Printing Comics/Books

Print on Demand is a method of selling comics without the risk of spending a ton on the production of comics, and only creating them as and when they are needed.

This also saves the creator a lot of money since they do not have to put money into crating comics before there are even any sales. Printing on Demand can be good if you want to create just a few to give out, perhaps to show a publisher or to test how the comic actually works in print. This can also be a good idea for selling comics at conventions, as there is often not enough time or space to sell tonnes of comics.

Digital printing is similar to Print on Demand but usually prints 100 - 100ish books, you you would need to ensure that you can sell that many copies before considering this method.

Offset printing is mostly used to print comics in bulk. For a series expecting a LOT of sales, or to provide a bookshop with copies, this is a very good idea as it works out very cheap per book. It just isn't as profitable if you do not sell many comics, which means that it isn't necessarily a good option for self publishing.

Each of these methods depend on the audience and how many copies you can sell. If a Kickstarter was does to create and sell a comic, it would be easy this way to determine how to sell a comic from the number of donations and people already willing to buy it, making it much easier. A Kickstarter generally needs a decent sized fan base anyway to reach the monetary goal - comics without this kind of fan base have a harder time of determining how they may sell, but in that case printing on demand may be the best idea.

Self Publishing [Comics]

One thing I have discovered this year is, that s much as I love designing and drawing, it doesn't feel quite the same when done for someone else, or because I 'have' to. Through this realisation, I have decided that trying to work for a company or freelance would not be the best of options for me.

If I had to pursue some kind of career in art, I think that something that allows me to create me own work and so have more freedom would be best. Things like Redbubble, although not very profitable, do help with this but if I was to go bigger, Self Publishing is probably the best thing for me to look at.

Self Publishing means more freedom, and working on your own terms, which is great. This does mean a lot more responsibility and risk though, as I would have to spend a lot of time and effort in advertising/marketing and physically creating the product.

The actual physical creation of a product may not actually be as big a problem in current times, with the rise of digital publications and comics. Digital products can be much easier for some people to access, faster and more convenient and means that things don't have to be created and posted which means less risk and more instant sales. The problem with this, is that not everyone wants to pay for a tiny file; if there is nothing physical that the customer is receiving, many do not feel that it is worth it (which I think is part of why comics sales are not suffering too much with the introduction of digital comics).

Many webcomic artists create their comic and mostly generate income via adverts, and then move on to merchandising once they have a decent sized following. This can include producing a finished webcomic as a printed comic/graphic novel, which has worked great for Noelle Stevenson's webcomic Nimona, which was then nominated for an Eisner award. This method slowly builds up a following over the years creating an instant market for the comic, even if that isn't necessarily as large a following as regular comic books. Stevenson's comic was published by HarperCollins, which does most of the work that someone would have to do while self publishing, but this shows that putting your work out there and creating something that could be self published may garner the attention of bigger names and companies that could help take away some of the stress of self publishing.

Being published by someone else does mean that if the comic is already online, it would have to be taken down, which could lessen the traffic to your website. Self publishing means that you can essentially do what you want, and in fact you may need to keep a comic online to ensure that people are aware of it, and if they already know the content of the finished product, they may be more willing to take the risk and buy it than if they couldn't read it before hand. I think that if I was to consider this method of creating a comic and self publishing, I would want to have the whole comic finished and online to lessen the stress of scheduled posting for a webcomic. This also makes it easier to ensure that the whole comic flows well both storywise and visually, as it is often too late to change things in a webcomic when some pages are already uploaded.

An important thing that I would need to get sales either way would be a way of of being noticed and heard, which s best done by building up a following on social media. Producing art that is similar to the sort of things I would like to sell is a good idea to keep the audience's interest, even if this includes some fan art, since that is easy to find and shared very often on social media sites.

Research and Engagement Presentation

In PPP so far, I've mostly looked at the different options I have available to me, since I'm undecided with what exactly I'm going to do when we finish college.

