We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Kaleb Sullivan. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Kaleb below.

Kaleb, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Did you always know you wanted to pursue a creative or artistic career? When did you first know?

It was 2014 in the living room after I watched Disney’s Frozen. Kind of ironic because I didn’t even know that movie was coming out. My mom got it on DVD, not knowing what it was, and we watched it at home. I can’t explain why, but I fell in love with the way the characters looked, the way the snow moved, and that incredible ice palace. It was at that point I decided to become an artist and one day make movies of my own.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

My name is Kaleb and I am an animator from Georgia, creating independent cartoons for a worldwide audience. I first started learning animation and filmmaking with only a camera and Legos. Over the next few years, I made dozens of short films, learning hand drawn animation and later computer animation. After graduating high school, I got my first animation job creating short cartoons for a YouTube channel. That same year I also started university, pursuing a degree in Computer Animation. This was a time of significant growth for me as an artist. I was making a new cartoon every couple of months while going to school and creating my own shorts on the side.

The year I graduated was one of the darker periods of my life. It was 2021 and Hollywood was a dumpster fire. I decided to pivot from the traditional path and become an entrepreneur full time. I landed a couple good contracts making interstitials and commercials, but they were few and far between. The rest were practically scams that took advantage of new artists just starting out. I thought if I kept producing higher quality content than other freelancers I saw, better jobs would come. I wouldn’t learn until much later that I wasn’t outperforming anyone. In fact, I was under performing because I was slowly producing “higher quality” animation in a market that’s focused on speed and quantity.

At this point I wanted to quit, get a normal job, and get paid something reasonable. One day on a whim, I made a short fan animation of an old TV show. To my surprise, it started getting major attention from industry pros and ordinary viewers alike. I decided to produce more and see what would happen. What followed was the biggest growth I have ever experienced as an independent artist. My socials began getting lots of traffic and my videos started receiving hundreds of thousands of views.

At the same time, the indie animation community really started to come alive on YouTube and other social platforms. I took this as a sign from God to try making my own cartoons again. Between fan projects and parodies, I slip little pieces of my own stuff out for the world to see. I take notes on what people like and dislike and then make adjustments. Right now, I’m wrapping up production on a self-produced original short that will be entered in film festivals soon.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

The forever unachievable goal of perfectionism is a hard lesson to learn, but one you must get through if you want to move forward. For instance, I’m very good at making fluid animation with lots of intricate details. The pitfall, however, is that I get stuck in this mindset that I must put that much work into every shot I work on or it will be viewed as laziness. Not only is this wrong, but it’s simply unsustainable from a production standpoint.

Learning about the production of old animated TV shows really put things into perspective for me. You have to create so much footage in such a short amount of time that you truly can’t waist any time on perfection. You must swallow your pride and give yourself limits like a professional. And if you are an indie artist with no team backing you up, this is especially true. I can’t remember who told me this, but it has stuck with me for years. “Don’t make a 60 second short. Don’t even make a 20 or 10 second short. Animate just a 5 second shot, focus on learning one thing, and then move on.”

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

When just starting out, the hard truth is nobody cares about you, your character, or your stories. My recommendation is to join a community before trying to build your own. If you are an artist, then that could be fan art, reimaginings, or parodies. Ideally what you create should be something that is very similar to—or even the inspiration—for your original content. When that starts getting attention, start slipping in bits of your characters and stories.

You can see this same thought process in the professional field. When pitching a TV show, you are expected to gather examples of other shows similar to yours. That way you know who your target audience is, if there is a high demand for this kind of show or not, potential cost, competition, etc. This is true for almost any type of media.

Find your community, add value to that community, and then offer them something new.

Now, there is a danger to this I should warn you about. If done incorrectly, this strategy will land you in a niche. For example, I started out in the Minecraft community making animated music videos. That’s what I was known for and that is what was expected of me. So, when I tried making anything that wasn’t Minecraft, my viewers hated it. The way I was able to escape was to start appealing to other fandoms. I’m careful now to not brand myself as an animator of one particular fandom.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://navillusstudio.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/navillusstudio/
• Twitter: https://x.com/NavillusStudio
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@NavillusStudio