looking back, moving ahead!

MARK

One Year Ago (20 months earlier to be exact): we were just born artists searching and waiting to free the real artist within us. We took an assessment test to make sure we have the right stuff of art in our nerves, after we heard of a certain short course being offered for free. It’s not just some ordinary short course, it’s a short course about 2D animation. For us, it’s a rare kind of course to be offered for free through a scholarship. After passing the grueling five-hour exam, we were told and given the schedule to submit the requirements and attend the training. Some of us missed the first few days of training. But we easily caught up with the lessons and the things they taught about animations. Every day is a day of discovery, a chance to reveal our true passion and skills to draw. Not just to draw but make our drawings move, give life to our rough doodling of just any kind of characters we got with our imaginations. But sometimes the rules and techniques of making our drawings move seemed complicated and hard. It needs a lot of hard work to do it, patience and practice until we could fully understand the process. We also need to learn and use certain computers softwares to give life to our scanned drawings. Repeat if the outcome is crappy and trash every single page of drawing if it looks deformed from the model drawing sheet. Spending days and nights doodling in a lightbox seemed to be a never-ending task until we could learn to master the ways of being an animator. Yes, we wanted to be an animator if we want to land a job in the future that complements our artistic passion.

The instructors were fun and patient in dealing with our tantrums. They tried their best to understand our flaws and let us discover our true strength in arts. Best of all, they appreciate everything we did with our talent.

But we remember each other as if we were connected with the stuff that we are doing—we love what we do. Our hard work defined the friendship we shared, thus, we were later called Kuris.

One Year After (20 months after to be exact): we became artists who learned to give life with our doodling. Making our drawings move like what Walt Disney or the people in Cartoon Network were doing is the best stuff we did throughout our artistic journey. And making history with our culturally-oriented projects makes us more proud and confident that we are indeed doing something great. We are now on the verge of looking back and taking everything in perspective. After we finished the short course in 2D animation and receive a certificate, those people who were responsible in giving us the scholarship failed to land us a job connected in animation industry. A lot of the trainees lost their hope but some of us tried to hold on together to pursue what we love to do. We are taking big steps to be discovered by potential people who could employ us in animation someday with our projects.

After the training some of us didn’t stop enhancing our talents and expanded our horizon. We risk a lot and inspired young artists that obstacles and criticisms is part of learning how to be good with your craft. Some of us took a break but we know that we can jump back once the right time will come. We are learning more and prepare for something better. We don’t lose hope, we only lose “fear” each time we try to overcome our limitations. Each of us has their own specialty and we believe we contribute to a collective artistic force that could fuel our drive in finding our dream.

After all this time, everything is not a just a mere illusion now. We can see clearly each time we hold on to the good memories we created together with our friendship. There’s no better way to express ourselves rather than hold a pencil and start doodling something in a piece of paper, scan these drawings and make them move with the computer softwares we learned to use. We refuse to be contented in using few softwares and techniques, we want to expand. Do something better and make the dream work.

“Time and failures” are just mere illusions if we learn to believe more that dreams do come true if we hold on to the friendship we shared. We made a mark and we can do it again. We are now animators in our own creative way.