Creating Bluey: Tales from the Art Director - Chapter 4

(It's gotta be) Done! - Beyond Bluey

Moving on Early

I left Bluey far earlier than anyone on the crew expected me to. I did a little bit of work on Season 2, but more or less was off the project after Season 1. For two reasons.

Firstly, I didn’t want to rest on my laurels artistically. Once you’d drawn one Bluey background you’d kind of drawn them all. I was eager to prove that I could do more complicated stuff. I felt safe leaving knowing the show would be in incredibly good hands too. An indomitable lineup in Art Direction of Costa Kassab, Rafferty Amor, Alice Walsh, Trudi Monteath and Faith Chen took up the mantle in Season 2 & 3 and went on to create scenes that took my breath away.

I gathered up my little bag of Bluey money and flew back to LA to do some courses at Concept Design Academy at the start of 2019. It was the technical and disciplined art teaching Australia lacked that I was always craving. Even though I was leaving behind learning from the best in terms of Joe’s guidance and storytelling prowess, as well as a very secure full-time gig (a rare thing in Animation at the best of times), the pull to keep growing and challenging myself was too strong.

While I was on that LA trip, I made one last big push for the US industry. I networked around town; finally recruiters were now at least replying to my emails. Some even putting me on their rosters for if a job came up, rather than just ghosting me like they always used to.

This was beyond my wildest dreams, or at least it would’ve been a few years prior. I was definitely still in denial even at that late stage, but the dream of working in the US was dying inside of me. Bluey had planted that seed I couldn’t keep denying: staying in Australia was the better option.

I got to do a background test for a Netflix show while I was there. Though this was huge milestone to me, to even get to a point where I could be considered for a position like that, in hindsight it summed up everything that I would only consciously realise a lot later.

I’d fought tooth and nail for years to even be in that room, but I was still at a disadvantage. No matter how good I was, it would always be easier to give the job to someone they knew and didn’t have to organise a visa for. Sure I could keep fighting, and maybe I would’ve made it. But it was going to take every scrap of energy and money I had to get into the LA industry. I was starting to wonder at that point, was it even worth it?

The best case scenario would be getting lucky enough to work on something decent, but ultimately my personal creative voice probably wouldn’t be needed or valued anyway. The worst case (if I made it at all) would be having to suck up to people and creative projects I didn’t enjoy or respect to get a foothold, then working indefinitely on the stuff. The glistening silver lining that kept me hanging on by a thread was that in both cases, I would be surrounded by talented and inspiring competition in LA that I know would help me improve.

Unfortunately the reality was the whole situation involved taking a huge financial gamble fighting my way up an absolutely cut throat industry. In a country that seemed to be getting worse and worse every passing year in terms of standards of living anyway. I’d have to also constantly deal with the plight that was maintaining a visa. The options available were: Work sponsored E-3 visas which meant I needed to be constantly employed, an O-1B (recognised achievement in the arts) which I had a slim chance at due to the awards Bluey had begun to win, or the literal gamble that was winning the green card lottery. None of these were seeming like appealing prospects when back in Australia, I had family, financial security and I finally didn’t have to work on any old project now just to stay afloat.

It was more realistic that I keep building up those skills at home with online courses, or even visiting LA every so often to take classes to scratch that itch of learning from the best. So I went back home and overhauled my entire portfolio. A little part of me kept hoping. Then Covid hit and we all know how that went.

I’m happy where I am now. Living and working in Australia. Don’t get it twisted, I’m still always improving my skills however I can, and I would still say yes to anything big and juicy that came my way, but my priorities have shifted. I’m hoping that just like how I ended up on Bluey, that the jobs that will creatively satisfy me will come more out of backing my own creative voice. Rather than competing to be the best solely based on raw technical skill.

If I’d stayed on Bluey I would’ve been atrophying creatively and delaying all these realisations by years. In hindsight I know I made the right decision.

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Secondly, I physically couldn’t do another season the way we did Season 1. Production was serenely reassuring everyone that “Season 2 would be better!” in terms of the amount of overtime worked. A lot people on the crew hesitantly believed them, I did not. Unfortunately I was largely proven right.

You’d think with all the accolades starting to roll in, you would find the budget and schedule to treat the people creating this award winning show for you better. People who stayed said things improved, there was less overtime in Season 2 and 3. But still…no one got paid for any overtime they did do. The sad thing is in animation, Bluey was one of the better workplaces in regards to all this. Horror stories abound of people needing cortisol shots for carpal tunnel and working seven days a week at other Australian studios.

What this comes down to is a worker’s right issue, tale as old as time. Despite progress for Australian CGI/VFX workers under MEAA (Media Entertainment & Arts Alliance), and Game Designers with the GWA (Game Workers Australia) within Professionals Australia, there is woefully little infrastructure to support Animation workers and advocate for our rights. We’d essentially have to start building scratch within the MEAA. I myself don’t know enough about it, so perhaps I’m part of the problem! There’s a lot of organising that needs to be done to get to a better place in that regard.

