Learning Journey Presentation

For my learning journey, I knew that I wanted to make it short. I feel like I have made so many posts this year and go so in depth into reflecting the year that I don't want to pile it all again into another piece of work. Obvious the learning journey needs to show everything that happens, but I knew I could easily cut down the key points and focus on them for the animation.

Another thing is that I wanted to make it fun to watch; sitting in a room watching peoples' presentations while being impatient to finish and submit deadline work is not going to be fun, and I know that the other students watching this are going to be tired, so I wanted to keep it fun and add in whatever humour I could. This was helped a lot by the sound effects I used, which I found for free off different websites (although since this is a presentation and not a piece of work to specifically share, I don't think copyright is as big an issue).

I did put some of my own work into it but most of what I would have wanted to show has been seen so many times by the class due to Applied and my print outs, so I didn't want too much. I kept my text short so that there wasn't too much to read at once, and with silly gifs/videos between them, I think it works. I tried to do as simple things as possible in between because of time reasons and so that everything was definitely readable - I don't want people to be confused about what I drew and not have time to properly decipher it.

I showed some of the outtakes from our collaboration to show that it doesn't always go slowly and showed how though our communication may be good, some times there might be a little too much. I did this in a way that added a little more humour, because it isn't really something that was annoying, but I felt that I should comment on it anyway.

My music has more of the "YEAHH!!!" feel that I was looking for when it came to my show reel, although it isn't free so it would not have been appropriate for my reel anyway. Hopefully this music helps to keep everyone awake.

I added in a video of my kittens at the end to give everyone a short break from things to do with the course, and to give them something cute to watch.

SWOT MAY 2015

New SWOT analysis;

STRENGTHS
- Photoshop things
- Teamwork/Can compromise
- Can experiment
- Design
- Not afraid to network
- Documentation - a lot faster and a lot more blog posts per project
- Research/Research organisation


WEAKNESSES
- Animation
- Can't put 100% effort into something I don't care about
- Focusing on multiple parts of an animation project
- Better at marathoning work rather than bits at a time
- Pitching

OPPORTUNITIES
- Thought Bubble
- Competitions
- Studios in Manchester
- Other smaller conventions
- Internet

THREATS
- Procrastination
- Anxiety
- Competition
- Time

I have already mentioned in other posts about my goals for next year. To put it briefly, I will be focusing on character design and visual development, although I would like to look more into story as well if possible. I need to make sure that I am specific with my briefs because I have been known to go off on one and enjoy the development stage too much and not turn my work into any actual finished thing, so I will be careful of that next year. I would like to talk even more with artists from Thought Bubble next year, and net work more online as well.

Plans for Summer

In the summer, I aim to get all of my professional social media accounts synced - using the same icon and making sure that the name is consistent through all of them so that I am easier to find. I already have my Tumblr set to post to Twitter whenever I make a new post, which will make it easier to share my work on Twitter. I will be posting any Behance updates on my Tumblr as well, so that all of my accounts will be notified.

I aim to complete at least 3 designs that are of printable quality to start off a RedBubble shop which I will then promote across all of my other social networks. I don't really expect to make much money off of this but I feel like tit could be a good start for figuring out what people want to buy and keeping my work looking new.

I will definitely be making more pieces for my portfolio, showing more detail about my characters and making them more lifelike. I will also try out the task from the Chris Oatley tips and design a character via their room, which I might consider trying to animate. It would be fun to create some sort of story and setting and do a whole selection of vis dev work for that, to change my portfolio into a visual development one rather than character design, to keep my option more open. I would also like to try Flash again if I have time and try to animate in that - I feel like it might work more for my designs and I might enjoy it more than working in Photoshop. I didn't really decide if I liked Flash or not in first year since we only animated a ball and pendulum' characters will be a lot harder to animate in that, but I'm confident that I could give it a good go.

I will also look at ways of making my Tumblr more interesting - I feel like the Twitter widget at the top of the page takes up too much space, especially as it takes so long to load, so I would like to find a way to move that to the side with it still being readable.

