Bluey's Back!

working(?) from home

Hey Bloggerfolk!

It’s been a while since my last Bluey fanart, but you can only stay away so long, ya know? Since my last fanart, Bluey’s become a worldwide phenomenon and is quoted frequently by my cadre of friends, only two of whom are parents and none of whom are preschoolers. Finally, people don’t give me strange looks when I say “I’m Busting!” as part of casual conversation. One of my fanarts (ironically, my oldest one) was recently featured on Disney Junior’s Instagram, which may be the highest honor I’ve yet received as an artist, and a Bluey fan? Let me tell you, you are NEVER prepared for the moment when Disney Junior slides into your DMs. Thanks DJ!

I’m loathe to take time away from Curio but wanted to jump back into the Bluey scene and try some new things with the characters. As usual, I love drawing these guys with a weighted, plush feel. But I wanted to try something new with a tighter lineart pass plus a Anna-Scott-meets-The-Mitchells-vs-The-Machines color pass.

sketch

Doing some fanart ended up being a good change of pace from all the non-digital, non-character work I’ve been doing for Curio recently. And somehow it only took 2.5 hours? Which may be the fastest I’ve EVER drawn something on the iPad. I think it’s because I had years worth of fanart to reference, but also because Bandit reminds me a lot of my own dad, and I found myself thinking back on the days we shared at his work (which usually didn’t include a yoga ball. My desk at home though, did.) Good times.

Hope y’all are having a good weekend and a happy Eastertide!

-dh

PS: To my many friends who are also parents, for example, my own parents - that line above is more about my college friends and is a joke, not a reflection of our personal friend status, sorry for the confusion

Secret Workshop: Out of Season

This post is thanks to our Workshop Crew members. Thanks Crew! To join the team (and see the top-secret art I reference in this post) sign up here!

this post features images of hayao miyazaki. i am not an old man. yet.

It’s Spring. It’s the blissful time here in Nashville when the murkiness and violent ochre of fall is almost entirely forgotten as the trees burst into pastel pinks and darling greens. There’s some agro-hipster (dare I say ancient) part of me that longs to live alongside the seasons, and thus for me Spring is typically bright and fresh, the celebration of the new, the joyous, the adventurous. Now’s the time when I rewatch the Studio Ghibli catalog, or replay Zelda games. It’s probably the time when I’m the least nostalgic.

While the coming of Spring has brought great enjoyment to my heart, it has brought great difficulty to my work. My current project, CURIO, is really more of an autumnal creature. CURIO needs to be a bit murky, most definitely nostalgic, steeped in things almost forgotten - absolutely not pastel, not current, not fresh. You may begin to see my problem. My heart is off in Ghibli-land, but CURIO demands it be in the exact opposite place. What am I to do? I could quit CURIO and follow my every seasonal whim. But that would mean working on 4(+) short films every year, never finishing any of them, and for a lot of reasons probably feeling very confused. I don’t really want that. So my alternative is to work out of season, against the very inspirations my heart is drawn to, and return to whatever increasingly dull-seeming, out of season project sits currently at my desk.

Normally I can push through this kind of thing, but this week I’m working on CURIO’s color script. (The color script defines the color palette and lighting for the short, which essentially set the tone and vibes for the whole production.) I can muscle through linework, I can muscle through character design, heck, I can even muscle through animation if I need to. But color has always seemed different to me. Color is the most emotive part of the animation process, and the most ineffable. When I seek out color I’m relying almost solidly on gut and vibes. There’s no formula for setting the colors of a project. I need to feel it.

But I don’t feel it this week.

I arrive at the desk and this quote weighs heavily in my mind:

Show up, show up, show up, and after a while the muse shows up, too.
- Isabel Allende

So I show up. I pull together reference images, looking for color patterns like stars in constellations. What I’m doing is almost scientific. Almost like an autopsy. All these inspirations were things I cherished last fall, things I still think are worthy of reference and imitation - yet the luster is gone. It’s partly the season, and partly being in the stage of production when there’s still much work ahead and not much currently on the page to encourage you.

I show up. I try out some different color combinations, eyedrop hues from screenshots, etc. I wonder how people work on Christmas projects during the summer. I mourn the loss of the “perfect” version of this I would make, the version made when my mood more matches the project. But I can’t wait for fall, can I? Who feels Christmas-y during the summer??

I show up. Thankfully, color’s not the only thing I’m working on this week - I’m also planning out the main BG painting for the short, and while inspiration would be nice for that too, it doesn’t feel as crucial for this kind of work. I alternate between the two tasks. Thirty minutes on color, thirty minutes on linework, tea, donut, watch a bit of Kiki’s Delivery Service, clock in to my studio job.

Finally, a spark. Not on color, but on the BG painting. It’s just an idea, a little story/design solution for something I’ve been turning over since Monday, but it’s so surprising that it excites me. I still don’t know my way with the color direction, but this is exciting. Suddenly the project has some luster again.

