How Hamitations, BrodyAnimates and illymation made their careers on YouTube

For a lucky few, drawing online can be a full-time career. At VidCon Anaheim 2024, Polygon spoke with three artists – Hamitations, BrodyAnimates and illymation – who are turning their love of art and cartoons into full-fledged careers as YouTubers.

All three YouTubers create content in the storytime animation genre. This is when an artist tells a story, usually comedic or light-hearted in nature, while depicting its events in an animation or animated film: an animated storyboard with fewer frames than a traditional animation. The videos usually range between five and twenty minutes.

They also all started their channels around the same time: Hamitations in 2017 and both illymation and BrodyAnimates in early 2018.

Because of illymation, starting their channel was “just an escape from college,” she said. “I was in animation school and I was just animating to get good grades and that was a pressure I didn’t like and I thought: I got to do things for fun with art againand then I unexpectedly blew up on YouTube.”

Haminations started by scribbling with friends. He drew a panel of a comic strip and gave it to a friend. They didn’t want to tell each other what they planned to do with the comic, so “it always went in crazy directions,” Hamitations said. He “never thought people would be very interested in it,” but his father encouraged him to start sharing his comics, and Hamitations was born.

Animated storytelling is one of the many genres BrodyAnimates has explored on YouTube since he started creating content at age 8.

Over the past decade, Brody has tried his hand at videos of him playing with Mario toys, sketch videos inspired by Smashand gaming videos inspired by Captain Sparklez.

“I was just replicating things that I was inspired by,” Brody said. In 2018, “storytime animation became really popular and people like TheOdd1sOut and JaidenAnimations really came onto the scene (…) and it was the first thing that I was consistent with and that people enjoyed.”

Animators have been on YouTube since its inception launch in 2005but storytime animation as a genre didn’t take off until the 2010s. TheOdd1sOut and JaidenAnimations each reached 1 million subscribers in 2016 and spawned a plethora of similar animation channels to pop up in subsequent years, including these three interviewees.

Grow and maintain their channels

Hamitations, BrodyAnimates, and illymation are all now hiring individual teams to help create their videos. An average Hamminations video today consists of more than 30 employees, who help with tasks such as storyboarding, backgrounds, animation and audio editing. On the lighter side, an average illymation video credits six people, and BrodyAnimates credits 10 to 15 people per video. Despite the help, these three YouTubers generally like to remain closely involved with their channels.

“If I hire someone, it’s because we really need him. Because if only I would think about it I don’t want to do this, I don’t want to do thatthen I would essentially be firing myself from my own team,” illymation said. “I couldn’t do anything else but lead – and that’s not fun.”

Staying closely involved with each video “helps you stay on top of how the pipeline is going so you don’t lose focus on the big picture and how everyone needs to pass things on to the next person.”

Although some people jump at the chance to hire help, it can be difficult to let go of control, especially when creating personal art.

“Out of all my friends, I definitely had the most trouble giving up control,” Brody said. “Because as a creative (…) you know exactly how you want it, but it got to a point where I was progressing as an artist – I felt more comfortable in my abilities, which meant I spent more time on the things I make , which meant I uploaded every six months. And you know, you just have to find the balance between passion and productivity. And I realized that I have to make a sacrifice. I will either have to lower my quality, or I will have to hire people to help me maintain that quality.’

Advice for artists who want to make YouTube videos

All three YouTubers had the same advice for artists looking to make it on the platform: start, have fun, and follow your passion.

“I would say the best ways to learn are from other people,” illymation said. “You don’t need the fanciest tools to do what other people do, because everyone starts somewhere. (…) Just make sure it’s you having fun.”

Meanwhile, Brody emphasized the need for passion and perseverance. “Keep going and if you’re passionate about it, keep doing it,” he said. “Almost the only thing that can stop you is when you decide to quit. (…) I think a lot of people stop doing something before they even start.”

“Start. Just start,” said Hamitations. “Perfectionism kills people’s journey before it even begins. (…) Everyone has 5,000 bad drawings inside of them, they have to get out before they can start making good ones.”

Both illymation and Hamitations are working on graphic novels.

Illymation said she “had to be wary” but that the process “takes a lot longer than (she) thought because it’s a book.”

“It will definitely take a long time to come out,” Hamminations said of his novel, before saying that writing is essentially complete. He also provided a brief summary of the plot of his novel:

“So he’s kind of an anti-hero,” Hamitations said. He’s also smuggled in a lot of therapy material that he’s “a big nerd about” and hopes to secretly teach kids about responsibility “in a way that little one (he) would want to read.”

If you want to stay up to date with these artists, subscribe to their YouTube channels: