The World of Goodinmaginations
Creativity & Imagination
SUBSCRIBE HERE
About
I am a freelance animator and comic book writer, who is on the autistic spectrum; but this only enables me to break free from the “normal” everyday mind-set so I can visualize and explore a greater range of stimulating ideas, storylines and visual impacts for my story telling.
I have been working on animated adverts for dog walking and job board businesses, though my main focus, since leaving university, is in creating a story about Blackpool’s first superhero. A story about a young teenage boy with the ability to run as fast as the speed of light called ‘Dasher’.
My Journey
As a youngster, I loved art and designing cartoon style characters, especially Superheroes. This has helped me generate a suite of ideas and characters which I was unsure how to bring to life. But I had a name “Dasher”!
A chance encounter and successful interview at the University of Central Lancashire (UCLAN) solidified my want to explore animation, from which I gained a 1st Class Honours Degree in Animation. My first 2 years at UCLAN covered the tools and skills to create character designs, the basics of animation, and application of associated software suite (Adobe & Toon Boon Harmony), to enable students to create a suite of 1- and 2-minute animations to build our experience and skills.
In my final year, I had the choice of either do Comic Book Writing, Game Designing, or Animation, to follow and support our final year Project. Picking up from my childhood enjoyment of developing cartoon and comic characters, I chose Comic Book Writing in order to bring to life my “Dasher” superhero comic idea I have held for a long time. To support this, my lecturer suggested for me to add animation to it so I can bring my animation skills to a forefront as well. Using the skills developed in my first 2 years and the courses attended in my final year, I developed my first issue of my Dasher comic incorporating animation to several pages/panels of it; which helped me obtain my first class honours degree and commendations from my lecturers. This journey and experience gelled and inspired my calling to become a Comic Book Writer (but I still retain all my creative and animation skills). From a young age I had a vision of being in charge of my own destiny, and so post University I took the brave step and threw myself into developing my business/website “Goodinmaginations.com”; to develop my Dasher superhero comic series. Hopefully, I can start a superhero universe set in the UK, present it to the world and build my dream and legacy.
It hasn’t been and still isn’t easy.
There are plenty of times when I doubt myself and worry that my stories of Dasher and my artwork aren’t good enough. However, I have to remember that my business is still new and under development. All the comments I get should only improve me and my product and not hold me back. Nothing happens overnight, it is and will be for a while very hard graft to get my vision and product into the public eye and build my dream.
My story
A Talented Animator, and story teller
As a child, and like many children, I was fascinated by the world of cartoons, especially superheroes. I would just let my imagination run riot, develop and draw many different superhero characters, sidekicks and their nemeses; as well as the worlds in which they inhabited.
This passion grew within me, especially as I progressed through Art and Design courses at Preston's College. It was then by accident, during an open day visit to UCLan, I saw the opportunity to not only study Animation, but with it, the chance to bring my ideas and superhero characters to life.
Even with autism, the University supported me in my studies and after 3 years, I graduated in 2020 with a First Class Honors Degree in Animation from UCLan.
I am now having the time of my life using my skills in animation and producing comic book stories about my Superhero – ‘Dasher’.
I hope to inspire other people who have dreams about what they would like to achieve in the wonderful world of ‘art’ and ‘imagination’ - I am proof that this is possible. With lots of hard work, support and belief in yourself – there are no limits!
The way I work
As with all of us, it takes time to generate stories. However, this early phase and time taken is important to enable us to build those characters, plot lines and worlds they live in.
In developing these early stages, our brains are a very important tool in our armory of imagination. For me, allowing my brain to brake free and wander helps me to create the possible from the impossible.
So for all you budding artists, animators and comic book writers, take time in letting your mind wander to explore the impossible to create your possible.
My advice to anyone out there
If anyone out there is looking to be an animator or a comic book writer, always remember that your art is unique and special to you.
As I work on my comics or animations, I do worry about how the viewer would judge the story based on my art style. I soon realized we are all different with different art styles; so we should embrace these differences and the unique interpretations that they can bring.
So remember, your art style is unique and important to you, so embrace but don't take any judgements made personally. Just let your imagination, your creativity and your skills present your stories within your unique and personal style.