Month: October 2022

Professional Practice – Week One

wilson-e35Professional Practice

We were asked to do research on entry level jobs in the industry and note the skills they were looking for.

I went onto Glassdoor and found a listing for an animator at Moving Picture Company, which read as so:

So experience with software seems to be a big one, and flexibility of skills, judging by how they’d like the candidate to have some scripting knowledge.

Vero HR are looking a 3D animator:

Again knowledge of software, especially multiple software, is very valuable to companies. Adaptability seems to be a big one too.

Improbable are specifically looking a graduate animator to train in their studio:

I researched an animator called Victoria Pritchard, a Melbourne based artist and animator who has been working in the industry for 3 years. She attended RMIT University in Australia for Animation specifically and hold a Bachelor’s degree in the subject. Her first creative job was as a Social Media Designer for Australian Red Cross. Over time, she’s worked towards freelance animator work and working on temporary contracts, she’s partnered with big tech companies like Huion and Logitech to market creative products those companies are selling. She is also a Toon Boom Ambassador.

I found her showreel on Youtube

And her website has her portfolio, links to her LinkedIn and her showreel.

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Victoria Pritchard | LinkedIn

Her art journey definitely isn’t linear, she started off in a job that had very little animation and slowly worked her way up to the job she wanted. A lot of companies are looking for general experience creating content and it seems like as long as it’s generally connected to animation/vfx/games then it’ll suffice. Of course specific experience is preferred, but it isn’t a priority for a lot of mid-level placements.

I also looked at an artist who I admire, but she doesn’t work the role that I’m aspiring for. I wanted to include her because I found her resume and her animation work inspires me a lot. Her current job is as a layout artist at Yowza! Animation

Her name is Michelle Cheng, she’s a current student at Calarts, and holds a previous art degree from the Acadamy Of Realist Art Toronto. She worked as a director and producer on the short film ‘Enemy’, which ended up winning the Critic’s Choice Award at Overmountain Animation Film Festival.

Her website hosts her portfolio for animation, personal work and visual development

Michelle Cheng – HOME (weebly.com)

I also found her showreel on Youtube.

Her artistic journey also demonstrates a slow build to get towards the job you want. Entry level positions seem to be geared towards building experience in the industry in general, and then the artist can work towards their goal from there.

Animation Strategies – Week One

wilson-e35Animation Strategies

I was off with Covid the first week of teaching, but I organized to be a part of a group with Manny, Lel, Ciara, Charlie and Acacia. Originally the group had 8 members, so Henry split us up into two groups and those mentioned are my finalized teammates.

We wanted to do the tavern prompt, and we decided as a group to focus on a wedding as the narrative. The environment is supposed to be set at night, after the wedding. We are going for a medieval, D&D inspired vibe for the tavern overall.

Concepting began not too long after we were put into the group. We made moodboards to help inspire us with the aesthetic, colour scheme and layout. I’m not experienced in environment or prop design so this was really useful in helping me to begin visualising the project.

I put together my own Pinterest board, but allowed my team onto it so they could see my thought processes.

https://pin.it/VjDeYSj

Immediately, it was agreed that we wanted a more stylised approach for our environment, so we collected references with painterly, bright textures.

I began sketching up concepts for the tree to get a general sense of environment. This piece is half finished.

These are lantern concepts that I decided to play with! I also added a more rendered version to get an idea of colour and how we wanted to apply that to the scene.