Oh And Sorry For Spamming Your Notifs With Reblogs. It Will Happen Again.

Can you do a draw?

I can do several draws ｡◕‿◕｡

so I’ve been gaining a lot of insight into the animation industry recently, especially in regards to pitching & the creation of new shows. There’s a few ways to go about it.

First, there’s pitching to a studio. When you pitch, it has to be SHORT and CONCISE. You may write a lovingly detailed pitch bible that perfectly breaks down episodes and characterizations, and it might barely even get read. First impressions, first impressions, first impressions!

Most peoples’ first projects don’t get picked up. I’ve heard a few stories from directors that said they tried pitching a story they’d had for years, which got rejected, to then spend a week or even several hours in their car coming up with a new idea, only for that to get greenlit.

But that’s not the end of it. Just because a show gets greenlit, doesn’t mean it will ever get finished. There’s lots of things that can happen. Sometimes, unexpected major world events (like… a global pandemic) can cause projects to get chopped. Sometimes, a CEO change or studio merge means a single person can decide a project “no longer fits with the company’s brand.” Sometimes, the one producer that was rooting for your project gets laid off, and no one else cares enough, so it gets shelved. Sometimes, a streaming service decides to create an animation department, and then they decide they don’t want it anymore. Sometimes, the studio will be simultaneously be developing another project that was too similar to yours and they just didn’t think to tell you until they decide yours is the one with less potential.

On top of that, almost everyone in the industry is saying that “studios just don’t pick up original content anymore.” Studios want something they can franchise, something that will bring in money. New content is risky. Established fanbases are safer.

However! Studios can still be a very good thing. They can be unionized. They can provide better benefits and resources. They can have connections and infrastructure and a larger volume of workers. At a studio, you can divide the labor and produce more in less time. Longer episodes, longer seasons, more consistency in quality.

But this comes with all of the disadvantages of having more in the kitchen.

The alternative is indie animation.

With indie animation, you have total freedom. Full artistic control. It doesn’t even matter if your idea sucks ass, because there’s no one to tell you you can’t make it. You could make it anyway, and you can make it whatever you wanted.

The thing is, making animation is hard. In my production class last semester, the average maximum animation one person could make in that timeframe was 30-60 seconds, and that’s not even counting background design, sound design, or cleanup/color. To make a 5 minute animated short, you should probably have at least 5 people.

And it is CRUCIAL you have a production manager. Ideally someone who’s not already doing art for the project. Most projects without a production manager will fall apart pretty quickly. Once the adrenaline and impulse-fueled motivation wears off, you need someone to hold you accountable and enforce deadlines and proper time management.

Speaking of time, that’s also hard to get. The more people you have, the more likely schedules won’t line up. Most people will have school, or other jobs.

And it costs MONEY!!!!!! You either have everyone work for free and volunteer their time & energy, or you establish a business as a proper indie studio, with people who may or may not have experience on how to handle paying someone else’s salary. And the money has to come from somewhere, so you have to rely on crowdfunding like patreon or kickstarter. (This, by the way, is why I could never fault an indie animation for releasing merch with their pilot.)

And like, maybe you wanna do a series, and all your friends agree to volunteer their labor and time to make the first episode, but it was unanimously not sustainable. Deciding not to produce a second episode until you can raise enough money is not being suddenly greedy, it’s attempting to compensate people rather than expecting them to be continuously taken advantage of.

You have to consider your output as well. There are some outliers like Worthikids, who afaik does all his animation himself, and afaik can work on it full-time thanks to his patreon subscribers. And he still has only produced a total of 30 minutes of animation (for Big Top Burger specifically) in the past 4 years. This is an IMPRESSIVE feat and this is with using a lot of 3D as part of his pipeline!!

Indie animation also has the complication of being more accessible for fandoms. When you’re posting your Official Canon Content on youtube, it doesn’t look a lot different than the fandom-created video essay in the sidebar next to it. What’s canon vs what’s fanon becomes less distinguishable. The boundaries are blurrier. When the creator is just some guy you follow on twitter, it’s easier to prod them for info regarding ships and theories and word-of-god confirmation. They don’t have a PR team or entire international tv networks to appeal to. And this is when creators get frustrated that their fans snowball and turn their creation into something they don’t recognize (and no longer enjoy) anymore.

So it’s tricky.

