Personal Project Thoughts

[gazzamataz]

OK, one year later and I am posting again

Some here might remember me from many years ago when I was using AM on daily basis to create my own characters and stories. Well I didn't get anywhere with my ideas other than a few smiles here and there. 

I tried publishers and some production companies to see if it generated any interest but never got much feedback so it was a bit of a dead duck. I did try the Children's Media Conference back in 2014 but again no interest and more recently another book publishers but that was a no go either.

So my question or rather what I am thinking is should I revisit my project once more to see if I get anywhere with it or is the market for children’s characters and stories so saturated I should just tinker with my project for the fun of it? I know it is a question only I can answer but I would like to hear other people opinions since I know there are few people here who have done the same thing.

Also with AI getting better and better the world of animation seems like it is going to get inundated with loads of stuff that looks all the same? 

Oh and here is the link to my project: Bella Bear. It's all a bit old now vintage 2006/7 but I think it could look a lot better.

Looking forwards to other people's replies

[Rodney]

@gazzamataz

It's always great to see you.

From time to time over the years I've seen projects here in the A:M Forum that really capture my curiosity and not just from a general perspective but from one that I guess I would call 'commericial'. 

In most of these I think... this is a really intriguing concept.

Where things get a bit more fluid is where I think, "is this commercial enough?" and "How could this be simplified/polished".

I should say that your project reminds me of some of the classics like "HR Puff n' Stuff" which really capture the imagination (and definitely did when I saw the show as a kid.  Music has it's songs that are 'ear worms' that we find ourselves humming or thinking of frequently.  When thinking of HR Puff 'n Stuff some of the design elements are like this.  I think of Cling and Clang as supporting characters but almost all of the characters have an odd appeal that captures the attention.

 

Your 'Bella the Bear' has some of this 'odd intrique' and you've put a lot of effort into the concept over the years.

As you've suggested the look and feel is definitely vintage early 2000 CGI which in its own way has some appeal but for most probably lends its self more to curiosity than commericial viability.

 

