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chuwenjie · 11 months

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Spider-Man: Across the Spiderverse comes out later today so I wanted to write a post reflecting on my journey and experience working on this movie. So many people have supported me through this and I am so thankful to each and every one of you!

Text version of this post under the cut:

Spiderman: Across the Spiderverse comes out tonight. It feels really weird to be typing that out right now. I worked on the movie as a visdev artist for the last 2.5 years, from 2020 to 2023. Long post incoming.

There are a lot of reasons why I'd consider this film to be one of the most ambitious animated films to ever be made. As artists, we were asked to push ourselves far beyond our comfort zones and do things that had never been done before in animation.

Every time we reached a point where most people would say "this must possibly be as creative and weird as it gets," our entire team of artists and animators would smash right through the ceiling. The driving direction for the visuals of the film was to push the limits of every single frame; to challenge audience expectations and make something truly original.

The best thing about this film was that there wasn't a single boring day working on this movie. The hardest thing about this film was also that there wasn't a single boring day working on this movie.

There were times while working on this where the imposter syndrome hit me hard. This was my first big movie, and what a hell of a first movie to get thrust into.

I came in only a few years out of school with absolutely no idea what the hell I was doing. I constantly feared that someone had made a mistake in bringing me onto this film, and I was going to let everyone down. There was a solid chunk of those 2.5 years where I wasn't sure if animation was the right path for me.

If there's anything I could tell my past self it would be this: there are so many people who love you and believe in you. There will be a time when you get to stand on the other side of it, look back on everything and see how far you came.

I'm still working on self-acceptance every day (it will be a lifelong struggle, I'm sure), but I'm glad I didn't give up on myself. I'm proud of myself and my contributions to this film, and I'm certain that this movie will continue to change and shape the animation landscape just as the first one did. That's truly a special feeling to have been a part of. I am so incredibly grateful to every single person who helped me along this journey.

Here come the thanks:

To the ENTIRE visdev & art crew- it's been an honor getting to work alongside each and every one of you. My jaw is literally still on the floor from seeing your incredible talent day after day.

I want to thank Tiffany and Felicia especially for being there for me through tough times- I admire and respect you both so much as artists, and even better than that, my life is greatly enriched for being able to call you my friends.

Thank you Patrick and Dean for taking chances on me, teaching me so much about art and what I'm capable of, and encouraging me along the way. To Aymeric, your art is one of the reasons I initially became interested in animation and you have been one of the kindest & most empathetic mentors I could ever have asked for.

I want to thank my wonderful parents for believing in me always and raising me into the person I am today: everything I do in life is to make you proud. To my brother Andrew who is perpetually awake at 3 AM when I need someone to talk to- thank you for always picking up the phone and making me laugh.

And finally to my partner Luke for making me grilled cheeses on all of the difficult days, for never getting sick of me even when all I would ever talk about was work, and for patiently and steadfastly loving me throughout this entire thing. I don't think I could've done it without you.

Starting tomorrow I will begin posting and sharing some of the art I made for this movie; I'm looking forward to sharing some of my personal favorites with you. I hope each and every one of you enjoys Spiderman: Across the Spiderverse when it hits theaters later today!

#visual development #visdev #spiderman: across the spiderverse #spiderman atsv #gwen stacy

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strink-family · 5 years

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I normally post my rants on my other blog but...

Saying these things clearly don't change anything, don't make it better, don't make people think, but I need to do this again.

Scrolling through blogs I follow, and my own blog where I reblog stuff, I see TONS of art. Of course I like the art. But often I think one of two things.

The first thing is, "Why can't I draw like that?"

Every day I see a ton of art for the fandoms I'm in. Very often I look at it and think, "Wow, that's amazing!" as everyone does. Then after awhile I think, "I wish I could draw that good."

I get envious of artists. I'm never happy enough with my art. I try super hard on my drawings but it's never good enough. Never. I never look at one of my drawings and think, "Man, I'm happy with this piece!" I only ever think, "Ugh. Why can't I draw better?!" when I look at my art.

