Month: May 2024

Creating a CV

For this latest assignment, we were tasked with composing a CV and cover letter for potential jobs. We were also asked to create a showreel highlighting our skills and also a portfolio which I have on ArtStation.

A CV is your first chance to make an impression.  It showcases who you are as a person. It should be well-organised and easy to read using clear headings and bullet points.  I looked at a few websites to help with the writing.  (See below)

https://nationalcareers.service.gov.uk/careers-advice/cv-sections

A CV can reflect the industry that you are applying for.  There are many templates out there and it is difficult at times to know which to choose, or whether to design your own.  The Government website indicated that it is best to use a professional font and stick to a clean and simple layout.  Yet, you do want a little personality to come through in your design.

With each job application, the CV should be tailored to the specific job that is being applied for emphasising the skills and experience most relevant to the job. It should also be no more than 2 pages long, preferably one page. All jobs will have many applicants and therefore employers will have a number of CVs to trawl through so you want your CV to stand out.

The CV should include a summary or objective statement with a brief overview of your experience, in reverse chronological order, and what you bring to the table as an animator.  The skills that you possess in relation to animation should be highlighted such as 2D/3D animation, character design, storyboarding, rigging etc.  You should also include the software proficiency you have and include any additional skills like teamwork, time management and problem-solving, as well as highlighting your carer goals.

Contact information needs to be included along with your professional title and a brief mention of your educational qualifications including animation-related coursework or any specialised training programmes that have been completed.

A link needs to be provided for your online portfolio and showreel.

Proofreading is essential before submitting the CV to make sure there are no typos or grammatical errors.  A CV is the first opportunity to make a positive impression on a potential employer.

Before composing my CV I had a look at some CV and cover letter templates to see which ones I liked.

Below are some of the options I looked at and considered replicating.

They all show different ways of formatting a CV and what is included.  I felt that the first three all looked quite ‘business like’ and didn’t really like the over all layouts.  I personally am not keen on putting a photograph on my CV so, again, that did not appeal to me.  I did like the fourth one.  I felt that it was simple yet elegant with an artistic flair to it so I decided I would amend this.

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Below is the amended template for my CV.

The above is my first iteration of my CV.  I took out the headings that I didn’t reflect my own skills and experiences and moved things around a little.  I liked that this didn’t have a profile picture but used my initials in a creative script font.  I initially thought about changing the colour from pink but in the end I decided to stick with it as the other colours I tried didn’t work or create the effect that I was looking for.

The above is my final iteration. I decided to make some alterations to the design.  I extended the pink colour block on the left hand side of the page which I preferred and also changed the colour of the CS, my initials, to contrast with both the white and the pink.

 

Creating a Showreel

Showreel research

A showreel is exactly what it says!  It is a short video that shows your snippets of your best animations to date.  I prefer working in 2D animation so my showreel is mainly made up of 2D animations.  This is the area that I really want to be applying for so it is appropriate that my showreel reflects this.  I really enjoy character design and feel that this is a strength of mine.

The showreel doesn’t have to include fully completed animations these can be rough animations and show the direction in which you are going. Ideally, a showreel should be about 1 minute in length.  The edits should flow smoothly and quickly into the next one in quick succession.

Below are some examples of showreels I though were good.

I wanted text animation so I watched this after effects tutorial

This is the original version and because of the title card and end car it went over 1 minute by 11 seconds

 

Creating a Cover Email and finding Job listings.

To accompany the CV a cover letter or email is also required.  Again, I looked at a few online websites for advice on how to do this.  I also wanted the style of the Cover Letter to match my CV.

A cover letter or email is something that accompanies your CV.  According to the national careers advice service that the government provide there are tips for writing a cover letter.

