So if I'm understanding you correctly, you're asking if the goal of having creative control is a healthy or positive one. The longer you are with a team (and the more experience you have in general), the more latitude you're going to have to offer your own thoughts and ideas. When you start out at the bottom of the totem pole, as a junior artist, you're not likely to have all that much creative freedom, rather you'll be there to help support someone else's vision. That doesn't mean it's bad to ultimately aim to become the one with creative control, as long as you understand that this is something you earn over time - that is, over the course of years. When you start out as a junior artist, it's not so much that you're compromising personal vision as much as... your personal vision isn't really a factor. It's not being compromised, it's just irrelevant. As you deliver on your responsibilities in a reliable, consistent manner, you will likely be given more latitude and control. It varies, of course. Some small studios just don't have much of an art team, and so an individual artist - even one relatively new to the team - may have more opportunities to speak up, to offer their input, and so on. But even there, one needs to understand their role in a team. If you join a team and spend the whole time itching to take hold of the steering wheel, then that is probably going to have a negative impact on your ability to perform in your responsibilities. The studio isn't there to bring your vision to life, after all. To be completely fair, I don't really know how animation studios work - so perhaps there are opportunities for individuals to provide their pitches. Being that my experience is from working at an indie game studio though, those kinds of opportunities were basically non-existent. Having been there for six years, I had plenty of creative input on how we worked to achieve our clients' goals, but those goals were still defined by the clients. There were a few instances where I did concept art for game concepts that I was particularly enthusiastic about, but they were all invariably shelved. We only spent time on those when client work dried up - and as soon as it was back, they were set aside for another rainy day. All that said, if you want creative control and have your own ideas you'd like to bring to life, definitely pursue them on your own time. Just be careful - if you work for an animation studio, and work on something on your own, make sure your employment contract does not by default give ownership of what you make to your employer. There could be some complications regarding non-compete clauses, and other such legal nonsense.