And that’s just kinda how it goes. It’s weird. You’d think that working on personal work and your own story would always be fun. But it’s still a challenge. However, I feel like it was a bit unfair to call this whole process an autopsy earlier - I think it’s really more like faith. Faith to trust a direction and rediscover why you chose it in the first place. Faith to just keep going. Faith to trust that a product that captures even 70% of the grandeur you saw in your head is still better than keeping it all up there, where it can’t be shared and enjoyed. It’s not an autopsy, it’s charging through what looks languid to find that living soul at the heart of the idea, the soul that captured your attention and sent you down this road in the first place. I almost feel like I’m talking about a relationship at this point, but that’s still another act of making, and thus requires just as much faith. (Probably more!)

If Bearpuncher was any indication, this struggle to find CURIO’s motivation won’t be solved in a week. But in the meantime, I’ll do my best to keep putting in the hours, making… something. Just something is good.

Crew Members, read your extra email to see what that something is! Bloggerfolk all, thanks for your readership! What are you making this week? Whatever it is, I hope the muse is right there with ya (and if not, just show up anyways).

best,
-dh

One More Reason to Like The Lion King (as if you needed more)

pretty sure these are by jean gillmore

I wanted to share these beautiful Lion King drawings I’ve recently been inspired by. A couple weekends ago I got the chance to visit the Art of Animation resort while at Disney and the lobby is full of huge printouts with drawings like these. Sketchy, pencil-y, wonderful drawings. Why did nobody tell me to go here sooner?!?

These drawings are from what feels like a now forgotten age of animation art when everything had to be done on paper, so you get these fascinating results - especially in the line quality. Look closely at the lines here - imagine them without the interior coloring. They're short, kinda jagged, making little attempt to connect up with each other or look "pretty." But that's exactly the point - they're unpretentious, fearless even. Once the drawing's colored in, you barely even notice the lines anymore (power of silhouette I guess). And ultimately, concept trumps all - these drawings work not because of the lines but because they convey interesting, appealing characters. You get the sense that the character, not the drawing, is what matters. And what the audience really cares about.

these two by chris sanders

That’s something I have to tell myself again and again while creating. Digital tools make it so easy to tailor the drawing to exactly how you’d like it, which maybe is missing the point. Perhaps the inflexibility of physical mediums forces you to focus on the message, not the lines on the page. I’ve been testing this out on my current short film project, working so far just with pencil and paper to develop the character. This process is actually quite foreign to me, and it’s disappointing when I inevitably make shoddy marks that can't be easily undo-ed. On one hand, I think my drawings are worse than if I had made them digitally, but it’s freed me to think more of the character that these drawings are a window into. The forest, not the trees. It’s also been fun to hold my drawings in my hand again, flipping to the ones I like - I really do miss that when working digitally!

Anyway, The Lion King is great and I’m a fan - what else is new!

Thanks for your readership :)

-dh

ps for lion king fans only: more drawings here and here

Break Out the Good Stuff, And By That I Mean Root Beer: Celebrating the Top 19 of 2022

oops! all bearpuncher! compilation from 2022-2021

Happy New Year's Eve, bloggerfolk! 

Like Julie Andrews on a thundery evening, I'm here to bring you some of My Favorite Things from this year. But on this Eve, I want to do something different - a list! 

When I think back on 2022, it was a year of doing. And nothing comforts a do-er like me than a good list... Inspired by Patrick H Willems's kinda-chaotic-in-a-charming-way list from 2019, I've taken movies, books, major life turning points and crammed them into an categorically-sorted, yet in-no-particular-order list of 19 things I did this year. (For those wondering, I did try to find 22 things for 2022, but then the list felt too long... so a nice, awkward 19 it is.)

But first my yearly disclaimer: Anything I watched/read/did for the first time in 2022 is fair game, regardless of premiere date. I'd hate to exclude something impactful just because it initially came out a few years ago (as is the case with 99% of the books I read) Sound good? Let's go! 

Movies/TV/Games I Watched/Binged/Played

19. All the Stuff My Friends Made!

What a good year for friend things of all kinds! With so many graduating college we had a wealth of thesis films, but also comics, new short film projects, and production work. I wish I had space to link them all here, but several are on Pencilish's channel, Jon Densk is running several projects by himself, watch the Wingfeather Saga, and read Joel Guthrie's comic.

18. The Bad Guys

The directors of this movie always say they were making "Tarantino for kids," but that's because they don't have the guts to say they were really making "Lupin the Third for furries." This movie takes everything great about the Lupin films (snappy, pose-driven animation, 1960s heist soundtrack, literal waves of policemen) and brings them into a sunny LA setting. The story isn't anything special, but it's just a really fun movie to watch that wears its inspirations proudly on its sleeve.

17. Horned Cook, Gola

This is probably my top film of 2022, and it's not even feature-length. It's a Calarts short film. But what makes it so special is the way it invites you into the sensory world of the characters. Adam's animations are always so tactile, especially given the way he animates hands. He invites you to participate in the senses of smell and touch in a way no other animator can. The short has such a fresh, crisp feeling to it, like a cucumber salad. It's great.

16. Bee and Puppycat

Watching this show for the first time in 2022 felt like a lovely coda to the incredibly special and nostalgic era of 2010s animation. It calls to mind the gentle pastels and chiptune melodies of Steven Universe, Adventure Time, Animal Crossing, and Nintendo in general. While it captures that aesthetic moment exquisitely, its observations on being in your 20s and pondering your future still ring true a decade later. Nothing is presented too forcefully, the characters move through their emotions and problems at a slow and relaxed pace. The show begins to devolve into further experimentation and absurdity in the later episodes, but I personally enjoy the earlier episodes the most, when it's just Bee blundering around and Puppycat screaming "PRETTY PATRICK!!" in his adorable little voice.

