ANIMATION ANARCHY: THE ART COLLEGE CRASH COURSELESSON 30 – HOW TO SURVIVE AS A SOLO ANIMATOR (OR, WHY YOU’RE PROBABLY OVERWORKING YOURSELF)
ANIMATION ANARCHY: THE ART COLLEGE CRASH COURSE
LESSON 30 – HOW TO SURVIVE AS A SOLO ANIMATOR (OR, WHY YOU’RE PROBABLY OVERWORKING YOURSELF)
(Or: How to Actually Finish an Animation Without Having a Breakdown in a Grocery Store Parking Lot.)
🔥 WELCOME BACK TO ANIMATION ANARCHY – THE FINAL LESSON IN YOUR FREE, SIX-FIGURE ART EDUCATION.
🚨 CONGRATULATIONS! You made it through 30 lessons of brutal, unfiltered, soul-crushing animation knowledge.
✅ You didn’t need student loans.
✅ You didn’t waste four years in a classroom listening to a guy with a ponytail talk about “the essence of movement.”
✅ And you sure as hell didn’t pay six figures like I did. (Don’t clap, I’ll cry.)
But now you have the knowledge. And guess what?
That means there’s only one thing left to do…
SURVIVE.
Because animation will break you if you let it.
It will steal your sleep, your social life, and your belief in humanity.
But if you figure out how to navigate the madness, you’ll come out on top.
🎭 So today, we’re talking about how to actually finish your work without losing your mind.
And more importantly—how to make animation suck slightly less.
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🔥 WHY SOLO ANIMATORS CRASH AND BURN (AND HOW TO AVOID IT)
🚨 1. YOU’RE TRYING TO ANIMATE AN ENTIRE FEATURE FILM ALONE.
• Every solo animator at some point thinks,
“What if I just made a full-length animated movie by myself?”
• STOP. STOP RIGHT NOW.
• You will die before it’s finished.
🛠️ THE FIX:
✅ Start SMALL. Short loops, quick tests, stupid animated memes—get FAST before you go BIG.
✅ Set realistic deadlines. You are ONE PERSON. It took Disney 800 people to make Frozen. Be honest with yourself.
✅ Break projects into stages. Focus on movement first. Refine later. Sleep at some point.
🔥 EXAMPLE:
• Good plan: A 15-second short you can actually finish.
• Bad plan: “I’m going to animate an entire season of my show by myself in 4K, frame-by-frame, at 60fps.” (Sure, pal. See you in 2087.)
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🚨 2. YOU’RE NOT TAKING ADVANTAGE OF CHEATING (AKA: ANIMATION HACKS).
• Every professional animator cheats.
• If you think Disney, Pixar, or anime studios redraw everything from scratch every time, you are adorable.
• Learn to cut corners or perish.
🛠️ THE FIX:
✅ Use animation loops. Walk cycles, blinking, background elements—if it repeats, loop it.
✅ Use smears and motion blurs instead of 20 extra in-betweens.
✅ Copy/paste is your friend. Tweaking a copied frame is faster than redrawing it.
🔥 EXAMPLE:
• Good workflow: Reusing background elements and cycles to speed up production.
• Bad workflow: Redrawing every frame from scratch for a guy blinking. (Nobody will notice. I promise.)
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🚨 3. YOU’RE IGNORING YOUR BASIC HUMAN NEEDS.
• You are not a machine. You need sleep, food, and sunlight.
• If you’ve been animating for 16 hours straight, you are now legally considered a cryptid.
🛠️ THE FIX:
✅ Take breaks. If your spine is making sounds, that’s a sign.
✅ Stretch your hands and wrists. Or prepare for your future as a claw-handed goblin.
✅ Drink water. Eat something that isn’t coffee. Go outside before your neighbors think you died.
🔥 EXAMPLE:
• Good animator: Takes breaks, stretches, stays hydrated.
• Bad animator: Hasn’t seen the sun since 2019 and lives off expired ramen and energy drinks.
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🚨 4. YOU HAVE NO SYSTEM—YOU’RE JUST WINGING IT.
• You are the entire animation studio. That means you need a pipeline.
• If your files are named “Final_Final3_ActuallyFinal_REALFINAL.psd” you are in trouble.
🛠️ THE FIX:
✅ Organize your assets, files, and layers.
✅ Follow a real pipeline: Pre-production → Storyboards → Animation → Cleanup → Post.
✅ BACK UP YOUR FILES. Cloud storage. External drives. Tattoo them on your arm if necessary.
🔥 EXAMPLE:
• Good animator: Has files labeled, organized, and saved in three places.
• Bad animator: Loses 40 hours of work because they didn’t press Ctrl+S.
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🚨 5. YOU’RE AFRAID TO SHOW YOUR WORK.
• If you don’t post your work, you don’t exist.
• Perfectionism will keep you from finishing ANYTHING.
🛠️ THE FIX:
✅ POST. YOUR. WORK. Even the unfinished stuff. Even the weird, dumb stuff.
✅ Short animations are better than perfect animations that never get done.
✅ Join a community. Find your people. Get feedback. Make friends.
🔥 EXAMPLE:
• Good animator: Posts a 3-second animated loop and starts building an audience.
• Bad animator: Hoards their animation in a secret hard drive until they “get better.” (You will never think you’re good enough. Post it anyway.)
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🔥 FINAL THOUGHTS: YOU MADE IT. WELCOME TO THE MADNESS.
🎬 You just got a full art school education WITHOUT the crippling debt.
🚀 You now know more about animation than 90% of people online.
💀 And most importantly—you now understand the suffering.
But this is where the real work begins.
Because now, it’s your turn.
🔥 This is your official invitation to join the Animation Anarchy community.
• Promote your work.
• Shill your art.
• Sell your merch.
• Advertise your weird indie project to our rabid, slightly delusional readers.
💀 THIS IS THE ONLY PLACE THAT TRULY UNDERSTANDS THE PAIN OF MAKING ART.
So join us. Drop your links in the comments.
Tell us what you’re working on.
Pimp your art.
Shill your wares.
Hustle your weird little animations.
We’ll boost them, because nobody else will.
🚨 SUBSCRIBE TO THE YOUTUBE CHANNEL 👉 https://www.youtube.com/@mrbraylabs
🔥 Animation Anarchy starts NOW. 🔥
💬 COMMENT BELOW:
• What’s your next animation project?
• What’s the dumbest mistake you’ve made animating? (Let’s roast ourselves together.)
• Where can people find your work? SHILL YOURSELF.
🚀 WELCOME TO THE REVOLUTION. NOW GO MAKE SOMETHING.
