Everything I draw ends up wearing a bow-tie

TL:DR - stuff about life I guess

Wow, two very hard questions to answer, especially the second because I don’t know if I do- I just, try not to think that I know anything. I suppose that is one of the most important things I’ve learned, or rather, one of the most important things to avoid- the illusion of security.

One of the things I like about animation, but which a lot of people seem to find off-putting about it, is that it’s contract based. In other words, as soon as you’ve finished with your contract, that’s it; you’re out of a job, and there is no guarantee that you’ll ever work with the same company again. The reason I like that is that I will get to move around, work in different places, meet more people and use different styles. I find that people who have stayed in one place doing the same thing for a long time develop this idea that things will always be there and will always be the same, which, of course, they might not be.

It’s always hard to talk to people who have had this mind set when things have changed, because they are hurt by it- they trusted something in life to be stable, and they feel betrayed and lost. It isn’t their fault, but it is a dangerous mindset to develop. There is a long standing fear of change in society, but to fear change is to fear evolution, spontaneity, creativity. At the same time, to forget your own history is to be doomed to repeat it. Perhaps that is a hard thing, to hold onto the knowledge of everything that has passed whilst accepting and exploring the new, but it is possible. Everything is possible.

This is not to say I haven’t had a secure and comfortable life or had that mindset myself, very far from it- I can’t imagine having had a more peaceful and stable upbringing. I have never been in want, and I hope I have never been ungrateful for that. My family and friends are supportive, kind and wise. I have never even moved house before I moved over here to Vancouver. I have solidity and stability in my life, but I know, as scary as it might seem, that it might not always be that way. It might be, but it might not. It’s a grim truth to accept, but chance is a startlingly prominent factor of our existence. People are fragile, lives are fragile, and lives end. People end. We wish that wasn’t true, but it is, and it must be.

Sometimes it feels as if everything is against you, but afterwards, you see that, if it hadn’t happened, things might be much worse now. If I hadn’t fallen and damaged my wrist a few weeks ago, I wouldn’t have the job that I have and love now. If I hadn’t had such a terrible last year of study at university, I wouldn’t have come to Vancouver at all. I have certainly had at least one near-death experience that put my mortality in stark perspective, but I think even before it I knew how much I loved being alive, and how unlikely it was that I ever came to be in the first place.

Basically, life is confusing and dangerous and full of mad coincidences and unfair situations. It will hurt, and it will end, but if it didn’t it wouldn’t be life. Do not believe in constancy. Nothing is forever, but don’t be afraid of that- be excited by it. Believe in those crazy ideas you have at 3 in the morning, those are the ones that people will remember you for. Say those kind words to that person you admire, but were too shy to talk to- they need to hear them as much as you need to say them. When it comes down to it we are only as much as our thoughts amount to. Don’t hide your thoughts away, or worse, hide from the thoughts of others. Find them. Dig them out of books and drain them out of songs and hold them when they come to you for help.

Be as mad as the world around you. It will never play fair, and it will never make sense, but what fun would it be if it did?

Well, hypothetically, if this were the case, I would recommend not trying.

By this I do not mean ‘omg no go away how dare you try to be my friend grrrrr blargh urgh’, I mean that trying is too much. I’m happy to be friends with anyone who wants to know me, and as far as I’m concerned, if I know you, you’re my friend by default. Don’t try to impress me, don’t hound every step I take, don’t bay unto the moon and conduct secret rituals and wail into the South Western wind in the dead of night- just be you. Say hello. Give me a hug.

Of course, this is all entirely hypothetical.

Just some M.O.D. lunchtime doodles. I figure that watching film editing and cutting for her is kind of like watching open heart surgery, so as a result she’s absolutely terrified of scissors despite them being as ineffective against her as a feather on a concrete dam (although they might chip the enamel paintwork).

She’s not very easy to console either.

-also, ‘the DIP’ from Roger Rabbit is her worst nightmare. It’s pretty much a horror film for her.

ad0lf-hipster:

omg i could just hear loads of music and like loads of horns and weird motorbike type noises outside my house so i looked out the window and theRE WAS 3 MEN DRESSED LIKE OLD WOMEN ON SEGWAYS THEY’D MADE TO LOOK LIKE GRANNY TROLLIES JUST CHILLIN ON THE PATH

so i was like wtf and shouted like what the fuck are you doing out my window to them and one of the guys just looked at me and said “we’re Gran Turismo, duh” AND JUST DROVE AWAY 

WHAT THE FUCK JUST HAPPENED TO ME

(via cylo)

*chokes and dies*

nooby-banana:

So this film I’m working on has elephants as the main characters right?  And it’s hard to film acting reference for that on all fours like a proper quadruped.

So

one of the other animators

built stilts for our arms

and made a trunk using part of a gas mask, elastic and a slinky.

Apparently he wants to add in a wrist joint for the stilts to be more realistic.

We’re building the world’s most ghetto quadsuit and no one here even knows what that is.

And we’re all walking around the halls wearing these stilts and the trunk and we’re gonna use them as reference tools.  I swear if this doesn’t end up on the DVD somewhere I’m gonna flip a shit because

This. Is.

FLAWLESS.

Ladies and gentlemen;

animation.

Man I keep seeing all these rad t-shirt designs and giveaways and I’m all

OH WOW YES DO WANT GIMME

and then I realize

I never wear t-shirts

and so I slink back dejectedly to my cave of bow-ties and waistcoats.