Pop Up Show Feedback

We didn't really have a lot of questions to ask at the pop up show, especially with our animation not yet being finished. It was kind of scary as well with our animation being show first, but we did get quite a few laughs which was good. We also met the voice actor which was great - he said he would be happy to work with us again in the future which is great.

Most of our feedback was that 'it would be nice to see the animation finished' which I agree with, although I also heard another comment of the sky clashing with Johnny's hair. I did a test with that earlier on making the sky more blue and showed it to the team, but nothing ever came of that and the original colour stayed.

At this point I would have had nothing to ask really apart from if the sound works at the beginning or end with the title cards where the music cuts out, although hat is more of Cara's area.

It would be nice to finish the animation for the exhibition (though me and Cara both have short holidays before then) and if so, I would definitely like to print off some of my art boards to put up.

May 2015 Portfolio

Most of the work that I can use for my portfolio is from this year, which is good because it shows my current skill level, but the main reason is because I didn't have a lot of opportunities to look into character design last year. Though I like my designs below, I would have liked to be producing things like this by the end of first year, rather than now; I have a lot of work to do over the summer to learn how to design to a more professional standard, as I don't think this would cut it in a professional setting.

I went for a simple layout so that the viewer wouldn't be distracted by anything else - I think that the lines at the top and bottom help to keep your view central, and feel more organised. I left it open at the sides since it continues on - I feel like it flows easier like this, and it will definitely look a lot better on Isshu and if viewed with an image viewer. I used colours that went well with the designs but weren't too saturated; I don't want them to distract from the colours in the image itself, but I feel like the layout is a bit too boring otherwise.

Content-wise, I didn't have a lot to choose from. I like the designs of Johnny, Cake Man and Barbara anyway, but I would have liked to made a much expressive expressions page, taking influence from Chris Oatley's portfolio tips and tell more about the character in each image if I'd have found those tips earlier. I wouldn't have minded maybe a bit more of a pose to do with their personalities for the turnaround as well, although since most of them were designs to be animated, I didn't want to make the design harder for anyone that I was working with to translate.

I would like to create a new portfolio by the end of summer using the things that I have learned this year, and try to find a style of presentation that I think is a bit more interesting. It would nice to have newer 'best work' to put at the start and end, but I do like Johnny and Barbara, so for now I am happy with those two being my best designs and sitting at either end.

Here is the link for my portfolio on Behance

Business Cards

For business cards, I wanted to keep it simple - especially as the title may change to vis dev artist or something similar depending on how the next summer/year goes. I feel like business cards are easily something that I can redesign when bored even if I don't use the design, so I am only really going for designs that work right now and not necessarily as a long term thing.

I wanted to try a mix of different designs based off of the ones in my research earlier. It was hard to decide what to put on though, whether it was designing a new character for it, using one I already have or leaving images off completely. I know that as a character designer, it makes sense to have a character on and show my abilities (as Cara also commented to me) but I just an't decide how I want it. I'm also feeling more positive about more minimal designs at the moment (although this could easily change). I think that I like the two with white and blue most at the moment - I think that the second one down on the right would work better double sided with the URLS on the back and just the middle banner and patter on the front; it's simple but to the point, and I feel like the spaces are quite balanced. 

The other one that I like is the Twitter one - it s one of the simpler ones but it still includes my own drawing and is much more social network based which is what all of the URLs I think I'll be including are. If this was using actual text, I feel like it would look too boring - hand writing/drawing it has a more personal touch, while I like. I feel like the simplicity works, and could hopefully encourage the recipient to pull up Twitter and take a look at my profile. I chose Twitter because it has more of an iconic look than Tumblr profiles, since they are heavily customisable, and Behance ones just aren't that interesting. Twitter is quick and easy, and that is something I think is effective for my current business card.

May 2015 Showreel

After doing research on other show reels, I had a clear idea of how I wanted my show reel to be, with upbeat music, best animations at the start and end and only putting in my best stuff rather than trying to fill it. This made making my show reel tricky because I haven't animated much this year - my focus is the design side, so much of my material is from our first year. I wasn't confident with a lot of my first year animation since I didn't feel like I had time to learn how to animate properly as well as finish whatever length animation it was by the deadline, so really a lot of what I had isn't really that usable.

