When I setup my YouTube channel I really wasn’t sure where I was going to go with it. I had decided that it was really for Patreons. Where I could show my working and ideas without angering the algorithm. But then as time went by I thought “wait a minute, I could use this as a sandbox area and to see if an audience could be engaged with away from the likes of Instagram and Facebook. I did actually read a very interesting article the other day on the future of Facebook. But I digress.
So what’s the point of doing shorts. I wonder myself. I am from a generation of only having a few TV channels. So watching something for only a minute is really weird to me. I much prefer watching the longer form content. I can happily watch hours of great stuff. But I don’t tend to watch any shorts. It’s probably my prejudice but it seems as though the bulk of them are for sensation. But then why use it? Specially as I am doing something that doesn’t really lend its self to the format. However this is all about experimentation.
I have always liked animation having spent a childhood watching everything from Ivor the Engine, Wacky Races, Scooby Doo and Pinky and the Brain to name a few. I dabbled in some very rudimentary plastercine stop motion when I was young but it never stuck, boom boom. Now with all the technology available it is a doddle to do, well kind of. Then the question is, should one do it. Animation takes up huge amounts of time. No really. Thinking that a second of animated video takes up, depending on how smooth one wants to make it, can be twenty four individual frames. That’s just one second. So there is a lot of work involved with even just a simple line art animation.
That leads me on to the reason to do the shorts. In procreate there is a nifty option to record a time lapse of the drawing that one is doing. Although this is not really animation it is a pseudo effect. But it shows off the process of the drawing, even all the mistakes. I don’t really think I will ever properly animate one of my drawings. Partly due to it not really lending its self to that but also I don’t feel that it is something I want to follow up. It might morph into a opening scene but that is about all. The idea that I would create the next Disney block buster is further from the truth.
Dabbling helps the mind and creativity. Dabbling is good. It may not come to anything but I think being an artist in any discipline benefits from letting the mind run. It’s good to experience new things. See where it takes you and ultimately make ones art better?!
How long I carry this on for is a work in progress as my heart is in the physical rather than the virtual realm. You can always take a peek at what’s going on here until I decide to stop.
Until next time.