Today we’d like to introduce you to Finn Kulers.
Hi Finn, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
The first time I remember really wanting to take art seriously was in fourth grade. One of my good friends had drawn an awesome hydra and I remember looking at that hydra and thinking, “Damn— I want to make something cool like that!” I was inspired by my friends. We would make goofy comics together and trade them with each other. The more I drew, the more it became an outlet for my feelings and finding control in a time when I didn’t have very much.
As for animation, watching Adventure Time was the first time I remember watching a cartoon that I was blown away by. The world building, silliness, and character development– It stirred up something deep within me, something that yearned to be a part of creating something similar. I wanted to inspire other people the same way it had inspired me.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
The demand of art school crushed my drive to draw for pleasure. Drawing felt like work and every time I picked up a pencil it was laden with the expectation that I should be getting better, that it should be a planned, perfect illustration rather than doodles that I had done in middle school. There was no freedom in it anymore, because everything I created was assigned and I didn’t have the mental energy to go beyond that. I had to be intentional, and a bit principled, to find the joy in it again. Doing live studies of animals helped me get out of the slump- It challenges my gesture drawing skills without requiring too much mental energy. I found the fun again by messing around with my friends on a shared canvas. Now that I think of it, it’s kind of similar to how I traded comics and doodles back in middle school.
Since graduating, it’s also been difficult to find work, which has left me chagrined with animation as a whole. More recently though, I’ve been re-watching Adventure Time and it’s reminded me why I pursued animation and reawakened that drive to create something funny, meaningful, and inspiring.
My advice to any artists who are burned out by art school or just worn down by the current state of affairs, is to go back and rediscover what got you started in the first place.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
While animation is my specialty, I’m always leaning into new disciplines to satiate my ADHD. I started out designing and painting murals for neighbors— walls, tables, even ceilings. I started doing marketing and graphic design in 2024, including a wide range of digital and print marketing, from social media posts to billboards displayed across Metro Atlanta. I’ve also made a few games and would like to make some more. I think video games have a lot of potential as interactive experiences that I want to test the uncharted waters of. You can find my games at https://thefinnk.itch.io/
My main body of work lies in 2D character animation. I’ve been a part of several films such as Chupacorn, Shadow’s Glow, and Electrawasp. In these films, I realized that playing a more versatile role suits me well, allowing me to bop around different parts of the creative pipeline. Of these projects, I’m probably most proud of my work on A Shadow’s Glow. I got onto the project by creating a character rig for a flame spirit named Uri. While working on this film, I became close friends with the directors and found myself getting more and more involved. It was gratifying to work with people that cared about the tiniest details in the same way that I do, and to be able to bolster my work by offering constructive criticism. I ended up also animating on the film and helping out on the team at large. I think that’s why I’m so satisfied with the results, that we made it the best it could possibly be given the time allotted. Quality is something I really value in my work and can sometimes struggle to ride the line between perfect and finished. I do my best to put as much of myself into my work as I can afford, in everything that I work on.
If we knew you growing up, how would we have described you?
I was always imaginative. I enjoyed playing outside with the neighbors and reading a lot. (Percy Jackson, Mysterious Benedict Society, and the Bone series being among my favorites.)
I was a self-described tomboy, because it was the only language I had that scratched the surface of how I felt towards gender. Most of my friends were boys, and I liked a lot of things that were labeled as masculine. I still played with my littlest pet shops and read Babymouse, a very feminine coded graphic novel series, but refused to let femininity define me. I didn’t like these things because I was a girl, I liked them because they were fun. Similarly, I wanted my friends to see me as who I was, without the pretense of being ‘the girl.’ For a time, I wished to be a boy like my friends, because then they would fully accept me as ‘one of them.’ As I got older, the perceived divide between us only grew. Why did being female matter so much? Why did I have to be a girl, when I didn’t feel like one?
When I was 16, I learned about nonbinary and transgender identities. I met some friends online who were nonbinary and twospirit, and they taught me what these things meant. I realized this was what I had wanted my whole life- an identity free of expectation or association. Something that would clear me of what people think I should be, do, or act like. Something that kept a loose definition- merely ‘outside of the gender binary.’
In general I’ve never liked boundaries and boxes. I find myself always looking for the space in between or the piece that doesn’t fit. The world is painted in shades of grey and gender is one of those things. The more we see past it, and not see each other as men or as women but as people, as fellow human beings, the more we might understand each other.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.finnkulers.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/finnk_ink/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/finn-kulers
- Other: https://thefinnk.itch.io/
