These silly animal characters hold a special place in my heart. I created them when I was 15 as a means of vicariously experiencing a “traditional” Early 20s experience during a very uncertain time in my life. I was larping a low income, mundane, and pathetic young adult life to cope with my struggles with quarantine and feeling isolated basically. Its lame but these characters were fun to ideate stories you’d tell if you were in your Early 20s. Stories like fighting over a video game with your roommates, which is what this short animatic is about. These characters interactions and personalities were heavily influenced by my Freshman roommates and the ways we’d all interact with each other for the most part. Each character is respectively voiced by the person that influenced them.
Early 20s - Video Game Wizard
Greer is a band that I really resonated with and had on constantly during the production of this short animation. Going into this piece, I really wanted the lyrics to be the focal point of the animation and that everything else was just a way to add more “flair” to the lyrics. I wanted the lyrics to jump out like hoe they did to me when I was listening to the song, so I chose to take a traditional route and animate the lyrics with clay. I ended up spending an entire whole day in a makeshift stop motion station animating these lyrics and keying them out. The song is about the difficult feeling of moving from childhood to early adulthood and feeling estranged with who you once were when you were young.
Little Echo - Greer Music Video
As an artist, creating new worlds and whimsical characters that share my similar experiences in this world is my way of not ending everything. Obviously me being dramatic, but “Pocket Sized Hero” is inspired by my journey of navigating a new city where people either favor art or try to act against it, and working hard to feel less insignificant compared to the ocean of artists that are sharing the same story as me; but in doing so, finding my place and who I am as an individual. We follow Pocket who is a 3 foot tall rabbit who wants to be a hero in a world full of heroes much stronger and bigger than him. He tries to be more than what he is, but is reduced to fighting “low level” monsters as a day job just to get by. In this (unfinished) short we see what that day job looks like for Pocket and his small team of “Low Level Heroes”.
Pocket Sized Hero - Low Level Heroes
Sheep Who Cried Wolf is my attempt at a “successful” story board. I favored pushing expression and experimenting with some camera angles I wouldn’t usually play around with in my everyday illustrations. In the end I really wanted all of these new elements to culminate in a story that is both funny as well as spooky a bit with the shots with the wolf. In the short a sheep frat party is interrupted by a sheep who clearly has had enough drinks who calls “WOLF” and causing a slew of wacky hijinks.