24

animation drawing from bearpuncher

It was one of those perfect summer nights in Nashville. We were smoking pipes on a friend's porch, the first time in a while our group of little Inkling-wannabes had convened to discuss our day jobs, personal projects, and of course, girl troubles. 

As I was smoking my pipe, the taste reminded me of who I was as a newly-minted 23 year old. Last summer, I was a house-sitting indie artist living on the cheap, nurturing a burgeoning interest in cooking, hiking, and travel. I was working on personal projects every day, in what was (in retrospect) a luxurious time to indulge the furthest extent of my child-like, artsy side. But now as a 24 year old, that self, and his goals, felt foreign. 

In the months that followed my 23rd birthday, I would accept my first, though rather non-artistic, job in animation. I would settle into my first apartment, though given the amount of boxes I still have in my bedroom, I can't say that I've totally unpacked. In order to create the amount of art I wanted in the margins of my social and work life, I would accept a motto of "minimize lifestyle, maximize output." I reduced the time I spent on hobbies such as hiking, cooking, and sleeping - but it worked. After a brief late fall slump, I was making art again, waking up early in the mornings with a cup of tea and yet another Bearpuncher shot on the table (technically the Cintiq, but that too was on the table.) Things were getting done. Bearpuncher was getting done. 

And as of just a few weeks ago, Bearpuncher is fully animated. 

It's weird to speculate, or even celebrate, about the light at the end of that tunnel. One of the many things I've learned on this project is that any task will take about three times longer than I expect, and with animation coloring and a few more background paintings left to go it could just take two more months to complete... or it could take the whole year. It's been hard not to compare the film to others in its field, like this stunner from Emily Xu. I've been so deep in the project it's hard to tell how it actually measures up. I think it's good. I know it's entertaining. But at the very least it's given me a reason to keep drawing something that's truly my own, which I really needed. 

Because despite literally working in animation, I don't feel much like an artist anymore. Not only do I have significantly less time to work on art nowadays, but I've also been wracked with serious doubts about the righteousness of the artistic quest I idolized in college. Was it selfish to want to spend a life tinkering on my own stories? Would the expense and foreignness of living in California outweigh the fun of studio life? As a Christian from Tennessee, would I even be welcomed into a established studio communities to begin with? Or perhaps most importantly, was creating better, more important, and more expensive stories worth what it would cost to have that opportunity? Now, I wasn't so sure. 

As the sun set and the pipes burned low, I missed that 23-year-old version of me who knew exactly what he wanted, who was filled with so much wonder and potential and zeal for the work. There's a lot I think I have to learn from him. But 23-year-old me had a very narrow vision of success, and even his own identity. He didn't expect to change. But he did. 

And my mission as 24-year-old Daniel is to make sure that was for the better.