We were lucky to catch up with Lucas DeLong recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Lucas, thanks for joining us today. Are you happy as a creative professional? Do you sometimes wonder what it would be like to work for someone else?

I am, without a doubt, happiest as an artist. While I’ve had thoughts about getting a regular job, they never last long, I always go straight back to making art.

Ever since I was a little kid I wanted to make art, and what kind of art went through a lot of changes. From fashion, to comics, to animation, all I knew for sure was that I wanted to do something creative. However, when I was a late teenager, I stopped telling people I was going to be an artist. I’d either say I was going into psychology, or that I was going to work a random retail job just to get by. Not a lot of people believed that art was a viable career option for me, so I felt like I had to give it up. Once I graduated high school I had to pick between working or going to college, and I found myself going to art school, even though I was going to quit.

I’ve quit art a couple of times, but it’s the one thing I always come back to. I know that, even if a regular job had more money or stability, I would not be happy doing it, so I’d rather fight tooth and nail to make art work for me.

Lucas, 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?

Animation made me feel like I was stepping into another world, and I thought there was something really magical about that. I became really obsessed with all things animation, I learned about the techniques, the schools, the history, as much as I could. Right now I mainly work on commission, but I’ve also done work for exhibits as well.

As for what I’m most proud of, I’d probably say my newest animation ROT. It’s a stop motion short film about a character who is dying, but asks the viewer to continue fighting anyway. The main character I made myself, he’s basically a doll with armature wire stuck inside him, but what’s really cool is that he’s also stuffed with mycelium. This means, throughout the film, he was actively growing mushrooms out of him. Each scene showed a new progression of this growth, until eventually he had died, but the mushrooms grew on. This was meant to show how even when something dies, new life will grow from it, so a battle lost is not the end. I made it during the SVA Bioart Residency, and they were pretty surprised I was able to pull it off! A lot of people thought he would grow mold and have to be terminated, but he persisted! I considered my doll to be a partner in the creation of the short, because the mushrooms were another living lifeform, so the story could be completely changed based on what they wanted to do. It was pretty lucky that they did exactly what I had planned, but I like to think that they liked the story I had, and wanted to help me complete it.

I plan to always keep making animations like that, breaking the mold and making new things, but I may take a backseat as a director at some point. In the future, I plan to open my own animation studio known as Uncharted Territories Animation. The focus of the studio will be on telling the stories of underprivileged people. There are plenty of talented people that couldn’t pursue art due to time, location, or cost, and they all have stories worth telling. For too long, the field of animation has been dominated by old white men. Even when we get minorities in charge, they still have to answer to their higher ups, which often leads to censoring of their stories. For example, the recent Pixar film Elio allegedly had much more queer and Latinx representation, but were forced to remove it. A lot of studios now want to present the idea of representation, but are not interested in going all the way. I want to put that power back in the hands of artists and directors,

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

Going to college was probably the most resilient thing I did. College was not affordable for me, and considering I was going into art, I knew the chances of me getting out of debt were slim. But, I also knew that I wasn’t going to be able to make it on my own. I spent 8 years in cyber school which let my social anxiety fester, making networking unrealistic without help, and I also had ADHD, making learning on my own far more difficult than it may be for other people. I knew if I wanted to get serious about art, I needed help. Not only that, but college was something I always wanted to do. Cyber school was a miserable experience for me, so I really wanted to be able to not only go to a school for something I loved, but also just go to school in general, with people who I knew would understand me.

It was really difficult to navigate all the details, as my family and I weren’t really sure what we were going to do. I had to contact a lot of people and ask a lot of questions, and each of those answers just led to more questions. When it came down to the wire, it seemed like it just wasn’t going to happen. I had to turn down one school because even with student loans, it was still far too expensive, and I thought I was going to have to do it again. But, after fighting, begging, and working, they agreed to up my scholarship enough to cover the rest of the costs. It’s still not easy, I work two jobs to cover all of my expenses on top of doing commission work when I can, and then I still go to class and do my homework. There are times I wonder if it’s worth it, but when I’m sitting in class listening to someone talk about the thing I’m most passionate about in life, I know I made the right choice. Despite being so busy, I’ve still managed to make waves with my work, and I know I’ll continue to do so until I graduate.

Looking back, are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

There are far too many to list! It’s actually crazy just how many resources are out there and readily available to artists. It’s true when they say you don’t NEED college to be an artist, everything is out there for you to learn, it’s just about if you’re able to do it on your own.

For a long time, I only used the program Firealpaca, because I thought that was the only decent free art program out there, but after digging around, I found plenty more. I’d also find more resources just by talking to other artists, as they would share what they knew, and then I’d add it to what I knew, and the list just grew!

This led to me making a document that I hand out to others which lists all the resources I know about. The focus of the document is on FREE resources, so I try to avoid anything that absolutely requires payment. It’s divided by programs on PC, apps for your phone, websites, brushes for programs, and art trends/games. It also has a section that mentions whether the resources was vetted by me personally, which simply states whether it worked or not. I add to it occasionally, and try to include anything other people bring to my attention. It is completely free to share around, and people are welcome to save a copy that they can edit to suit their own needs, such as if they just want illustration resources, they can cut out all the animation and narrow it down to just that. Here is the link: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1iqS06Ct2W5d55vO0I1PmKzk-sSNi5LEce9bKS2AltCM/edit?usp=sharing .

Contact Info:

• Website: https://ironiczombie.mmm.page/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ironiczombie/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucas-delong-019261328/
• Other: https://linktr.ee/ironiczombie