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Hey, everybody, this is Roberto Blake. And in today’s video, I’m going to tell you a story. I’m going to tell you the story of how and why I gave up my dream of being an animator and a cartoonist to become a graphic designer. So part of my personal story is the fact that I have definitive proof that I could draw or was trying to draw before I even tried to walk. There’s a picture somewhere in a photo album of me as an infant playing with, you know, a sketchbook and paper, and it’s really cute. I’m sure everyone has a story like that, but I took it seriously enough to wear for as long as my own earliest memories are. I’ve been drawing and coming up with characters and stories. I mean, you know, um, I. Even is it like entrepreneur and hustler? I was like at I think. Five years old. I was hand drawing multiple copies of my same personal comic book with me as a superhero, and I was literally selling them for a quarter apiece to my classmates. And I kid you not. I was off doing that. I grew up with Scrooge Mcduck in duck tales at the cartoon as one of my personal heroes as a kid growing up, it was a Globetrotter. He was an adventurer. He was, you know, rich. Obviously, you know, he was making money. He was on doing all these interesting things, and I really, you know. I latched on to some things from that, and I was heavily influenced by cartoons and animation growing up as a kid, and that’s why I think I want to become a cartoonist, an animator. I was really into comics. I was into cartoons. I was into movies. My parents like every weekend. We’re taking me to the movie theater. And if we weren’t doing that, then we were at home watching movies. You know my parents whenever a new? Disney movie would come out whether it was a directed video, the new ducktales whether it was, you know, Aladdin Beauty in the boost. Whatever it was, rescuers rescuers down under wherever the new movie was for like the week the month. Whatever they bought it for me and we’d sit down popcorn and we’d watch the VHS and it made a tremendous influence in my life and back then before behind the scenes Dvds, they were doing the stuff on VHS and they were showing you the animators and the storytellers and behind the scenes stuff, and it just fascinated me so much. I was like I’m drawing, They’re drawing and this from the paper to being the cartoon on the screen, and that’s what I want to do, and so that’s where I got in my head from my earliest experiences in life that I was going to be a cartoonist. I was going to make animation. I was going to do comic books. I was going to illustrate story books and influence children and put smiles on their faces. And, you know, that was going to be my contribution to the world and to myself and what I did, and I genuinely believed that right up until about 16 or 17 years old. That that was my destiny, and as it turns out, not so much or maybe not yet, uh, it turns out that I have a different destiny and I’ll get into that a little bit later, but, uh, what ended up happening was? I stayed on that path throughout most of my life. I took on every piece of art that I could analyze the dissect. It tried to replicate it. I learned all these different drawing styles, art techniques. I studied art books on top of everything else. I was doing and I was the kind of kid. I consumed everything. I was reading the Encyclopedia Britannica for Fun. I could tell you everything about dinosaurs, and I was drawing the skeletons and the dinosaurs and everything people thought I was crazy. They thought was morbid because I was saying they’re drawing like animal skulls, but was dinosaurs. I was, you know, drawing a, you know a t-rex, so I was drawing an ankylosaurus so I was, you know, um, drawing a Diplodocus or whatever and I was sitting there reading books like the Field Manual, the dinosaurs. I love Jurassic Park. I got into everything Steven Spielberg at this phase where I got in the Ufos. I was drawing that Eddie and people think you know artists are nuts for a reason, and you know, every time. I was crazy, but anyway, I loved it. I loved my drawing. I would. Um, sit there and I would work hard so that I could get faster at all of my schoolwork so that I could finish your thirty minutes earlier before everyone else, so I could get back to drawing arm. You know, and still get an a because. I want to do that for my parents right up until like, middle school. And then I stopped caring about because I actually had paid Web design clients and I was like well. I can make, you know I can do this project or I can make $200 What am I gonna do so yes? I went for the money. Um, I’m not saying that everybody should do that by the way. If you’re watching this and you’re a young person, you should still kind of take school seriously, but also invest in your skills. Uh, with every other waking moment and go on to that hustle. And you know, it will make you successful in life, whereas the grades may or may not ask anybody in that employment line. What their grades were you’d? Be surprised what you find out, but, um, you know? I wanted to do this. This is what I wanted to do, and this is why I thought I was going to be doing with my life up into that point. So the change in the pivot became that as I became, you know, 15 16 17 I’d gotten into my design work. I’d gotten into building websites and doing Photoshop and Paint Shop Pro and even Adobe Premiere video editing because of, um, the wedding photography and videography side gig that I had going in my first quote-unquote real job. Um, you’re working for a husband-wife. They were doing the photo and video thing with their wedding planning business and so I was learning industry software. I was learning stuff. I was learning that there was money in it. I was making money I was still. You know, really concentrating really adamant about doing this stuff when I wasn’t making money or going to school and eventually got to a point to where I realized I had to choose and that, um, it was just like when I was doing soccer. I was doing soccer and was running track and a coach explained to me that I was a tremendous cross-country runner and a tremendous track runner. I ended up like clearing a five, a five ten mile, a – 26 – mile and in 1818 5k all those were my final stats and I could do that very well or I could be a mediocre soccer player, so I went track and cross-country. I had to do the same thing with my career aspirations artistically and decide well. I’m getting really good at building websites. I’m getting really good at designing logos and tattoos and flyers for churches and things like that, So it’s like I could do that, or I could struggle to not be as good as the people that we’re seeing. Were the best of the best of the best at this, and you know, not being good enough for Marble and Disney and I decided to go All-in on graphic design Because the thing is, I still loved it. I was still enjoying it and learning to something new, and I was getting frustrated with my art because I was holding myself to a standard for other people instead of doing why I started with which was drawing for myself and putting it out there and people care about. I