Old School vs. New School

The competition is huge. AND talented.

I’ll never draw as well as many other artists. I’ll never animate as well as many other animators.

So how do I stand out from the crowd?

I think I figured it out! I’m going to go “old school.”

It wasn’t hard coming to this decision. I’m Gen X. I’m from the generation that remembers Frank Sinatra and Elizabeth Taylor. My generation didn’t dismiss people like them. We knew they were old but we also had at least seen them when they were young. We didn’t dismiss outright everything that came before us even after we got a Walkman and an Atari. 

I appreciate what came before me. And there’s a lot of great draftsmanship that came before me. I’ve always loved the 40s-60s style of cartooning. Lots of great, expressive, solid drawing. I also love the animation from that period especially the 40s Warner Bros. cartoons.

I’m not forcing myself to diverge from the drawing trends of today. I genuinely dislike what I’m seeing in tv animation and in web comics. I see little to no CRAFTSMANSHIP.

And that’s exactly how I plan to distinguish myself—as a craftsman.

I recently saw a tweet from an artist who said that learning perspective radically improved her art. My first thought was, “Yes, all artists should know perspective!” That’s a major reason Moebius’s work was so amazing.

So despite the huge number of people doing cartoons and animation, only a small fraction of those people have genuine skills. The reason people lack skills is because they don’t want to put in the effort to gain the skills. I’m not judging those people; I’ve been lazy and inconsistent regarding skills development. But I’m also not asking people to support my Kickstarter or Patreon with mediocre skills.

That’s my not-so-secret plan, folks! I’m going to distinguish myself with SKILLS. I don’t see any other way. So let’s keep developing our skills so we can stand out from the crowd!

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