Sooner or later, there's a time in our life when we come across something many people consider a terrible thing. Something they think life would be better without. That thing is failure.
Personally, however, I think failure can be one of the most useful things in life and in animation. A lot of you out there may be thinking I'm absolutely nutty, that failure is what brings us down, not the opposite. And that is true, it can and will bring you down. But it can only do that if you let it.
Failure is a teacher, the best one you'll ever get in this life. But you must learn to listen to it. When you fail at something, don't go into depression because you screwed up. Instead, look for the reason behind your failure, learn from it, and avoid it in the future. Often when someone has failed, he says, "I tried and failed, so now I'm just gonna quit." You can't expect to have success the first time you start something, and you also can't expect not to fail even after you've experienced success.
Trying again is often frightening. You may have put so much effort and heart into your project the last time, only to meet the grim face of failure. But I bet if you find what you did wrong and correct it, you'll do far better the second time!
I guarantee sometime in your animation career, you'll have more than a few failures. Puppet modeling, lighting, animation - none of us succeed at these things the first time. Keep your chin up, and remember that a failure isn't something terrible. It's just a stepping stone too becoming a great animator.
The video below isn't about animation, but everything in it can be applied to our craft.
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