Wellington Dreams started as a way for me to play with the intersection of real materials and digital effects. At the time, I was working with After Effects for my job and I wanted to see if I could use that digital environment to create a sense of depth without having to build enormous, room-sized physical sets. I’ve always felt that when you hand-make things, they retain a "fingerprint" of the maker. I wanted everything in this world to be tactile because that physical texture gives the project a kind of juicy character. There are little details in a needle-felted elephant or a physical prop that just feel phony if you try to fake them later with software. The story itself was one of those things that just popped into my head during storyboarding. I’m not entirely sure if the imagery represents a beautiful dream or something more final like death, but I like to think Wellington has a bit of an adventurous spirit. He’s just a guy walking through a field eating grass until he sees that boat—and the second he sees it, he knows he has to run for it.

That "run and jump" is a lot like the creative process itself. You’re moving along, an idea appears, and you just have to go for it.

Setting up a viable studio in our small apartment was a challenge. Sometimes I had a helper..