Meet Dusty Saunders: Animator

We had the good fortune of connecting with Dusty Saunders and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Dusty, we’d love to hear about how you approach risk and risk-taking
I grew up skateboarding, so I learned at a pretty young age that taking risks can be a lot of fun. Some of my best memories and experiences in life so far came from taking risks. Honestly, everything you do is a risk in the grand scheme of things, so my only real advice would be to not risk anything you can’t afford to lose. What you can and can’t afford to lose is totally up to you.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
My main focus right now is a project called “Happy Transmissions”. It is a cartoon web series that I do all the visuals for as well as the thing I’m most proud of at the moment. Making cartoons is something that I’ve always wanted to do. Finding the time to do them has been the biggest challenge. A lot of the work is frame by frame and super tedious so it takes a lot of time. I just chip away at it whenever I can, and I’ve learned that those hours add up. Right now I’m only really making work that interests me, which at the moment looks very psychedelic and strange, and I couldn’t be happier about it.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
If I had a friend come visit me right now we would do two things. We would go to the beach and surf, and then we would get Ramen at Tsujita. Those are my two most favorite things to do here, and I’ve been lucky for the most part that the pandemic hasn’t really stopped me from doing either of them. Surfing is the best. It teaches you a lot about expectations, discipline, and letting go. The ramen at Tsujita is so good. I don’t eat pork which makes ramen kind of tough. I ask for no pork belly in the soup, but the broth at Tsujita is pork broth. It’s the only time I ever cheat, that’s how good that place is. I recommend the tsukeman dipping noodle dish. Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
I would like to shout out to my friend Kyle Mayfield. He makes the music for my web series, he’s in at least five bands that I know of, and in general is just a wizard with making excellent music.

Website: www.blottofilms.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/blottofilms/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtFBsYV0NtyhFgGZL92Shnw

Image Credits
Photographer of all photos (minus the cartoon thumbnail) goes to Tia Naayem.