Author: Leonardo Fernandes Davies

With the decreasing influence of traditional media spheres, a lot of work these days is solely found online. The same goes for animation – some people have found more career success on social media and YouTube than they have with other work.

You can hardly count on online fame as a surefire path to success. It’s a volatile and ruthless space where only a lucky few rise to the top. But it’s increasingly important to have a social media presence as an artist, at the very least as something to fall back on. It can serve as a dynamic portfolio that one continuously updates throughout their career. After all, you never know who is watching.

I keep “meaning to” create an Instagram account to showcase my art, but it never feels like I have enough of a consistent output to justify it, especially with my university workload. There’s something quite daunting about trying to solidify my ‘brand’ as an artist. At the same time, I’m sure it’s better to get started sooner than later, and I want to have something to show before graduation.

In my experience, fan-art is the fastest way to grow your online platform. I’ve had some limited experience with selling commissions online and it’s been fairly exclusive to the fan spaces I occasionally take part in. But the issue with gaining a following based on someone else’s media property, is that they won’t necessarily take interest in your original work.

It’s impressive to me when someone proves the exception!

A Hawaiian storyboard animator for Disney’s TV Animation division named Kiana Khansmith caught my interest, not due to the anime and cartoon fan-art she’s typically known for, but for an original series she’s been writing and storyboarding entirely on her own.

“Pretty Pretty Please I Don’t Want to be a Magical Girl” is an original pilot animatic released on YouTube by Khansmith which has, at the time of writing, around 4.3 million views. The 11 minute pilot is a pastiche of magical girl anime, but according to the author, it’s also based on her own experience working at Disney, and losing some of her passion for creating art. Similarly, “The Owl House” creator Dana Terrace has recently helped co-create an independent series called “Knights of Guinevere“.

Of course, Kiana Khansmith has been working in the industry for a good few years, and these connections helped her find the voice and music talent to develop her series. At the same time, she’s only 28 years old, and she’s been encouraging others to simply put their story out there, even without a budget. I find it interesting how some industry professionals have been willing to shift their focus to the independent scene.

Maybe the future of animation really is online? I suppose I should be prepared for the eventuality. When it comes to gaining an online following, consistency is key. I need to release consistent work of a consistent quality, and eventually, who knows?

One of the most exciting prospects of this two-year course has been the chance to work on my very own independent short films! But with my graduate project just around the corner, it feels like my window of opportunity is a bit… fleeting.

I have so many ideas I want to regurgitate into the world. So is aiming for a career in independent filmmaking a reasonable goal? Even if it’s not, it seems wise to see what I’m up against.

First, the immediate pros and cons of this strategy. In terms of pros, independent animation certainly excites me more than anything in the industry right now. As TV animation takes a sharp nosedive into a metaphorical tar pit, most studios are relying on advertising or preschool-age cartoons to survive. Not only would I find those options a bit creatively stifling, but I don’t think the world of motion graphics and puppet-rigging would match my interests or skillset.

Film festivals, however, represent everything that makes animation exciting to me. They would give me the chance to express myself, take risks, and make films about mature and culturally impactful topics. They could also flesh out my portfolio before I find my footing in the industry.

In terms of cons… it’s money. I won’t be making money, but if I could get a film grant, I could justify this to my family as an investment into my future, while I try to make ends meet.

This is the BFI National Lottery Short Form Animation fund. Since 2019, it’s provided support for UK-based animation teams, working on higher-budget animated shorts films. While applications are currently closed, based on its past success and the National Lottery’s reported plan for 2026-2029, it’s likely that this will remain in place for the foreseeable future.

The challenge with this grant is that the requirements are extensive, taking into account geographic spread, economic background, and any representation related to disability, gender, race, etc. As a disabled person from the Global South, I would certainly want to tackle these themes in my writing. But with only five projects supported each round, I would need to assemble a pretty diverse team to be able to compete.

The other major roadblock is this requirement, of the director having been screened at a major film festival. This only includes the main programme, which is to say, the LIAF trailer that I’ve done wouldn’t apply. This solely depends on the outcome of my graduate film, so I can’t say for sure if I even have a chance.

Given the long list of demands, how competitive I’d expect this grant to be, and how unstable my career seems at the moment, I wouldn’t exactly bet on being given this grant straight out of university.

