6. FIRST

2 May 2024

#Welcome

Hi, my name is Chantelle. Well, you can call me that. I'm 32 years old and I live in the UK. This is my animation progress blog as I am currently a student in animation.I actually started making animation in 2009. However, I was in a very stuck-up art school that looked down on comics, illustration and animation. And they really wanted me to do fine art, and photography instead. You know, that high class art shit. But you know what? I still did comics and animation anyway.Particularly comics because I was really into manga at the time I wanted to be like my favorite manga artists. As you probably can guess this did not go down very well. Um, I ended up falling out with my lecturers and my parents as well. My mum used to say that animation is just toys. It's like I'm playing with toys, she would say. Quite funny. Isn't that funny? So, in the end, I did eventually get my way and end up going to University and doing an Arts degree on 2010, which was a combined degree in illustration with animation. However, I didn't go to the right school and didn't learn anything in my first year because they just didn't teach me anything useful. So I dropped out of Animation and continued illustration and picked up film, instead, which isn't looked down upon as much anyway. So it was really more accessible. However, in my third year, I got very depressed. I was really depressed, I was VERY depressed and I decided to just quit everything and I dropped out l. So that was in 2013. After that ordeal I started working in the customer services industry. And did that for I guess what? Well, up until now I guess. I was just doing Customer service. Like literally like I was just doing call center and office jobs. Like I was not doing anything arty at all. I mean I did sell my comics at conventions selling my comics here and then and I also did some art exhibitions, but I got kind of fed up of it all and I just didn't want to draw anymore. I made a comic that was something you could say was similar to top boy and NED but I was told only superhero comics sell. I wasn't interesting in adapting my comic into live TV action (looking back I'm sure it would have been popular if I could )comics was my chosen medium however it didn't have my audience. I really wish I was the sort of person didn't like picking unpopular things! In hindsight if I don't do things because noone else does it then how would things change?

The lack of support from the adults I depended on in my life took a toll on me.I had to find a way to move out into a more safer space and that really wasnt going to happen without a normal job. And that's what I did. As soon as I got a stable normal job, which was like, basically an office job, I moved out I was burnt out I didn't draw much at all.

It's now year 2024 and it has taken to this point to be able to go back to the creative person that I was. However I've gone back and extremely traumatized. Person. Who has gone through, some very interesting trauma. That I couldn't really begin to tell you without making this a whole fucking novel. Because alot happened to me not just in regards to not being able to enter the creative Industries.

But also Some other issues with basically relationships with people and people are, I realize now mostly pretty shit most of the time.

I do believe GOOD animation education s very difficult to access and hard to learn But now there are way more resources online to learn from compared to like pre 2010. I've noticed colleges ( not talking about universities) have animation btec diplomas now, mine didn't! It didn't matter what art you wanted to do back when I was 16 only "art and design" Btecs were available.

I finally have the resources and I finally have My own independence. And hence, this is why I've started this blog to record my progress.