So to the question at hand which is: 

```should I revisit my project once more to see if I get anywhere with it or is the market for children’s characters and stories so saturated I should just tinker with my project for the fun of it?```

 

I do think you should revisit the project but I would suggest for the moment tinkering with a 'for the fun of it' focus.

You already know Bella and Friends could use a refresh in order to test if the concept can be made more viably commercial.

While you don't care 'Bella' to be something you don't want it to be it would be a good exercise to consider what a commercial marketing house that took on the project might do to make the concept more marketable.  

I don't know how familiar you are with Eastman and Laird's experience with 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' but their story is something of a legend.

There comic book characters and concepts where purchased and adapted to 'kid friendly' animation and the world took that and ran with it.

Some of that success was rather problematic... and lots of changes to characters and concepts happened.

 

All of this to suggest that you firstly and foremostly need to make yourself happy.  (While still having enough money to eat and have a roof over your head of course!)

You might need to let go of your characters a little (but not to the point where you can't always do your own take as you see fit... in other words:  reserve some rights to personal use).

If tomorrow someone offered you a truckload of money to license 'Bella the Bear' and they ran with it... where would they take the concept?

While having fun... within your limits of production capability... and while waiting for lightning to strike, insert yourself as that someone with the truckload of money and... run with it. 

I would start with the title concept "Bella the Bear".

Bella is a bear.  

There's where I would start.

[Roger]

My thoughts: 

1) If you don't try, you'll never know.   If trying isn't going to financially ruin you, then there's no reason not to try. 

2) There seems to be an insatiable demand for actual quality children's content.   I don't think you can go wrong going after that market. 

3)  AI throws a wrinkle into things, but the things that I've seen done with AI all seem to have a very similar look.  Either they have that hyper-realistic look (think of those alternate imaginings of movies set in different time periods that you see on YouTube, like a 1950s Star Wars on Cinemascope, that kind of thing) or they have a more cartoon-like Pixar sort of look.  But I don't think you'll ever see anything *truly* unique out of AI, since it can only produce things that look like what it has been trained on.  My gut instinct is that outside of certain narrow use-cases, it won't be the panacea everyone is making it out to be.   That said, I could easily be wrong, the type of stuff that AI was producing just 3 years ago was fairly laughable, compared to what you're seeing now.  But I still don't think it will be able to come up with anything truly unique. 

4) As far as publishing your work, YouTube might be the best way to go as there is a pretty big kid's market there.   However, in order to get promoted by the algorithm you'll need to produce shorts on a weekly basis, which is a pretty tall order.  

[gazzamataz]

Thanks so much for taking the time to reply to my pondering post - much appreciated!

@Rodney HR Pufnstuf! OMG now you have jogged my memory! I remember watching this as a kid but I can hardly remember it - although I do remember Witchy Poo

I think a fair bit of my project does stem from childhood memories, for me The Wombles and The Clangers whom I absolutely loved. I think my work is defo in that sort of arena. Whether it is still popular today who know but they have made a 3D version of The Clanger recently - I think.

Funny thing is as I was writing this post I thought 'I think I will just do an update here and there rather than the whole flick I made'. I will take some of the short animations I did and revamp them with the animation skills I have acquired from my training at Animation Mentor and work I have done since.

I also remember talking to a publisher and they said I think you should change the main character to the fairy 'Hannah Bannah' and have 'Bella' as here side-kick but I thought 'Nah!' not having none of that, they are the dynamic duo

@Roger Interesting what you say about posting the stuff on YouTube, I did start a Facebook page for this stuff recently but it hasn't really moved much… And only this morning I was looking at adding a couple of the new flicks I have created.

As for having time to do all this I am self employed and almost semi-retired so I do have a fair amount of time free to work on this. Trouble is the wife is always finding things for me to do and the grandchildren are very demanding LOL! 

[robcat2075]

Hi Gary, it's great to see your familiar icon again!

It sounds like you have already consulted more knowledgeable minds in the children's media world than us and gotten some clear "not interested" replies. It's hard to ignore that.

The expectations for fit and finish in any media is very high these days, just to get anyone's attention.

Mark Largent has gotten eyeballs and some fan notice for his "Stalled Trek" shows that he made all himself, but... he hasn't made money on them and no content distributor has expressed interest. Of course, he didn't expect serious interest either. After numerous ventures at the indie comic world he knew that entertainment is a very competitive field. 

I think we all got into 3D because we had a project in mind. I've been part of several other people's projects and it was fun to help out but not much came of them, ultimately.

Today I do 3D because I enjoy the craft instead of having a career goal for it. I enjoy helping and answering A:M questions so if you should decide to pursue your project... because you enjoy it... I and other helpful minds will be standing by. 
 

[gazzamataz]

@Robcat Thanks for you input m8 - much appreciated.

I guess you are right a lot of people get into 3D because they have ideas/concepts of their own that they want to run with which I did. I would say that only a tiny number ever achieve commercial success. The actor Roger Moore said 'Getting into acting is 99% luck 1% talent' sorta…

Working on my Bella Bear project was a launch pad for me into a career as a 3D artist since that it what I have been doing since 2010 after doing the course at Animation Mentor which I know that you did too. And I have worked on a big film and a few shorts as well a a TV show and loved every minute - mostly

I don't look at my project as the next 'Harry Potter' or 'Wallace & Gromit' but more just fun to get a bit or recognition for and entertain people. If you have ideas and are creative you want to create after all. I think I will just rework a few of the flicks I have done and bring them up to date which will be quite satisfying. I have already done a couple but outside of AM and reworked two of the characters.

Wagons roll!

[a.quaihoi]

You should just self publish ! Man its a tough world out there, but now you have so many avenues to expose your work from social media, your tube etc. No more burning CD's and DVD's so take advantage. wouldn't worry about ai, real art is hand created, not with prompts, great idea to do a refresh and have fun along the way.

From our experience, we have tried so many things in the past years to " commercialise "  from games, to hardware and software projects and more and what I learned is that if you plan to make something for commercial gain then be prepared to spend all your money or be prepared to give most of your intellectual property away while going through every possible obstacle under the sun to try and realise this commercial venture, where you have invested all your money into it and the project never gets finished because of these and other factors, also because somewhere along the road you forgot why it is that your are doing this work for, and commercial success / exposure become the point of focus. You stop having fun and burn out, with no finances and fist full of ideas, hopes and dreams, you reluctantly go back to work while you are burned out to catch up and get your grind on. Ive had plenty of opportunities to make good money with the right connections in the industry, but something . . . that little thing called artist integrity always made me stop, don't be a sell out man, to the point where you feel like you are fake just like the people and the commercial industry that surrounds you, then you have a Jerry Maguire moment and walk away from it all, because your cup is overflowing with bullshit and sitting for 6 hours in traffic everyday has sucked the life out of you. 

After many years once your mind recovers, you have almost caught up financially and thanks to your mentor, you have tuned your focus by going back to basics and doing what you know instead of trying to do what you didn't know, you find once things smooth out, that hey you've got al these cool projects on the shelf, you life is almost balanced, and now you can take some of those shelved projects and spend some time to do little bits of it at a time . . .  for FUN, and now software has advanced, hardware is advanced, there is so much more now that you can do that you couldn't do back then and things begin to become fun again! Aha! THAT was the element that was missing, sure you can do hard work, but if you dont have fun along the way its never a good thing. This is what I've realised, if you concentrate on trying to make a commercial product, it will show, if you throw the commercial aspect of your work out the window and concentrate on having fun, it will show in your work and in turn people will see it in your work and they will be drawn to it and you can share it with them, then you may get approached by the commercial people who want to use your intellect to make money, just some of my experience I thought Id share after reading your post. The best thing is that you do it ! Once I was commissioned to draw a comic book and I looked at the end commercial product and the task was daunting . . . then my mentor ( old boss )  said, hey if you draw a page a day, at the end of the year you will have a 365 page graphic novel , true, just do bits at a time and dont look at the commercial aspect of your work on the horizon line and most importantly have fun while you do it ! 

I pretty much learned AM ( the basics ) in 30 Minutes while I was working in Advertising to produce some TVC's, as the software we were using was quite shit for character animation at the time, in fact at that time you either used SGI stuff Softimage etc, Lightwave or the small number of 3D apps that were only ever useful for doing title animations, AM was a revelation and hyper intuitive its was as if it anticipated how 3D modelling, rigging and animation SHOULD work, it was brilliant and still is to this day in all its flaws and achievements. The I did a brief internship with Momentum Animations and we still produce " commercial " work routinely with AM even though the worlds moved on with other apps, literally commercials. But Dylan Perry has been quietly working over the years on a feature length animation, bit by bit he's the guy you should talk to and get some inspiration, we don't classify as having major commercial success, but he knows the biz if that interest you

Reworking is the key, he has so many models and set designs that are being updated and reused in his film I am watching what your are wanting to do in the real and you have a good idea to rehash your work and bring it out again Keep going man !