But I am a notorious pessimist, and given the need to form a team, I could at least suggest this to my classmates following graduation. I’d settle for less than a directorial role!

When it comes to choosing a role in the animation industry, I still feel unsure of myself, to say the least. Since I failed to properly develop my art skills during secondary school or my undergraduate degree, it feels like I began from scratch only last year.

As much as I’ve realised my love for animation, I’m still learning through failure, again and again. For each major project, I make several massive blunders that set me back considerably. One step forwards and two steps back.

At the risk of venting in an online journal, it’s hard to consider myself employable in these circumstances. But time only moves forward! If I can’t think of anything I can do right now, it’s best to think of what I want to do and work backwards from there.

I’ve received some compliments for my storyboards in the past, so that’s where my mind goes first. I began by looking for available storyboard jobs in the UK, and referencing my skills against the required qualifications. Below is an application for a storyboard role at Fudge Animation Studios in London:

There’s nothing I can do about the first bullet point, but the others seem a bit more helpful. I do think I’ve developed a much better understanding of composition and pacing over the last year. I’ve never heard of Storyboard Pro, but I think it will do me good to at least download a free trial and try and learn how it works.

I find it difficult to objectively judge my own drawing skills, but when it comes to becoming a storyboard artist, I expect that my slow drawing speed may hold me back. As I learned in the workshop with Ariadna Fatjo-Vilas, storyboarders have a high turnaround date and especially strict deadlines.

At the moment, my drawings happen to be a bit too messy. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing- storyboard artists are one of the few roles that can focus on readability over cleanliness. But when bringing my pictures over to an animatic, I find that they look rather bad when seen close-up. I’ll make sure to keep this in mind when boarding for my graduate film.

Although I may enjoy drawing poses and expressions above all else, I plainly need more practice and life drawing experience to be able to draw faster. That is not something that will come quickly, and, realistically, I need to catch up by working on this every day. To make the most out of the situation, unemployment means I’ll have a lot of free time!

Having been a fan of Masaaki Yuasa’s for a while, it’s shameful to admit that I hadn’t seen his directorial debut, Mind Game (2004). It was while watching the presentation of one of my classmates that it was brought to my attention, as it seemed like the exact kind of thing I would be really into.

Yuasa, aside from generally having a great sense of perspective and figure, is a master of the absurd, colourful and zany. He generally doesn’t limit himself to keeping on-model like most Japanese animation directors. Mind Game, however, takes this love of abstraction to a new level, featuring dozens of different art styles within the same narrative, as the film revels in the insanity of its visuals. 

Comedy is typically about subverting expectations, and with animations that are comedic, a sudden shift in art styles can have a very humorous effect. It certainly leaves an impression, for example, watching an episode of SpongeBob, and seeing the 1922 vampire, Nosferatu, appear as a non-sequitur joke.

With online culture, it feels as though absurd and surreal humor is becoming more popular- which might contribute to the intended humor of an art-style switch. The Adult Swim series Smiling Friends, created by a pair of YouTube animators, makes frequent use of different animation techniques for the simple purpose of juxtaposition, making the world feel more bizarre, and consequently funnier. Something intentionally low quality, presented in the right way, can make the viewer feel as though they’re in on the joke. 

Where Yuasa perhaps differs with Mind Game, is using this shift in art styles to create discomfort and humor at the same time. The film’s characters experience a steady decline in their mental state, with scenes getting gradually more nonsensical throughout. 

While it may be easier to use an art style shift as a punchline, it’s a tool that can easily express more complex emotions. Mind Game’s attempt at a sex scene is delightfully abstract, featuring the characters changing into insects and animals of different colours, and shifting into a mix of oil paints.

It’s usually expected, of course, that a film will have a consistent and coherent world. But I think animation has the ability to break past that, even if it’s at the risk of confusing the audience. Several factors can influence this- Yuasa has stated in a 2004 interview with The Japan Times that the budget of the film was a factor, as well as the fact that Japanese audiences will more readily accept something “unpolished.”

Personally, I really enjoy animation that leans more absurd, and that focuses more on the psychological, and metaphorical. I might also have a fairly bizarre sense of humor. I’d really like to incorporate more mixed media elements into my own work, even if I often feel I don’t have the confidence to do so. 