The second season/new show(???) that released this year on Netflix isn't as good as the original webseries, but at least I didn't have to wait years for more B&PC content!

15. Disney Channel's Theme: A History Mystery

"Defunctland" has been a surprise contender for 2022's YouTube Channel of the Year, but narrator/director Kevin Perjurer is one of the best ones out there. His work is well-researched, nostalgic, and increasingly funny, and I think this is his magnum opus. It's an internet treasure hunt full of dusty old websites, nostalgia trips, and genuine heart. Kevin really has something beautiful to say here, but like a good mystery it surprises you in the end. The subjects are so well chosen and great to listen to. I wish there were more docs about these sorts of people, made with this level of craft.

14. Wingspan

An obvious, clear winner for Game of the Year - when rereading my journals I was genuinely surprised by the number of times I logged playing this game. It takes my favorite game mechanic (engine building/card combos) and surrounds that with birds and bird lore. Maybe not the game for everyone, but certainly the game for ME!

13. Bonus: Letterboxd, Honorable Mentions

This was the year I discovered Letterboxd, which meant I watched a LOT of movies. Letterboxd satisfies two primal needs for the cinema-goer: it broadcasts your movie opinions to the world, and it lets you know what your friends are watching without you. I hate how much time I spent on this platform, but it did make writing this section substantially easier. So... win? 

Honorable mentions to Sing 2 (a movie I'm pretty sure they made just for me, a diehard Sing 1 advocate), Everything Everywhere All At Once (the best multiverse movie) and Turning Red (which had a great soundtrack and visual look, but major story problems.) I also watched Spongebob for the first time this year, and now so many cultural references make sense... thanks Clay!

Albums I Listened To

12. The Complete After Midnight Sessions - Nat King Cole (Vintage Pick)

This is Christmas music for the rest of the year. This is a rare example of jazz violin. This is awesome.

11. Nisemono - Ginger Root (2022 Pick)

There's indie music, and there's funk-inspired-by-japanese-city-pop-from-the-80s-sung-on-a-landline-telephone indie music. Whenever I tell someone about GR's music I always feel like the most pretentious hipster, but dang does he capture well a forgotten era of kitschy synths, late night ramen, and anime reruns. For this album, he's built this whole storyline that connects his social media, music videos, and live shows all together - it's pretty great. 

Things I Read This Year

10. Animation Obsessive

Two years running. Guys. If you like animation you have to read this. Puts every other animation publication to shame. (And they featured Bearpuncher this year!) 

9. The Line Between

Certainly more in the high-art/concept world of animation, but one of the most open and insightful looks into the entire creative process, chronicled in newsletter form, as it happens. Although it seems to be more and more behind a paywall these days, there's still a lot of achieved content that's free and definitely worth reading. 

8. Only Like Five Actual Books

Not a great year for reading in general, as I largely gave it up to finish Bearpuncher. Of the books I did manage to finish, Deep Work and A Praying Life were probably the most impactful. Read A Praying Life, but just read a summary of Deep Work. 

Places I Went

7. Forest Fair Mall 

The perfect Venn Diagram of abandoned mall and Goofy Movie design sensibilities. A late 90's - early 00's time capsule, and it's about to be torn down :(

6. Lightbox Expo

Every year I think the hype isn't gonna be worth it, and somehow... it is. People say "right place, right time," and that's the way Lightbox has often felt for me. 

5. Ireland

Surprisingly... I never wrote a dedicated post about this trip. I had one in the works, but I never found the time to finish it. This was my first big trip in Europe, and I was honestly pretty intimidated. Never have I felt more American than when I was 4000 miles away from home! For the past few years I've had a goal of living abroad someday - I now know it would be more challenging than I thought, but I'd still like to have my Kiki's Delivery Service kind of experience, adapting to a new place and finding my place in it. 

Art I Made

4. Little Fanarts, 

3. Wingfeather Designs, 

2. Aquarium Drawings, 

but Mostly...

1. Bearpuncher

In 2022, I finished Bearpuncher as part of a 2.5 year journey that stretched from my school years well into my first year of post-college work. It kinda dominated my experience of this year, as I reoriented my schedule, carving out early mornings and weekends to find "the consistent dripping of drops of time that erode away the immovable rock," to quote Jake Parker. This was a huge goal of mine and it's a relief to have it finished, and see people enjoy it. Thanks everybody for making Bearpuncher what it is today!

. . .

Listing, watching, making, traveling, doing - I think this year definitely reflected my resolution, which was to "be prolific." What I meant by that incredibly vague mantra is I wanted to adjust my style and adjust my schedule to maximize my artistic output in 2022. I had come out of a 2021 defined by some big life changes but with not much to show for it. I was frustrated by how little time adult, post-college life afforded to creativity, and yet was so inspired by the lives of creators throughout history who (because they didn't have Instagram, I guess) still found time to write letters, paint, write, read, socialize in fancy parlors, etc. I wanted that. Parlors and all.  

