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

Alex, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today What was the most important lesson/experience you had in a job that has helped you in your creative career?

Something I was told early on was to “be careful what you’re good at.” If you can’t stand it, don’t do it. Play dumb if you have to. Otherwise, if you’re not careful, you’ll become the person known for doing that one thing, and it’ll be a bulk of your day some days.

Previously, I have accidentally become the guy who troubleshoots everyone’s email account settings, the guy who fumbles in a panic through Cinema4D, the guy who ‘technically I guess knows a little bit of basic HTML’ who you expect to troubleshoot some fancy website. And at times, I was doing more confusing and overwhelming stuff like that than the stuff I’m actually good at and interested in. This one goes out to the people pleasers – saying “nah, no clue” can save your sanity later on.

Alex, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I’m Alex Benson, an animator and musician living in Washington. Currently, I freelance and create a series of music cartoons called DANG.

I specialize in character animation, usually hand-drawn, but sometimes digital. I design and animate for big fancy companies, little punk bands, DIY venues and video games.

A lot of my work is a 50/50 blend of my two passions, music and cartoons. I’ve always been in bands with my friends, and my bands usually became art projects, so at a certain point, everything I did kind of became a big blob of art and music, which has always been a fun, satisfying mix for me.

With DANG, I write songs that would be fun to animate to, and I draw cartoons that would be fun to write songs for. It kinda feels like I’m collaborating with myself, passing it from one side of my brain to the other, and the end product always kind of surprises me in some way.

I really like art, design, illustration and music that feels handmade and imperfect – if it’s too slick, glossy and snazzy, I usually lose interest. I feel like that’s usually what makes people bring me onto a project – that they’re also sick of that stuff, and want to have something feel expressive and human and a little wonky in a fun, playful way.

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

I didn’t do too much – I just made things that I wish existed, that I’d like to watch and listen to. Stuff that I wish I ran into more, that mixes my favorite bits of my favorite things. There wasn’t really any intentional audience building; I didn’t really expect anyone I didn’t know to stumble into my work. I was just playing around and having fun with ideas that excited me, and it turns out I’m not super special and there’s other people with similar taste as me.

Not that anyone should listen to me, but that would be my advice, I suppose. Just make the things you’re doomscrolling for, the thing that would really hit the spot for you personally if you landed on it, and try to make it interesting and loose enough for yourself that you can stay excited and experiment throughout the whole process.

Are there any books, videos or other content that you feel have meaningfully impacted your thinking?

When I first got into animation as a kid, I inhaled 3 books – The Illusion of Life by Frank and Ollie, The Animator’s Survival Kit by Richard Williams, and Creating 3-D Animation by Peter Lorde and Brian Sibley. These are more process and technique books, but I still have them on a shelf next to me and crack them open very often for inspiration and motivation. I’ve never thought too much about management or the business side of it; I just try to practice and get better every day, try to stay focused and share things when I’m proud of them.

Contact Info:

• Website: http://stuffalexmakes.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dang.dang.dang.dang/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alex-benson/
• Other: https://tiktok.com/@dang.dang.dang.dang

Image Credits

Alex Benson