• A new cover letter should be written for every job you apply for. It should be specifically suited to the company and specific job role.
• You should use the same font and size as you do for your CV, so it looks consistent.
• You need to make sure the company name and recruiter’s details are correct.
• You need to use the right language and tone and it is useful to match the keywords used by the employer in their job advertisement.
• show you’ve done your research into the job and the company. Show that you are aware of their ethos and goals and have a vested interest.
• highlight your most relevant skills and experience to stand out from other applicants
• back up any statements you make with facts and use the STAR method which stands for situation – the situation you had to deal with. T= task, the task you were given to do, A=Action – the action you took and finally R = result, what happened as a result of your action and what you learned from the experience.
• Always double-check spelling and grammar before you send it
• keep a copy of your cover letter as they may ask you about it in an interview

As I have a diagnosis of Autism, DLD and Dyslexia I also looked up advice on whether or not that should be included on a website.  As someone with a disability, it is always difficult to know when the right time is to inform someone.  I don’t want to be defined by my disability or potentially face discrimination either.  I looked at the information on https://www.disabilityrightsuk.org/resources/telling-people-you’re-disabled-clear-and-easy-guide-students

Many people do disclose their disability in a cover letter.  However, with the nature of my disability, I decided I would prefer to discuss this in a 1:1 situation if I were given the opportunity of an interview.

As a cover letter should be tailored to the job description and I went about looking at potential jobs for animation.  This is the field I really want to work in.  There are several ways to go about finding a job but online sites are a good place to start.  With the world now being smaller and opportunities for remote working plentiful post covid, the world is now more ‘local’ than ever before. I visited anmiatonuk.org to see what they had.  They have a list of companies with direct links to potential jobs.  Even if there are no current jobs available they often indicate that they would be happy for you to get in contact.

I looked at A&C studios as they had opportunities for Freelance work and were offering remote work.  Often there are direct links to apply on the site and opportunities to directly upload your CV and cover letter.  Below is what they are looking for and also a direct link to apply online.

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I tailored my cover letter to match 2D aspect of the freelance work that was being offered.  Below is a copy of my cover letter.

 

Portfolio

I want to look into doing character design so I watched this video by Jackie Droujko

I also looked into her website.

https://www.jackiedroujko.com/

 

my Artstation https://www.artstation.com/chloesnowden1

 

 

For this assignment we were put into groups with the Games Design course to create a game. The game theme were were given to base the project on was ‘Unstable’.  My group consisted of 4 animations members and 3 game design members. The Animation team was made up of Abby, Cate, Malcom and myself and the games team was made up of James, Jamie and Robbie.

When starting this assessment we had to come up with a couple of ideas for a game.  We settled on a two player verses stacker game. 

The idea behind the game is to build towers.  Two sides complete to build a tower from different blocks  and whoever gets the highest tower first is the winner.  There are power-ups that can be used to make things harder for your opponent.   The game’s target audience is ages 15-28.

Once the game idea was decided we split up what we are going to do. Abby and I ended up on character designs and Malcom and Cate ended up on backgrounds.

Our first assessment for this project was to create an art style and art guide.  We were giving a list of style options to choose from when creating an art style for this game.

• “saturday morning” friendly cartoony – Examples: Spyro the dragon, Skylanders, Sonic the Hedgehog, Mario.
• “Wacky” animated: Cupheads, Mouse.
• AAA realistic – Call of Duty, Battlefield, Splinter cell etc.
• AAA exagerated realism – Doom, Gears of War, Fallout.
• “graphic novel” inspired – Borderlands, XIII, MadWorld, Hades etc.
• Soft fantasy – Breath of the wild, Fenix Rising, Avatar the last aribender.
• Dark fantasy – Elden Ring, Lords of the fallen, bloodbourne, Hollow knight.
• Epic fantasy – Lord of the rings, Skyrim, Baldurs gate.
• Comic book inspired fantasy – Darksiders, World of warcraft, League of Legends.
• Clean Sci-fi – Mass effect, Starfield, Destiny.

We decided to go with Saturday Morning as an art style for this game.

These shows typically have coloured line art on their characters and little to no line art on the backgrounds.  This makes the characters stand out a lot from the backgrounds.  The characters are made with bold shapes and simple structures, for example, the eyes, which is typical of this stype.  One of the best examples of this, in our opinion, is the Generation Four My little pony character: Friendship is magic.

 

Other show we looked at were

•  Little miss pet shop
•  Ever after high
•  Hilda (pilot)
•  Winx club
•  Bee and Puppycat
•  Monster High
• SVTFOE

We wanted our animations to have an art style that would appeal to all ages and target audience demographics.  To do this, I looked at other Saturday Morning art style for shows. Such as TMNT 1987, Looney Tunes and Wacky Races which are aimed at a different audiences and age demographics.

