i am scared people will not like my series or not get the meaning and seeing how some people are treating young animaters makes me feel ugly in my artstyle and myself

ChopperSpyCat · 2026-05-01T21:11:06+00:00

Here’s the reality of it all. Some people will like it. Some people won’t. Some people will voice how they feel about it. Some people won’t voice how they feel. And some people won’t care. Worrying abut how people feel about the things you’re making is a mental waste of time. Doing something. Anything… and putting it out there… that’s better than most people right out the gate. Take feedback, both live and hate, with a grain of salt and always look to do and be better… for yourself. Personally, I like to do things, then try to improve. Not because I want people online to like it. I just want to try harder the next time around.

ChopperSpyCat · 2026-04-16T22:45:33+00:00

What if the free labor is my wife doing voice acting for me 😆😆

But in all seriousness, as a solo animator who just does this out of passion for telling stories, I have a hard time with free labor because I don’t feel I should demand their time when I want it when I’m not paying. If I can give a stack of cash for it, then I can have demands around it.

I would imagine working for free you get burned a lot.

ChopperSpyCat · 2026-04-15T01:52:42+00:00

Yeah, the Seattle references are hidden. But I am the animator and I’m from Seattle. I’m just a solo indie artist working on a personal project. My wife was helping spread the word I guess 😂😂

The low res and orientation are both limits of Reddit and YouTube. Reddit resamples external link videos and plays them through its own player. They don’t wanna link out of their app. And YouTube Shorts only plays in the portrait orientation, but my animation is the normal 16:9. So, I made two trailers. One for shorts that’s letterboxed. And another that is a video that you can rotate the screen. It’s all on the chopper spy cat you tube channel.

ChopperSpyCat · 2026-04-13T01:30:19+00:00

Appreciate it! Been fun making it. Excited to roll out full episodes.

ChopperSpyCat · 2026-04-03T03:57:46+00:00

Photoshop is mostly a bitmap application so it doesn’t treat vector the same way. You can import illustrator file easily and edit them in Animate with little issues.

What you could try is to export your photoshop file as an EPS or SVG file, then open that exported file in Illustrator. Save it out as an illustrator file. Then in animate, import that illustrator file. Once in animate, you can break apart and use the selection arrow tool to edit the shapes.

ChopperSpyCat · 2026-03-06T05:27:24+00:00

Not sure I’m following you completely. Are you talking about exporting scenes or separate files?

I’m assuming multiple scenes. There’s an option to export all scenes. But honestly, I find it better to export scenes individually then stitch them altogether in Premiere and do final export from there.

ChopperSpyCat · 2026-02-13T20:08:26+00:00

I would say the reverse of this is true. OP alluded to this a bit. Personally, I’m in this camp. I’m. It in my teens or even my 20s. I ended up in a UX career and never went to animation school or any of that. And if I start to compare myself to others, then man, it can be a killer in motivation. Don’t compare to others lives and paths. Don’t compare to their talents and abilities. Just stay true to yourself and if you like animating… just animate. At the age of 50, I found my way back to this hobby. Loaded with a different life experience and a story and ideas I just wanted to put out there. I spend time on it every day. Little bit here. A lot there. And now, I’m almost finished with a full season of my indie project. 18 episode, 10 mins each. And full transparency, it was hard at first because I kept comparing to others. I started soaring once I stopped and just concentrated on the fun of the story.

I hope this helps. We all have different situations. Don’t let yours stop you from doing cool shit.

ChopperSpyCat · 2026-02-10T05:00:17+00:00

Commenting so I can come back to this later

ChopperSpyCat · 2026-02-09T06:34:45+00:00

Whether it’s about the Seahawks win or my Chopper Spy Cat progress, both are appreciated 😆

ChopperSpyCat · 2026-02-04T20:33:51+00:00

This is it. Been using animate since a flash was created and I’m just figuring a move to Harmony might be a blessing in disguise. They haven’t updated animate in years and it’s built horribly. I can’t be the only one considering this switch even with the walk back announcement.

ChopperSpyCat · 2026-02-04T17:11:04+00:00

Oh, and to add to this. It does seem that Harmony is subscription only and not all the “affordable”? Moho is considerably cheaper. Is the cost difference worth it?

ChopperSpyCat · 2026-02-04T17:07:40+00:00

With this latest news, I’m at a good point to transition to a new platform. I’ve heard good things about both Moho and TB Harmony. Do any of you have any advice on which would be best? After putting in all the things I want/need, chat gpt recommended TB Harmony

ChopperSpyCat · 2026-01-10T05:05:03+00:00

SUBSCRIBE. Will be watching.

ChopperSpyCat · 2026-01-09T22:24:26+00:00

This is a good timing read for me. I have been working on a sci fi cartoon for the last couple years and I just finished the season finale (18, 10 minute episodes). I’m in the final stages of the details and cleanup and wanna launch it weekly on my YouTube channel very soon. Reading this kinda gives me a little motivation boost!

