Meet Eric Martin

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Eric Martin a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Eric, first a big thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts and insights with us today. I’m sure many of our readers will benefit from your wisdom, and one of the areas where we think your insight might be most helpful is related to imposter syndrome. Imposter syndrome is holding so many people back from reaching their true and highest potential and so we’d love to hear about your journey and how you overcame imposter syndrome.

I don’t think Imposter Syndrome is something I’ll ever fully overcome. It’s a constant buzzing in my ear that I need to make conscious efforts to drown out. “Is this original?” “Is this the ‘correct’ way to do this?” “Is this better or worse than what your peers are doing now?” So much unnecessary noise.

My answer to Imposter Syndrome is to own it. Allow yourself be an imposter. The faster you forgive yourself for not being original or the “best”, the faster you’ll find your own unique voice.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?

Have you ever read a comic strip and thought: “I wish this was a video”? Well now it is!

I am the creator of “Dungeon Follies” an indie-animated webseries about a ghost with anxiety eternally trapped in a Lich’s dungeon. It combines the fantasy tropes of Dungeons and Dragons and the heartfelt comic-strip energy of something like “Calvin and Hobbes”.

It’s a cartoon specifically created for the short-form video era and finally answers the question: “Can you bridge the gap between comic strip and cartoon?” At the moment, it’s a scrappy one-man production. I do all the writing, illustrating, animating, and voice acting for the entire series. But, what started as a silly proof-of-concept for my animation pipeline, quickly grew into this wonderful series. I truly feel like it’s a little internet hidden gem. (The world can always use more of those, amirite?)

I’ve recently started doing some small live comic-readings around LA. I’d love to engage more with the indie-comics and indie-animation community. I’m always looking to share my series to more people and to collaborate with local artists.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

My animated series, “Dungeon Follies”, is the marriage of all my artistic skills. My foundational knowledge of art and storytelling from college, my practical knowledge of digital art and animation tools from working as a motion graphics animator, and my eternal love for cartoons and comic strips.

My advice to anyone who wants to create animation, or films, or ANYTHING creative is: Get started, but start small! Want to make a cartoon series? Make one episode first, or even just one scene. Want to write a novel? Make a short story first. The key is to start with smaller projects and gain practice finishing them.

There’s a great quote from cartoonist Walt Kelly that I think about a lot: “If you’re a professional, writer or artist, you can get anywhere from 75 to 85 percent of what you’re aiming at in your first try. A lot of artists spend most of their time trying to get the other 15 to 25 percent. I don’t. I’d rather go for another 75 to 85 percent.”

Every time you finish a project, the next one will be even better!

Okay, so before we go we always love to ask if you are looking for folks to partner or collaborate with?

I am always looking to collab! I recently have worked with a few wonderful musicians (Jake Dieli and Stephen Schlegel) who reached out to me and created some wonderful music tracks for the show.

The indie-animation and comics space is full of amazing artists and creators. If anyone in the space wants to be a guest-artist on an episode of “Dungeon Follies” or if there are any musicians who want to create music for the show, I’m always open to new ideas and projects.

I also would love to share my animation pipeline know-how if there are any animators or storytellers out there who are curious about how I create my episodes. Anyone interested can reach out to me on Instagram!

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dungeonfollies/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXU9_2jIj-KT0h4Dgd-RlmA
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@dungeonfollies