Legacy, and what it’s like to see something you designed turned into a stage play, an Airbnb house…put on national currency…plastered on the UK Australian Embassy…turned into a theme park…

In the Animation industry it’s not entirely unusual to see your work be turned into a toy, maybe a t-shirt here or there. But Bluey was something else entirely. The show’s success meant you couldn’t walk into a supermarket in Australia without seeing Bluey on something. Then she graduated from lunchbox snacks to boardgames. To a national theatre play to one of Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade balloons. Next thing you know in 2024 somebody stole $600,000 worth of limited edition Bluey currency from a warehouse in Sydney.

That’s all you want as someone working in animation right? No, not the theft of legal tender - for people to love and care about the thing you worked on just as much as you did making it. So…did it feel good, getting everything I ever wanted? Was the ‘dream job’ everything it was cracked up to be?

In short, yes. It’s been an immense privilege that’s shaped my life.

As I mentioned, before Bluey I’d resigned myself to the fact that if I wanted to achieve something resembling my ‘full potential’ on a technical level as an artist, I would have to not only probably move to the United States, but also have to settle for telling stories I didn’t 100% believe in.

Even deeper than that, was the pervasive thought that perhaps for my whole life I was just never going to be in the right place at the right time. That being from somewhere like Brisbane just meant I was doomed. Then seemingly out of the blue, the guy who made the College Humor animations I used to watch in uni came along with a pilot episode that used local band Custard as a backing track. And against all odds, for the first time in my career, I got to work on something I actually believed in. I got to do colour scripts that rivalled those of a Pixar film in terms of complex narrative arcs. I got to be a part of designing background art that people people admire for its atmosphere and appeal the same way I looked up to backgrounds on Adventure Time and Steven Universe growing up.

Designing Bluey will now always be one of the highlights of not just my career, but honestly my life. These days I feel a lot less lost than I used to. Staying in Australia is no longer a compromise. I feel assured that I’m where I’m supposed to be. It doesn’t feel like I’m living in limbo anymore. Slipping through the cracks in cities, desperately trying to figure out who I’m supposed to be and when I can ‘start’ my life.

You also work on a lot crap in Animation. Good projects are few and far between the weird kid slop and mind numbing advertising work. It was incredibly galvanising to prove something I think a lot of us knew all along: that the Australian Animation industry is capable of telling world class stories with beautiful animation and design.

Not only that, it felt good that we did it all from our own far flung Queensland outpost. We beat the Americans at their own game and absolutely lapped our southern rivals in Melbourne and Sydney. You used to hear from clueless, money hungry producers ‘We’re looking for something like the Simpsons or Rick and Morty’ at industry markets. Now all anyone wants is another Bluey.

There’s the fun stuff too. When I was back home for Christmas last year, I went for an afternoon walk down the Brisbane River and saw Bluey plastered on the Citycats I used to ride drunkenly home from a night out. It’s a huge point of pride I’ve had the chance to showcase the city I love the most to a global audience. Occasionally revelling at the look on someone’s face when you say you worked on the show doesn’t hurt either.

So as I said, the short answer is yes. But there is a bit more nuance to be added.

On the same Christmas break I finally got to go to Bluey’s World. The theme park based on the Heeler’s Home. I got to walk through rooms I designed. See things come to life that I created way back in that little room in Kelvin Grove in 2017.

Walking through it all with throngs of parents and children, I’d be lying if I didn’t say there wasn’t a weird pang in my stomach. I could wax lyrical, say it’s a melancholy mixed with tired indignation that ironically only comes from the privilege of hitting such a career milestone. But really nothing sums it up better than that classic wojak meme.

It’s that obstinate little voice in your head. Don’t I deserve a little more credit?

In animation, your own personal work on the project is fairly obscured. We work as a team, and through the endless twists and turns of the production pipeline what comes out the other end isn’t usually something you could point to and say ‘I did that’. But this time for a lot of people on the crew, it was. For me, the Heeler House exterior in particular was solely my design. A lot of the interior design and colour choices that are hard baked into the show were also picks I made by myself. Little things, the colour of interior wood boards in every iteration of the house that’s been brought into reality have been a one to one match of my choices. Bigger things like furniture and wall decor are all exact matches on something I sketched. Or even things like Longdog, the cult fan favourite meme that’s now often even a part of Bluey’s official marketing campaigns, was a toy I designed in the kid’s playroom.

My name isn’t credited anywhere, because I signed my copyright away in a bog standard Animation workers contract at the start of the production. Your mind wanders though. If only I’d been a bit more confident, hired a lawyer, negotiated some kind of revenue share or residuals as part of my contract. Maybe I would feel less…alienated…about the entire thing. Or at least have a bit more financial security to show for it. My designs have generated roughly 2 billion dollars for the people lucky enough to be cashing in on it. Not bad surplus value for someone on an 88k salary.

