Moving on after a Failed Crowd-Funding Campaign

My IndieGoGo campaign for Anaximander & The Sea has ended in all but failure. Not to worry, though.  I’m not giving up that easily.  The project is still happening.

What went wrong? Well.. I’ve been in a period of drastic life-transition.  My last few living situations have been severely detrimental to my productivity and creative energy, but I will blame no person for this other than myself and my circumstances.  For most of my time here on Earth, I’ve been one to “go with the flow,” but I’m trying to take charge and make my life what I want it to be.  To this end, I have made great progress, albeit it in very modest strides.  The crowd-funding campaign through IndieGoGo was a hope of finding a way to focus on my creative work without having to keep an unwanted day-job, but frankly I was too depressed to put in the appropriate time and effort for a successful campaign.  I half-assed it, neigh, quarter-assed it, so of course it didn’t go well.  I’ve come to terms with it, though.  Time to reformulate my plan.  I’ll stick with a day-job and living pay-check to pay-check.  I won’t be able to focus as much time as I’d like to on creative efforts, but this has only strengthened my resolve.  I know I have what it takes.  Progress will continue.

I was just reading Cartoon Brew, a site I wish I’d discovered long ago, and happened upon this old post from 2005.  I found one particular bit very inspiring:

“one wonders if the Jon Favreau-directed film is only the beginning of an anti-CG backlash in Hollywood movies. And what could this mean for animation? Are we going to have a filmmaker come along who decides that animated CG features don’t have enough heart and decides to make a hand-drawn animated film?”

My answer is of course a resounding YES.  This is presently happening with a handful of filmmakers (Miyazaki has been doing it almost unwaveringly for decades), and I intend to be one of them!  It’s not that I think all CG and flash-style animations lack heart, but my opinion is that the majority of them do. I also just find stop-motion/claymation and hand-drawn animation more appealing in general.

As a proof-of-concept to myself and others, I’m still planning to finish my partially-animated music video for Curriculum Vitae, but as happens far too easily with me, I am still lacking some confidence to take on my second-favorite art-form (music being first).  It’s quite time-consuming, and alas, I can be a bit impatient.  To remedy this I decided to do a few more short animated sketches prior to tackling principal animation for the music video. These should increase both my skill and confidence in creating hand-drawn, animated films.  Hopefully they’ll be finished and online within the next few days.  Here are a couple of shots:

To save time, I’m skipping the involvement of true painted backgrounds with these sketches and doing everything with my bargain-bin Wacom tablet.  My lines are spastic and sketchy, but I’m sure this will clear up somewhat over time.  For now, I like the look I’m achieving.

Stay tuned for the completed animations.

Modest, Measurable Progress

In pursuing funding for Anaximander & The Sea, the thought keeps crossing my mind that perhaps those that see my work and the project would be more enthusiastic if they could see something closer to the style and quality of animation I envision for the film.  To that end, I’ve been working on a music video for my song Curriculum Vitae.  The video will be half live-action and half animated.  The animated sequence will serve as the first public appearance of the Anaximander character as he exists in my mind (as a cartoon), and it will also serve as a better example of how the animation will look in Anaximander & The Sea.

I’ve finished the live-action shots, as well as the storyboard, some other concept art and all the background paintings for the video’s animated sequence.  I’ve never put this much time and effort into a music video before, so hopefully it pays off somehow.

I’ve definitely seen measurable progress, albeit modest, in my drawing and painting skills.  I’m not looking to make anything photorealistic, but I do want a certain amount of (sur)realism to be there.  Below, in chronological order, you will find a gallery with most of the concept art I’ve done for Anaximander & The Sea, in addition to two of my favorite backgrounds from the upcoming Curriculum Vitae music video.  Enjoy!

The first concept art I ever did for Anaximander & The Sea. I hadn’t really drawn or painted for several years when I did this. Watercolor and Ink. May 2011.

Some concept art from my Moleskine. June 2011.

From my Moleskine. The Anaximander character is somewhat autobiographical, of course. So I was trying to think about how I’d look as a cartoon. Clearly, I needed to understand my features a little better. August 2011.

A concept art sketch from my Moleskine. August 2011.

Some quick concept art for my animated, music-oriented film project, Anaximander & The Sea. I’m still not really sure what Anaximander will be wearing. This is just one possibility. August 2011.

Some Anaximander & The Sea concept art on a paper lunch sack. September 2011.

From my Moleskine. Anaximander’s first animated appearance will be in the music video for my song, Curriculum Vitae. I want his features to look fairly recognizable as my own, so I sketched myself from a few photos. Ants will play the other roles in the animated sequence. I sketched these quickly from memory. October 2011.

This is one of my favorite backgrounds from the animated sequence I’m creating for my first respectable music video. October 2011.

This is one of my favorite backgrounds from the animated sequence I’m creating for my first respectable music video. October 2011.

Focus Sharpening

From a fairly young age, I’ve been aware that my talents are primarily creative in nature, and since then, my expectation of life has been that those talents would bring me some sort of measurable success.  However, aside from the loyal support of my friends and family, the great success I’d come to expect remains nothing more than a fantasy.  Don’t get me wrong … I am grateful to have had such a supportive group of people cheering me on over the years; otherwise, I wouldn’t have developed the skills with which I am now equipped.  But it’s time to face a few facts. Artistic success doesn’t come to those who wait. It rarely comes to those who truly deserve it (or at least not in their lifetime).  And it certainly doesn’t come to those who expect it.   Just keep creating … Someone will notice … Someone big will notice …  I feel so silly now for thinking that way. How naive of me! … Ah well. No point in dwelling on the past, yes? I know my errors very well.  (To put it plainly, I just haven’t worked hard enough.)  Now it’s time to see what happens when I correct them.

This blog will now hereby serve as a record of my thoughts, memories, feelings, processes and progress as I seek to use my natural abilities and my own personal efforts to support myself financially.

I’ll leave you with a video-blog entry, hopefully the first of many, which will introduce you to my most ambitious project yet.

Current Work

I’ve been drawing and painting enthusiastically for the first time in years.  My goal is to get good enough at hand-drawn animation to see some ideas come to fruition that otherwise never would. My first attempt at this can be found here.  I have a lot more to say on this subject, but I’m on my way out the door. I’ll leave you with a look at how my second animation is shaping up.  The backgrounds are some old drawings from 2009 that I finally colored and scanned.

Blog

I’m really going to keep up with it this time.