The Story Behind Pauw
Before I came to university, I barely showed anyone my art. My older siblings both went to university to pursue a creative degree and I definitely felt like I would never be able to stand up to their painting skills or character designs. I was in my final year of A-Levels when the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic hit. When I learnt my exams were cancelled, I remember clearly exclaiming to my relief: “I’ll never have to do art again!”. Clearly I did not stick to that promise for very long because during the two years that followed my love for art was reignited. I started gaining an interest in animation after seeing a TikTok of a 2D animation of some anime characters dancing to a K-pop song that I liked. The end result to date is Pauw.
Pauw went through many rewrites. I was convinced that my final animation project had to have a deep meaningful message otherwise it would be pointless. Frankly, this proved a bit silly! It paralysed me and I could not get going. I knew I had to go back to the drawing board. Getting to the final project has been an experience. Would I go through all of the stress and tears again? Probably, since I have grown a lot during this project not only as an artist but also as a person.
Pauw is a story that was inspired by my daily life living with my 18 year old cat called Koos. We have been two sides of the same coin for all his life and nearly all of mine. We were always together – it would be strange to see one of us without the other close by. Sadly during the creation of Pauw, Koos passed away. I miss him dearly but I also celebrate the time we spent together. Koos inspired the character of Pea, the peacock. Her clinginess is a mirror image of the way he used to follow me around. The switch to the ‘real world’ at the end of Pauw is to show how Koos would also walk over my keyboard and corrupt my files.
The name Pauw comes from the Dutch word for ‘Peacock’. In the original plan I wanted to have a narration in Dutch. Unfortunately, due to the rewrites, I removed the need for a narrator but I still wanted to keep something Dutch about it – hence the name Pauw. Also I think “Pauw” sounds better than “Peacock”.
