was eight hours of work, a one hour lunch, and a total of two hours (or more) of commute time every day. That's a minimum of 11 hours a day given to my day job, plus eating once I get home, and hopefully you can see the problem that will arise. I'm bloody tired at the end of the day! Who has the energy to go from that to a technically and artistically challenging side project of 3D animation? To create two models, it took me 8 months of squirreling away an hour here and there, sometimes waking up at 4 AM to get it done when I knew my nights were filled up with, well, life. And you know what? There's still work to be done on those models even now! It's simply not possible given the scope of 3D animation to create a short when you give all your time and energy to a day job.

Second, this was not a decision that I took lightly. You could say the decision was eight months in the making, but I didn't really feel like this was actually a possibility until about two months ago. And I didn't make this decision alone. My wife - my dear, sweet, analytical, let's-think-about-this-a-hundred-different-ways wife - was surprisingly the optimistic one out of the two of us.

Finally, ok so I won't be completely jobless during this time. I have freelance opportunities already and the extra time I have will be spent networking and building a social media presence (hey! Waddaya know, this blog is an example of that presence). And, as my project collaborator (who will be revealed next week) said during a speech he gave during the convention we first met: "You can always get a shitty job somewhere else." That's the most comforting idea through all this. I can always go back to those kind of jobs, but I'll never get another opportunity to do this, to be fulfilled and make good art.

I am making an animated short. This blog will be a record of that journey as I share my experiences, frustrations, insights, and whatever else happens along the way. I'd love to have you with me. I will give more detail on what the project is and what my goals for this blog are, but for now I wanted to show that there has already been a lot of work done. There are some more social media links at the bottom of this page if you want to stay up to date on my progress there. Next week, Day 1 of this new phase of life comes.