don’t even got into Web design to share my art and my comics and trying to, and I failed repeatedly to do a successful webcomic. Oh, that was hilarious and, um, yeah, so. I did that, and I got into graphics and Web design to actually market and promote and show my photography and my drawings, and that’s where I started and that’s not how I finished so yeah, with that in mind. I realized that I needed to let art be pure. Art need to be something for me. And the commercial stuff needed to be commercial, and so I had to partition and decide not to fuss straight myself with a career in art where people would tell me what the draw because I hated that in class, so I was gonna hate it for a living if that was the case and not doing what I want, I read stories and things about comic creators, like, you know, the guys who did Superman, who, like you know that you know they might have gotten kind of a little ripped off on their electoral property or, like made deals, they shouldn’t have with studios and then in a poor and I didn’t want that to be my future in my life now. I’m not suggesting that anybody that wants to be An artist is gonna end up poor of and I do the videos on the channel kind of rescue people a little bit from starving artist syndrome. But you know, the thing with me was. I decided that art was something for myself and for people who liked it and that I wasn’t going to try to make money off of it because then it would change what I was doing and the purity of it and my love for it. I didn’t want that. Um, I also feel like I gave up because I didn’t think I was good enough, and I regret that I don’t regret the decision to become a graphic designer instead of an artist. Um, because of the tremendous things that’s done for me in my life and the success that I have today, I wouldn’t change it. But why would change the reasoning for the decision? I would change the reasoning for the decision and make it purely about keeping art for myself and not thinking I wasn’t good enough to be successful at it because that is the thing that I can’t stand about who I used to be. I would get discouraged way too easily. I would let people neg me. I would let people infect me with negativity. Make me believe I could do things. I would let other people dictate to me on some level. Who I am and I’ve been fighting the optics of that. My entire life. People telling me that because of things like maybe my race for my skin color, or you know where. I happen to be living at the time or what the marketplace was or whatever that I can’t do crap because of that. Screw the optics, and I will just fight and hustle harder to make those things a reality, and I will find people who do give a crap and get them on my side and I will, you know, get that positive reinforcement and people who will create opportunity for me and I will do that Instead of all the reasons I will find one way to be successful instead of focusing on the hundred reasons why I can’t, and that’s the difference of who I ultimately became versus who I was, and I think that I’m better for it. I think that as a result, we’ve built a great community. I’ve been able to create value for you from my experience and try to help you fight things that might be going on in your head about not feeling like you’re good enough, and not, you know, putting in the work or not realizing that there’s a way strategically to do it. I realized that I wouldn’t want to go back in time and be a successful artist that what I needed to do was need to double down on that cut. All of my hobbies cut playing yugioh and magic together and cut playing Xbox all the money. I spent on action figures and figurines. I should have invested all of my money all in to nothing but books like this and two extra art classes and more supplies and more gear and I should have been, you know, after school working my face off the other six hours of my day on that, and that is what I should have done if I wanted to be a successful cartoonist and do comics and do animation and I could have done it. I absolutely believed that I could have done it if I’d had the right guidance. The right mentorship in the right attitude. I would have been successful at it now. I have no regrets about that because I’m too grateful for the great community. I’ve built with you guys around the content that I’m doing now the career that I haven’t grabbed designed the relationships that I have the work that I’ve done. I would never trade any of that for the. What if I became a great cartoonist. So you know, just that in mind. Um, you know, but part of the reason I talked about. This is because last month, a tremendous artist and animator Monty Oum who inspired me and made me want to push harder and even get an animation project back going again. He passed away. Unfortunately, 33 years old. You know, not that much older than me like, literally two years older than I’m going to be in June, and you know, that struck a chord with me and I did some stuff on social, but I didn’t want to make this video about that and like ride the hype of his passing and I talked about wanting to do this video for a long time. So I just wanted to give it to you. Put it out there, say, you know. Thank You, Monty. For everything that you did to encourage and inspire other creative people for all the awesome you created and just say thank you and if you’re not familiar with. Monty, omen’s work. I have links in the description below. Check out! Ruby and you know, back when it was in the previous season. I did some fan art stuff for that, and you know, it was because yo, Monty Oum really, uh, inspired me to double back down. I’ve been doing so much with design to get. I was always still drawing this whole time, and you’ve seen my, you know, Speed art for that of in the sketchbook and on Instagram, and for following me there you’ve seen my sketchbook stuff, But he made me like want to say, you know what I actually have to actually do a sketch every week. Now, uh, because he made me like, want to take that game up again and really, you know, inspired me with his story and his journey. So you know, that’s it, and I really wish that I had had more mentorship and that I’d had somebody else to really encourage me to say, do what I did for the right reasons, make the exact same decision, but not because I didn’t think I was good enough. Never believed that you’re not good enough. Always do an honest audit of yourself, but don’t believe you can’t achieve something. Find a way to do it if you can well. I hope you guys have benefited from my story. It ran longer than I thought it would but again. I’m not doing massive editing to this. So you know, just to keep everything real. So I think that’s fine anyway. I hope you enjoyed this. I hope it benefited you in some way, Hearing my story and why I gave up being an animator to become a graphic designer. Today, anyway, like this video. If you liked it, don’t forget to subscribe. Check out the other awesome content that channel. Leave me questions in the comment section below about this stuff by the way as always, you guys. Thanks so much for watching, and don’t forget. Create something awesome today. You absolutely can. You’re more than good enough.