But I was 23 and still living with my parents, I didn’t have the wherewithal, or confidence, to make such a bold decision. And hey, at least I wasn’t alone. The ABC had already made the biggest bag fumble in Australian television history and let all of Bluey’s commercial rights be sold to the BBC. Our own national broadcaster sees none of the profits for any of those mountains of merchandise.

In the end I guess it’s up to me to stand up and proclaim what I did. Not in a bitter way, but as a way of showing just what I’m capable of. What any of us are capable of in this industry, if we are just given the chance.

The Power of Story

The biggest takeaway from working with Joe was the power of story. I didn’t see a lot of value in learning storytelling when I was studying animation, I mistakingly thought ‘story’ wasn’t for me.

I saw myself in weird zines and local Australian comics. Capital ’S’ story was learning how to make some 3 act American slop I had no interest in. So foolishly I outright refused to learn lest I became more of cog in the machine than I feared I already was.

But over two years I watched Joe pump out out essentially 52, award winning 7 minute short films. With a three act structure spun so delicately that it was only visible when you tilted your head and it caught the light just so. Getting a front seat to that cracked my head open and made me start chasing how to do it myself.

If you ever ask Joe how he does it, he just says to read Dan Harmon’s story wiki. A janky how-to guide that’s ended up on fandom.com. Full of broken links, made by the creator of Community and Rick and Morty. That easy ay! Well, all the essentials are there. Embarrassingly that mess of a wiki was the final key for me realising how we tell stories as humans is a shorthand for our entire lives. It’s harnessing the the cycle we all exist within. Not some crappy failsafe method created by American film. If I ever want to make something half as good as Joe, whether it be Dan the Man, The Meek or Bluey, I had to start being a student of story.

What also appealed to me beyond the fact he got to make something so authentically true to himself through story, was that Joe was fully in control of his own destiny. Unlike me in Visual Development, who was always at the mercy of whatever idea I’m instructed to create. Even if I’m giving it my all as a Vis Dev artist, you can’t polish a turd. Unfortunately however, a lot of people think you can and will eagerly pay you to do it. I’m at a stage in my life where I’m getting sick of polishing them. It’s not what I’m happy doing as a career. It’s not why I got into animation. I try to steer myself in the direction now where I’m close to story and can exercise my own creative voice. Eventually maybe I’ll be lucky enough to make something of my own. Only time and hard work will tell.

The Power in Us (guys who draw silly characters)

Anyone who draws, who loves creating characters and telling stories: you hold a lot more power than you probably realise. I’ve seen with my own eyes how good storytelling and the ability to draw can enrich people’s lives with happiness and shift culture on a global scale. People LOVE Animation. I would argue more than Live-Action. For better or worse, enormous media empires are built on the backs of these animated characters. Animation workers are gentle, humble creatures. I’ve seen these traits taken advantage of far too many times both in terms of our rights as workers and how singularly valuable our creativity is to the whole palava. None of this stuff exists without an artist’s creative voice and skills. To any fellow Animation workers reading this: Do not ever let other people devalue you, or fool you into thinking you’re inconsequential in this process.

The vultures yawping about ‘looking for the next Bluey’ can only ever pick at carcasses. A zine you make in your spare time has more value to humanity than a lot those peoples’ entire careers. Don’t forget that in the face of shiny, well oiled machines and people who are louder than you.

My favourite part about Animation is there’s no difference between you doodling in your room, and the creator of your favourite piece of animated media or comics. The best ideas always come from one person too. Beautiful art and great storytelling can be learnt by anyone, anywhere, as long as you’re willing to work hard. Due to the circumstances of our birth, some of our paths may involve a bit more bushwhacking through the undergrowth without a guide to get there. But from my experience, you’ll learn things that those who had it easier may never figure out. And all of it will make you stronger.

A successful and fulfilling path in Animation is far more nuanced than ‘I got a job in the American industry, anything less than that is a failure.’ A lifetime of imposing that belief on myself did more harm than good in the end. Animation is broader and more accessible to create than it’s ever been. All I want as an artist and an obsessive fan of the medium, is to see uncompromising storytelling and art emerge from whoever is brave enough to tell it. The ‘dream job’ after all, is to create something you believe in, that you can share with the people you love.

Animation and Film to me is the truest expression of the human spirit. The only medium where we can stretch out our fingertips just enough to reach it. The infinite mysteries of Life, or whatever you want to name that intangible feeling we all chase. If dreams are, as Denis Villeneuve says, messages from the deep: animation is the only reliable messenger. I’m glad I got to touch a little bit of that stardust myself making a silly blue dog show.

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This is the final chapter of Creating Bluey - Tales from the Lead Art Director

Thankyou so much for reading! My work on Bluey and all my other pieces can be found on my website.

I don’t have anything else planned for this substack outpost. Until I have something I feel the need to gasbag about, you can find me under goodsniff everywhere else. See ya round tha traps!