tips on making an indie cartoon series (Patreon)

Someone on twitter asked if I had any tips for making an indie cartoon series... I feel like I could write a book on the subject haha! but here are a few I answered him with, just off the top of my head.

-plan a lot BUT don't beat yourself up for not hitting your goals

-tailor the content to maximize what you're good at/ enjoy & streamline what's hard/ tedious (in my case I'm bad at cleanup so I just let the linework stay rough, I use a simplified approach to lipsync using just 5 basic mouths)

-let the show change based on what you learn as you go (certain aspects are less funny or interesting than I originally hoped so I don't use them as much)

-keep the scale small whenever possible (most episodes are just in one location with a handful of characters)

-ask friends to get involved (but only if they're up for it! in my case it's mostly voice acting)

-recurring locations=less backgrounds you have to draw

-take time to establish 'normal' in the show's world so that when weird stuff happens, the viewer understands that it's weird (this is a big thing I see a lot of people ignore-- it's not fun to put in the work of establishing your characters' day-to-day normality but I think it makes everything more impactful and meaningful)

-character relationships should have conflict/drama built in, way easier to generate stories that way (oops I didn't do this)

-plan episodes in batches rather than doing each individually from start to finish

 -try things you wouldn't be able to as easily on a bigger 'real' show