S1 WEEK 1-2
I looked for a few job roles that people can have in the animation industry, and I had a look at them.
BACKGROUND DESIGNER
Firstly, I looked at what a background designer does in the industry. They’re in the pre-production part of the pipeline, and do their work after the storyboards have been created. They design the environment and scenery around the animation. They need to create backgrounds that fit the style of the animation in general, and take into account a light source, colour and texture – while also making sure the background doesn’t take any attention away from the animation. Once they create these backgrounds, they present them to the director and get the go ahead to hand them over to layout artists.
STORYBOARD ARTIST
Next, I looked at what a storyboard artist does. A storyboard artist is again in the pre-production area of the pipeline. They work alongside the head of story and help them turn the director’s vision into a reality, and help translate the script into pictures. When creating storyboards, there’s a lot more planning than just quickly sketching out dialogue. They need to take into account different shot types, angles, and maintain continuity in the scene. Storyboard artists basically lay down the visual groundwork for the rest of the people in the pipeline to work off of, so they need to be able to tell a story visually really proficiently.
CHARACTER DESIGNER
Finally, I decided to look at a character designer. They help visualise the characters that are in the media they’re working on. They work in the Development department of the pipeline, and would work very closely with lots of different people in the production management department to take the characters personality and traits and work to incorporate them into the physical design of the character. They’d research what look the media was going to have and create the character accordingly, then create model sheets for the storyboard artists and others to work off of.
https://www.cgspectrum.com/career-pathways/character-designer
I’m very interested in designing characters myself, and looking at the different responsibilities and traits people have to have is very interesting. There’s definitely more than I expected to take into account but it’s also a lot of stuff you learn to do without even really thinking the more you do it. I think it’s really cool!
JOB APPLICATIONS
This job seems very cool to me, I’m interested in animating creatures and humanoids so this one stuck out. It’s entry level but it needs a lot of experience and proficiencies, which surprised me because it’s entry level. But with what the job entails it seems only natural to need someone with refined skills.
https://uk.indeed.com/viewjob?jk=e3918bc97a660a31&tk=1fgr5nk88tv3l804&from=serp&vjs=3
KING PECORA
King Pecora is a storyboard artist currently working on The Owl House, they were previously a storyboard revisionist/artist and character designer at Crunchyroll after graduating from the Maryland Institute of Arts, having got a BFA in illustration and a minor in creative writing. He currently lives in Los Angeles. He has a Twitter, a website, and a LinkedIn account you can find here:
https://twitter.com/king_pecora
https://www.linkedin.com/in/king-pecora-0538517a/
On their website they’ve documented their educational and professional experience, as well as highlighting what they’re best at. They started out as you can see – as a Storyboard Revisionist on Crunchyroll – and worked different projects until they got their current job on The Owl House team.
Here’s some of their work!
You can see their character design, storyboard and illustration skills here. I love their style and how emotive it I, and his storyboards and characters have a lot of personality and emotion to them.
Looking at their journey so far, they started working at Crunchyroll and took on multiple different projects in different areas throughout their time there, before getting their current job working on The Owl House — moving from storyboards and storyboard revision to character design. It gives me the impression that he was very open and capable to work in different areas and wasn’t afraid to do different things. Instead of strictly sticking to one thing and doing only that, he could do multiple things in the pipeline and help out in a range of different ways. Taking that into consideration, I should be open to working on lots of different things, and be competent in multiple areas of the animation pipeline.