Abbi initially had an idea for a character when we started the game. She was able to use this character and did a little bit of re-design on it to make it more useable for the game.   Once it became a two player verses game we needed to come up with another character. I decided to create a Racoon character to go up  against Abby’s Bunny character.

When designing the Raccoon character I used the raccoon from MLP as a reference as well as an artist I had found on instagram called Tessa Nelissen (@Jessali-tn). I really like how she draws animals and particulalry how she drew the animal’s fur. I did, however,  have to simplify the fur for a more consistent art style in keeping with Abbi’s bunny character. I tried my best to combined the more ‘kiddy simplistic’ art style along with Looney Tunes and Tessa Neliseenn when creating the Raccoon character. I also tried to match the Bunny character to the fit together in the game. When drawing the final design I wanted to make it more expressive and mischievous in its body language.

For the colours I ended up colour picking from a Raccoon images I was using as a reference. I wanted the Raccoon to stand out against most cartoon raccoons so I designed to use  browns instead of greys.

Malcolm did the background for the bunny and work on the UI along side James. While Cate did the background for the Raccoon as well as other assets, for example,  the crane.

One of the most important assets for us to design for the game was the blocks. We use the standard default block shape you often find in most stacker games, especially Tetris. We each chose two different blocks to design.  Each of use are going to design 4 blocks in total. Two versions of each block for each area of the game, for example, a version the L-block for the Raccoon area and a version of the L-block for the Bunny area.

We had a bit of trouble coming up with a constant art style for the blocks so in the end we decided to each do one part of the block process. It was decided that I would re-design all the blocks for the entire game.  Then Malcom took my sketches and did the line art for them. Malcom then sent the line art to Cate and she did the flat colours.  Finally, Abbi got the blocks and added the shading.   Doing it this way ensured that all the blocks looked the same.  It also ensured that we all took part and no one person ended up doing up more work than another person..

Each square of the blocks are 25X25cm.

 

Abby and I designed the characters so we were in-charge of doing the character animations. We were givin a list of emotions/reactions for us to animated. This included  happy, sad, mad, dizzy, frozen, a defeat animation and a winning animation.

When doing the animations for the characters Abbi and I made sure to have our character drawn in the same line thickness so we agreed to use the pencil 2.

The game is a 1 v 1 game so we wanted power ups. The powers up are a bomb, wind and a freeze.

I was asked to do the bomb animation for the bomb power up. Initially I found animating the explosion rather difficult but after watching a couple of YouTube videos I was able to animate the explosion.

I ended up finishing my animations first so I offered to do the character icons for the UI as for the longest time we used a concept piece of the Raccoon character as the two characters in the UI.  As I did the UI icons, I could ensure that the characters were drawn in the same way.  Jamie also suggested to me, that, if I had time, I could also draw  borders for the character icons.  I thought this was a good idea.  I ended up doing an eaten apple for the Raccoon which matched the Raccoon’s dizzy animation and carrots for the bunny with match the bunny’s dizzy animation.

Conclusion 

If I were to do this again I think I would do further research into how different characters react in different games.  This would enable me to improve my character animations in the future.   Communication is key!  I think communication could have been better.  There were times when I was totally confused about what was happening, particularly on the gaming side. Often people didn’t respond and this was frustrating and stressful.   I also need to keep up-to-date with writing the blog so that it is fresh in my memory or at the very least, write down bullet points as I work so that when I go back to write the blog I can remember what I did.    Looking back over the project from the start of the assessment to the end, I have realised the Raccoon design is constantly changing even when I wasn’t intentionally wanting to make changes.   Particulalry when feedback was given.    If I were to do this again I would be more careful when designing the character in the first place so the design is strong from the start. I would also be more careful that I’m not drawing the character differently each time, make sure to have a strong character sheet which I stick too,  and make sure I have a good, strong art style which also doesn’t change thought the process of the game development.

Bomb Animation

 

Raccoon Animation

Block sketchs

Characte icons

 

Raccoon character sheet

Game play