'Feeling the Effort' of Your Art

I took a very deliberate approach for a recent partnership with Nature Made vitamins: 'feeling the effort'.

Instead of a cleaned up piece of animation, I chose to use my hand as a support rig and not remove it in post-production. I'm mixing behind-the-scenes into the animation so that you enjoyably get a sense of the amount of creative work involved.

This was the perfect opportunity to try something like this because an ad for a multivitamin is a bit of a tough sell. I knew I had to lean into an attention-grabbing, eye candy approach (that just so happened to end with the campaign slogan).

And it was a success! This ad got 950k organic views on both Instagram and TikTok.

Not Feeling the Effort

Check out this ad I created with Nike last year. I love it and think it's wonderfully executed (what the brand wanted), but it's a good example of a polished piece of animation that almost feels effortless. I'm curious if the average person will latch on without an appreciation for the artistry.

Examples

To better think about how you can merge your 'effort' with your final artwork, here are some examples of how various artists across different mediums include their process:

• Alex Kunchevsky shows you how to expertly animate steam (linear process video)

• Megan Rose Ruiz draws Sailor Moon from memory (challenge format elevates sketching video)

• Jon Pauls Balls constructs a low-polygon football (storytelling process video)

• Scott Christian Sava paints Aang in six different mediums (adding limitations)

Conclusion

So is this the social media content-ification of art? I think it's a fine line to walk and part of a larger conversation. As long as your process isn't performative and the integration is tasteful or clever, then it's a fantastic way to engage more viewers.

👉 If you're stuck on what to share beyond you're final artwork, lean into revealing the effort it takes to create. Start simple and then experiment with what feels authentic.

There are endless ways to include your process, whether that's a straight behind-the-scenes edit, timelapse, or merging it completely with the end result (like my Nature Made ad).