For my signature project, I enrolled in a 2D animation course with Elite Academy. The course is about the principles of animation. In a typical session, there’s a summary of what I learned in the previous one and then we move to the objective of the day. I learn each principle as I work on my projects.
Going into the project, I wanted to explore other forms of art and improve myself as an artist. I think animation is amazing and I wanted to learn more about it. My assumption on art and the process of making them are always fun, creative, and enjoyable, don’t get me wrong, they are however not at all times. I knew my project would be challenging but I think I underestimated how much it would be. I realize the importance of passion in whatever one’s career path. I discovered that I am more interested in visual representational art than I thought.
One of the processes I had to go through during my project was redrawing my character for a change in its movement. It was tedious for me and a bit challenging. It then occurred to me that animators, especially traditional animators, have to go through the same process and draw the same figure as accurately as the previous figure and have seamless transitions too; it was a lot of work. It took me 4 hours or more to finish a project and the result was less than 10 seconds in total.
I can barely imagine how long it takes to animate a short film or a whole movie; It will take a huge dedication of time and energy to get through. It takes one to be really passionate about animation to continue in that field and yet enjoy it.
One thing that I understood about myself is that I often enjoy seeing the end result of a project and because I do, I am motivated to continue learning. I think the lesson I learned from this is that when a product or service is satisfactory, that satisfaction often outweighs the difficulties encountered in the process because hard work pays off. I think this lesson is applicable to all disciplines of life.
I like to introduce myself as someone who likes to learn something new. New doesn’t mean easy, it’ll be difficult and probably discouraging at the beginning, but it is all part of the learning process. Moving on, I’ll learn to enjoy the process of learning.
I think this realization is an important one to me because for a long time, I have always wanted to have a career that of course will be financially freeing, but a lot of times, I consider my interest just hobbies because I enjoy them. Every step in one’s career or work of interest may not be enjoyable, but I now understand that being passionate about what you do is what will get you through the hardest times you may have, doing a job you love.
I am inspired to take my “hobbies” that I have the passion to do, pursue them diligently and have a successful career in that. I still care to be financially stable, but I want to have that doing what I love.
I commend myself for giving animation an opportunity because now I know what it takes. Overall, I would say I get to appreciate the work of art and the effort that goes into media entertainments especially in cartoons and comics.
I’m grateful for this opportunity STEP provided.
