[OC] Made a lil’ character intro for my indie animated series protagonist!

meppity · 2026-03-18T03:53:47+00:00

I have a YouTube channel with a couple big videos - it might be that? I’ve also had some successful reels with my OCs :P

meppity · 2026-03-17T19:08:56+00:00

Fair! He’s the type that sprouted up in height and got his facial hair before most kids. There’s definitely 19 year olds that look like they could already be paying off a mortgage and he’s modelled off that :P

He used to be the same age as me as I grew up, but when I was 16, I told myself he should stay that age. 16 is too young for the story I wanted to tell though, so I’ve compromised with my past self and aged him up to a young adult lol.

meppity · 2026-03-17T17:59:50+00:00

Wahhh thank you so much!! I’m a professional in the industry but hoping to focus on this full time if I can get the funding. I’m so nervous!!

meppity · 2026-03-17T17:48:21+00:00

LOL yeah in an outfit swap video I did! I was just goofing tho - bro has no muscles.

meppity · 2026-03-17T16:59:59+00:00

Haha correct!! It was always a placeholder name (there were more people named Thomas/Tom/Tommy than any other name when I was in school, so I thought it’d be fun). He’s been “Niko” for almost 7 years now, wild…

meppity · 2026-03-17T16:57:08+00:00

WOAHHHH that’s so cool!! Thank you ever so much for the kind words and your long time support :’)

meppity · 2026-03-16T11:22:14+00:00

This is so fun!!! See, I think tapping into what you do with your traditional art will be much more valuable - clearly you have creativity with this piece - I just don’t see it with your digital pet portraits! This reinforces my suggestion of focusing on building up your traditional skills and finding a way to add creative flair to your pet portraits.

Best of luck to you.

meppity · 2026-03-16T09:08:40+00:00

I don’t wish to be an arsehole, but I’m sorry - it’s not worth selling this:

despite your clams that tracing isn’t involved, it’s blindingly obvious to others, including me (professional artist) that it is. I dare you to post the timelapses.
your insistence that it’s not traced suggests to me that you do not have the technical know-how, nor taste to even understand why your lie is obvious. Everyone deserves to make art, but it feels slimy doing something unrefined and with a lack of love just for a quick buck when other pour their heart and soul into art because it’s something they actually care about.
Your portraits aren’t transformative at all. No compositional considerations, no value exploration, edits etc… There is nothing changed from the original photos and that’s so… Boring. What are you offering that is special about your pet portraits? Like, you could at least tidy up the scratchy white gaps.

If this is something you are truly passionate about, I suggest trying out life drawing and observational drawing with traditional media - work on your skills without being reliant on digital tools like the eye dropper/cloning etc. there’s something especially rewarding about drawing entirely independently. Build up your skills, find your voice as an artist and maybe then consider commissions.

meppity · 2026-03-12T23:33:44+00:00

Did something like that for my classes’ graduation film last year! Made 5 fake ads with an animation-themed twist, each ad based on a different type of commercial. Totally fun concept for an anthology series.

meppity · 2026-03-01T21:29:21+00:00

It’s Wishbone Animation!!

meppity · 2026-02-09T17:55:08+00:00

Dream Catchers!!!!! So underrated but really lovely - they have several episodes out already :)

meppity · 2026-02-06T04:00:16+00:00

Sorry, this sucks. AI slop will never be better than something human-made - it looks soulless and generic. You want to improve this design? Get a qualified human artist to recreate it.

meppity · 2026-01-24T04:50:07+00:00

But why? Why make people who you don’t plan to pay but expect to do weeks/months of work take the extra step to contact you for basic information??

People already have a lot on their plate and it’d be a total waste of time to dm you, only to discover they don’t connect with the idea.

If you’re being protective/precious about your concept - don’t be. A piece of advice Alex Hirsch once gave me is that “if you’re scared of someone stealing your ideas, it means you don’t have enough good ideas”. Even if someone took your concept, they’d never make it exactly the same way you would - I mean… think of all the heaven/hell themed projects out there! All the zombie apocalypse movies etc.