It meant I'd have to change my priorities. "Being prolific" in one area meant streamlining and cutting back in many others. As much as this was a year of doing, it was also a year of stopping. I found the time needed to document the process of creating (like on social media, and even the Roost) took time away from actually creating. So I picked my priorities and largely withdrew from posting online. While working on Bearpuncher I hardly exercised, cooked, or read. Although I tried to preserve my social time unaffected, I'm sure there are some who would say it felt otherwise. 

It was a year of production, not exploration, of pouring out rather than drawing in.  Turns out, it's not easy to do that and a fulltime job and still maintain a balanced lifestyle. Who would have guessed! :P  With so much doing I got surprisingly bad at being - I felt guilty resting, and I was always thinking of the next task that needed to be completed. I liked the things I was making, but not the person I was becoming. I was homebound, pulled in several directions, always busy, under-rested, uncomfortable when routines were broken and expectations unmet. I often doubted if it was all worth it - was I just chasing personal vainglory, or caring for my audience and glorifying God? Thinking back on my resolution at the end of 2022, it actually seems kinda dumb. My resolution was just to... "work more???" What kind of resolution is that??!?

What's crazy is that it worked, somehow. The film got done. I found a way to make art in the margins of working a non-art job. I'm actually pretty happy with what I accomplished this year (like the things on the list above) but there's more to a year, and to a life, than what you can fit on a list. Some of my favorite moments of 2022 weren't action items, but simple acts of grace. Stuff like spontaneous movie marathons and trips to theme parks. All the conversations I got to have with my grandma before she passed. The winds that rolled through Nashville at the beginning of each season. Bearpuncher getting any views on YouTube.com. 

I'm proud of 2022, for reasons I can totally take credit for, and reasons I totally cannot. And I think that's just the way things are going to be... a back and forth of working and trusting, hard fought rewards and providential grace, breathing in and breathing out. 

I'm hoping in 2023 to apply this idea to making art - to find a more sustainable way to make things, rather than just be-prolific-at-all costs. Guys, I just can't do a year again like this for a while. I don't know if that means a work adjustment, or a expectation change or what, but I need to do something different... I have all this art I want to make, and things I want to learn, but I also want to have other hobbies, a more-than-shallow knowledge of important subjects, and the freedom to explore a bit more. Except from Bearpuncher being done, I'm sort of in the exact same place I was at the end of 2021, which kinda scares me. Yet I feel like this next year is going to bring something entirely different... and I don't know quite what yet. And that makes me excited.

So here's to the things we earned, the things we didn't, and all we learned along the way -

To 2023!

-dh

My Thoughts on AI Art (But Mostly I Talk About Christmas)

Hello Bloggerfolk - it's Christmastide. Merry Christmas :)

It's been a busy, strange past couple weeks. On one hand, I'm riding the high of the most Christmas spirit I've felt in years, and I'm feeling suitably holly AND jolly. Wasn't able to get a tree for my apartment this year, but my lights are up and I've been watching a bunch of Christmas and Christmas-adjacent movies. Rise of the Guardians has been a particular favorite this year, for a variety of reasons - its swirling, dynamic action+camera, its mythical guardians with whimsical powers, its Easter Rabbit who is Australian(!!!), and its childlike optimism in the simple delights of life. I'd love to make something like this, and I've been taking plenty of notes for future projects... it's definitely in the list of Movies I Wish I Could Just Directly Rip Off But That Would Of Course Be Stealing and That Is Bad. And fanfiction is NOT an option - I know what Tumblr did to this movie.

Speaking of stealing, I've been watching the whole war over AI-created art unfold over the past few days... I barely have enough time for this blog, much less Twitter drama, so I'm staying largely out of it. I make art because I like to seek out pleasing lines and shapes, pull characters out of my head, and glorify God, none of which AI art directly threatens or can help me with. I do find it puzzling that people go to bat for the AI, for it's not like its feelings are getting hurt, it can't thank you for your support, and if it really works it won't really need fleshy advocates to prove its point. Anyways... I'm just gonna leave you with this Jurassic Park gif which pretty accurately sums up how I feel about the whole thing:

Work has been an awkward touch and go of crunch and veg... I'm still not sure what kind of month December is supposed to be for me. Is it a cozy, restful winter's nap? Or prep time for a portfolio boosting, career navigating, project creating kind of new year? I've done a bit of both. I decided to go for it and submit a project to the Sony Talent League, an initiative to help boost independent creators. Although I do like living the exciting, ritzy life of a Nashville Indie Animator (kidding about the ritzy part) it has proved to be dearth of fundage and mentorship, two things the STL is able to provide. It would have been easy enough to just submit Bearpuncher and call it a day, but you know me! I can't have it be THAT easy! (Editor's Note: It also would have been against the rules.) So being December and all I spent some time consolidating an idea I've pondering based on my Christmas Illustration from last year. It's been turning into a surprisingly personal story and one that I hope to get out to you guys, in one way or another. It's still about Ivan and Hollie, two reindeer air traffic controllers, but I hope to use it as a way to talk about vocation, dreams, and leaving art school. And to use it as an excuse to collab with some jazz musicians for the score!

