Ester Pazur on handmade stop-motion practice as AI reshapes commissioned work

In a Creative Boom interview, animator Ester Pazur, who is finishing a bachelor's degree in animation specialising in stop motion, describes losing opportunities to AI-generated images during her studies and finding the situation discouraging. Sharing personal handmade work on Instagram instead found a large audience, which she reads as continued demand for work that is personal, handmade and human. Pazur says she starts loosely, from a single image, feeling or small idea, and finds the visual language while making; her short loops are drawn directly onto paper in just eight or 12 frames. She traces a running-horse animation to a farm scene printed on her mother's sofa, and Thunder Storm in Minneapolis to studying David Hockney's iPad paintings. Describing herself as a pessimist, she says she wants to make warm, comforting work that offers a safe place to escape a difficult world.