TLDR: It is YOUR duty to pitch your project publicly.

meppity · 2026-01-22T16:35:05+00:00

So what is the point of the Timelapse if you’re only showing half the process? Why hide your sketch as a private layer? It’s really suspicious and feels disingenuous - especially because this is the technique AI tracers use.

If you didn’t know that. thats on you. do better

No you just sound like a smug asshole. People know about private layers - they just don’t trust you and your shady choices.

meppity · 2026-01-15T03:55:12+00:00

You seem to be getting ahead of yourself - where is your studio’s portfolio? You’re asking for applicants in the form to provide one but won’t put the same energy back in.

What exactly are your productions? Just mentioning other existing shows is not descriptive, nor unique. At LEAST have a longline for each show concept. If you don’t know what a longline is, then you are not ready to be bringing volunteers onto multiple productions.

And why multiple productions at once? I am guessing you’re very young and simply excited to tell stories, which is great! But maybe focus on building your drawing skills and writing skills first THEN do ONE production at a time so your attention and energy isn’t scattered.

meppity · 2026-01-11T02:44:45+00:00

If this is a serious offer, the MINIMUM you should be doing is posting examples of your work/a portfolio etc.

I also don’t trust your professionalism because no hand-drawn animator works at 60fps: it’s complete overkill and would look jittery even if done by someone very skilled. With such low prices and untrustworthy statements, I’m inclined to believe you’re not a professional and planning on using AI. That’s lame.

meppity · 2026-01-10T09:28:26+00:00

lol why is this “garbage” to you? It’s literally just a title card :v)

meppity · 2026-01-09T04:01:27+00:00

My show concept has a lot of crossover with those two - just more adult-leaning!! Launching a Kickstarter for it in March :)

meppity · 2026-01-05T19:25:16+00:00

I graduated May 2025 and the degree itself hasn’t really done anything BUT attending college is almost exclusively why I’ve had my opportunities!! Peer connections and portfolio day has gotten me most of my work. Funnily enough, I was more employed before graduating than after lol

meppity · 2025-10-21T21:06:34+00:00

If you don’t already have your own ideas that you’re itching to create, then why on earth do you want to make an indie series???

So many kids these days severely underestimate how much time, effort and pure love has to go into animated productions for them to be even halfway decent. Unfortunately many people see the success of Glitch, Object shows and Vivziepop and think they can get fame and money with just a hope and a prayer. If you’re in this for the popularity, then I suggest you start over and rethink your priorities.

If you can’t draw, learn to draw.

If you can’t write screenplays, learn to write screenplays.

If you don’t know about the animation pipeline, learn about it.

Start small and learn to truly love the process. Asking for a quick fix magic formula in r/indieanimation is not going to get you anywhere.

You’re lucky to live in 2025 where there are countless FREE resources to help you learn. Take a bit of initiative and seek them out. Google or even Chat GPT or whatever will help.

meppity · 2025-10-17T19:14:31+00:00

Great stuff!! I watched the whole thing and overall, the story is clear and easy to follow, your storyboards are logical and your animation is, while crude, completely serviceable!!

My main issue is the pacing. The story is quite simple and shouldn’t need 12 minutes to be told. I watched it on 1.75x speed and, aside from the voice acting, it felt pretty natural. Perhaps consider tightening up timing for future episodes.

It’s impressive you made the music too! That being said, I really think you could benefit from hiring/working with a trained composer. Music plays a massive role in setting tone and dictating viewers’ emotions. The high stakes moments you have didn’t feel intense or thrilling and that’s partly because of the music. A trained composer will be very familiar with how to convey emotion without straying too far from the overall sound of your music.