Thankfully, the threshold to learn animation is fairly low nowadays!! There are TONS of resources online to learn it on your own without forking over a couple hundred thousand to a private art college. There are conventions and discord servers and events where you can network, if you know where to look.

I know it can seem discouraging in the face of capitalism, but I think that’s all the more reason why it’s so important to BE DETERMINED about animation!! We’re already starting to see the beginning of an indie animation boom, and I think it’s a testament to humanity’s desire to tell stories and create art. Even if there’s no financial gain, we do whatever it takes to tell our stories anyway.

hes very relatable ｡◕‿◕｡ 

Finding out theres octavian stans in the year 2023 is insane.

Not only is his character not very relevant in thr books at all, hes just annoying and there, but also its been like a decade

Whatever you do here is your business! W-We just wanna get home with all our legs and arms attached...

A screen shot redraw from about a year ago~ :p

"I cant draw" then do it bad who gives a fuck.....

It’s been months and I still can’t believe Disney let Var Bear have a gun☠️

I drew this about a year ago sjdhs

As you can probably tell I’m not good with artillery, shout out to my brother for trying to teach me tho 🌚

(I tried (´°̥̥̥̥̥̥̥̥ω°̥̥̥̥̥̥̥̥｀) )

@drawthesquad for the reference in the first pic

hi! okay, I love your stuff, and I need to say: your pony drawings of the percy jackson characters are adorable and awesome. have a nice day!!! 💛💛

Thank you so much <3

Soo, it happened, a couple of days ago I mentioned that if I got to 2,000 followers on Instagram I would make stickers and it happened :D

There is a bit of a twist tho in that my followers can help me design the stickers, people comment on what they want and we vote by the number of likes, the comments with the most likes get turned into a sticker

Because of the voting, I don’t think I can host it on Tumblr but I encourage everyone to go to my Instagram (even make an account only for this then delete it later) so you can be a part of the fun!

When the stickers are done they will, of course, be for everyone :)

The deadline to comment and vote is the 29th of September so plz hurry <333

Thank you to everyone! ♡ ʕ•̫͡•ʔ 

( special thanks to  @sodamnbored​ because you were asking about it <3) 

Rick Riordan is actually coming out with the Solangelo to Tartarus book?? What’s it called?! I do see the announcement- Btw, LOVE your art ❤️

Yes, Rick is co-writing it with Mark Oshiro. :)

I don't know what the title will be but here are some links to the announcement 1 & 2

Also thank you :) <333

AHHHHH YESSSSSS HIS LAUGH HERE WAS EVERYTHING, my favorite 😫😫😫

it was cruel of them to have them act like this then deprive us of them 😭

I’m rewatching episode 2 of Marvel’s Spider-Man, and I got some highlights for you 🤲✨

•“It may be a new school, Bernie, but it’s the same old routine. You know I like to walk these last few blocks with my pal, Pete.”  🥹

•The way Harry looks at Peter during their whole cafe date

•Just the fact that these two met up every morning for breakfast BEFORE SCHOOL is just 😩👌💞✨

•Peter chanting Harry’s name when he was speaking on stage 

• “This is Peter Parker, the one I’ve been telling you about :D” Harry’s been at this school for how long? and he’s already telling the guy in charge all bout his buddy that he thinks the whole of 

•Peters “I guess it just feels weird going there (Horizon High) without Harry :(“ 

•Harry getting suspended from school but being over the moon about Peter getting in. Like my dude wasn’t even thinking about himself or what his dad was doing, he was just so happy for Peter. 

•Aunt May walking Peter to school and Harry saying “I’ll take it from here” before walking Peter to their cafe and getting him breakfast 💀✋ 

•Petter getting excited that Harry was the only person who knew he was a spider and not calling him bug/beetle boy 🥹🥹🥹

•their little fist bum they do

•Peter following Harry out of the cafe even tho that's not where he needs to go but he’s just so used to being around him it didn’t even register he was going the wrong way

Season three really deprived me of them so much, that I almost forgot how close they were 😭

I know! Literally all of those bits had me dying!

In particular, when Peter got excited about Harry knowing he was a spider, and Harry just looks at him like “what did you think he was?” like it’s obvious - the SMILE Peter gets when he looks away. Ah, it’s just everything.

And when Peter follows Harry, and then runs off in the other direction and Harry says “no Pete, for once you’re going the right way” because he was going with Harry. I know that’s not quite what he meant, but that’s what I’m believing anyway 🥰