Ever since the whole Strange World/Nicholas Kole debacle of November 2022 I've become more afraid of putting my unpublished ideas out there on the internet. But this might be the one time where my blog's relative obscurity is actually an asset, because I think I can still post speculative stuff like this! Enjoy it while it lasts, my friends! Here's some new headshots of the main characters, riffing on some Shiyoon Kim vibes:

ivan

hollie

It's been fun figuring out who these characters are, finding emotions for Ivan that aren't "grumpy anime boy," and doing a bit of worldbuilding. And RESEARCH! Researching for art projects is my favorite way to experience the Internet. I love going on thrill rides down rabbit trails, trawling the archive sites, going to the dark and dusty corners no one cares to visit. It’s a hunt to find the next link, the next term to Google, it feels like synapses connecting in the brain and a big rollicking adventure. It's way less dull than social media, because nothing is tailored to your whims and most everything has Horrible Web Design. Awesome.

What was less awesome was the mini-burnout that hit after submitting the pitch. I was getting Bearpuncher/Art School flashbacks as I had spent every spare moment to get it done, finishing it just before the deadline. Artistically, I was spent, and socially too - I had to cancel plans last week (something I loathe to do) after realizing that I hadn't had a free night in over a week and I just couldn't keep going like this. The world keeps on pulling, bills keep on coming, and I still want to make art in the middle of all that... I think a big goal for 2023 will be finding a way to make all this sustainable. To get stuff done, but have times to be still and recieve God's peace.

I've been thinking about 2023 a lot already - since my family is going skiing between Christmas and New Years I'm having to get all my lengthy brooding sessions in early if I'm to write that highly anticipated year-end recap post (highly anticipated by ME, at least!) 

Thanks as always for your readership! Hoping to have a new Christmas Illustration ready by Christmas Eve and then the recap shortly after. See y'all then...

-dh

PS: If Internet Research Adventures sound fun to you, definitely watch Kevin Perjurer's most recent documentary about the Disney Channel Theme which captures that experience perfectly and is genuinely fantastic. 

Premieres, Dragons, General Happenstance

AAAAH!!

What a crazy past two weeks these have been... Bearpuncher premiered, the Wingfeather Saga premiered and with that I feel like I've entered a new chapter of my life. It all makes me ready to sit down and write a cozy, short(?) recap of what all's been going on. It's something I hope to do more often in the post-Bearpuncher era... I've been particularly inspired by Coleen Baik's The Line Between newsletter, which captures moments across the creative process and publishes every two weeks. I don't want to promise that kind of consistency, but I do want to post more around here, since there's been plenty going on...

Bearpuncher Update

It's been two weeks since Bearpuncher was published to YouTube. In the event that I've done a severely poor job of advertising and you missed the announcement, you can watch it here! For free!

It's been thrilling and satisfying to see its audience evolve: from just me, viewer #1, as it premiered at 8AM, to friends and family throughout the opening weekend, and to the wider world over the following weeks. My main hope, as an unknown channel, was for it to surpass the 4K views of my previous film, Good Boy Richard. And based on Bearpuncher's initial performance, that goal seemed a bit ambitious. I was preparing to hustle and submit this film to dozens of festivals just so that it would be SEEN. By SOMEBODY.

But as of today, it's sitting at 83K views, which is just bonkers. My reaction to that news is all over the place - pride in the film's success and the quality of the artifact, confusion when I see other videos that are much more deserving of such numbers, fear that my next video may not do as well as this one, and gratitude toward the people who made this moment possible. It's that final mood that I've tried to settle into. I do genuinely believe that Bearpuncher's success on the internet is due to real people (most of whom read this blog) who took the time to recommend Bearpuncher, and get the ball rolling. People across the country and  the world  have seen it not because of me, but because of our community. Thank you so much.

I've prayed for months that God will prosper this film, and it's exciting to see that prayer answered. Perhaps the coolest thing so far has been  a highlight on the Animation Obsessive newsletter,  where it was mentioned in the same section as Worthikids and Cartoon Saloon... WOW. I just don't think any accolade could be better than that.

One other thing I'm learning - high viewership does NOT correlate with merch sales... in fact, I haven't sold ANY merch since opening weekend! I'm saying this not to guilt you into buying merch but as a word of warning to any other indie creator who hopes to fund their film that way... it's not easy!

But for all the talk of numbers and views and crap like that, I think my favorite part of the whole release experience was our little premiere party, where the local crew and friends got together to watch it on a big screen (which was SO COOL!) It was a fitting capstone to the whole experience, and a reminder that films are made and watched by real people - and that's who I want to make movies for.

bearpuncher crew

bearpuncher letterboxd admin team

My Father's Dragon

Circling back to the topic of Cartoon Saloon, my dad and I got to watch their newest movie together (as part of our unofficial watchthrough of their filmography) and it's a very sweet movie! It's as visually ambitious as ever, though thematically much simpler than their earlier work. It's very earnest and childlike and endearing, which was enough to get me sufficiently weepy at parts. And that kind of emotional investment means FANART! Which I now have time for! So weird!

Still on the fence about whether the magic effect is Too Much but I need to move on and not dally so long on this particular piece...

So... What's Next?