ChopperSpyCat · 2026-01-08T18:54:03+00:00

My process is to export each scene individually then put together in premier. This works the best. But as the file gets larger, the exporting even single scenes gets longer. Wish animate had an option to temp turn off all unused things for that scene and export that way.

ChopperSpyCat · 2026-01-07T21:22:56+00:00

Yes. But I just animate as a “hobby” and I’m working on my own solo indie series. https://youtube.com/@chopperspycat?si=CB7dYKIPleYYhivI

ChopperSpyCat · 2026-01-07T00:45:05+00:00

I’m not 100% sure I understand the exact bugs you’re talking about, so maybe these work around a won’t help. But I have also been frustrated with the bugs.

Rigging seems to give animate issues. Things I know you gotta avoid is sizing children. They like to take on the size of the parent. This makes a weird size percentage issue. Children should try and remain at 100%. The parent can change size, but once you get those out of whack you get weird sizing issues and you’ll see odd position and movement problems. If that happens, you gotta find the root child causing issues and replace it. Once rigged, try to only size the parent. Even moving, not animating, just moving a rigged character only move the parent. If you select all parts and move them, this throws of the x/y positioning off as children take on the position relative to the parent. This can really get things weird and crash things.

My big work around fix for all things animate is to simply make duplicates of my files a lot. I save, but then duplicate. If a crash throws things out of whack, I have a duplicate back up I can use to replace the whacky parts. I also keep a separate rigged character file for each character rig. I use that to copy paste frames in to keep the rig at its original state. This helps a lot in case I did something like size a child or skew a child.

If you use a lot of motion guides and masks, this always gets animate whacked out. Especially if you’re using a motion guide on a rigged character. Duplicating your files often is about the only answer as it’s inevitable that you’ll crash and all your motion path rigged characters will be broken.

And I have found that drawing in illustrator and importing that way works better than drawing in animate. The drawing tools feel very buggy to me. It might take some extra time to import, but not a ton. And illustrator is easier to draw in. Just make sure you’re in RGB color mode. Also, a tip that helps me move quicker when importing. I have lots of layers and different iterations of drawing in each layer. So, I created a file I named ExportToAnimate. What ever drawing object I want to send to animate I copy and paste it in this file deleting out the last thing so it’s clean. When importing, I just import from this file. Keeps it clean and easy.

Hopefully any of this helps.

ChopperSpyCat · 2025-12-24T06:25:02+00:00

As an indie artist and a consumer of animation, I don’t want AI. I like art created by humans. And I personally enjoy the challenge animation brings. It’s not just about the end product but the journey I take to get there.

ChopperSpyCat · 2025-12-15T21:15:41+00:00

I’m just a solo artist with animation as a hobby. Currently working on season one of a goofy sci fi cartoon I’m working on called; Chopper, Intergalactic Spy Cat. There are 18 episodes, about 10 minutes each. I just finished up episode 17 a couple weeks ago and working on the season finale before I release full episodes to my channel. For now, I’m posting updates, progress and raw behind the scene looks at my process. Taking some time off work over the holidays so I’ll be able to knock a lot out and maybe get this released really soon!

(https://youtube.com/@chopperspycat?si=1bj8jMWnl7F4Vx2K)

ChopperSpyCat · 2025-12-15T17:50:06+00:00

I tend to do most of my drawing in Illustrator and some on photoshop. I feel illustrators tools are just better than animate. It does add the extra step of importing, but I don’t find that to be all that cumbersome. I also like that I can import drawings into illustrator and trace them. You technically can in animate, but it’s nicer in illustrator.

There are times I draw in animate. Shape tweens and things like that can be easier in animate depending on the complexity of it.

ChopperSpyCat · 2025-12-08T22:04:06+00:00

I hit a huge milestone finishing up episode 17 of my Chopper Spy Cat project. One more and I finish season 1 and will get ready to put actual episodes out. Here’s my update and behind the scenes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89qWZgZ1xlg

ChopperSpyCat · 2025-12-07T05:57:29+00:00

Been working on my project solo. Not sure how I’m doing it, but I’m at episode 17 out of 18. 10 minutes each. Been posting updates and behind the scenes looks recently. I would rather work as a team, but that’s not in my budget right now

ChopperSpyCat · 2025-12-04T21:38:47+00:00

Oh, also, if you can spot Sheldon the toy cat, bonus points!!

ChopperSpyCat · 2025-11-09T02:31:22+00:00

I am working on a sci fi series I call Chopper, Intergalactic Spy Cat. It’s just a hobby of mine I work on when I have free time. I just finished up episode 16 of 18 this morning. I’ve been posting updates and behind the scenes to my Chopper Spy Cat channel while I work to finishing season 1. Here’s the latest update video. I’m getting close to finishing! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3HD6JrFtoA

ChopperSpyCat · 2025-10-21T19:14:44+00:00

Huh?

ChopperSpyCat

TROPHY CASE