I have never worked remotely before. Working from home, remotely, or splitting time between home and the office (hybrid working) has become very common.

If someone asked me whether I would prefer to work remotely, I would say no, unless it was necessary. There are both pros and cons to working from home compared to working in a studio. Since I don’t live in central London, I experience less commuting, reduced stress, and lower expenses. I was making the right decision. However, I found it challenging to maintain a balance between my work life and personal life.

During the Easter holidays, I had the opportunity to work as an animator on two projects: “The Cat and the Fish” by John Little Soza and “Brinemouth: Apocalypse Club” by Trinity Hunt. I have been enjoying the process and challenges of animating characters created by other artists. However, I had to deal with reduced communication and limited immediate access to information. While waiting for feedback, I decided to animate my solo projects in the meantime. This makes me realise that human interaction is so important, and without it, isolation and boredom can result. While working on Trinity’s short film, I scheduled video calls with her to discuss feedback and corrections on my work, as well as to have a general catch-up to boost our mental health and well-being.

I have to admit that I didn’t receive some “pre-production jetters” when I started animating these characters for these two projects. I felt like an imposter and was quite worried that I wouldn’t be able to master Trinity and John’s style, and I thought I would struggle to animate them.

I heard that many students and even 20-year veterans experience imposter syndrome; it’s an incredibly common phenomenon in the industry. The root cause is often referred to as the “taste gap,” where you have a clear understanding of what a high-quality finished product looks like, but your technical abilities take time to catch up. This can lead you to view your own work as inadequate.

I often compare my art to others’, and I believe many artists do the same. It’s easy to measure our own behind-the-scenes struggles against the polished final pieces of our peers’ portfolios. Since art and animation are inherently subjective, receiving critiques can sometimes feel more like a personal judgment of our worth rather than an objective assessment of a project.

I have a different art style and animation approach. Trinity’s character designs feature anthropomorphic animals in very cartoonish clothing, a style I haven’t explored before. My usual approach involves semi-realistic characters, where animals look like animals and humans look like human beings, so this was a challenge for me. John’s characters share a similar foundation but lean more towards an anime style, with grounded, stylised animal designs rather than exaggerated ones.

Both projects presented their own challenges. I had to learn the creatures’ animation method using TVPaint. If I had to choose between the two projects, each with its own difficulties, I would select John’s because he animates in the style of Japanese animation. I relied heavily on “limited animation,” drawing fewer frames per second—sometimes as few as 8 to 12—and deliberately holding still frames for several seconds. To compensate, anime often invests heavily in character detail.

When I animate, I use the Disney method described in “The Illusion of Life,” which focuses on creating extremely smooth, lifelike, and fluid movements. I often wondered if I was doing it wrong because, in feedback sessions, John would remove some frames and explain his method. He advised that, when tweening, there should be three frames between each keyframe, rather than six, depending on what the character is doing on-screen.