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It has been awhile since I actually use Giphies or Gif-ies or whatever you wanna call it on my post and I sure do miss using them. They tend to tell and deliver the message better than still images sometimes. So I've decided to write a post today in regards to a question or a perspective that animators are all fun and joy. Usually when I tell someone that I'm an animator, the very obvious reply would be , "WOW!!!". Then follow with "it must be a very fun job!".

Though it is sometimes enjoyable for some, a lot of us have made it into a job and that comes with stresses and lot of effort that sometimes we think twice whether it is worth putting. Passion & appreciation do tend to push us forward and when it dies off, we probably would be looking to find another job in a totally different industry elsewhere. Yes, that is what I'm seeing all most of my friends who are in the animation industry for more than 10 years do, to give up on the industry.

Me : Hey, so where are you working now?

Bob : Ohhh, I changed job. I'm now an entrepreneur.

Me: Ohhh cool, what do you do?

Bob : I can't say much, you have to meet my business partners to find out.

And.... we all know how that goes... Some of you would probably have a similar experience and sad to say, a lot of them do come from the creative industry because we have been short of money during our career days that the sound of 'Millionaire', 'compounding' and 'Robert Kiyosaki' all promises us that we can earn way way more.

But THAT aside, I would like to share with you my life as an animator, and what I actually do! Now, this may vary from the different companies, and mine is a small startup and no Disney like. The workflow is still almost the same.

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Zord's life as a Character Animator

Morning - Waking Up

In the morning, my alarm is set to ring two times. One at 8.15AM and the other at 8.25AM. In the event that I didn't have a goodnight's sleep, I would probably snooze for another 10 minutes and I have to get up before I get summon by the big boss in Korea. On special occasions, and by that I mean 'really special occasion', I would call in sick and take a day off to do whatever I want. I don't want to abuse the flexibility that my company doesn't ask for a medical slip as proof, I know right.... :D

However on normal days, I would shower and most of the time skip breakfast and leave the house at 8.45AM. On my way to work, I would have to brace through the early morning traffic jams like any other people who are working and cursing their way through. A lot of the drivers are usually not fully awake, and this pisses me off sometimes when they drive blankly on the highway.

Morning - Office Hour

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By now, I would be checking up my schedule for the day and to see set my personal deadline. This is the part where procrastination will really kill you. That being said, I spend the first hour in the morning checking on Discord, Steemit, Facebook and then my schedule. Anytime in between if you 'accidentally' clicked on youtube, there goes your 1 hour of work time.

Would update my status on which scenes/shots I'm working on, which are done and uploaded and also to check the feedbacks given by clients. For me personally, I would set a daily goal where I have to finish a certain amount of scenes that day. Usually I would push myself to do more, but ending up with one less. It really doesn't matter as long I finish it before the actual real deadline.

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Lunch Hour

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Lunch hour would probably be the only time where I get my eyes off the screen and actually do some socialising with my colleagues. NOT! We all just walk to the food court and probably look like the GIF above. I on the other hand, check discord and my watsapp msges. Probably do a little Steemit shilling to my colleagues. Yea, just recently they were asking me about it so I shared a little with them and they've already signup. I mean... who doesn't wanna earn that extra income right?

As my work is pretty flexible, we get to enjoy our lunch as long as we want, just make sure we meet the deadline. Walking back, we have to take the lift up to our office. Oh didn't I tell you? We actually don't slide down a tube and into a pool of coloured plastic balls giggling away nor do we have a spiral staircase up to our office. The office is.... like a normal corporate office. Ohhh how Disney and Google has up the standards of office culture.

Afternoon

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This is where the carbs from the rice from lunch hour starts to kick in and no where to burn em. I get really really sleepy from looking at animation graphs on the monitor that I do take a half an hour power nap sometimes. Then it's on to making sure I meet that deadline with a lot of temptations to procrastinate.

I spend hours and hours looking at this mundane grey-ish software and really, it's not all nicely coloured and nicely textured like the end result. What you see on the screen is a lot of curves, vertices, graphs being manipulated and transform to make the character move.

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Freedom!

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Then when it strikes 6PM, it's time to go home! Before that, I would sometimes go on Steemit and draft my post like what I'm doing now. It's after working hours so it's fine... And everyday, all this repeats itself.

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After reading about what an animator from my perspective have to go through, it pretty much spells 'boring'. But through all this, I love my job and what I do. I actually don't mind spending and putting in some extra hours and have that household all laughing and giggling watching the shows that I've animated. And that satisfaction is what drives me to do better in this. And if my show is actually impacting the child's life and helping that mother calm a crying child, I'd do it all again.

Projects that I've worked on :

Disney Junior's Docmcstuffins (Season 3, 4)

Miraculous Ladybug (Season 1)

Geomecha (Season 2)

and many more!

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Thank You

If you like what I do, check out my other posts on meetups, animation, and designs.

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DM me on discord : zord189#7776

_{Credits to @pinstory & @coloringiship for this lovely photo of me.}

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_{Animated Banner Created By @zord189}

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