I've been trying to pump the breaks, turn on the reverse thrusters, and activate several more mechanical metaphors as I adjust to making art and living life without the burden of animating a short film. Turns out, I really DO like drawing (surprise) and drawing for a film helps orient my process and create clear goals. Already I've been diving into the next project, which is shaping up to be an '80s inspired reimagining of a favorite character from my childhood. I want to do something MUCH shorter than Bearpuncher, something nostalgic, something with more traditional mediums, and something attached to an existing property. Less than a week after Bearpuncher released, I was already back at it again, doing a bunch of sketches and trying to absorb an entirely new style.

It's strange because I don't feel spent. I thought I would be EXHAUSTED after Bearpuncher, but instead I'm hungry to make a new, different thing. Yet it feels a little too soon to again submit my life to the tyranny of another creative project. I had barely begun to indulge my non-art hobbies before I found myself putting them back on the shelf... and I think my next project will be better served by an extended period of exploration, marination, and play. Maybe I shouldn't be so anxious to return my life to the same state it's been in for the past 14 months.  I've mentioned before on this blog  that I felt like working on Bearpuncher was holding me back from the travel and adventure I had hoped to have post-college. But despite that, I've come to like the comfort of routine and the satisfaction of measurable progress. I still feel guilty to take a night off and watch Seinfeld. And I'm now scared to change things up, travel somewhere new, or advance my career. It's these concerns that I want to try to address in the (probably brief) time when I'm not going full-speed-ahead on another project.

I think it's fortunate that this season of rest is coinciding so nicely with the holidays, which is a natural time for reflection, and for watching a bunch of movies without feeling guilty... I'm already very much looking forward to Christmas and the new Ryan Reynolds musical looks intriguing!

There's still more to report - I've barely touched on the Wingfeather premiere or my recent fascination with Back to the Future (for some reason) but in the interest of time I will just say that the Wingfeather premiere was LEGIT - I was pretty starstruck seeing the cast and EPs on the red carpet, and Kevin McNally even walked past me! Twice! And my dad came all the way from North Carolina to see the show (and my first screen credit, technically) which meant a lot. Thanks dad :)

dad not pictured here, unfortunately. 

friends are pictured here, fortunately

I hope you all have a lovely Thanksgiving and are eagerly anticipating the arrival of Bluey in this year's parade!! I SURE AM!

See ya soon :)

-dh

Bearpuncher

 Too busy and tired to write much else other than...

Bearpuncher is RELEASED! To y'all! Check it out here:

Thank you for joining me on this journey - for caring and for watching and for making this moment special. Now that we've reached the summit, why don't we sit a while, and watch some cartoons?

best,

dh

Convergence

Things are happening, people. 

On Wednesday I officially announced Bearpuncher's premiere date, which is... TOMORROW. After a couple of relatively relaxed weeks supervising sound design and compositing, everything is now a blur again as we approach the finish line for this two-year-plus project. If making art is like having a baby, we're in the FRANTIC DRIVE TO THE HOSPITAL stage, people. Everything is happening all at once. I'm planning a premiere watch party, in a classroom on campus that could very well be occupied on the day of the event. (This is the downside of no budget and a small apartment.) The merch just arrived, and needs to be photographed for my Gumroad (shameless plug shameless plug). I'm back to caring about social media again, planning posts and checking numbers. In short, I'm spending all of my free time on the project again, trying to get all the details into place in a way that would honor the hundreds of hours of work I must have spent on this thing. 

When I get a moment to sit back and consider all this fanfare I'm building up I still can't decide if I'm spending my energy in the right direction. On one hand, this is a five minute cartoon that's only a little more than a student film. I see much more talented artists like Worthikids and Emily Xu drop their shorts online with only a single, simple post to get the word out. I envy their ability (through follower account or just temperament) to not break a sweat as they carry their films to their audience. 

But on the other hand, this is two years worth of my artistic work, and I'd like people to take a look. And I want look at it with them - animation is incredibly isolating, but I've finally reached the tiny moment when it can become incredibly communal. And I made Bearpuncher for the community. For you. Not for the faceless internet user or the number of views, but for the people I talk with each week. And it's worth the extra effort to gather them together online and in person, and you know, watch the thing. 

I'm thankful for your effort in sharing and anticipating the film. Scrolling through Instagram and seeing the way our little community has rallied around the film is like energy drink for the soul - I almost feel jittery! After tending to this film for so long it's finally time to let it go off into the world. And I can't think of better people to entrust it to. 

So tomorrow! Bearpuncher! Right here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XcR9zv3_Gg

See you then :)

-dh

Lightbox 2022

I'm back from Lightbox! 

And I only had three hours of sleep last night! (early flight) 

But at the risk of embarrassing myself, I thought I'd type something up before I get out of Pacific Time and back into Cozy Fall Tennessee time. Where to begin... 

Well, on this trip I called my first Lyft (surprisingly easier than I would have thought), had the best bubble tea in my life, and approached a particular art director with the careful grace of a crazed street urchin (should have probably warmed up my social skills first). I was able to talk to Cartoon Network when there wasn't a massive line (trust me, not easy), hear everyone's opinions on the Mario movie and Mario characters (@Marynia), and catch the Pasadena City Hall at golden hour. It was, by any summation, a good time.

Yet despite that, I've felt conflicted about writing this post for you. For one, Lightbox is the ultimate FOMO monger for animation people and that's the last thing I want to encourage. I also knew that to fully talk about my Lightbox experience, I'd have to venture into a potentially very braggy and privileged topic: that as of this month, I've been in "the industry" for a whole year. 