I felt like freelancing was a big thing that I should look into, if only because of all of the options it gives me. I did keep finding more negatives about it though, which might be more because I am unsure about doing it. I like the idea of being able to try so many different things, especially if my portfolio contains illustration as well as design for games/animation, but with the financial side and the amount of networking you have to do to get jobs etc, it is a little bit daunting.

It's partially the constant job searches that I find off putting when it comes to freelance and being in charge of my own work, so I've been looking at agencies as an alternative. I was surprised to find agencies aimed towards gaming companies along with agencies for other areas involving art, and I thought that would be interesting to look into especially as it could allow me to specialise even more in the future. The benefits and limitations of working for an agency are as above. I'm not yet decided if working for an agency would be quite right for me yet, either.

I thought that it would be worth looking at the recurring requirements I've seen when looking at companies as well, just to know what would be needed if I did work for a company. A lot of companies I have found only hire people in for certain projects which means that their requirements might be completely different depending on the brief which does make it a bit harder to research some things that they want, but I found a few points that most if not all of the character design jobs had that I found (a fair few of which were on the animation jobs website). A lot of the jobs I looked at were from Nickelodeon as well just because they have a lot going at the moment, and it was interesting to see how little experience some of them actually asked for.

Even though it is a little less work based, I've also been looking into different art books. I want my portfolio to stand out and look good, so I'm investigating different ways to lay out my pages and make them look interesting. I'd have to be careful not to make them too busy and stop my designs from fading into the background which is why I want to look at quite a few. I like the Persona 4 Arena art book on this slide because not only does it have all of your usual design elements, but it also has diagrams of how the characters actually move, showing key frames of their fighting animations which give you a much clearer idea of how they act. 

Some work much better being simple, though. The page on the left which I think is from Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs has a really nice contrast between the drawn designs and 3D models. The models show how they would look in the actual animation, whereas the drawings show personalities etc much more making it quite a balanced page. On the right, Morrigan from Dragon Age has the different parts of her outfit shown as more of a guide to her outfit than the design process, and since it's so finished the more decorative page looks a lot better. Despite the detail in the borders, the page is still nice and clear and the character does not get lost in the background, keeping the page nice and readable.

After researching these slides, I'm still not 100% sure what to take further and what sort of plan I should focus on, so I've made a simple list of the next things that I need to do. I'm definitely going to go to more events even though I'm still trying to plan it all out, and I want to have business cards made and ready by then. I need to decide on what companies to visit, if companies are in fact the best way to go; I'm not sure if talking to freelancers or conversing with agencies would be a better idea for me yet. I want to make more things for Redbubble since I've stopped and haven't had anything new on for ages just as something to keep designing for no matter what kind of job I go for. Last on my list for now is creating new portfolio pages, including editing older pages and experimenting with layouts for newer pages.

I think once I visit/decide where I'm visiting I'll have a clearer idea of which way to research and start working towards, since a lot of my portfolio depends on that and start making more connections.

Gaming Networks in Yorkshire

GAMAYO  is a network based in Yorkshire for people who make or are interested in making games. It can be helpful towards people who are looking for collaborators, studios looking for local talent, indie developers who may need al sorts of other things, or people who sometimes work on games as their job. They put emphasis on people who make games, rather than companies who do, to make more of an approachable, community type of feel for the people involved in games around Yorkshire.

They have local meet ups in Sheffield, Bradford, York, Huddersfield and Leeds which is a great opportunity to network with people and meet possible collaborators. They require you to already be making games, even for fun to join in with this network, so I will have to look into ways I could begin doing this.

Another network I want to keep an eye on is GameRepublic; they are an "industry-led games business network that supports and promotes the Yorkshire and Northern England games industry". They give support, contacts and business development in the North of England, UK and global games industry, arranging meetings and business-focused networking events with companies including Sony, Microsoft, Amazon and Nintendo among others.

Both other these will be great networking opportunities; I need to get business cards properly designs and printed to give them to people if I attend any meetings etc from both of these, as well as update my portfolio and create some games-orientated art and design work. Whether or not I do decide to venture into games when it comes to a career, I think that having these contacts, and even just the experience of meeting these kinds of people will help me a lot.

Requirements for Certain Job Positions (2/2)

[Continued]

Job: Concept Artist, Bioware
Responsibilities: Work with art director and production artists to create cast of believable and immersive characters and backgrounds, wide variety of additional concepts including character design, hard surface props and vehicles. Design original concepts to fit in with style guide, translate high level ideas into production-ready art packets, maintain a high level quality of art, with variety of ideas, in depth research, reference material and develop conceptual ideas. Create lighting schemes and colour palettes to capture the tone of the world, create storyboards and dynamic keyframes that illustrate the sory and/or gameplay, ability to create photorealistic work. Qualifications: 5 years of concept experience, shipped video game titles is a plus, ability to create concepts from scratch and create colour studies, environment and component ideation and design, very strong traditional illustration skills in a variety of media as well as excellent drawing skills, matte painting experience is a plus, ability to think in 3D, strong fundamental skills including good use of line, light, shadow and colour, storytelling and concept development, ability to work within specific styles, including style set by other artists etc.

I didn't actually expect to these to ask for so little experience, compared to some other job opportunities I have soon. I assume this means that they rely a lot more on portfolios then, especially since a lot of what they are looking for is specifically drawing skills.
I feel as though I should definitely concentrate on showing my skills when it comes to drawing and designing in different styles, practice a lot more drawings in different perspective and experiment a lot more with colour. Experience collaborating sounds like it would be extremely useful when looking at other requirements, which I hope to do more of in Extended this year, although it would be good to look for possible collaborators if I do decide to enter any competitions.  I think that designing many different characters and different worlds will help me to get my confidence up and give me more experience for these kinds of jobs; if I'm not confident in my skills, no employer would be, and I need to do everything in my power to be prepared. This may mean building my portfolio a little bit more when I finish college as well and/or undertake projects that could count towards my experience in this area. I'm going to keep an eye on any other job opportunities that may come up as well, as these are only some open positions that I have found at the moment.

Requirements for Certain Job Positions (1/2)

What exactly do certain jobs want? Finding a job is one thing, but actually being able to carry out every duty and meet every requirement is another. In this post, I am going to look at certain jobs and the roles the require so that I can see what skills I am lacking and should think about in the future.

Job: Character Designer for Nickelodeon - working closely with supervisors and directors, complete character designs and make them appropriate for CG models to work from, work on schedule, must be able to match the quality and style of the show. Responsibilities: strong design and construction/mechanical skills, be able to replicate style, time management skills, multitask, work well under pressure, knowledge or willingness to learn software and hardware. Qualifications: Relevant drawing experience, BA in Fine Arts or equivalent work experience.

Job: Feature Character & Prop Designer 2D for DHX Studios
Responsibilities: Work with art director and other designers in style of the production, translating character from script to visual design, submitting multiple design variations based on feedbackCreating models sheets of character turnarounds and facial/anatomical expressions.
Qualifications: Experience designing character and/or props on a series preferred, strong drawing ability and a solid sense of design, degree/diploma from recognised animation school, able to work digitally (PS, Flash, Sketchbook etc), experience in 3D design, strong understanding of perspective, proportion, balance, dimension and dynamism. Able to work collaboratively within a team, able to communicate professionally and positively, well organised with good time management skills.

Job: Background Designer, Nickelodeon
Responsiblities: Review script for backgrounds, complete rough, revised and final designs necessary with assigned deadlines, resolve design problems with creative supervisors, meet deadlines, communication with production staff, ensure work is backed up, ensure shipping materials are prepared and ready on time, be available for questions until department's shipment is complete. Multiple views of environment and specific elements within it. Assist with special projects, make shadow and colour indications, floor plans, shadow and colour guides, overlays in the style and quality of the production. Qualifications: Strong background design skills, relevant drawing experience needed, thorough understanding of perspective. Knowledge of or willingness to learn applicable design software and hardware. Strong time management skills, work well under pressure, ability to multitask. Qualifications: BA in Fine Arts or equivalent work experience highly desired. Understanding of architectural schematics a plus.

Finding Jobs in Games/Animation

It would beneficial for me to already be aware of what kind of jobs and opportunities are out there and where they are, so I'm researching into games companies and websites to help for recruitment.

Gamedevmap is a very helpful website that allows you to click on different locations on a map that then gives you information on games companies throughout that location. It also includes the type of things they do, for example: online games, mobile games, if they are a developer or a publisher, and what city exactly they are located in.  This means that I can see where exactly the job opportunities may be for me if I am looking the stay in the North which is extremely useful.

Aardvark Swift is, according to them, the first video games recruitment agency. The companies they have worked with includes Square Enix, Activision, Ubisoft and Microsoft among others, all of which appeal to me. There is not much information about working with them but they appear to have decent social networking links that I could possibly get some more information from.

Amiqus is another recruitment agency for the games industry, including both consoles and mobile gaming. Companies that have worked with them include Ubisoft, EA, Sony and Konami which again shows that they can provide jobs at large, successful companies. They ask for a CV which will then allow you to discuss possible career options with one of their specialist consultants, which means that I need to get a finished CV sorted out if I would like to talk to them.

Animation Jobs is a service that I have been following on Twitter since first year, and I've seen quite a range of different jobs pass by on it that sounds interesting, for example - "Character Designer (for CC Animated Show) At Nickelodeon Animation Studio" is a job that is available on the website at the time of this post. Though this website is for animation rather than games, there are still many positions that I would enjoy on there as well.

Working for an Agency

There are a lot of responsibilities when it comes to freelancing, which is one reason why becoming a part of an agency could be a good idea.

In the most basic of terms, agencies find you jobs that you may not or have more trouble finding otherwise. They have the experience and networking to provide opportunities that you may not usually get, which means they are definitely a feasible option for getting hired.

It isn't as easy as just walking up to their door and getting a job however; they still need to see your portfolio, and decide if you are suitable to work for them. This means consistent but unique work to a professional standard is needed. Building an online presence help these people to find you earlier on, and can at least help to show that you are a professional with your own connections.

Working with an agency means compromise - there are less duties involving business that an artist has to undertake, at the expense of some of their earnings. If this results in getting much more work with a higher standard when it comes to payments then this seems well worth it, but it depends on the efficiency and time of the artist; if they are very strong with networking and the business side of things, then doing everything on their own may be more beneficial.

I would be worth having a look at how specialised some agencies are - there is certain work I would prefer doing over others, so finding a company that may help to find more design or concept kind of jobs may be a good idea. At the same time, a more general agency could give me the opportunity to expand my skill set and try new things, so going for that kind of option may not be a bad idea.

Financial Side of Freelancing

The financial side of freelancing is what I know the least about, so I've researched a little bit about what is involved and other things to think about when freelancing.

A lot of freelancers seem to have a fair few repeat clients which helps to support them, so it is important to treat them well. Bad reputations are easier to spread than good ones, so no matter the situation, one must always act professional and accomodating. Time estimates will need to be given to clients in regards to the completion of work, which will also help in writing invoices.

Agree payment terms up front in writing - contract. Will it be paid in instalments, or all at once?  Save copies of the invoice, and email as well as post the invoice to the clients.

I found a useful sounding list of things to consider in your invoices from http://www.goingfreelance.com/10-simple-ways-to-get-paid-faster/

As a rule, you should be including the following information on all your invoices:

• Your full company name (and logo).
• The invoice date
• The invoice number (This should be unique to each invoice, and preferable sequential).
• Your registered address.
• Your company number (if applicable).
• Your postal address.
• Your client’s company name or name.
• Your client’s address.
• A job reference or purchase order number (if the client have provided one)
• An itemised list of the services you have provided (see point 5).
• The invoice due date (see point 3).
• Your payment details (see point 4).
• A detachable payment advice slip.