I managed to find a few parts, like scenes from my Young Avengers opening which I did find fun to do last year. Other than that, I used second year work like a scene from our cake film - I didn't animate it but I cleaned it up, and since Johnny turns around, I feel like this is a good example of showing that I can keep characters on model when cleaning them up. The other thing I used from this year was my Context of Practice Turnaround - I do like the design that I created for that, and the character moves much better than my other turnarounds in my first year show reel so I feel that it is a good idea to include it. I also put in another animation I did in my spare time, that is completely coloured in and shows hair animation which I really like. This still only got me around 25 seconds though.

I know that my other animation work just won't look good in my show reel, so I decided to spend a few hours making some more to put in. The new animation only lasts 2 seconds, so it didn't really make a difference and it would have been easier to make something longer in After Effects that would help, bu I had fun and it was something entertaining for my friends so it was worth doing. It makes a nice, cheesy ending for my show reel anyway, and that works for me.

For the audio, I wanted something upbeat - if we didn't have to worry about copyright music and all of that, I would probably have considered using the Pacific Rim soundtrack again just because it really does make you all "YEAHHH!!!" which would be a great atmosphere for showing off work. Sadly, I can't do that, so I had to look on the Free Music Archive. I really couldn't find a lot that I liked, and the ones that I did like had vocals which would be too distracting from my reel. Eventually I found two - the first one that I tried had little bits of words throughout the music which I didn't realise, so I didn't use that. The other one if the one that I used - it did have vocals, but it also had a just under 30 second intro which is just about how long my animations lasted for, so it took me a while with a lot of cutting to get my animations to fit exactly with the instrumental bit. I think it works well, with a lot of the animations appearing right on the beats of the song, and the end does finish at a good place. I am a lot happier with my show reel than last year, and I think my animation skill has improved a little bit, considering how little 2D I have actually done since last year. I think that it accurately represents me too as a creator, with bright colours, upbeat music and bits of silliness.

Chris Oatley Visual Development tips

I have been following character designer Chris Oatley for a few years now, and I always find his tips helpful. Recently he posted a series of tips that talk about creating a competetive Visual Development portfolio.

Here are my notes on the series;

Three Essential Steps To Become A VisDev Artist:

1. Pick a story.
2. Get a pencil and a piece of paper.
3. Develop the story visually.

A lot of aspiring Vis Dev artists practice drawing/painting but not the specific process of visual development. 

VisDev artists don't need anything more than a sketchbook and pencil.

Explore the entire imagined world; characters, props, environments etc. Explore colour and lighting.

Act hired before you get hired

Every piece should respond to a question about the character. Asking hyper specific questions of your character and responding to them through visual development show much more of your character's personality. Show this throughout your portfolio.

Get to know your characters as well as you know your best friends

If your environments don't mean anything to any of your characters, they won't really matter to the audience. Not every specific detail needs to be important to the character, but every place in the story should matter to the character in some way.


TASK - Who lives here?
Design a character without designing a character; communicate the story of a character through a drawing of their personal space. Try to answer as least 10 questions about your character through this one drawing or painting. Bonus - show that the character leads a double life.

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I definitely want to try this task this summer - I think it would be great both for developing characters and practicing drawing backgrounds and spaces, since I don't do that too often. It would be nice - although very ambitious, to create something like Studio Mappa has in the opening for their show Punchline; 

I would need Maya to rotoscope over, although I could just design a room then create it in Maya, but I would like to help my drawing skills more. This would maybe be part of a project then for third year, but designing rooms and places that link to characters will be a very good task, and I can also think about angles and lighting.

Showreel Research

I will probably be concentrating on character animation in my show reel since that is the only thing that I have really done in terms of animation, so I am going to look at a few examples of show reels to help me get some ideas of how to present my shots.


One showreel that I do really love is Kilogrammes'; obviously it is a little different since that has a whole team of people working on most parts of it, which also allows hem to create a wider range of animations. I still think it is worth looking at though, especially since it is one that sticks in my head a lot.


