Why I keep a sketchbook

Every animation I have ever made started somewhere small: a margin doodle, a gesture caught on the bus, a single line that refused to leave me alone.

Small rituals

I keep a simple sketchbook. Each entry has three parts:

• What — the thing I saw (a posture, a face, a shadow)
• Why — what made it worth keeping
• How — the line, weight or rhythm that captured it

It does not need to be finished. It only needs to be honest.

Why it matters

Later, when I sit down to build a character or a scene, the answer is usually already in the pages somewhere. The sketchbook is not a record of finished work — it is a storage room for beginnings.

A sketch does not need to be perfect. It needs to feel alive.

That is the rule I try to draw by.