Q. Hi, would you like to introduce yourself?
Hello! My name is Karen and I go by Korny. I’m a 2d animator and illustrator and a major storytelling enthusiast from Lebanon!⭐️✨
Q. How would you describe Mindworks Nuclei for someone who hasn’t seen it?
Mindworks Nuclei is a solo-created whimsical animated series that tells the story of birth of human consciousness and the worlds that grew from our minds.
It’s about the moment awareness emerged giving form to the first thoughts and shaping everything that followed, from the cave drawings to modern science and art.
It follows a colorful and psychedelic storybook style, with rendered visuals and vibrant colors, meant to take you on a new journey inside the mind.
Q. What is your ambition for this project?
While I do want to spread around this personal universe that I’ve been working on for a very long time for people to enjoy, I aim to encourage people to tell the stories in their head regardless of budget and regardless of skill, opportunity or style.
I hope this little series gives people a sense of comfort and awe in this very chaotic world, like a little breathing space to just sit back, enjoy pretty visuals and listen to someone tell a story like in the past
Q. What are the central ideas or themes you aim to explore within it?
I was always highly interested in certain philosophical themes and anthropology, and the way the human mind has evolved from the past to now always fills me with awe. So, I decided to adapt these special interests of mine into a series making it thought-provoking but not overwhelming. It makes you realize that being human and having undergone our minds’ evolution is actually a wonderful thing that we take for granted.
Generally, many of my stories revolve around themes of bittersweet loneliness, wonder, exploration, and deep-rooted change. To me, though melancholic, these are the core events of every person in the world, so I went on to show them in a calmer and warmer light than they are usually portrayed.
Q. Where do you get inspiration from?
I took a lot of inspiration from “magical” games such as Sky: children of the light. I’m also a major oldie fan, whether it’s old cartoons, music or films or even things as ancient as mythological stories!
They always fill me with comfort in how low-stimulating and quiet they were with a huge respect and focus to the art and visuals.
In terms of stories, I take heavy inspiration from mythology of all cultures, mostly Egyptian, and how they pace their fables from start to finish, as well as how they take non-physical things to turn into gods or objects that explain why the world behaves the way it does. It definitely taught me to observe the world around me as sometimes the best stories can come from everyday mundane things that we don’t usually give much thought to.
Q. How long have you worked on Mindworks Nuclei?
The universe itself has been in development since 2018. It started as fun character designs of personifying disciplines of science and art after taking a philosophy class in school about the relationship between science and philosophy. I instinctively inclined on giving them a story until they became my ocs!
I started with Nuclei specifically in 2024 after years of developing my lore and skills to finally be able to tell the story of this universe in a way that feels truest to me. I simply mixed my love for rendering and painting with tweening animation and old storybooks to officially birth this project!
Q. As I’ve understood it, the first episode has made its rounds on international film festivals but you live in Lebanon. How do you look towards creative work locally and internationally?
It actually came off as a major shocker to me knowing international festivals actually accepted my work after applying just for the sake of experimenting with the path of the series!
In Lebanon, unfortunately, the animation scene is quite small even though we are lately seeing amazing underrated talent emerge every year as indie animation starts to spread. Even when it comes to local film festival opportunities, after the war, many of those festivals did not open for those 2 years so the circle of opportunities became quite lower than usual.
This universe has also been featured in festivals and pitching workshops in Animasyros and Annecy MIFA pitching forum (for a new secret project under the same universe to be fully revealed soon!) and I’m very happy to have been receiving international recognition and representing Lebanon to the world in a good colorful light through this project and universe in general and I hope to see more in the future!
The indie animation scene does also deserve to spread in Lebanon and have our generation’s stories be told despite the general lack of opportunities.
Q. Has there been any specific difficulties or limitations you have to work around during production?
Managing this project at first did feel very overwhelming. I had to figure out the style, the story, the animation style, the music…etc all on my own.
I was a chronic perfectionist, so it took A LOT of changes and redesigns until I achieved styles and designs I was finally satisfied with. I do owe it to a few artist conventions and workshops I attended during that time that helped kick off my skills and redirect my story in the correct direction. Do not underestimate learning from professionals of the industry.
I even contemplated opening a kickstarter like many new indie productions, but unfortunately, many international and popular funding/payment sites are unavailable or do not work in my country, and honestly, this is a real genuine issue I do not hear much people highlight.
But regardless, I hope this inspires people that you do not need to follow the traditional funding pipeline to be able to create your own stories. Telling stories is part of who we are as human beings and we’ve survived for eons thanks to that tendency. So, keep going! Your stories deserve to be let out no matter how big or small the team and the budget.
Q. How do you feel about the completed episodes and the reception to your work?
I’ll admit I was quite overwhelmed by the positive feedback I’ve gotten so far, especially on episode 1! It was very unexpected in the best way possible that many people enjoyed my work. I’ve even met many cool people through this project and got to know the cool series they are also developing!
I’m pretty happy with how the work is turning out and seeing how the art and animation are evolving from episode to episode is worth everything
Q. Is there anyone who you’d want to shout out who has helped in your work?
When Mindworks was a visual novel game (now discontinued due to change in story and priorities) I had one voice actress who narrated its trailer as voluntary work and she did such an amazing job and got many positive reviews for the voice that I practically adopted her into the universe.
Her name is Samantha V. Hutton and she’s a UK based voice actress who’s been with my universe since the start. I owe it to her a lot for helping my universe develop this far! Please do check out her Website!
Q. Where can people find you online?
I am mainly active on Instagram and YouTube!
Mindworks instagram for universe and series updates and progress: here
Kornyart instagram, my main account for art and ocs: here
And my series is available on YouTube! Ep1 and 2 out now!
Thank you!⭐️stay whimsy and stay free
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