Are you ready for Indie Animation? – Do It Yourself | Indie Animation with Pan

So. We’ve all seen the massive success indie animation’s been having as of late, right? Shows are even being picked up for streaming because their pilots blew up online. Hundreds of budding creators are coming out of the woodwork with dreams of being the next Helluva, Circus or LD-Cats. If you wonder why I never use their full/real names – avoiding getting wrapped up in SEO purposes.

To me, this feels a bit reminiscent of the indie game boom of the early 2010s, and since that was kind of a bubble that ended up bursting…

If you take some time to read this story, you’ll hear from an indie animator’s point of view who made his own pilot – but will likely never make it beyond that. After that, I hope you’ve got some knowledge to help determine whether or not this path is right for you.

A little about me: I’m the creator of “Swift Spark and the Defense Five”, a project I’ve been working on since 2016. I did the 22-minute pilot on my own, which released in 2023.

I’m rewriting this blog post too, because I feel like the way the original was written felt condescending. It started off as a ‘clickbait youtube video’, title included, but that’s not the tone I want this blog to have.

Because of its length, I’ll also be dividing this blog into multiple parts, so I can take my time with each point.

SO – what do we start with? Good news, or bad news?

Maybe some good news first – I didn’t go to art school, my pilot was self-funded and I got in touch with one of my dream actors to voice in it without any connections!

So… it is possible. You can make that pilot a reality… but.

There’s always a but. And in this case, there’s more than one. Whether or not that’s bad news – depends on your outlook.

You’ll have to do most of the work yourself.

You HAVE to. It’s the only way to make it work. Especially when you, like me, come from “nothing” – no pre-existing career or internet project to springboard off. In my case, I started off with a webcomic that I spent 6 years working on before starting on the pilot. Swift Spark was originally intended to “spin off” into another comic series after I finished the main story. Then in 2019, I got the idea to try and turn it into an animated series instead.

In the years that followed, I worked on my skills, teaching myself how to storyboard, animate, and studied the animation pipeline as it’s done in the industry. It took me from 2019 to 2023 to get my pilot done.

These were skills I had basic fundamentals in – of course building these skills from scratch will take much longer. But see it this way: these skills will benefit you beyond just this one project. I spent the tiny budget I had on the elements I couldn’t do myself. You can learn how to write, draw, animate, as long as you’re willing to put in the work.

I had 3 departments I couldn’t cover myself – all audio related. So I’d say if you’re in a similar position to me, go for it.

It’ll be a slow process, but remember what I said about patience.

“But… I see so many projects doing volunteer-based stuff. Why can’t I just do that?”

I’m not saying you can’t, but… the way I see it, you really shouldn’t. This is a massive point of contention within indie animation and many, many creators have decided to cut ties with me because of my stance on this. Your “studio”, as you call it, your “for profit” projects… you should be paying the people that work on them. That’s how I see it. A group of friends working on a project they have equal ownership in is different – but still, friends can have fallings-out that can ruin a project. I’ve seen it happen.

It’s better to just pay folks for their time and ensuring everything is divided clearly, so no one can come back later and make demands should the mood sour at any point.

And when you’re hiring strangers and expecting them to follow schedules, have experience, etc… you’re not a hobbyist artist, you’re trying to run a business. Imagine how you’d feel if your boss told you “exposure and portfolio experience is enough”. Or the hundreds of times you’ve had to decline a “commission” because the person wanted to pay in exposure. No, it isn’t. Stop pretending an indie studio is beholden to any different.

Especially when it’s obvious you’re at least trying to monetize what you’ve got going on. If you can afford to spend money on merch, you can afford to pay your crew.

The context to this is a personal anecdote:

A few years ago, I was approached by the owner of a now shut-down indie “studio” to help them create their merch line, find manufacturers, et cetera – they had a Patreon, too… but all their employees were volunteers. Some of them even minors.

The first thing they showed me were enamel pins. Chain pins, where a piece hangs off the main pin by a chain. I’ve never made enamel pins myself, but from friends’ experience, I know that minimum order quantities usually start at 100 per pin, each mold costs $50 to $100, and a 4cm pin costs about $4. They wanted to make 4 pins. Add on shipping, estimated $500 from China to the US… and remember, this was in a pre-Tariff era of 2023.

They were going to spend over $2000 on merch for a show that didn’t have a single episode out, and all employees were getting nothing.

That’s where I draw a hard line and refuse to work with you. Focus on the production, and put everything you can towards that. If you insist on making merch, try websites like Fourthwall, that create print on demand products. The profit margin may be lower, but you have no inventory or production costs to worry about, so that money can go towards your production instead.

You can always produce merch later. Pay your team first.

If we want indie animation to be successful, we’ll have to make it a paying industry. Artists can’t live off exposure, and the way things are now, we use our day jobs to fund our projects… meaning we work 2 jobs, and in certain cases, more than that.

It’s something I always say when thinking of Walt Disney’s comments regarding the animation strike at his studio. He said he was disappointed and that the studio “no longer felt like a family” because they went on strike for better wages. Considering how hard Walt fought to keep his workers from unionizing, I don’t doubt that this particular comment came from malicious intent and/or greed.

 But what I feel may also have been a factor, union busting assholery aside, that be that Walt himself was so passionate (and dense), that he couldn’t fathom that not everyone at his studio shared that “passion” he had when he was trying to bring his vision to life, when his employees were just trying to survive. I believe Walt literally worked himself to death trying to juggle being in absolute control of the construction several theme parks and several movie studios (animation and live-action), which is a capitalist ideal we really should stop seeing as admirable. That, and the line between passion and greed is very thin when you’re in a position of power.

Just because you’re willing to skip sleep, food and pay for your passion project, doesn’t mean others should be, too. Respect others that just want to be paid to do a job rather than ruin themselves for someone else’s dreams. Pay and treat your artists well, and they’ll do their jobs well. If you don’t believe in this, just do it yourself. The regular animation industry exploits its workers enough as it is. Disney is not the shining example of leadership everyone wants you to believe once you look behind the curtain. Don’t make your passion an obsession to the point you don’t even notice you’re abusing the people around you.

That doesn’t mean I don’t understand the struggle.

Indie animation’s exploded over the past few years, and the bar has been set high by the ones that have made it big.

And I know it’s a one-way street. You need your work to stand out in order for it to have a chance to become that next “big thing”.

But I also feel if we as creators stop treating smaller, not-as-expensive productions as “lesser than”, and start propping one another up and shining a light on the little guys, I believe the audience will realize there’s good stuff hiding beneath the surface, too.

Let’s chat about how we can do that in the next blog post.