WOW 0_0. I'm an animator too!

Like you, I always liked to doodle I even did the art work for my high school news paper and yearbook. Off to college I went, studied 4 years in non-art related degree, and my first job ever during college was the staff cartoonist for the college newspaper. I did that for 3 years but thought nothing of it. Worked a few crap jobs after college and eventually was a teacher, did that for 2 years and quit because I didn't like it all. Had to make some serious life decisions.

I was 22 when I decided to try to make a living off art. I was ... well not terrible but definately not great either.

It took 3 years of self study but I wound up getting pretty decent at it and my first full-time paying job was with a casino-based gambling company in Reno that hired me for 3 months to churn out dozens of sketches per week on different slot machine games. They paid me $1,500 / month.

During those years I was also self-teaching 3ds Max. I got an educational copy from a friend and learned how to make basic objects, unwrap and texture them. I discovered that I had a knack at doing 3d animation. I got really into it and submitted animations to the 10 Second Club. I got 2nd place for one of my entries. In 2006 I got ridiculously lucky and was offered a full time salaried position at Activison. I was there for 4 years before the company laid off the staff. Been bouncing around to different places doing work, some years were really tough, others were fantastic.

I'm still trying to hone my skills as an artist and do 2D art full-time. Animation is fun, but can be tedious and frustrating especially for video games because of functionality and bug fixing. The thing that worries me is how unstable the life style of video game development is.