Last week, I took on an unplanned challenge to come up with quick animations for seven days and post them as reels on Instagram. My page hasn’t been as active as it once was and I’ve been feeling the need to re-oil my gears for a bit.
It all started with Friday Night Comics, this comics workshop (by SAW Comics with Rachal A. Duggan) I attended online one Saturday morning (I live in GMT +8, so it was Saturday Morning Comics for me). The prompts were simple and really didn’t require a lot of mind bending. It felt good to keep things simple too, and not think about big concepts. For the last prompt, we had to draw four things we did that week (so simple!). I looked back at photos I took from the past week to jog my memory and doodled what I could in the time we were given. It’s exercises like this that help things get started, like my week-long project of animated reels for the Gram. I didn’t really think much of it at first, but midway through the week, I came up with a piece that got me really excited and emotional.
So here they are, sharing with you the 6 of 7 animated illustrations I did last week:
Start the Week with Heavy Metal
A quick doodle, and what started this challenge. Upon A Burning Body’s “Extermination” is one of my go-to tracks to push myself forward when I’m feeling down (and believe you me, I’ve been tumbling down a hill for a very long time now).
After this piece got animated, I carried on with my portrait commissions and a little bit of my graphic novel. Things are moving slowly, but surely!
Ramen with You
Went on a little ramen date with my high school friend, Karen, who came home to visit from Düsseldorf after a decade. It was so nice to look back and chat about life in Germany (a very short chapter in my teenage life was spent in Wuppertal), the lives we’re living now (being indispensable), and the people we were back in the day (absolute dorks). We’ve grown so much since we last saw each other (which was in Singapore of all places), but it’s always great to reconnect and reserve an entire afternoon for a friend.
On top of that, we hung out at Mitsukoshi, a mall in Taguig I’d been meaning to go back to for a while. It’s good to go out for some me time—something I highly encourage moms from all walks of life to prioritize for the sake of our sanity.
Lia
One of my favorite songs that came out this year is “Lia” by Zild. This illustration was inspired by the music video, where Zild goes around Tokyo. There’s a scene that zooms out of the Godzilla head mounted on top of the Hotel Gracery in Shinjuku, so I thought of drawing it up. It was fun animating Godzilla’s atomic breath. Took a few frames to pull off, too.
I’m actually not so sure how I ended up thinking about drawing Godzilla. I don’t know how I landed there, but whatever it was, it gave birth to one of my favorite illustrations last week. Maybe it was because we’d just booked our trip to Tokyo for Christmas. We’re all sooo excited! Can’t wait to listen to “Lia” there and see if it hits different.
My Sleeping Heart
My heart is asleep. It has been for nearly three years now. With a baby to look after and the ubiquitous darkness that clouds my mind following the death of my dad, my heart has been…should we say…tired and uninspired. And stressed. Possibly even lost. But I know it’s still in there. I can feel the sparks igniting inside my chest, but I know I have to let it rest before the big explosions arrive.
This realization hit me at 6 a.m., while the kid was still asleep. I rolled out of bed with this image in my head, and started sketching. It felt good to draw something so honest and vulnerable, and frankly, quite simple—I haven’t done so in a while. I even shared it with the world with no hesitation, but the sentiment didn’t hit me until I typed the words “my heart is asleep” to a friend I’d sent the piece to. I cried on the floor, feeling as if a weight had been lifted, finally acknowledging the numbness that’s held my heart hostage for years.
It’s pretty hard being a creative. I thought it would be easy peasy, since drawing and writing always came naturally to me as a kid. But when it’s what you do for a living, something shifts. I’m not complaining; I love that creating art and writing stories is my job (especially since I don’t know how to do anything else, haha). Just stating a fact. Art is hard, but when you fight for your tiny sparks to stay lit, your heart will keep beating and those sparks will reignite into flames.
I used UDD’s “kapoy” to soundtrack this illustration. Kapoy is one of my favorite Filipino words. It means tired, but to me it’s not just tired-tired. It’s like a whole other level of exhaustion wherein you just want to crumple up on the floor and lay there for a while. Heavy sigh. That is me.
My Shark
This is Part 2 of My Sleeping Heart. The little bits of art that come to me, even though my heart is asleep.
Back in high school through college and all the way to my days working as a music and lifestyle writer, my ADHD would take my head places where it shouldn’t be. I’d be writing fantastical stories in class and at the office, when I should’ve been focusing on other tasks. I wrote about musically gifted teens, depression, otherworldly cities, and spirits living inside their descendants. I used to watercolor in front of my boss in our open-space office without a care. I even doodled at concerts, where the lights would flash and flicker like crazy. But for some reason, that fire was put out. I never find myself spending hours on end in those worlds. Maybe that’s a part of being a new mom, too. I sometimes can’t find my way back in, but when I do, oh, does it feel magical. Just like that little shark swimming in my hand.
One day, my shark will be huge again and I’ll be the one riding it across the seas.
This illustration was paired with “blink” by Clara Benin. I really love Clara’s music. It’s so calming and her words are so relatable. Her latest single “hiding in the bathroom” cuts me deep.
Bisikleta
After two weeks in the UK playing sound guy for December Avenue, my husband Sho finally returned home. To fight off jet lag, I dragged him out of the house to take our kid to school and have lunch afterwards. While we waited for our lasagna (and clam chowder for Kaz), they played with some bikes from the sports shop just outside the restaurant. Kaz can’t reach the pedals yet since he’s still really small, but he has the determination of a biker ready to hit the town with his wheels. I’ll take him around the village and explore some trails when he’s older. Mommy misses her MTB (it’s got a dropper too, which some bikers commented with “angas mehhhnn”)!
Kaz & Rio Go to a Party
So, I didn’t get to animate this one, because we spent the whole day outside. We went to McDonald’s to celebrate a friend’s baby’s 1st birthday party. Kaz and his buddy, Rio (son of my college bestie, Jamie), had a little dance off. After the party, we hung out at the park near my house and got coffee while the kids played with their water bottles and ate chicken pot pie.
I just gotta say, it’s so fun to have a kid around the same time as your best friend. It’s the dream! Figuring out motherhood is something Jamie and I never thought we’d be doing together, but here we are. Two young (hot) moms, both lacking sleep, raising little boys with big personalities. Man, I wouldn’t be surprised if these guys end up in a band together with Kaz on guitar and Rio on bass. Unless they end up as dancers—who knows?
So that wraps up my week-long animated illustration challenge. Would I do it again? Heck yeah! But probably not when I have a lot of commissions to deliver and pages to ink. My deadlines are catching up on me again, so I better get back to work and keep those sparks alive. Smell ya later, amigos!
This post originally appeared on my Substack newsletter, Karaland.