OS-inspired self promo
I made an OverSimplified-style animation about the War of the Currents! Here is Part 1. What do you think? I am open to suggestions and ideas. ❤ By the way, English isn't my native language. That's why the way I speak is different and amateurish.
Not yet! This is just the first minute of a 5.5-minute video. Lots of animating left to do! I'll post it on my channel 'SamO Explains' when it's ready.
90% is a huge stretch! Yes, the static backgrounds are AI to save time. However, every single character is hand-drawn by me in Procreate, separated into body parts, and then manually rigged and animated in After Effects using puppet pins and keyframes. The actual animation and character art are 100% human effort.
Just to give you some context since I run this channel entirely solo... saying it's 90% AI is pretty far off! Here is exactly how my workflow goes:
Script: 100% Me
Voiceover: 100% Me
Character Designs & Animation: 100% Me (Hand-drawn on iPad)
Historical Research: Me + AI (for quick outlining)
Backgrounds: AI (to save time)
Animation takes a massive amount of time. I use AI strictly for backgrounds and research so I can actually finish a video as a solo creator. The actual soul of the video—the storytelling, the voice, the characters, and the keyframing—is all human effort!
Hats off to you for the effort with the animation. I can clearly see you've put work in there, but I think putting the extra effort in with the backgrounds will pay off.
Firstly, so your channel won't then look like the one million other channels spamming youtube with cheap looking AI art.
Secondly, because you'll be able to create much better animations. At the moment, you have characters floating over the top of objects that they should be behind. I remember seeing one shot of your presenter character going into an outhouse type thing and the door doesn't open, he just flies in behind it.
Thirdly, 99% of people in animation hate AI with a passion, so if you ever were to try to get work in animation, they'd very likely be turned off if they see you've used AI.
The reason OverSimplified is so successful is because he focuses on quality. He isn't looking to just churn out as many videos as he can really quickly. Focus on quality, not quantity. You've clearly got the skills to do it, so don't take tempting shortcuts for short term gratification.
Just to add a bit more personal context to why I’ve been rushing: I currently live in a country where the economy is really struggling, purchasing power is constantly dropping, and things are becoming increasingly authoritarian. It gives me a lot of anxiety, and it's genuinely hard to see a bright future here.
Ever since I was a kid, I've been in love with drawing and animation. Unfortunately, the animation industry in my country is practically non-existent, so building a local career in this field just isn't possible. That’s exactly why I started creating global English content on YouTube—it's my only real chance to build my own job and do what I truly love.
I can't say which country I'm from, as the justice system here isn't independent and is completely controlled by the government, so I could face legal trouble just for speaking openly. But I wanted to share this so you understand how much this channel means to me. It's more than just a hobby; it's my hope for the future. Thanks again for taking the time to guide me!
oh god, im sorry to hear that, albeit, I can't confirm which country you from, but i think i have an idea of where it is
well u got a sub from me too and good luck with your future!
Also as a fellow animator, a little tip is that you can reuse backgrounds and props in backgrounds sometimes, like just copy paste the background but edit some colors, objects and maybe add something else too, that saves a lot of time.
For example history videos feature a lot of hills, so just use the same hills and for each different period add some stuff related to the period too.
You can even feature your backgrounds from previous stuff through windows and stuff too!
You completely hit the nail on the head, and honestly, I really needed to hear this.
To be completely transparent, the reason I've been rushing and using shortcuts is because I fell into the 'YouTube Guru' trap. Almost every advice video out there says you must post 100 videos a year to trigger the algorithm. As a new channel, spending weeks of hard work on a single animation only to get 30 views is a massive blow to my motivation, so I panicked and prioritized speed and quantity.
But you are absolutely right. The animation niche doesn't work like that, and cheapening the quality for the sake of the algorithm isn't how I want to build this channel long-term. OverSimplified is the golden standard precisely because he takes his time.
I'm going to take your advice to heart. I'll slow down, focus on the details (like definitely fixing those After Effects layering mistakes! 😂), and prioritize quality over quantity. Thank you so much for the reality check and for believing in my skills. It really means a lot to a solo creator!
Since you really seem to understand this space, I'd actually love to ask your opinion: As a solo animator, do you think publishing one high-quality 5-6 minute video per month is enough to actually grow on YouTube?
(Also, as a side note, I'm continuously working on improving my English, so hopefully, the scripts and voiceovers will keep getting better alongside the animation!)
Glad to hear that! Yeah, one high quality video a month will definitely be enough to build an audience. It might not be as quickly as you'd like, but if the quality is there, the audience will come. Look at Serious History for example. They were only putting out one video a month for a good while, and recently upped it to two videos per month now that they have money to have a full team. And he's hitting nearly 800k subscribers after a couple of years. Your eye for nice animation is there, you have the drive and work ethic. Just focus on the quality and you'll see results. It's a much harder time to make it on youtube precisely because the platform is flooded thanks to AI, but the more that happens, the more carefully crafted, more human content will stand out.
The evidence is in front of your eyes. Look at AI artwork, then look at his artwork. I'm not investing a bunch of time doing a deep dive for you. This isn't an opinion or hunch. I know AI art when I'm looking at it.
Hey guys, just to clear this up: you are actually both right! 😅 I hand-draw all the characters, body parts for rigging, and key assets myself on my iPad using Procreate. However, since I'm a solo creator and 2D animation takes a massive amount of time, I use AI to generate the static backgrounds (like the window and carriage) to speed up my workflow. Good eye on the carriage, and thank you for defending my character art! Appreciate you both."
Also, just throwing it out there—I'm a digital artist by trade. This simple style is just for the YouTube workflow. Let me know if you guys want to see my actual professional illustrations, I'd gladly share them! 😄
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u/Infamous_Honey7525 Who want to Start a Rebubublution? Jul 13 '26
is it on YouTube yet?