Wow. 

Not an artist in "the industry," but working in animation nonetheless. Through God's grace, my foot is bashing its way through the door. But since it's been a whole year, and since there's plenty of negatives to go with the positives, I think it's ok to talk about my experience so far. Reading over my old post from the first time I went to Lightbox (while a student), I'm struck by how nervous I was, but also how excited. I had made lists of the people who I wanted to talk to. I was desperate, but optimistic, getting tons of portfolio reviews that thrilled and discouraged and motivated me to do better. 

In contrast, I found Lightbox 2022 to be about as relaxing as a convention could be. I wasn't there to get a job, but just to talk with people. There wasn't a checklist or agenda, aside from cruising the convention floor and giving out Wingfeather merch. I ended up having so many warm and encouraging conversations that filled up my heart and made me much more excited to keep making art. Which was sorely needed, since it seems like the biggest curse that comes with actually working in animation is cynicism. 

After years of anticipation and rejection, a coveted studio position becomes just... your 9-to-5 (and frequently longer!) job. Especially in this current climate of surprise cancellations, quicker paces, and growing workloads, it's easy to forget how special it is to be there in the first place. Although I might have idolized the idea of an animation career as a student, I did have a certain amount of wonder, gratitude, and hunger that I'd like to recapture. If I'm already feeling this one year in... well, I better make some changes if I hope to stick around. 

That's where Lightbox comes in. Lightbox invites you to get excited. To see faces, not profiles. To walk through the hallowed halls of studio booths and wonder what they'll be making next. To become that fan again, sitting with your friend AJ in a Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur panel, both of you getting chills while watching an animatic because the theme song is Just. That. Good. 

Ultimately, you realize that despite how terribly hard it is to get a job in animation, we're actually a pretty small community of weirdos who like a lot of the same stuff. 

And job or no, it's our responsibility to be kind, to make good works, and say what's true. THAT'S the way I want to approach Lightbox. And, like, life. Maybe things don't have to be so complicated, or conventions so stressful. Maybe we can just make stuff. And make friends. I'm grateful to have at least one Lightbox where I got to try this idea out. 

I'm also thankful for Wingfeather for sending me to Lightbox, and for giving me a job. I'm thankful for all the artists I got to meet, and for those who remembered me from the last LBX. I'm especially thankful for conversations with Bill and AJ, who encouraged me greatly in my design work. I feel closer than ever to doing something big. And I'm thankful for the cornerstone of the trip, all my Nashville friends who provided a friendly face in the crowd and who made every evening into a fun adventure. I was sad to leave Lightbox this year, but glad to know I won't have to leave you behind. 

And thanks to you, bloggerfolk, for going with me on this verbal journey and letting me sort all these feelings out in a rather public way :P I appreciate your readership, and I hope to see you in the next post.

peace!

-dh

Harvest

My houseplants are in a horrible state. The ginger has grown far beyond my wildest dreams and put up dozens of stalks and flowers, all of which are in some stage of browning. A pot which used to hold thyme sits empty like a memorial to the plant it bore last summer. I've even come close to dehydrating my succulents. Plants, surprisingly, won't sit still like they do on my interior design Pinterest board. They shed leaves, twist upward, get moldy, and do all sorts of other things which require your care and attention. Care and attention that I'm much more tempted to spend on making art (or hanging out with friends, if we're being totally honest.)

Because of this, I've learned that I'm not much of a gardener.

Which is kinda ironic, since for the past few months I've viewed my artistic work as another sort of "garden." In my morning drawing sessions I snip a few branches, pull a few weeds, pour on the water.  I "tend" to the story, checking back in on it, encouraging it this way and that, watching the slow accumulation of time and effort grow it into something bigger. Bearpuncher has been the first time I've invested major time into one project, and it's surprised me that as you sit with a project for longer, it becomes more of it's own... thing. Like a plant, it wants to move a certain way, budding outward from the choices you made earlier in the process. For example, Bearpuncher purposely ends in an ambiguous, happy/sad kind of way, but it always begged for some note of hope at the end. I'd heard this from friends, and as I watched the final cut I could feel its absence. At the storyboarding phase, I was confused on how to add hope back to the ending, but now with the film more mature it was easy to see how to do it. So I created one additional painting (now one of my favorites in the short), and the film grew in an organic and beautiful way. 

Speaking of Bearpuncher, and this extended gardening metaphor, it seems like the harvest is around the bend. Me and my friend Clay have 99.9% finished the final visuals, the actual artwork/animation has been done for weeks now, and the audio is currently being designed and placed. The merch(!) has been designed, and sent off for production. Last year's poster has been dusted off and greatly improved:

Ever made wary by this project's tendency to take 3 times longer than expected, I'm still bracing myself for delays, emergencies, etc. But I'm ALSO bracing myself for things to go ok and for this film to go out into the world SOON. For it to be seen by you! For the fruits of the labor (the lumpy, well-loved, Appalachian fruits) to actually be enjoyed by real people. It's Going To Be Cool.

