Today we’d like to introduce you to Jimmy Arca.
Hi Jimmy, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
My family and I moved to DFW in 2001 when I was aged 4 and have lived here ever since. Elementary school was when I recall making the decision that I wanted to be an artist my entire life. After school, I would play outside, draw, and watch cartoons on Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network. I was looking at how the animated characters were drawn and learned by trying to emulate the style. I was 11 years old when I made my first animation; it was a stop-motion animated video using the family’s camera and my Lego figures. In 2009, I started uploading the videos on YouTube.
I continued taking art classes throughout Middle School and High School and, in 2015, enrolled in The University of North Texas. I started off as a Graphic Design major, thinking that was where the money was, but I quickly learned that it wasn’t for me when I started struggling in one of the classes (ironically, graphic design is what I do now as a day job) and changed my major to Drawing & Painting. The Covid-19 pandemic hit 9 months after I graduated college, and my time in quarantine was spent reading business and marketing books and making all sorts of experimental art until 3 in the morning. The Summer of that year was when I made my earliest frame-by-frame paper animations, the same ones I built my business, inoiseaguy, around for the past four years.
Since then, it has evolved, and I still play around with different styles and techniques.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Everything about my work and business seems accidental. When I look at what I’m doing now, I sometimes wonder how I even got to where I am. I’m sure I’ve struggled along the way, but I do a pretty good job at ignoring it and continuously seek out inspiration and look forward to the next thing.
I will say that there was something about September through November of 2020 that was a magical time, like I had finally found my niche as an artist. Even then that was still a whole six months before I started selling my artwork and made it into a business.
My business alone wouldn’t be enough to support me, so there was always the struggle to find a full-time job as an artist. That took many years before I was able to land where I’m now, so things have been smooth sailing lately, and I’m grateful for it.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I am a traditional animator who creates GIFs and shares them online on GIPHY.com. Because they are traditionally animated, there is also the physical pieces of paper that make up the animation. At some point after one year of making these animated GIFs I had a large Ziploc bag filled with these pieces of paper bound together with paper clips. Since they were taking up space, I had the idea of selling them away to people who might’ve been interested.
The concept itself isn’t anything new, people have been buying and trading animation cels since animation was a thing. And although I don’t animate on celluloid sheets, but rather any piece of paper I can get my hands on, I still market my product as “cels” since it’s the term people are most familiar with. I suppose the thing that makes my work unique and set apart from the usual animation cel is the inclusion of QR codes and my display using a vintage 1983 TV. When I do pop-up markets, the TV catches a lot of people’s attention and lets them watch what I have created. The QR codes attached to the work gives it a level of interactivity and also helps people who aren’t familiar with my work understand it.
If you saw a classic Peanuts animation cel, you could point at it and say, “Oh yeah, that’s Charlie Brown and Snoopy.” People can’t really do that with my animation cels if they were presented on their own; the QR code allows them to scan and watch and make them realize that it is a piece of a moving image.
I think I gained a small local following over the past 2 or 3 years, and of course it’s still growing. People tell me all the time that they’ve never seen anyone do what I do at the markets, and that inspires me.
Before we let you go, we’ve got to ask if you have any advice for those who are just starting out?
There’s that saying that goes, “Throw it against the wall and see what sticks.” I think there’s truth to that saying. My business of selling traditional animation cels was not the first idea I ever had, and certainly not the first one I had a strong conviction for. This only happened to be one that stuck against the wall and is getting the most love. I’ve made stop motion animation, I’ve made music, I’ve made comic strips, I’ve made large-scale oil paintings, and although I have fun doing all that, it didn’t really stick or catch on like the cels do. I think it’s easier to market and stand out with the cels and so that is why I decided to pursue it.
I mentioned that being in quarantine in 2020 was an experimental time for me. I encourage anyone to have that wild experimental phase when they make anything and everything in any way. Naturally, you’ll find your groove, and your niche will develop from that. I always have this thought that I need to bust my butt while I’m still young and have my energy, and that’s definitely where part of my drive comes from, but the reality is that you’re never too old to start something. I started my business and what I’m doing now when I was 23, and although you’re pretty much a baby at that age, I still sometimes think, “Dang, I wish I started doing this sooner!” But everything I was doing before then led up to this moment, and it as all part of the experimental phase where I was finding myself.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://inoiseaguy.shop/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/inoiseaguy/?hl=en
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-arca-b50055161
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/inoiseaguy?lang=en
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClO4t938ENFLP6mlKvoqR4g
- Other: https://giphy.com/inoiseaguy
Image Credits
Jimmy Arca
Brandon Rosales
