What a Difference a Year Makes

Since learning of the 10,000 hour rule (that to become good at something you need 10,000 hours of deliberate practice) I've tried every day to apply deliberate practice to drawing.

I'm happy to say that I'm seeing results!

Below is Scene 13 from my film that I completed in January, 2013 (the lip sync is off because I animated before recording the voice):

Below is Scene 13, revised as of January, 2014:

What I see is: better character design; better character acting; better animation.

Admittedly, the only reason I re-did the scene is because the audio didn't fully match my animation. But now I'm glad I did. It took 3 weeks and 3 days to fix it (not to mention the days I'll need to color and composite each drawing) but that time was well worth it.

Most importantly, my drawing has improved dramatically since last year. I'm no Glen Keane, nor probably ever will be, but it's a huge accomplishment that I've improved in comparison to my skills from one year ago.

It isn't about being a better storyteller than others; it's about being the best storyteller I can be.