Hey, I’m Rick Glass
When I was a kid I loved creating - drawings, paintings, play-doh sculptures, you name it, I loved making it. I knew I wanted to share my passion for art with the world, and as I got older my interest in film and animation exploded. I chased that passion and now I have been a professional animator for over a decade. I’ve worked on movies, TV shows, game cinematics, commercials, and VFX films. I have worked with large corporations, tiny studios, and everything in between. Throughout my career I’ve learned so much, and now its time for me to pass on that knowledge to the next wave of aspiring artists and animators, and so I started - Animation Advisor.
My philosophy for coaching, and life…
You are the master of your fate.
You are the only person who can make your life what you want it to be. As with anything, you can buy all the books, schedule the classes, plan to study. But if you don’t put your butt in the seat and put in the time and work. Nothing will ever happen. Intentions matter less than what you do.
I have always chased failure with my work. The reason being, is that failure is where we find our weakness, our flaws, and where we can most quickly improve. In animation, consistently pushing for failure, might mean your demo reel is ready later, but it means when you get that first or second job, you will be a rock star.
Failure is fine… if you learn from it.
All art is a reflection of you.
An artist who hasn’t lived their life, will have nothing of value to say. You have to make time to go live your life outside of animation and art. Go, fall in love, take that trip, enjoy wildly divergent hobbies. We all love animation, and art, but too much of a good thing can hurt you. Take it from a guy who knows, sometimes the way to get better at something, is to do something else.
We aren’t just trying to learn animation.
Animation is a VERY complex art-form. All other art forms either directly feed, or relate to animation. I think the only way you can become a truly great animator is by trying to learn as much as you can about art. Build an appreciation for the different art disciplines, study them, it can only make you a better artist.
Success in ANYTHING is consistency.
We have all done a few animation all nighters. Trying to get that animation done for class, or to update the demo reel before the submission deadline for a job fair. While that can be valuable from time to time. Doing just 2-3 hours of study and animation per day would produces far better results, with less stress.
There is no time limit.
It can be frustrating to see other people you know land amazing jobs, while you struggle to find something that is a good fit for you. But trust me when I say, if you keep working and consistently push yourself forward, you will eventually find your place. When that happens, no one will care how long it took. Just keep going.