Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Dan Sollaccio. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Hi Dan, thanks for joining us today. One of our favorite things to hear about is stories around the nicest thing someone has done for someone else – what’s the nicest thing someone has ever done for you?

The kindest thing anyone has ever done for me involves a gift I received when I was graduating from college in June 2024, but this requires some background information.

Throughout my time at DePaul University, I found myself frequently using this one, silly character I had designed around when I was a freshman. I named him Lil’ Somethin’. I would use him in animation assignments, doodle him on whiteboards around campus, and sometimes include him in my signature. A lot of people ended up loving the character, which I’m really grateful for!

I met a ton of amazing people while I was at DePaul and still keep up with a lot of them nearly a year after graduating. One of these lovely people is my roommate, Connor, who was planning a surprise graduation gift for me. We had a party at one of our friends’ apartments where a bunch of us got together to decorate our graduation hats, but once everyone showed up I was asked to sit in the kitchen. Connor then presented me with a book that was full of artwork of Lil’ Somethin’ made by a ton of the friends I had made at DePaul, most of which were in the room with me! There were even drawings from several professors from DePaul! The book represents that I ended up making a big, positive impact on these people. I cried a bit at the party and some more afterwards because I found the gift incredibly meaningful. I love and appreciate my friends so much, and I’ll always have that book to remind me on the tougher days that I can and have left a positive impact on this world.

Dan, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

Sure! I’m a Chicago based freelance animator/storyboard artist/voice actor. I studied at DePaul University and graduated in June 2024 with a BFA in Animation. I specialize mainly in 2D character animation, though I am also very skilled in areas such as storyboarding, illustration, character design, 3D animation, and voice acting!

As I was preparing for college and trying to figure out what I wanted to major in and pursue as a career, I tried to think back to what I enjoyed doing for fun both in the present and as a child. At the time, I was very active in an online community with a bunch of fun people who happened to be artists, which reminded me that I really enjoyed drawing as a child! Seeing their art and their improvement with each piece ended up encouraging me to not only pick drawing back up but also to look into pursuing animation as a career. I’m delighted to say I’ve come a long way since then and I’m glad to be where I am today!

While I was in college, I found my footing both with my style of humor and the way I like to animate. I found that I love to find ways to play with a character’s design and personality to make movements that are not only satisfying to watch but also feel natural and authentic to who the character is. It can be fun to act out these actions in person, which I love to do even when I’m around friends since it can end up making us laugh and spark more ideas! I also love to play with the timing and pacing of a sequence. I think there’s so much potential in both holding for a long time on one shot or rapidly moving from one thing to another. It can do wonders for strengthening jokes or selling the impact of an emotional moment. It’s an incredibly important thing I always consider when working on a scene.

Outside of my freelance work, I make time for other creative hobbies that keep my brain active and fuel more ideas. For example, I’ve had a lot of fun making live action skit videos for my YouTube channel, which I frequently invite friends to be involved with. I make original art for all of the video thumbnails and edit all of the videos myself. I would love to expand what I do on that YouTube channel to include animated videos as well though! I also sketch in my sketchbook frequently and have recently begun writing in a notebook to develop new ideas. I have several new short film ideas in mind that I absolutely want to make a reality, so I’ve begun writing out details for them in this notebook. This has helped way more than I thought it would, as it makes the ideas feel much more attainable!

I also spend a lot of time playing games, watching movies, listening to music, seeing friends, and playing with my silly orange cat, Alphie!

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

For me, it’s all about being part of a community and sharing things with people you care about.

While I was in college, I met a bunch of incredible people who had either been working on their skills for a long time leading up to college or were fairly new to what they were pursuing. The common thing among all of these people that stuck with me though is that they were passionate. They loved not only what they were doing but loved being around other people like them! We were all very different from each other in a lot of ways, but we all had a shared interest that allowed us to connect socially and with active activities. We’ve drawn a lot together and have shared a lot of our art with each other, and it’s always fun! We were all very kind and welcoming to each other, and it resulted in a large, lovely community.

I talk with these friends every day online and still make time to see them in person. Honestly, they’re the biggest reason why I wanted to keep living in Chicago after graduating. I loved the community aspect behind making art so much that I didn’t want to leave! I find so much inspiration and energy from my friends that pushes me to not only find ways to improve on my own established skills but also to try new things and build up new skills!

For example, I’ve been blocking out time recently to practice different rendering techniques in 2D illustration and to finally learn how to use Blender so I can learn more about 3D character modeling. It’s been slow, but it’s fun to share that progress with my friends! We’re always there to encourage each other and provide genuine, thought out feedback that only helps us grow as artists and become stronger friends.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

This is honestly something I’m still working through but I struggle a lot with perfectionism and comparing myself to others.

I’ll often find myself dwelling a lot on preparing to do a certain task or get into a new creative project because I get in my head about if I’ll be able to do it “right.” There’s a lot that can come into my head such as wondering if I have the skills to do what I want to do, how long a project will take me, if there’s other things I should focus on instead, if the project is even worth it, etc. There’s a lot of ways I can fall into a rabbit hole full of worries, but I’ve been finding methods on how to get through these difficulties that work for me.

Recently, I’ve begun doing something called time blocking. At the end of a day, I’ve begun writing out a schedule for the things I know I want to do the next day and assign them both to a specific time of the day and a length of time (ex: 10:30 AM – 11:30 AM: Gym & Shower.) When I’m scheduling time to work though, I make sure to start with a very small amount of time to get myself into a working mood. For example, I will tell myself to work on a project for just 5 minutes and then take a 5 minute break. I’ll do this a few times to get myself into a rhythm and to get more excited about what I’m doing. Then I’ll increase the amount of time I spend working before taking another break. I may increase it to something like 10 minutes, then 20 or 30 minutes. I find that limiting these blocks to a small amount of time encourages me to try and do as much as I can before the next break, which really helps with keeping progress on a project moving along!

Time blocking has helped so much with initiating tasks I’ve been meaning to get to. As a result, I’m finding myself much more productive and active in a wider variety of creative activities in a single day! It has allowed me to feel that I have the time and capabilities to pursue more ideas I’ve previously had to put on hold. As a result, I’m picking up new skills and improving in many areas!

Regarding my struggle with comparing myself with others, this has also been something that time blocking has helped me with. I’ve found myself looking at what other people around my age have accomplished and comparing it to where I’m at in the present. This has caused me to come down really hard on myself and lose sight of what I actually have done that I can be proud of. Instead of looking at what I’ve done and thinking “I’m doing great!” I’ll look at what another person has done that feels way beyond me and think “I need to catch up to them.”

My way of going through this involves grounding myself back in reality by thinking about the journey another person has gone through to get where they are now. The people I’m comparing myself to have all gone on vastly different journeys through life than me. We all not only went through our own unique struggles but also found a passion for art at different stages of our lives. This means we’ve all spent a much different amount of time working on these skills. So the way forward is to make time in the present to work on these skills so you improve in the future! For example, I’d love to be a better writer and figure out how to improve at creating/developing my own characters, worlds, and stories. The thing I need to accept is that the way this will happen is by making time to try doing it! It’ll mean that I might not make anything amazing at the start, but that’s ok! I have to believe in my ability to improve through putting in the effort in order to make any progress. Even if it’s only for a little block of time a day, it’s still progress towards improvement!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.dansollaccio.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stufffromdan/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dan-sollaccio/
• Twitter: https://x.com/StuffFromDan
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@stufffromdan

Image Credits

All photos were taken by me, Dan!