Aleloop l Pop Surrealist Artist l Low Brow Art l New Brow Art l Art Licensing l Character Design l Illustration l Motion Design

“True art is characterized by an irresistible urge in the creative artist.”
A. Einstein

How to animate your short film while full-timing in you animation or motion graphics job?
You gotta get your s*t together and get organized. No way around it.

1 -How big can your project really be?
I find that is very important for me, to be able finish the projects I start. I’m not the kind of person that is working on a project for 3 years. It took me many tries and a few abandoned projects to learn that the animated projects I wanted to make had to be small enough to be done in 3-4 months having a full time job at the same time. If it took longer than that, I realized I got tired of the project, lost objectivity and wanted to just veg-out in the couch doing nothing. Go for a small project at first, something that you can get done in 2 weeks or so, to see how you feel about it and if you can finish it. If you finish it, then plan something a little bit bigger and so on.

Once your script, storyboard and art direction of your short are done and you are ready to animate it’s time to plan out the timeline of your animation.

2- When to find the time to work on your side project?
The happiest and most efficient way I found to work on a side project while being a full time employee is to work for 2 for hours in the morning, before going to work. In the morning I’m fresh, rested, is very quiet and my brain it’s at it’s full. Some periods of time I worked only 1 hour before leaving for work and that was better than being upset at work because I couldn’t work on my side project that day. During the week 1-2 hours + half or whole day of Saturday was OK for 2 or 3 months. To work more than that means that you will probably burn out, I don’t recommend it. Some people prefer to work at night. I find that I’m very tired mentally and physically to work at the end of the day.

I figured out this system to start and finish my animated shorts, art projects, portfolio website, etc, because I discovered I would be very upset and resentful at work if I couldn’t work on my own side project. It got to be so much that I had to work on my side project every day or I would be in a bad mood. Talking about it with co-workers I discovered the other artists, designers, motion graphics artists and animators had the same problem and everyone was frustrated, upset, burned out and not doing their day jobs very well because they were trying to work on their side projects in an unorganized way.

It’s hard at the beginning to get used getting up early , but at the 4Th day you are so happy with how much you advanced in your project that next you are looking forward to get up super early the next day. It’s amazing how much you can get done in 1 or 2 hours when you are organized and your full attention is concentrated.

3- Define what you will be doing the next morning the night before.
You are a lot more productive if you know what you will be working on that morning do before you start. Either at the end of your hour/s working on your side project plan what you’ll do the next day, or plan it and write it down before going to sleep. Starting the day knowing what you have to do it’s really good because you are relaxed and focus. And A LOT more productive.

4- Set realistic deadlines. You will burn out if you don’t.
Setting realistic deadlines is very important because you can get very frustrated if you didn’t get done as much as you wanted. If you don’t know how long something will take, test doing a few frames and then calculate how long it could take to do more frames. Push yourself but no too much because after 3 months it’s very easy to burn out. So give yourself 1 day of the week where you just have fun and give yourself brakes some days or some weekends. You’ll see that when you come back to your project you’ll be more fresh, rested and full of energy again.

So Plan, Plan, Plan!
A really good way to help you plan the animation is to get a big wall calendar and write on it what you’ll be doing when. That will relax you and there will be no day you don’t know what to work on. When you don’t know what to work on is very stressful and you loose objectivity. It’s very important you to know where you are in your project’s timeline. It helps you if are delayed, or advanced and when you are going to finish it. Plan a celebration show party when it’s done. Celebrating your accomplishments it’s a very good practice.

If you want feedback on any project you are doing please post a comment here. I always want to hear from your projects and successes.