But what comes after the comes after the harvest? For the smart farmer, the soil is left fallow - to rest, not growing anything, just recovering its strength. I'm wondering if I should let myself be fallow. When I was deep into making Bearpuncher, I dreamed about the post-Bearpuncher future when I would take few months off from drawing, travel some, and engage all the other hobbies I had de-prioritized. But after two years of doing this, I'm reluctant to put down the shovel. I like doing this. I like the fruits that come of being busy. I like seeing quantifiable progress, and an identifiable purpose for structuring my days. I'm good at doing, not so much at being. It's hard to stop without feeling a little bit guilty; it breaks my heart to say "not yet" to my next project. With a pivotal career moment approaching, shreds of art-school hopes and dreams still in limbo, and the state of the animation industry only getting worse, it seems riskier than ever to just REST. 

Or maybe, riskier than ever to trust. To trust that God sends rain on the busy and the un-busy. To trust that I can find success without kneeling to the idol of productivity. To trust that a life spent exploring, dabbling, and aimlessly wandering is a well spent one. I want to reinvent my artistic process, to care for my health, and to not answer "busy" when asked how I'm doing. But ultimately what I need most is to prune back the Miyazaki tendency to only feel purposeful and satisfied when putting effort into an artistic task. Our God loves the things we create, but he loves us more. 

I still think about Mako Fujimura's guiding question, "what do you want to make today?" But maybe in a fallow time I can realize again the dazzling breadth of possible answers. I think I'll try making apple cider bread, more time for prayer, and maybe start sowing the seeds of my next project. I don't think I'll be sowing any actual seeds though, since my East-facing apartment windows seem unsuitable for sustaining much plant life. 

Hope this piece finds you well and settling into autumnal coziness. I'm already feeling very nostalgic for old stop-motion movies and memories of past Novembers... and Bluey's gonna be in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade this year!??! So excited. 

Also I'm going to be at Lightbox again, like tomorrow??! My last experience at Lightbox was a high-excitement, high-stress time, but I'm hoping that this one can be more relaxing and fun. If you're there, let's do a big high five (and I'll slip you some Bearpuncher stuff ehehehehhehe)

see ya!

-dh

PS:

A song about the simple things, one of my recent favorites

The lovely art of Jestenia Southerland, for lineless art inspiration

Delight

In that light, it is a delight...a wonder to study and to learn to love some small part of what God must have loved when he made a lizard. To delight with him in its scales, color, spines and forms. And to me, God is saying "you like that? me too!" 

- Nicholas Kole

One of my favorite memes is the German Cola Kid. As attempting to explain any meme is a fools errand, you should probably watch this animated version to see what it's about. But in the event you don't have time for that, I will now attempt to explain the meme. In the video, the aforementioned "Cola Kid" excitedly relates how his mom has just allowed him to drink cola and play Fortnite, the combination of which is enough to send him in a joyous YIPEEE!!

Kids, exemplified by the Cola Kid, are able to find joy and excitement in the most mundane of things. For me, it wasn't cola and Fortnite, but it was frozen pizza, being old enough to stay home alone, and watching Cartoon Network. As a kid, it didn't take much to have a good day, or to be obsessed with trains, dinosaurs, and sea creatures. (Isn't it crazy how deeply kids fall in love with things most adults never care about?) I think this open wonder and delight towards the world is one of the first things to go as we grow older. It was for me, at least. As we see more things, even incredible things become normal, and we forget that they were ever unexpected in the first place. As we see more broken and sorrowful things, our open delight in pockets of beauty and brilliance is replaced with a defensive cynicism.

As I've recently been thinking about What I Want to Say With My Art, I keep coming back to this idea of delight.  I think about the way God delights in us, His children. And the way He looked at His creation and said that it was good. Because God didn't have to make the world so dang beautiful. He didn't have to make a world with jellyfish, and sandstone arches, and the color blue, and good pizza. But He did. And I think that gives us the permission to get excited. Childishly, foolishly excited. In our art (our writing, drawing, cooking, all of it) we can lash out in unbridled admiration for this flower or that person or this cola and say yes. this is good. taste and see! That, at least, is what I want to do. To, in the words of artistic theologian Robert Capon, "look the world back to grace."

For me, the aquarium is one of the best places to practice this habit. Here is gathered, at great cost and human effort, the strangest and most majestic forms of life on earth. And our whole mission is simply to look at them. But the looking, we find, is difficult. We're anxious to move on to the next exhibit, so we delegate our looking to a quick photo and keep walking. 

I think the designers of Georgia Aquarium particularly understood this tension. For all its beautiful theming and chaotic, lawless atrium, the building's most impressive feature is a simple dark room facing a massive wall of water. Rays and sharks more than twice my height effortlessly sail across its cerulean surface and back into the murky distance. To me, it's the brontosaurus scene of Jurassic Park, only real. Finally, as an adult, I'm confronted with things I haven't seen, on a scale I cannot understand.  In response, the Georgia Aquarium offers me a large, carpeted step. I sit down, pull out my Ipad, and begin drawing. Drawing convinces my adult brain that I'm not wasting my time, so that my kid brain can say again, "cool shark. big shark." More than making a "good drawing," I now want to capture what's delightful about "shark." I wonder if what you find delightful may be entirely different. But regardless, I think we have a lot to learn from each other. 

So get painting, dancing, writing, and let me know!

Thanks for your readership :)

-dh

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.