I had some Time to Think about it!
Something changed that weekend. You know, I was always interested in many creative things. Taking pictures, making movies, writing stories, making websites, drawing and even some drumming. But I can’t do it all and expect to be good at it. Then this weekend I stumbled upon the new Adobe App Character Animator and suddenly it seemed so clear. There was a cool way to combine many of my passions into one thing. Through Character Animator I’m able to write and draw stories and animate them in an easy way which allows me to focus on the creative aspect instead of the process. So that is what my goal now is.
Then there’s the question of hardware. I noticed when I played around with the app that my 8-year-old iMac wasn’t really up for the task anymore with lots of load times in between small and mundane tasks. I knew that one day I would need to replace it but until I knew exactly what I need the computer to do I couldn’t really decide on what kind of machine, you know how powerful it should be and the form factor (laptop or desktop). But now that changed and I thought long and hard about what kind of Mac it should be, even went for a long walk where I thought about it all. So in the end, I decided on a new iMac. What spoke against a laptop is simply money. You get a much more powerful machine for less money when you can spare the need for mobility and I had to be honest with myself here, I don’t see myself doing character animation or editing on the go. Drawing characters or writing stories yes, but that can be done on the iPad or my old MacBook Air.
So there you have it. I don’t plan on buying a new iMac right away since new ones will probably get released this summer, so I’m waiting for those. But in the meantime, I can practice and learn the applications and think of stories and characters. There’s a certain relief now because I thought this through and I’m feeling good about where I’m headed with this.
Now one last thing. All that doesn’t mean I won’t do other stuff, like shooting real-life videos, taking pictures or redesigning this blog, but the focus ain’t there and that’s ok.