The first thing I always notice straight away is how upbeat and fun the music is - it's more interesting than slower music, which I aways find easier to get bored of. Upbeat music gives more of a positive impression of the video, so I think hat it is the way to go where show reels are concerned. The variation of animation does show that they are capable of many different things, meaning that they can be versatile and aren't stuck in their ways, which is probably a good thing for an employer to see. It starts and ends with some very nice transitions which I think works very well to start and tie up the video, making it feel like a finished show reel and not just like they have dumped all of the animation clips they can find in there.


Titmouse "AWESOME!" Reel 2014 from Titmouse on Vimeo.

Titmouse is another studio that I love that has a really fun show reel. The music straight away is the sort to get you pumped up, with the opening animations fitting very well. There is a variation of character animation nd other things, showing that they don't just concentrate on one thing. The style varies a lot, but the themes generally stay the same - they produce mostly action things, with a lot of darker themes which is shown extremely well from this show reel - I feel like after watching this, a company would be able to tell what they would get from working with Titmouse. I feel like there is so much different animation in it though that the reel does not have to be that long - just one minute would have showed their skills really well, although the music finishes very nicely at the 2 minute mark. All f the animation was excellent quality anyway, so I don' think they have really hurt the show reel by doing it that long. Some shots could have been on for longer, although the length of them did work very well with the music, and added to the impact.

I feel like these have definitely given me a lot more ideas music-wise, so I will have to make sure that I think about it very thoroughly while making my show reel since it can make such a different to the feel of the animation.

Year Reflection Notes

What went well?
- Learned to work quicker
- Got used to cintiq!
- ENJOYED IT
- Learned more design principles
- Learned how to force myself to blog
- Collaboration is good w/likeminded people who know how to compromise well

What didn't?
- Maya and After Effects broke at the most inconvenient time
- Very behind on one module because of Responsive
- Entering competitions that I literally don't care about and not finding many relevant to my practice (specifically that I could pitch enough for??? Also pitching was v confusing especially when not pitching a whole thing. Pitching a full thing was a lot easier, thanks applied)

What have I learned?
- Coffee becomes less effective after a time
- Sleep is for the weak

How will I take this into next year?
- Anticipate the time each module will take and schedule accordingly, leaving extra time in case of emergency
- Focus on design!!!!!
- Balance sleep and work better


What do I want to achieve next year?
- CHARACTER DESIGNNNNNNNNNN
- Look more at writing including monomyth
- Some exploration into more general visual development

Have I achieved what I wanted to this year?
- Kind of - slow start; first module didn't let me think about design much, Responsive slowed me down a lot so could spend less time on design for Applied. Only took a year and a half before I could start concentrating fully on my practice (although the making an opening sequence last year let me do a little more character design still).

Sketchbook Stuff 2

I did start trying to draw more full body things which has already been helpful so far. I'm trying to use more different poses - studying how people move helps me to learn anatomy more, and I like to pause videos and draw clips from it. This was especially fun at the end of first year when I drew some characters with poses fro Single Ladies. I haven't done anything quite so interesting this year, but I'm trying to us eposes that works for the characters' personalities at the same time.

There are still more disembodied heads than there should be but at least that isn't all I am drawing more bodies. The last two I drew are some of my favorites though - there is a lot of variation in them compared to the first few in my first sketchbook post, and I feel like they have much more individual features. Aim for summer - draw more unique characters in interesting poses! I'm still stuck on how I want to stylise bodies (as my default, at least), but maybe I should just keep trying to do realistic bodies for now until I decide or just naturally begin stylising them one way.

Misc Sketchbook Stuff

Throughout the year I have been keeping sketchbooks and drawing when I have time, although unfortunately that wasn't as much as last year. However, I haven't had any longer periods of time without drawing this time around which is new for me. It might be because I'm at a point where I won't abandon drawings since they usually come out decent at least. Being slightly more confident in my skills (although not up to the level I want to be yet) has helped me draw a lot more which in turn helps me improve more, so it is working out well.

A habit I do have - and am trying to break - is just drawing heads. I like looking at faces and expressions, but then I don't complete the bodies; I find them much harder to draw after having a completed head already, since my proportions just go so confusing afterwards. I would like to be exploring expressions more as I draw but at least I have a little bit, and I would like to be better at exaggeration and creating unique faces.

Kilogramme Talk Part 2

Animatic can show if too much dialogue and not enough visuals. Use excel schedules to send to clients. One nice client - night before, client's boss changed mind on things. Lots of people can say no but only one needs to say yes. People might ask for more even if it has been signed off on - in that case, can ask for more b/c that was not agreed on. Most people will pay for that extra that they wanted though. People there are better at managing their own time - some just need to be left to it to make their pieces. Graduates send stuff but there isn't always work etc for them, but have resent stuff later and there has been notable improvement, will def be considered. The need to know that someone is really dedicated and does it whether they are paid for it or not. Noticed (at uni etc) people in studios more often seemed to have done more work. The don't look at the degree - it is all about their showreel. Can tell from their reel their skill in animation. Good to have unique designs - don't look like already well-established things. Guy called Johnny loves doing storyboards. Trouble with script - what it looks like in your head is different from what you might have written down. Have to be open to other peoples' stuff and compromise though. SCRIPT IS KING - can't make a good film from a bad script. Try w/apprenticeships but applicants really have to stand out. They only have so much space and time for students/graduates. A lot of them use Cintiqs, Wacoms and Toonboom. In studio, Jon and Paul use Max but some animators still use Maya - hybrids work though. More mention of Cinema 4D within industry now.

Better to be good at 1 thing than only okay at 3 (being being good at 3 is great!) Self-employable time, but between 4 - 8 people employed regularly  but crew is up/down depending on demands. Studio - up to 14 people, some freelancers rent the space out. Involved in Motion North sometimes.

Kilogramme Talk Part 1

Kilogramme is an animation company located in Manchester that creates short animations, both corporate and not. they use a lot of 2D styles that I love - thick lines, simple shapes, and very fun.

Notes

Had been working at Cosgrove Hall Digital for a few years - more technical side. Slowly built Kilogramme up over these 10 years.
Do a lot of smaller briefs, keep practice going, can use these for trying new things. Think that it is easier to put life into 2D characters. Dr Who shorts - mix of 2D and 3D animation.  Some 2D work for Jim Carey's A Christmas Carol. Worked again with a lot of people who gave the briefs and who may have worked with them i.e doing the 3D parts.

Use of 3D cameras with 2D things. In 2011 felt meh about some of the stuff that they were producing. Though about doing more shorts - won awards for some, asked to make more from people who saw them which allowed them to make a sequel from their short.

"We've got a dry subject, can you do a funny film?" Try to keep up to date with tech - need to have a good story though (unless it is Transformers :P) Need to think how you can stand out. Even with good animation you need to be able to pull people in. Get idea first to build off - have a few people at Kilogramme work on them together. Time to make ideas depends on deadlines - 3 week deadline might mean only 1 day on ideas. 1 week maybe for a 2 month brief, which is what they often get. Storyboards etc have to be done very early on. Own projects - longer is fine. Started a film in 2002, took at least 7 years to do but then wanted something different anyway. They have gotten to the point now where they can turn people down. Might receive better jobs while working on one but mostly just work on one brief at a time. Pitching against other companies - like 30 - put a lot of work in but don't necessarily get a response. Companies sometimes ask to 'copy a style - but are they just trying to knock prices down from other places? Having a dialogue first w/the company is good but not always possible. Need to know what you're getting across - bounce ideas and pitch against other people to make sure interesting etc script - design - SBs -audio somewhere along here - animatic - animation - final render/post production.

Star vs the Forces of Evil: Backgrounds

Character design is obviously my main focus, although the idea of character animation is interesting too, but one thing I want to try to explore more in the future is backgrounds and other parts of visual development - one thing that I feel SvtFoE does really well. Justin Parpan is one of the art directors on the show, but also creates a lot of the backgrounds himself.

One thing that I really love about the backgrounds is the simplicity. A lot of animated shows use beautifully painted backgrounds which look great, and there are a lot of hybrids, or shows like Steven Universe and Craig McCracked shows like The Powerpuff Girls that use flat backgrounds with brushes that give them a more painted effect, and I really enjoy those in animation. However, the SvtFoE backgrounds fit in with the characters much more, in my opinion - they are in a similar, flat colour style which makes for much easier interaction with and integration of props within the background - as opposed to flat colour props awkwardly placed in a painted scene. I haven't seen too many shows do this, recently at least, and especially as Star interacts with so much of any environment she is in, I think it works really well. I feel like this would be a great place for me to starts with looking at the background part of visual development; the simplicity means that I can focus on design without having to worry about the rendering as much, and  it should work well with the sort of characters that I like designing.

I also love the colours - there is always a lot of variation within colours, but the proportions of colours are done very well. There is a lot more orange/red kind of tones in the top image, with smaller bits of blue/green to complement it rather than overpower it. The opposite can be said with the second image, with most of the house being green and the smaller details being orange tones. The second image is slightly less saturated as well compared to the first image, as indoor lights are generally a lot less bright than sunlight outside. The background designs for this show demonstrate a great understanding of colour theory and lighting, which is one of the reasons that it is so effective. I should definitely take that into account and try to study this further this summer.

Star Vs the Forces of Evil - Characters

Star Vs the Forces of Evil is a new show from Disney XD that I absolutely love the art direction of (and no complaints about the story or characters here, either).

 

The character design somewhat reminds me of the kind of Cartoon Network styles that I have been looking up this year for my Applied project; simple shapes that are easy to animate, but also build up to make silhouettes that look very different from each other. The colours are bright, adding to the fun, upbeat atmosphere of the programme - even if the characters are fighting Evil quite a lot of the time, it doesn't stop the overall feel of the show being light and bouncy. The lines make sure that the characters stand out well from the background, and complements the simple shapes. The designs feel very well put together, and for Star and Marco (the main two characters above), you can easily tell a lot about them from their appearance. 

Marco is more your typical teenager, complete with hoodie and converse looking shoes; he isn't particularly a jock or a nerd, he doesn't fit in with any particular social groups, making him a little more relatable to the young audience of children from around 6-11. Star has a few more things going on in her outfit - the dress and striped socks showing the bubbly, more typically feminine side of her - which is expected from a Disney princes. On the other hand, she has a headband with devil horns, and animal looking boots completely with spiky teeth and horns. This shows the more mischievous, dangerous side of her - which fits well, because at least half of the dangerous situations that happen in the show come about because of her carelessness or misuse of magic. She always has good intentions though, keeping her from feeling like a bad influence or promoting the dangerous things that she does. Overall, the designs don't skew towards one demographic - the characters in the show appeal to a wide audience.

The animation is very fun and bouncy as well, which works nicely with the design. The principles of animation such as secondary action, follow through and overlapping movement is applied extremely well in this, making the characters feel much more lifelike and full of personality. there is always multiple things going on at once, and the animation consistently fills the scenes up with interesting things - I feel like you could easily watch this show without the audio and understand what is happening, the characters' reactions to what is happening and the people around them. Usually the character animation in 20 minute shows, at least the ones that I have watched, don't seem to put this much effort in every little movements - they might have great fight sequences and special effects, but SvtFoE really stands out to me when it comes to animating body language and the smaller movements.

Sakiko

One artist that I am really enjoying at the moment is Sakiko (http://gekiamana.tumblr.com/). As soon as I saw their art of Star Vs the Forces of Evil, I had to go and check out the rest of it and I wasn't disappointed. The poses show the characters' personalities really well. and they are clear, readable and flow really well. The thing that I like the most though, is the colouring. They switch between black lines and coloured, both of which look great, and their colours tend to be bright and vivid. The shadows are still bright and saturated and the characters just look so alive. I want to try and use more bright colours and lines to make my art as exciting as these illustrations.

Portfolio Research

For researching specific portfolios, I wanted to find ones that actually seemed to have personalities, and actually thinks about bringing the characters alive rather than just throws on whatever designs they may have. I feel like it is probably easy to just find whatever designs you have done that you think looks good and put them all together, but that would not be enough to catch a potential employer's eye.


https://johnjagusak.carbonmade.com/projects/4066465
Though this portfolio is too long in my opinion, and looks more like a character design dump, I think some of the designs really stand out. Jagusak uses expressions and body language to show the actual personality of his characters really well as the shape and design of the character. I could easily imagine how many of these would act in an actual animated series, even down to the sort of voice they would have. The visual style a lot of the characters have remind me a lot of Cartoon Network characters, which might be good for some studios but it means that Jagusak doesn't necessarily have a style that stands out, and I don't think I would recognise his work if I saw it again (minus the name).

http://www.celine-kim.com/
Celine Kim again uses very nice expressions and poses to get the characters' personalities across - their use of the line of action is very clear and effective too, making the poses that much more exciting. They show thought into the material of the props and specific measurements which would help so much for 3D animators especially. The storytelling is very strong even within only one image, and it is clear that they aren't just designing for the sake of designing. There is a lot of passion put into this - not only is the character design great but even the backgrounds, props and colour keys have a lot of effort put into them. Kim shows that they are effective at visual development with everything being clear and giving you a very specific, confident idea of what this story will look like, and I think that it is an effective portfolio.

https://www.behance.net/gallery/12109707/Portfolio-2013
One of the things I like most about Chiara Benedetti's 2013 portfolio is the layout - everything is clear and concise, with the headings explaining the project without being too distracting or boring. The layout stays consistent even when moving projects/area and definitely feels like a solid portfolio. It changes a little when it comes to the digital paintings but I think that is necessary to make sure that they stand out.

https://www.behance.net/gallery/17767069/Chiara-Benedetti-Portfolio-2014
Benedetti's layout changes for her 2014 portfolio but so does the theme and tone of the work - there is a lot more focus on props and backgrounds in this compared to character design, also showing more interest in colour and layout. The work quality already makes this portfolio look much more professional, and like there is a clearer focus on what jobs exactly Benedetti is pursuing. The layout could almost be boring if not for how well the images use space - there is not a lot left blank, yet things don't look too clustered. It would be nice to see some of the backgrounds on their own page and a little bigger but with everything going on in the images, I think that it works well.

Chris Sasaki Talk Part 2

Still uses stuff from learning animation and storyboards, needed to use a lot more of that than expected. Need to have a foundation of everything and focus at the end. Hurt portfolio by putting things in that were less confident about. Also talks to costume designers a lot - textures and movement are v important in 3d art. Gives suggestions for colour but that designs are often then passed over to the colour department. Hs like 12/15 artists on each film including char des, environment, lighting/shading. Works together, see what they are all working on, keeping world consistent but they only do work for their own department. Design is secondary to story. Second assignment ever was a silhouette assignment; automatically learned at college etc. Chaplin and Mr Bean, great considerations for readable silhouettes and acting. Check shape/silhouette of characters.  Method acting. Find the key frame that shows who the character is. If you were to sculpt them, what pose shows who they are? Study film and performances. Make some chars off of chars w/great acting. Helpful when they have VAs in mind - design can complement voice. Might even think about a voice actor himself and influence design from that. Film name often isn't decided until some part in the middle of the film development. 

Taking some time off work to work on own short stories and book. Personal projects help keep you sane. Keep pushing yourself as an artist. Getting your own stories told.

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I found this talk very interesting and helpful. The part about finding the key frame that shows who your character is is great advice, and something that I think I need to keep in mind when creating characters. The advice about work you are not too confident with hurting your portfolio is also good to remember, especially when making my portfolio soon. I feel like quite a few of his experiences may be different than working in a studio designing for 2D, but many of his points will apply to both. It was nice to hear from someone working specifically in character design, since we don't often get that and now I have a few more things to work on and thinking about.

Chris Sasaki Talk Part 1

We recently had Pixar character designer Chris Sasaki come in to do a talk which was great. It's a shame he couldn't stay for longer, but it was still very informative and useful.

Notes;

History

inspired by monsters inc, rejected from CalArts but still went to uni in Burbank. Internship at Dreamworks; was given assignments and built up character design portfolio with them. Character design test for Foster's Home for Imaginary Friend - feed back was 'great but not enough experience' but he was asked by someone who worked on it to help out with a personal project. Hired roommate to help. Continued doing a lot of smaller jobs like that, then ended up working with Laika, and then Pixar. He has done character design on both Monsters Uni and Monsters Inc. 

Working at Pixar

Was on films from very early on in the development process. Did lots of research and carried out lots of field trips. Find small authentic bits to make people connect with the character/ideas. Research drawings for reference. 3/4 days research last 1/2 days doing a lot of the actual drawing/designing part.  Half way before showing them meets with production designer, edits them then shows the director. Working on their (director's) baby - want to make them happy. Might start from scratch again after chat. Pitch, walk them through everything. Who they are, what am I trying to sell - think about the story point, purpose, what performances they need to get out of them. Ideas to relate to and apply to design process, bringing personal influences into it. Depends on timeline for media, likes to do things by hand as much as possible early on; later is a lot more digital stuff. Turnarounds are v good. Communicate a lot with the technical team; how will they build it? Art design 20% - rest behind the scenes. Regrets skipping the step of finding out who he was as an artist at uni.

Spend like 3 weeks creating a research bible. What does the world look like, why does it look like that? Computer vs hand drawn - depends where you want to work. Colour keys, lighting etc is best digitally. Keep as loose as possible at first. Cheat all the time for appeal sake. Sometimes sculpt before computer, work close to technical team to compromise; lots of problem solving.

Redbubble Vs Society6

One thing I could possibly benefit from is using print-on-demand websites to sell my art prints - such as Society6, Redbubble, CafePress and Zazzle. There are others like BigCartel and Etsy that allow you to sell things, but they often ask for a subscription fee or you have to make/ship the items yourself. Though most people can't make a living off of them. they would be good for earning some money on the side and even a little bit of exposure (although there are much better ways out there to achieve that.

Using these sites means that if I want to sell prints, I don't have to go through the whole printing/shipping process which would consume a lot of time, energy and money; I could spend more time actually making things. There is then of course the drawback of commission, and those websites making more money off of your designs than you, but I don't mind that too much if it means that all I have to do is draw things, and people could buy my things.

So what site do I choose? Out of those four - arguably the most popular sites for selling your art - some work much better than others depending on the product. I have found a lot more people gunning for CafePress and Zazzle when it comes to selling T-Shirts, as opposed to RedBubble and Society6 for prints. I never really thought about trying to sell T-shirts, and though that could be a good product, my first concern is prints. That is my ideal way to show of my work, and is probably the most common art product bought with the sort of art I like/like to make, especially on tumblr which is where I expect to get most of my traffic from. Though RedBubble and Society6 both have search functions, I'm not expecting to be found or bought as much that way - people don't spend as much time on there as Tumblr, and I know how to utilise Tumblr tags to get more notice.

I have found a fair few contrasting arguments on which provides better quality, and since I have not yet bought something from either place, I don't know which is better on that front.

It was easier to find RedBubble's explanation on pricing, which was extremely helpful. I feel like I would probably leave the default settings on if I sold products here; I don't want to raise the margin and overprice my art, especially while there's still a lot of competition with artists with more experience and fame.

Print-wise, Society 6 was a bit more confusing in terms of profit;

It's easier to tell exactly how much you get for other products, but it is a little more vague; does it go off of percentages or amounts of money that you decide, and it doesn't really mention the other costs that aren't related to profit.

Both sites sell a lot of art like what I would sell, although according to some articles I found comparing them, Society6 is more likely to sell original art whereas RedBubble has a bigger audience in fanart and pop culture kind of things. I feel like, especially with the sort of art I post and the kind of followers I have on Tumblr, RedBubble may be a more popular place to buy prints from.

Both of these websites take time to pay you though; Society6 takes at least a month to pay you, whereas RedBubble doesn't pay you t all until you reach a certain threshold (although from what I have found on the Help page of the website, this only seems to be £13).  Both of these sites then will need constant sales to be profitable, although with the amount of money the sites take it, even then it won't be too profitable.

I still think that this is a very good way to get used to selling art, and making completely print-worthy art. I think that opening up a RedBubble would be a good idea, and if that gets a decent amount of sales, opening up a Society6 on top of that would be a good idea.