Then I see artwork by other artists and I'm blown away. All the artists I see are so talented, so amazing, they truly have a gift. And I realize how truly unskilled I am at art, especially compared to them. I know no matter how hard I try, I'll never be even a good artist, let alone even measurable to the other artists I admire.

I love to draw. I wish I was actually good at it. Which makes me upset enough, but seeing all these artists 100x more talented than I'll ever be, and knowing I won't amount to anything makes it hurt more.

I work so hard on my art, and wonder if it truly is for naught. Considering I'm never satisfied with my art and nobody even pays attention to it, I wonder whether I should give up art, because I clearly won't get anywhere.

Which brings us to the second thing I think, which is, "I wish more people liked my art."

Despite me not being happy with my art, I still want people to like it. Despite not being a good artist, I still want my hard work to be recognized.

Those drawings I just posted the other day--despite their low quality. Took four days. Four long days. And nobody even cares about them.

Nobody cares about any of my art. Or me, even.

My art never gets notes. I see artists get hundreds upon hundreds of notes on even rough sketches, meanwhile I spend hours on a detailed drawing and get a measly four notes on it.

I don't know why, but I always feel the need to be validated by others. Plus making others happy makes me happy. I post my art because I want people to like it, and knowing others like it makes me happy. Also I feel like what I do isn't worth anything if others don't like it.

Which I feel all the time. Because nobody pays attention to my creations.

People enjoy reading my fanfics, which is...nice, I guess. I enjoy writing. But I like to draw more, and honestly would prefer my art to get more attention than my writing.

Part of me doesn't understand why nobody likes my art, but the other part of me knows it's because I'm untalented and won't ever be good. Why even like art that's as bad as mine?

Sometimes I'm proud of my art. Like my most recent art post. Of course I think those drawings could be better. Of course they didn't come out how I wanted. But I did work really hard on them, and they came out surprisingly well, better than I thought.

But nobody cares about it. Nobody's looked at it.

When I rant about these things, nobody pays attention, whether online or real life. I post these rants a lot, moreso on my Wattpad than here, but rarely do I get responses.

In real life this happens as well. Once I sat in the corner of a classroom, sobbing into my knees. Two people stared at me, I heard one mutter, "I think Strink is crying," but they didn't even try to make me feel better. Sometimes I'd be sent to a counselor to talk about these things, and they wouldn't be of any help. I did most of the talking. I was surprised they didn't try to help me more, considering it is kinda their JOB.

Sometimes also I rant to my friends about this. On occasion my friends rant to me, and I want to be there for them and help them, even just a little. But they don't treat me with the same respect. I rant to them about my pain in hopes they'll try to help me.

They never do.

A couple years back I sent an email to a bunch of my friends talking about how much pain I was in. Most didn't respond. Only one did. But this friend did the complete opposite of try to help me.

Allow me to supply a visual.

Their meme-ified response made it hurt even worse. Knowing my friends didn't even care about helping, and one of them seemed to want to hurt me more.

Sometimes I wonder if there's even a point to ranting. Nobody even tried to help me.

I'm aware that nothing anyone can say could make me feel better like that, I'm aware it could take years and I may never actually escape this pain. But knowing someone cares enough to even try to help me. And while the help won't restore me completely, it would still help out a little, and make me feel better for awhile.

But people don't care about me enough to help. Not even my friends. They don't even try.

Nobody tries. Nobody cares.

I know I'm useless. I know I'm worthless. There's no point in me ranting, or spending so much time drawing, trying to get people to like my work, because nothing will come out of it.

Nobody will care about me.

Nobody will like my art.

Maybe I should stop trying. There's no point.

I don't know what I could've done to deserve this pain, but I hate it. I want someone to like my art. I want someone to care about me.

But not even that will happen.

I'm an insignificant person. I don't matter. Nothing about me matters.

#art #my art #depression #rants #pain #drawing #strink's confessions

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