A Career Animator's Guide to Driving People Away

The Animator's Guide to Getting Out of the Industry

Want to make animation? The kind that takes you from getting started all the way to the grave.

After spending years grinding away at animation in Japan, Lin Qing suddenly had an epiphany.

If I have to grind wherever I go, why not go home and grind there?

So she and her friends returned to China and started an animation studio.

And then ground it into the industry's top-tier star.

Many years later, the industry still remembered the glory of Lin Qing and her studio's rise, as well as the terror of being ruled by Lin Qing.

A publisher interviewed all sorts of people who had worked with her and collected their stories in a book, soon to be released.

Here are a few quotes from the book jacket:

"She wants me dead." - A, renowned Chinese animator

"I don't want to revise this anymore, even if she has my wife beg me." - B, renowned character designer

"I don't understand why missing a deadline affects international relations. I'm very worried." - C, renowned animator from the island nation

"I've got Lin Qing-itis. I really can't work today." - D, renowned Chinese photographer

"Lin Qing locked me up." - E, renowned handsome Chinese animator

"To my dear producer: I don't think I'll make the deadline. Here's a knife for you." - Lin Qing

"It's fortunate to create 2D animation in the same era as Lin Qing, because she and her team brought Chinese animation back to life.

"But creators competing alongside Lin Qing are unfortunate: no one else can sustain her years-long energy for handling scripts, design, directing, storyboards, and even key animation. Nor can anyone else match her frenzied creative passion under intense deadline pressure, or her boundless vitality in producing work at a furious pace while maintaining its quality.

"As people say, she's a complete lunatic who'd sacrifice everything for her work. In her, you can find both the romance of a creator and the ruthlessness of a capitalist. Everyone who works with her will grit their teeth and discover that Lin Qing can create, Lin Qing is creating, Lin Qing could create, and Lin Qing can still create... As everyone knows, no matter what you do, Lin Qing can still damn well create."

Theme: I live, and my work will not die. I die, and my work will live forever