Much Needed Updates 10/14/2018 (Patreon)

I've been putting off writing this post for who knows how long. There's so much I want to share with you all!

First and foremost, thank you all for your continued support. I honestly don't know what I would do without you. I've said this before, and I'll say it again many times after, but it truly means the world to me.

Last month was absolutely insane. I got flooded with freelance, and it took a toll on my anxiety. I'm hoping that for the month of October it will come down. Because of all of that I've been late in implementing my goals for my Patreon that talked about in my one year anniversary post. I apologize for that, but I've learned the hard way many times that I need to put my mental health first. Thank you for understanding. 

During last month's craziness, I was contacted by Red Giant. For those of you who don't know, they make industry standard 3rd party plugins for After Effects. They offered to give me their plugins for free. FREE. I cried when I got the email. This was something I never would have thought I would be able to afford, and they gave everything to me simply out of kindness. I was able to play with one for some of my freelance last month, but have been otherwise to afraid to use them.  

Over time it became really important to me to let people know that you don’t need 3rd party plugins to make something beautiful in After Effects. I’m a firm believer that it isn’t the most expensive tools that make great art, but the drive of the person behind them. I still hold that to be true, no matter if I use 3rd party plugins or not. I’ve been scared to use them because I didn’t know what people would think, and I didn’t know if I was ready, or good enough to use them. But I don’t want to be afraid anymore. That changes now. I'm going to be slowly implementing them in my daily GIFs. I still have a thousand tutorials to watch, and my GIFs may not look like what you’re used to, but that’s what learning something new is! Maybe we can all learn something new together? I’d like that! :)

Lastly, I just received word that I am a finalist in the GIPHY Film Fest! I couldn't believe it when I got the email! I'm hoping to make it to the show in NYC in November, but that's still to be determined.

What music have you been listening to this month? I've been obsessed with Brockhampton's Iridescence, and Robotaki's remix of Rich Brian's History. 

-Erica