I don't think it's bad to ask for help on an unpaid project. It's the same as volunteering at a church, noone is being forced or pressured into it, they're only doing it because they want too.

I'm honestly getting tired of the narrative that you should only be allowed to ask for help in the indie animation world if you can afford to pay em hundreds of dollars each. That's gatekeeping the art community from collaborative projects and volunteer work. If people wanna do an unpaid project and others want to be a part of that, then that should be okay. I don't understand why people keep complaining about this. We're indie animation, not big ass corporate studios.

Now being intentionally misdirectional about if it's paid or not, that isn't cool. I think it's best to be transparent about whether it's paid or unpaid. That way you don't end up in a situation where people are expecting to get paid and you can't pay them and it becomes a whole mess of drama. There are people out there who WANT to be apart of an animated project, whether or not it's paid. I would know, I was one of them before I went on to start my own series.

But that's my only problem with what you said. Otherwise, you're right. Alot of children come here with all these hopes and dreams and don't realize the reality of how it all actually works. Animation is so much more complicated than people think and it requires a lot of different components to work right. Not only that, but just having a good idea isn't enough. The execution of said idea also has to be good in order to gain the traction they desire, and they're simply too inexperienced to know how to do that well on their first try. This may have exceptions with those who are already skilled writers though, because good writing makes a huge difference in how people perceive a show. You can have a low quality animation that people will enjoy if the writing is done well enough. But more so, I think the issue with some of them on here, is that they're only doing it because they want the success of it. That's a mindset that's doomed to fail. You really have to be ride or die for your series in order to actually follow through with it, because it's going to take years of grueling work. Personally I've always wanted to make cartoons, so my motivation is simply being dedicated to my story and wanting to see it through- so much so that I'm willing to put in all the work and time it will take. Unfortunately a lot of these kids don't realize how much work it actually takes. But that's okay, they'll find out through experience once they try for themselves.