A: See below...
A: Keep reading....
A: So....you want an answer, huh?
Lets be real. People don't want to hear heartfelt advice when it smarts and requires soulsearching. Quite truthfully, I know my art is of worth so anything I give away here for nothing but a left mouse click and a raised eyebrow, is actually valuable enough to warrant being hired for public speaking, or heck, concealed in a published book! I have some knowledge, my dudes.
But I do see that maybe if you landed on this page, just maybe you can be saved. Because maybe you have good taste because you're on my site (lol!!)
Maybe you want to be saved? OK then.
If you really do want to be saved, stop trying to fit into the industry then. Stop walking a path walked before you.
Take a quite smart example of my cherished Kangaroo Island. The feral sheep there always tread the same path over and over. They make snaking matted trails through the yellow grass. But they also, one after another commonly tumble down cliffsides, only to break their bones and starve to death. Cuz they're so dumb. I've seen the bleached skulls littering the rocky ravines.
What then? Look up. Look around you. Tread smartly and bushwhack your own path instead.
Observe from life. Seriously. Actually observing by life drawing foremost. Yes, even on trains, buses and planes, in cafes or on the ends of jetties. Even just keeping a tiny sketchbook, and being brave enough to try to see deeper, is what will make your work actually say something.
Otherwise, art is a souless pursuit. It may fool loser viewers on Instagram.
But do you fool yourself?
I accepted I wanted to be a real artist in 2020. Only when my mum died, I started to observe the hues and shapes of life all around me. Looking through the lens of grief, colors suddenly appealed to me. Not linework storyboards.
I felt my soul on fire. During that time of acute grief, I finally knew how I needed to PAINT.
Beleive it or not, NOT to storyboard for Netflix productions and keep getting fame, credits and attention.
Not because I have anything against the industry or any employer! But because I needed to make art ALSO to satisfy something I hadn't listened to fully before: my artist soul.
So, I needed to paint for my MUM. Something I said preseciely in my eulogy at her funeral.
But I confess, I mainly needed to at least paint selfishly just for myself.
Since then, this is why I make the illustrations I do. Regardless of whether you or any employer likes it. I don't care who doesn't hire me.
Its why I've taken a break from the rat race. Its why my resume is weird and empty. Its all why I've tried to carve a new path.
It may be uncomfortable, I may stumble on craggy concealed rocks, but I was the one who chose to wander the grassy hills, not quite knowing where exactly I'll 'end up'.
And the view is beautiful when you actually look up.
So, even now. I try to paint with all the shapes, colors and stinging pain that grief imparted with me. Lifes hurt have shared with me a wisdom which I know many people won't 'get' until they've lost someone close. Even till this day.
Because, quite honestly. My mum was the only one who kept saying I could be a REAL artist. Have my own gallery. Make it big. She beleived in MY stories and MY Paintings and ideas. She knew that storyboarding done for someone else wasn't what I was meant to do with my life.
So quite honestly, its not really grief. But love that keeps me sticking to my guns. Making real art.
Well this isn't really a FAQ, just my reason for being me. In case anyone ever cares.
Dear aspiring wanabee animator, this won't be the answer you wanted, but its what I owe to another kind of person. To the kind of wandering brave souls. The ones who will actually make real art that matters. The rare ones, who'll make art which helps people survive life's real challenges.
And seriously though, life drawing is very fun and very important. It may be tough at first, but you'll get used to it and learn to cherish it and be thrilled by what you can capture when you look hard enough. Keep up the observational sketchbook.