I found it difficult to concentrate on the Simulated Work Experience, with all the different projects I had going on. For that reason, the project got off to a slow start. Unsure of who should make the initial contact, it took me a week to send my first email, and another week before I could meet my second year collaborator in person.

Pochara’s project was very interesting to me, but as a personal film based on his own experiences, I wasn’t sure where to begin with my work. The role I was given was to create concepts for the background art, and to work on the character designs.

Pochara provided the main character design, which would serve as a basis for my own concepts. My task was to create a younger version of the main character. Zhehui, the other first year who was working on the project, sketched a few ideas for his outfit, so I only drew the character from the shoulders up.

I struggled at first to adapt to working in the style of the film – in particular,  drawing with thin linework is a bit of a challenge to me. My thought was that this wouldn’t be important, since it was only a concept. However, when comparing the two side by side, having them be stylistically consistent would give a better idea of how the final product should look. 

I had a bit more freedom when designing the grandfather character. It felt odd being given this task, since it was based on a real person, but Pochara provided me with a moodboard and assured me I could work from there. 

Starting with two concept sketches, I received more positive feedback for the face shape on the right. I then made a full body reference where I tried to use thinner lines, and made a number of colour variants. I tried to use warm or pleasant looking colours, to give the character a comforting feel. 

My work during this process was influenced by the semester we spent doing character design workshops. It’s something that I’d like to expand my practice towards, but I also want to avoid staying too much in my comfort zone. 

Thankfully, my last project involved drawing backgrounds – an area I definitely think I need more practice in. The issue was that the background I was drawing was meant to represent a limbo/empty space, so Pochara suggested I make it as minimalist as possible. I got a little carried away doing this part, but I really wanted to add some extra details, like a reflection or an atmospheric sky. 

Overall, I wish I just had more time to dedicate to this project. I always look forward to collaborating in a team, although it can bring its fair share of issues. There’s a lot of satisfaction that comes from helping realise someone’s vision – but at times, I also wish I had a bit more creative control, as well. 

In applying to this course, I didn’t have a lot of animation work in my portfolio, so I ended up using a lot of my character design work instead. I’d have said that my work was already ‘stylistically’ suited for animation, but as I’d always found it overwhelming to try, I had very little experience making these characters move. Doing so, I was bound to need a different approach designing characters, and I wanted to explore some of this process.

For the initial batch of exercises in the first term, we were asked to pick from a lineup of featureless designs – this was good to the extent that it helped me focus more on the movement and timing, which I’m sure was the intention. I was eager to try animating a fully designed character, though. 

While working on the bouncing ball exercise, I started work on a simple animation of one of my own characters sneezing, which I thought would’ve been fairly simple. I took a reference video from Shutterstock and used it to reference some keyframes.

With more figure drawing experience under my belt now, I feel like I should have mapped out the basic shape of the body first, making it easier to animate a humanoid character. I also planned to have some follow-through with the hair, which I never finished.

A few weeks later, we began the character design project, which I was quite excited for. I found that making a character moodboard was surprisingly useful. I’ve always tried to come up with ideas in my head and cross-reference them using Google image references – but having all my thoughts and inspirations on one page was very helpful, and something I’ll try to make a habit of in the future.

For the body acting exercise, I had been thinking about doing a robot character with rubberhose-like limbs. This became a flashy, stylish robot girl. I gave the character long limbs, inspired by a character designer called Nelnal. 

Many people commented that this design looked complicated, but I wasn’t sure if the character would be readable if I removed too many details. I probably should have rethought my approach here.

Even after cleaning up my animation, there were a few things that continued to bother me. I didn’t like the hair bangs, as its shape didn’t make much sense in 3D, and I didn’t properly consider how it would work. If I had more time, I would’ve redrawn them

So what did I learn? First and foremost, that I have to swallow my pride when it comes to creating characters for animation! There are some things I just can’t feasibly do, considering my current skill level and the time I’m working with. With enough time, I can plan out a character sheet andcreate a moodboard, but if I don’t have time for those things, I should draw something that’s simple, and that I’m not likely to change my mind about.