The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner

What a long haul animation is. It makes me feel slightly better when I hear how long other independent shorts have taken: 8 years, 13 years, 7 years. After the first long break I have had from Creamers in a couple of years I sat down in front of my 50,000 plus files and really had to dig deep to open them up. There is so much energy involved in just keeping track of it all. Despite the fact that I dish out the KISS principle to every other artist/student I know, I have definitely NOT applied it to myself. I am my own worst enemy and all that. Why make it simple when you can make it complicated. Its a tired old cliche but amazingly enduring.

Still I am chewing away and have dropped an entire sequence thanks to the sage advice of a very talented artist Michael Mueller who is helping me out when he is not art directing games. So my bunny sequence is on the floor. It never really did make much sense and was more or less an excuse for me to animate rabbits. It was supposed to represent that time in the early morning when you have been working all night and anything and I mean anything can make you cry – well make me cry and I know I am not totally alone on that one.

Keep on trucking and try not to nap too much. Ester and I are morphing into one….

Art Marathon from Hilary Moses on Vimeo.

IndieGoGo Stripes Contributors' Perk - Digital Stills

So I am sure most people know by now that the Creamers IndieGoGo crowdsourcing campaign was a complete success - in fact I made $665 over my desired goal of $8000! This was totally unexpected and I am still flabberghasted by everyone's generosity. So now comes the give back portion of the campaign. Below are digital art samples for the Stripes category contributors to chose from. You will know who you are - please send me an email and tell me which image number you would like. Each image will come to you as a framed hi- resolution print. Let me know if you have any questions. Thanks again lovely peeps...


IMAGE ONE - Joy Interrupts Ester's Fantasy
Early colouring still - combo of a vector line and scanned pastel drawing
Framed Image Size : 17cm(H) X 22cm(W)



IMAGE TWO - Joy Interrupts Ester's Fantasy
Early digital colouring still - combo of a vector line and digital blob brush
Framed Image Size : 17cm(H) X 22cm(W)



IMAGE THREE - Ester Fixes a Painting Mistake
Final 'look' digital colour - TV Paint oil paint brush
Framed Image Size : 17cm(H) X 22cm(W)



IMAGE FOUR - Ester's Greenland Fantasy is Broken
Final 'look' digital colour - TV Paint oil paint brush and Particle Illusion snow
Framed Image Size : 17cm(H) X 22cm(W)

The GoGo Factor

I am going to digress from my ‘making of - work in progress’ game plan I had for my blog posts and talk about the Creamers campaign I launched 20 days ago on IndieGoGo. When I asked a producer friend of mine for funding ideas for my ridiculously labour intensive film that would never reap any financial return she suggested asking rich people or try crowd sourcing. I did have Matt Damon on my rich people list for some unknown reason but I had never heard of crowd sourcing. Then another friend sent me a link to KickStarter and a whole new world opened up. Whether it’s the product of the extreme ill health of arts funding or born of the ingenuity of those who think online, both IndieGoGo and KickStarter are great resources for the likes of independent artists. It did force me to go in front of the camera which was kind of excruciating but at least it meant a day up in the mountains running around like a yeti. Expanding my online presence also lead me to submit an artist profile on The Proof part of the Vancouver is Awesome website.


I would never have predicted the many generous donations and supportive comments I have received since launching my campaign. The motivational factor alone has been huge. Which brings me to the purpose of this post and why I am spending yet more time talking about animation instead of doing it. I am trying to increase my GoGoFactor – the elusive barometer set by the GoGo people to help me scrounge my way to the top of the 20,000 project pile and maybe into their featured page or blog. I was up in the first 4 pages of 'New This Month' but seem to have lost ground. I need to (apparently) spam widgets around here is one now



So if you are reading this blog and would like to help my GoGo Factor please click on the widget or spread the word like this



If I can make it higher up the IndieGoGo food chain I may bump into one of those elusive ‘rich people’ who might just might fund a stranger's labour of love...