EVERYONE SHUT UP I AM THE KING

EVERYONE SHUT UP I AM THE KING

Do you ever have those spans of time where even holding a pencil feels wrong, and drawing anything at all angers you?

Very yes. And, as an animator, for a day to really count as being productive, you have to do like 100 drawings or something. So it's a bit of a fucky thing to deal. If you try and force yourself to draw, you'll just hate it, and keep hating it and everything will be shit. And it won't stop being shit until you take a break and do a different thing. Drawing when you don't want to draw will get a worse result than drawing when you do. Whatever you're drawing, it'll come out better if you do it later once you feel like it again. So, go and spend two days getting getting drunk in a desert. By the end of it, once your skin is blistering, you've lost your car in a bet with a rock carving, and you've had to walk for miles to the nearest town, THEN you'll be like "fuck all this shit I just want to draw pictures".

Started work on a new film. What happens in it? I don't know yet. Here's the opening shot.

Hey chums, check out my submission to this months Loopdeloop! It has a bird in it because birds are cool. Go to the place and vote on it if you feel like it but if you don't then that's totally cool.

There'll be two screenings, one in Melbourne at Loop Bar, on the 25th at 7:30, and one in Hollywood at M-Bar, on the 30th at 7:00. I'll be at the Melbourne screening, so feel free to come by and say hi! If not this month, then a different month, coz I'm always there. I'm actually meant to be a committee member for this thing but I don't do my job.

How did you go about developing such a unique style? what are your artistic origins and influences?

That's a very long story. I've been arting non stop since I was but a teeny sprout, and my influences at any given time are leaving their fingerprints in a style that has already been prodded at with hundreds of fingers prior. Like, it's not just a large assortment of influences, but there's a chronology which effects how new influences are incorporated. I think this should hopefully be the case for anyone whose been doing art for more than a few years.

As an artist, you can never hope to create a reality as beautiful and complex as actual reality. Everything you ever know is inside that, even the art and the pretend stuff. The best we can do is look at as much as possible and take our favourite bits. Knowing how to incorporate those bits is a skill in itself.

Letting your style form is not just about looking at lots of stuff you like, but about letting go of any inhibition. You don't just want to clumsily combine stuff. When putting shapes down on paper, or in clay or computo-box or whatever, if there's a way you feel the shapes should go which tickles your fancy, fuckin go for it so hard. Don't hold back because you haven't seen any other artists do it and don't know if it's right, or if it'll read as a 'mistake' or whatever. If there's anything in art that registers as a 'guilty pleasure', it's probably not guilty. It's probably exactly what you should be doing.

A lot of people face some kind of dilemma regarding "being original" vs "doing what they like". The way I see it, we all have individual sensibilities that we ultimately need to appeal to. If we were all 100% doing what we liked, we'd all happen to be doing original things. It's just a matter of knowing 100% what we like rather than responding to pre-existing art that we overall like.

If you like someone's artistic decisions more than your own, don't say "oh well, guess they beat me to it. I'll do something else because I don't wanna copy". But you know, don't copy them either. Instead, toughen up and beat them at their own game. Beat the shit out of them. Work out what it actually is you like about their work. Sure, you might like all of it, but chances are it's 1 or 2 elements that absolutely sell it, and while the rest of their art is appealing and compliments it, there's other solutions that you would like even more.

I'd say this mindset has been equally vital to making-my-shit-look-the-way-it-does as the influences themselves. The influences are important too though. Just look at lots of cool stuff. So much. If something's cool, research it and find more cool stuff. Delve deep and get obscure with it, too. Popular stuff is stuff with general appeal. You're not general, you're specific. All of you are. You have internet now, hunt out the specific shit.

And not just art. Look at real things too. Lots of them.

ALL OF THAT BEING SAID, I don't think 'style' is a thing worth stressing about at the end of the day. It shouldn't be treated as some sort of self-branding, it should be you doing things the way you like. So do that, do what you want and don't hold back. But if that really isn't working for any of you out there, if you really feel you're having trouble coming to conclusions that you like, or you just end up directly mimicking one or two things, or whatever, you're welcome to try adopting this approach. I can only speak on behalf of myself, but it works for me.

Also, an apology to any of my followers that hate reading. I make this shit up as I go and it could all probably do with editing. But I'm not going to do that because it's a fuckin Tumblr ask.

I should be asleep now. Goodnight, my dainty petals.

Ey, maybe we've already ask you this question but who is your favorite animator EVER ?

Shit dude, I dunno. I’m not really keen on the idea of ‘favourites’. If I really have to say someone though, the most immediate name that springs to mind is Jan Svankmajer. Probably in part because it’s just a really good name, but I do have an eternal soft spot for his films.