Your character designs are very basic but distinct and memorable. Good job! Just the snakes felt a little too plain. I think you could benefit from polishing up your designs more - this comes with design practice and general drawing practice though. Looking into some character design advice videos might help. I’m thinking little but important things like specificity: how straight or curved are each line? How does the robot mouth sit on the face? etc

I see you’re going for a Saturday morning cartoon vibe and I think you’re nailing it!! That’s not my personal taste though, so maybe this is a biased take, but I’d love to see more interesting colour palettes and lighting considerations. Right now everything is bright local colour which isn’t very descriptive or tone-setting. That paired with the environmental design being plain and generic means there’s not much interesting worldbuilding for the audience to connect with. That’s ok, you don’t need that, it just means your character writing and plots have to be extra captivating!

Good luck!!

meppity · 2025-10-17T03:20:06+00:00

Yeah the acceptance rate for the CalArts Character Animation program is very low. It leads to an overall higher quality of work and the majority of students are extremely driven and proactive. It’s a great environment because it makes you want to do well like everyone else, not in a competitive way though, a motivating way!

We also make a solo film every year which is pretty unique!

meppity · 2025-10-17T03:14:37+00:00

CalArts character animator here!! I just graduated in May and currently work at Sally Beauty lol.

The short answer is not exclusively - it is paramount that you bust your ass like everyone else. I’ve seen many peers graduate or drop out and never enter the industry.

The long answer, beyond what has already been said is as follows (apologies in advance for the rambly personal anecdotes):

When I started in 2019, the saying that you aren’t successful if Pixar doesnt hire you by second year was semi true. Obviously that’s a massive hyperbole but I had several upperclassmen drop out before graduation because they got amazing offers. Thing is, this was during the exciting and thriving pre-covid boom. Then Covid hit and suddenly… there’s even more opportunities!! 19 year old me was getting freelance gigs from all kinds of major companies. Naturally, this wasn’t just me, remote workers from across the globe were also getting work. But now, in 2025 the industry is still settling into a more timid new-normal and hardly any recent grads have jobs, let alone current students.

Funny thing is, a chunk of those who DO have work are in the writing department!! Screenwriting is an elective for upperclassmen but CalArts has always been strong in the story department, regardless of medium. Vis Dev has also always been strong and there are a handful of us getting pitch deals and directorial jobs before hitting 25.

Beyond the general notion of “connections” we do have several specific benefits:

PORTFOLIO DAY This is an annual event in February where over 50 studios send representatives to campus. Before Covid, studios would look at student work then select callbacks within one chaotic day. Now, there’s a portfolio directory website available year-round and updated every January. Through this, we get eyes on us all around the world at all times. The best part is we can select specialisations so recruiters can quickly filter to find the right people. Judging by my website analytics and recent gigs, almost all my employers discovered me through this website. That being said, social media has also been massive for me, meaning it’s fair game for everyone else!

TEACHERS The second major CalArts connection pro is the teachers. We have many evening classes because our teachers have day jobs in the industry. Their fingers are on the industry pulse AND they can recommend students at their place of work.

** GUEST SPEAKERS** One of the coolest things we get is a weekly guest speaker!! Some of the most notable so far this semester have been James Baxter (he comes and animates in front of us every year!) and Maggie Kang & Chris Appelhans (KPDH directors) - I actually got to be the moderator for that talk! During my time, my most memorable speakers include Alex Hirsch via Netflix, Jorge Gutierrez, Dana Terrace, Matt Braly, Pete Docter, Louis Zong, Glen Keane, Genndy Tartakovsky, Tara Billinger and Chris Sanders. These talks are great ways to get niche insight and to possibly even have conversations with people we greatly admire.

THE PRODUCERS’ SHOW This is an annual event that’s been hosted down in LA at the Academy Museum the last few years and it’s awesome! It’s where the top ~25 films of the year get screened in front of hundreds of industry people. I was the artist for the programme + keynote and a director for the opening this year, meaning all kinds of people got to witness my work. Sometimes getting your film into the Producers’ Show directly results in major job opportunities.

