Across 25 years of life, I have observed people and the way they walk; I have memorized and been able to mimic hundreds of walking gaits, types of body language and nonverbal gestures used by people to communicate in different ways. I also see this type of pattern in the (gasp) almost millions of forms of animation I have come to see in my life. From 1930's black and white cartoons I saw reran on channels like Boomerang to the graphical near-godly talent provided by YouTube's Alan Becker in his Animator VS Animation series, I've seen it all, and paid close attention to how certain types of characters behave.
And I have saved nearly every instance of character depiction I have seen in a mental archive of lesson-learning and practice, which I have used to sharpen my drawing skills over decades of practice....needless to say, several of my family and friends are nonetheless impressed by my little comics.
Before I started spending time on a sketchbook I had a graphics tablet for a short time, and Maddog let me get a program called Krita (or was it Animate CC? I forget) and I actually had a few animation projects going....which I deleted because I didn't like how they turned out.
Context over. Getting back to the I Feel Like A Cartoon part, I don't know whether this is yet another quirk of my autism like I always talk about but I feel like I've paid TOO much attention because sometimes in my mind's eye, I see the world around me drawn as a modern cartoon, something along the lines of ToonStruck or the so-called "Roger Rabbit Effect", in that I just find myself automatically, subconsciously animating life in my mind as a 2D student film that just kinda never ends.
I'm worried that this will make people believe I have a warped perception of reality, because for someone like me that has both caused and been through lots of mental trouble in different ways, I'm actually pretty coherent when it comes to coping with life even if I do have bad days and moments. I know how to differentiate between fiction and reality, but when I'm not doing anything else I just turn life into a "mind cartoon" just because I'm bored and have nothing better to do; I mean, what, you expect me to just sit there at the pharmacy while I wait on my medication to be filled and I don't have my phone because it's at home charging? I need fun!
And I have saved nearly every instance of character depiction I have seen in a mental archive of lesson-learning and practice, which I have used to sharpen my drawing skills over decades of practice....needless to say, several of my family and friends are nonetheless impressed by my little comics.
Before I started spending time on a sketchbook I had a graphics tablet for a short time, and Maddog let me get a program called Krita (or was it Animate CC? I forget) and I actually had a few animation projects going....which I deleted because I didn't like how they turned out.
Context over. Getting back to the I Feel Like A Cartoon part, I don't know whether this is yet another quirk of my autism like I always talk about but I feel like I've paid TOO much attention because sometimes in my mind's eye, I see the world around me drawn as a modern cartoon, something along the lines of ToonStruck or the so-called "Roger Rabbit Effect", in that I just find myself automatically, subconsciously animating life in my mind as a 2D student film that just kinda never ends.
I'm worried that this will make people believe I have a warped perception of reality, because for someone like me that has both caused and been through lots of mental trouble in different ways, I'm actually pretty coherent when it comes to coping with life even if I do have bad days and moments. I know how to differentiate between fiction and reality, but when I'm not doing anything else I just turn life into a "mind cartoon" just because I'm bored and have nothing better to do; I mean, what, you expect me to just sit there at the pharmacy while I wait on my medication to be filled and I don't have my phone because it's at home charging? I need fun!
