Make Mistakes!

Michael Jordan: "I failed ovrer and over and over again in my life....and that is why I succeed."

When I saw this commercial many many years ago it stuck with me!  It opened my eyes to the idea that you really have to try and try and try and continue to strive for your goals.  No matter where we are in your career we will always make mistakes and we shouldn't be afraid of them.  Whether you're animating, storyboarding, gesture sketching, etc...

The major key to mistakes is having someone in a mentor like role or trusted friend noticing the problem and helping you correct them.  We need to make mistakes and make them as much as possible to eventually create art that we like or reach goals aimed for.  Younger artists can get easily discouraged when it comes to making mistakes and feeling like they aren't at the level they'd like to be.  I like to tell these artists to save their sketches so that they can reflect back and see how good they've gotten.  

The whole idea is to learn and grow and if we are too shy or scared to show mentors (or trusted friends) our work and search for constructive criticism in correcting our mistakes we will stay at the same level we're at. 

Glen Keane told a story of how when he entering Disney, he filled up 10 sketch books, 100 pages each in a week.  He showed them to Eric Larson who on the average chose 1 in 10 sketches that were good enough to present to the company.  The rest is history for Glen as we know it.

The truth of his story was that he didn't have any fear of failing, making mistakes and showing his mentor his work.  I'd say Glen is sort of the Michael Jordan of animation wouldn't you?

Here are a few recent sketches of mine,  seems the theme was back shots this day.