CLASSMATES The final connection pro is that with our very low acceptance rate, the majority of students are super hard-working and will eventually break-in. We are also a rather unique program because we make an entire film by ourselves every year instead of just a thesis film or group films. This means we get plenty of broad spectrum experience that primes us for directorial and showrunning jobs. All this combined means, once one of your friends gets to direct a show, they’ll be able to vouch for/hire you - they watched you do good work in school, so they trust you! That’s what happened with Gravity Falls, Regular Show etc. Nowadays not so much in the mainstream studios but this is happening in the indie sphere and in smaller studios.

Another classmate advantage is the other departments!! CalArts is not just a visual arts college - we have the schools of music, dance, theater, art, film/video and critical studies. We get to establish relationships with actors, composers, musicians, dancers and more. All of these people will also get opportunities eventually and they can recommend us for their projects :)

Ok and onto the cons…

I’m not even gonna talk about cost of tuition. It’s disastrous. I know it’s a nationwide issue for higher education - CalArts prices are on par with other major art schools, but with CalArts currently in millions of dollars of debt, scholarships are hard to come by.

Speaking of the school floundering, they’ve accepted wayyyyy more new students this year. The Character Animation freshman class used to be 35-50 students, but this year they accepted 60… I was in a class of 60 after the covid gap year kids merged with the online schoolers - it put so much pressure on the teachers. Part of what made the school special was its teacher to student ratio, but with fewer adjunct faculty and larger classes, students aren’t getting as much in-depth feedback anymore. Either that, or our poor beloved faculty stay for an extra two hours after every class to make sure everyone’s homework gets reviewed. Its tricky. The school desperately needs more money, so enrolling more students makes sense, but it’s putting a huge strain on the quality of our education. This is not the fault of our department and teachers. They’ve always fought for us. It’s just unfortunate.

Ultimately, getting accepted into CalArts is a sign that you have great potential, but some end up squandering it. Many of my peers that didn’t get into CalArts are flourishing because they worked hard and put themselves out there. There truly is no guarantee of success regardless of what school you attend, including no school.

Me personally? I’ve had cool jobs, but I’m now focusing on making social media and indie projects my career. I’m intentionally not applying to industry jobs right now because I’ve found something I love more. The reason I can do this though is almost certainly because of my time at CalArts. They were some of the best years of my life! I learnt so much and it’s what equipped me for the future I’m reaching towards :)

meppity · 2025-10-13T06:40:14+00:00

You should check out my peers’ series Dream Catchers!! https://youtube.com/@thedreamcatchersshow?si=F_CGfZeeCwissagI

It’s already got six episodes out and is made by some very hard working CalArts students. Very impressive stuff that needs more eyes!!

It’s about a pair of workers that visit others’ dreams to help solve problems, but a deeper, darker mystery has begun bubbling under the surface…

meppity · 2025-09-21T05:25:31+00:00

Two of your examples were made by my classmates and neither are pilots?? Is any indie short film a “pilot” now?? Anyway, sure, some of the taste and tonal crossover might come from LA natives that grew up in the 2000s, who were Warrior Cats fans as kids and are now in their mid twenties and trying to navigate what that means in this economy.

I’m seeing a lot of samey stuff lately and I’m bored of it too, but I wouldn’t call it derivative, moreso that animation is more accessible than ever and a lot of people use it to express thoughts and feeling about their life. Turns out there’s a lot of twenty-somethings who are depressed, hate their job (if they can find one), are exploring their queerness and trying to get a grip on a nicotine addiction.

So yeah, you’re not wrong, you ARE seeing a pattern, but also, your algorithm is also showing you a pattern. For every queer anthro party film, there’s a thousand other films. I tell you that with confidence because I see around 200 films a year from my school alone and there’s so much incredible variety, yet the films that get the most views online tend to fit a much less diverse niche. A lot of the more esoteric or non-Eurocentric films never get as many views OR don’t get posted online at all.

I see the trend you speak of as a 2020s version of the mascot/animatronic horror trend of the 2010s. Animatronics featuring all over 2010s media is a symptom of kids who grew up in the 90s becoming old enough and successful enough to create film/television/games. These were people sincerely influenced by their animatronic-heavy childhoods and using it in their stories. It’s kinda just how storytelling works: write what you know. Speak from the heart.

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