This This This and More This! This is Why!

http://www.equestriadaily.com/2011/07/discussioneditorial-ponies-as-creative.html

The Link above is important to what I have to say. I want to get this off my chest. Maybe you care to read it, maybe TLR. Here goes.

I graduated from the Art Institute of Portland in 2007. It cost me 75,000 dollars US to go there. Towards the end of my stint at this "School," it became readily apparent that despite getting very good grades; this school hadn't taught me anything. I graduated with a degree in Social Science, Media Art and Animation. To be sure, based upon its name alone, this degree is meaningless. I can show up to a job and expect to end up in management from the start but other than this, there is nothing else my degree says about me. My Demo reel alone isn't even talk worthy.

I languished for a few years afterward, trying constantly to teach myself the things my college-of-choice couldn't be bothered with. I kept my day-job. Cycled to work instead of driving or taking the bus and generally lived a quite life of desperation. All along the way, however, I couldn't miss the fact that something was changing in me. Not possessing the fundamental intelligence or social structure to point out what was going wrong this whole time, I would continue to do art and not get anywhere with it. For 5 whole years it was like this for me. Nothing I did pleased me and nothing I produced managed to ascend to the level of "good enough." I just sat there, slowly stewing in a cauldron of self loathing and anguish. Slowly, inexorably hating art.

Obviously, I've come around and it didn't happen in a vacuum. Last year I joined Meet-up.com and learned about social groups relative to my interests that meet frequently in my area. I hang with these folks twice monthly and one of them is even a cartooning/web comics group. The other one has many more mature folks attending and they have plenty of advice for me in addition to being a generally happy and upbeat group of people. Support from these groups helped me start peeling back the layers of misery that were suffocating me. Other sources, like the "Everything's a Remix" project, John Krickfalusi's Art Blog and the Royal Society for Arts Youtube page have helped me come to grips with the nature of creativity in humans and what I can personally do to increase my success in art in general.

To put it all into perspective: I had positioned myself such that I required only one last element to reignite my creative drive. I just needed a little push in the right direction; to fall under my own gravity into a proper creative stride. I needed a spark. Lo and Behold, it turned out to be My Little Pony. Of course it wasn't just MLP, really. My spark came first in the form of Phoe's Newbie Artist Training Grounds at Equestria Daily. I came to be aware of EQDaily by chance and after finding out about the Training Grounds, I suddenly found the urge to pick up the pencil very strong. I threw down a simple image one day and was surprised to see that, in addition to being posted in the thread, I'd been Draw-Friended that very next day by Cereal. The urge to do more was irresistible! People would comment on my work and say many positive things. I wasn't terribly popular but the urge to keep going was always there. I would even rush home from work on my bicycle just to sit down and try to draw something new for that day's Training Grounds. I could not stop.

Far from being embarrassed about drawing this material, I just couldn't place a finger on what had suddenly caused me to start working again. I'm a degree-carrying certified animator (piddly as my skills are) and such efforts should be below me! After all, this is a kids show! There aren't many sugarjobs like these. They are sought because they are easy. The characters aren't complex, the stories are simple and the whole production is so much visual pablum. What a silly damned thing to get worked up over!

But then I thought, "wait. This isn't the only childrens program out there. I'm certainly not drawing anything from Dora-the-Explorer. I haven't even touched Sponge-Bob-Square-pants though I watch the hell out of it for a powerful ironic thrill. I only want to draw these ponies and whatever other ponies that strike my fancy. I want to draw the things in the world too, like the buildings and some of the interiors. I want to come up with comics and even want to try my hand at some of the superb symbol based animation being used for the show. This means that there must be some kind of intrinsic property to the show that compels one to be creative. What could that be?"

I remember thinking, I haven't felt good about animation in a long time. I have piles of small time-art house animated shorts and film festival DVDs. They are all splendid and moving and powerful etc. None of them however, make me feel the sheer thrill of coming up with, drawing, inking and stinking (coloring) these characters or their beautiful world. None of them move me with the same basic, powerful emotions as MLP does. Sure, each is a perfect example of the brilliant power of a skilled animator who comes up with, implements and executes his craft for the purposes of his personal expression. They just don't have the spark. That spark found me and pushed me, ever so gently, back into production on a limited scale. A scale that is slowly broadening out around MLP.

I want to go out on a limb here and say that I think this spark is love. Love for the Medium, love for the Property and Love for the silly satisfaction of feeling or expressing the emotion. The episodes are sopping wet with it. The characters and their antics drip with the love of their animators. The sets and props are thick with it. The pony world is awash in an ocean of love and everyone that sticks around to dip even their big toe in it gets inspired/filled with that love. We could spend days describing it to a person and they'd never understand. We set them down for a couple of episodes and we can literally watch the transformation take place. It's something you have to be exposed to and once again, it's all in the execution. This love for the show, by its creators, has reached us. Or at least me. And that makes all the difference.

MLP is different because it is infused with a love of the craft and capabilities of animation. It's infected me down to my core so strongly that I have cast off all of my previous holdings. All my hesitations, my heavy self-critique and my anguish about not having the skill I should at this moment in time, are gone. Today I picked up the Pencil and finished two sketches and one finalized image. I was satisfied with myself, not because I'd drawn it all on-model or because I made one person happy about doing their OC: I was satisfied because I loved the effort and loved myself for being a part of it. I then went on to draw Popeye and Froghorn Leghorn just for 'Ss and Gs' with much the same result. I feel so alive to draw and be creative again. I suspect that you too feel a similar impulse which is why you and I are on the same site discussing this very subject. We don't have all the words, the whys or the hows; we just have the love. And acting upon that, is it any wonder why there are so many of us doing what we are doing right now?

Get over here and hug me bro. Friendship is Magic!