WEEK 3-12
For the first part of this module, I was asked to identify 1 or 2 jobs within the Animation/VFX/Games industry that interests me and research them.
I’m very interested in 2D animation, concept art and storyboarding, so I decided to research into these. I first started by looking into the 2D character animator job.
From just a quick search, it says:
“A Character Animator is a specialist in character creation. They breathe life into characters, by giving moving images the illusion of thought, emotion and personality. This is created through gesture, facial expression and reaction, with animators sometimes using motion capture to replicate human movement.” – https://www.cgspectrum.com/career-pathways/character-animator
The type of skills a 2D character animator should have range. You’d definitely need to work well with other people as you’d be meeting with storyboard artists and the animation supervisor and other people throughout the pipeline. There’s also the fact you’d need to be good at working to a deadline since animation frequently have a variety of deadlines, and work best at a fast and efficient pace.
Technical drawing skills are also a must. You need to have a grasp of drawing character, anatomy and visual language, so you can bring all these skills together for a good outcome. Being a good visual storyteller is also important.
If I was to apply to be a 2D character animator, what is on my portfolio and showreel is very important.
Obviously, since I’d be applying for a 2D character job, having some 3D prop models on my portfolio would be completely irrelevant and out of place. Instead, I should have character turnarounds and character illustration, and my showreel should showcase things such as walk cycles and other character animation.
To help me research what I should include in an animation showreel, I watched this video giving helpful tips and tricks to tailor your showreel for whatever job in animation you want:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-0RQoVlWog
2D character animation can be an entry level job but depending on the kind of job it can go all the way up to requiring people with years of experience, so it really depends. Usually if they’re looking or able to employ people who are entry level, it’ll say so on the job description.
CV
For the Professional Practice module, we also have to make a CV, I’d never made a CV before so I had no idea where to start. Alec was nice enough to upload examples on blackboard of students work from previous years, and this helped me so much when it came to how to lay it out and what to write on it. I mostly took inspiration from 3 of them here.
I created a rough looking draft after looking at the examples, using colours that didn’t clash with each other and dividing the document into sections with headings. I wrote down all the relevant information such as my experience and qualifications and my personal profile on a different document so that when I create the final one it’s a pretty simple case of copy and paste. I created this draft in Clip Studio Paint but intended to create the final in Adobe Illustrator as it would be more easily laid out and manipulated.
Aodhan also helped me out when we had a one-on-one tutorial. He gave me a lot of different advice when it came to layout and contents. Such as making sure the colours don’t clash, to make sure the logo I made for my CV didn’t take up too much room and interest – as I should sacrifice as little information as possible. He also told me not to leave out my technical and soft skills. I also had a few questions he answered, I was wondering about whether some level 2 certs I got would go into education or experience, and whether something unrelated to animation was applicable to have in. He helped me figure out I could put them into experience and I could put in the thing that wasn’t creatively centred as long as I tied it back.
Using Aodhans advice and Opening up Illustrator, I finally brought together my final CV.
Obviously, there are a few changes, as I took on Aodhans advice. The logo and title name was made smaller, pretty much everything was made smaller so I could fit more information in, and the sections were moved about. I also muted the blue colour I used because I didn’t want it being too glaringly bright to look at.
Overall I’m happy with the final outcome! There are a few things that I’d like to improve on, mainly the writing on the blue border on the left-hand side, it’s okay to look at and it does its job but I wonder if I should have turned the text white to try and make it stand out on the border, or if I should’ve aligned it to the left like the rest of my document. I think it looks professional though, and showcases my information neatly and succinctly.
COVER LETTER
For my cover letter I decided to apply for a 2D animator position that way being advertised by Dog Ears.
http://www.cheersdogears.com/jobs/ANI.pdf
It’s a 2D animation co-production between Dog Ears and Cartoon Saloon using ToonBoom.
I researched cover letters before I started my own, googling general layouts for them, what the contents should be and how to go about it. A great help in the creation of my own draft was seeing Henry’s when he showed us it during class. After that class I went back onto Blackboard for the class recording and kept referring back to it when I was laying out my own.
I struggled to make my cover letter a little to be honest. I knew what I had to say, but worried where in the letter I’d put it, or if I sounded too excited and not as professional as I needed to be – or if some of the information I was giving was relevant or not. Which is why Aodhan helped a lot when I had my tutorial with him and showed him my draft.
He gave me general advice, reminding me what I need to put on there, to use the buzzwords that are on the job description because that’s exactly what they’re looking for. Make sure I show that I understand what role I’m going to fill. He did tell me that I sounded too enthusiastic at parts which is what I was worried about previously, so he helped me cut out parts that weren’t necessary or applicable to the letter.
Of course, he reminded me of the essentials – to say I’m a good communicator, can work to deadlines and work with a team well. These things are universally important for animation jobs so it was helpful to remember that I should mention that in the cover letter.
With the help from Aodhan on laying out my cover letter and what I should talk about, I was a lot more confident with what I was going to say and what edits I could make to my original draft. I started off by introducing myself and saying I am familiar and interested in working with the company, then started talking about how I believed I would be a valuable member of the team.
I then proceeded to talk about projects I’d been involved in that I could relate back into this role and use as examples to me doing similar high-quality work before. Such as my create-a-world project where I animated my own scene that had 3 characters in it. For this I also had to create characters, storyboards and character turnarounds. All of these aspects relate back to the animator job for Dog Ears as it shows I’m capable of animating and can also be helpful in other areas of the pipeline if it’s needed.
I finished with saying I am keen to learn and believe I’d be a good fit.
I think I did a good job with my cover letter, especially since this was the first one I’d ever written. I believe there is room for improvement of course. I think I could’ve been more specific in some parts, as I think there’s room for interpretation in some parts of the letter and I’d rather have black and white solid information throughout the entire thing, with no room for misinterpretation. Overall though, I’m quite happy.
SHOWREEL
Having basic skills in editing but previous experience the showreel was probably the simplest thing to make out of this module for me. I keep all of my uni work organised by year and semester so it was a simple case of going through my files to find my old animation and comb through them deciding which one’s I liked the most that I could put in my showreel. I also had a personal short looping animation I had, so I threw it in there.
It was quite hard to choose at first. I had 6 different animations I’d done in 3D using basic Maya rigs, but I like my 2D work better than most of them so only 2 3D animations made the final cut. I definitely wanted to put in my final outcome for the create-a-world project I did last year as it turned out really good and was a lot of fun for me to make at the time! I also included the flour sack animation we did last year as I think it shows I’ve got a good grasp of weight and timing in my work. I put in my recent walk cycle as well as it shows my technical skill.
The segment I animated from my group 3D project at the end of last year ‘Hubris’ I included as well. It shows I can work in a range of different mediums.
After I had compiled all of my animations, I decided to find music. To get the music I simply searched for royalty free music on YouTube and listened until I found a song that fit the feeling of my art. Then I imported the music into Sony Vegas Pro 16 which I have on my PC. I created a start and an end card for the showreel – with the start having my information on it, and then edited my animations into it, making sure I had cuts on the beat of the music so it wouldn’t seem disjointed.
I don’t think I had a lot of animation in my showreel, and if I was to do this again I would hope I’d have more work, and I think the music is too soft in the one I made — but I’m proud of what I created and am excited to see how great my showreels can become in the future.
STILL IMAGE PORTFOLIO
I also created a still-image portfolio for this module. Creating an ArtStation account and compiling a few of my personal works. It includes character turnarounds, character illustration, and character busts/reference sheets. I believe it showcases my interests and strengths quite well and I intend to add to it as I create more art.
https://www.artstation.com/neaveings