And if you’re in the UK and VAT registered you also need to include:

• Your VAT registration number
• An breakdown of the VAT which has been added to each item on your invoice, and the rate at which this has been charged.
• The total amount of VAT charged

Giving vague descriptions of the services you have provided will make it easy for the client to query the invoice and delay payment, whereas providing a detailed breakdown of the work carried out will remind the client and anyone within their organisation exactly what is being invoiced for. It’s also a requirement if you are charging VAT.

I thought it would be useful to look into VAT as well, and the VAT Registration page at give.uk tells me that:

You must register for VAT if: your VAT taxable turnover is more than £82,000 (the 'threshold') in a 12 month period. you receive goods in the UK from the EU worth more than £82,000. you expect to go over the threshold in a single 30 day period.
If you are UK based and not VAT registered then you cannot add VAT to your service charges.

Freelancing

I need to start thinking about my practice in the future, and where exactly I want to go in the next few years. Especially as a designer/illustrator, the main kind of work I could take on is Freelance work - but what exactly is that?

Freelance workers are generally self-employed, and don't usually commit to companies or employers long term. To me, this sounds like a terrifying prospect - if not planned and prepared for, then there may be periods of time that would mean not earning much money and having to rely on other options to live off.

I'm not going to be naive enough to think that I could earn a full-time living once beginning freelance work, or if I'd even enjoy freelance work enough to do it all of the time. It involves interacting with many people who may be unreliable or hard to work with, and has a lot more pressure than if you were working under someone else or a produce who would take care of the less interesting sides of the job.

If I was to work freelance, I would have to find another job on the side that could support me even when I am not earning much from freelance work. A lot of people would settle for any job they can find with the intent of moving to earn a lot of money through freelance ayer a short amount of time, but I want to be cautious enough to keep myself out of trouble, and find a job that I could do for a long period of time without losing motivation and getting bored of. I believe that in keeping all other aspects of my life positive and enjoyable, it would help relieve some stress or pressure that Freelance would bring, and would ultimately benefit myself in the long run.

Pros
Flexible hours
Opportunity to try out different jobs/roles
Location etc is less of a problem
Networking

Cons
Possible lack of financial stability
Huge responsibility
Lack of guidance
Need some kind of back up
Accounting responsibilities - tax, invoices etc
Constant access to technology or materials needed whether or not they are available.

An important thing to consider freelancing is keeping my online presence up to date and competitive. With the experience I have had and the projects that I've done in college, I would like to concentrate on design/concept. I plan to continue animating for fun in my spare time, which I think I might enjoy more once I start learning it in ways I learn best, but I do not want to consider that a possible skill to use in freelancing until I do enjoy it and have the confidence. This is the same with writing, but I plan to continue making my own stories etc and perhaps if these were to get enough interest online I might consider including this as a sellable skill.

Presentation Work

One of the things I did this summer was practice stylising established characters, such as the above from the Fire Emblem series. I also wanted to draw them so that they could be made into stickers if I wanted to; their proportions are still a little large in comparison to other character stickers on sites like Redbubble, but it was good practice just to draw them different than I usually would. I also had to keep the colouring a lot more simple because each area of colour is only small and wouldn't necessarily print well with more detail.

Inspired by Anna Cattish, I wanted to draw a few more skinny/stylised characters which did give me the proportions that shows like Teen Titans use. Each character has a flick, because I wanted to try out different shapes and styles of it to see how much that may affect how the character looks (and also I really just wanted to draw flicks). I also tested out some colouring styles and line widths; I wanted to keep it simple enough to work for animation, but I still think the lines would look better at a width inbetween both of these.

I decided that I should try to make my poses more interesting, since often they're just stiff and unoriginal. I started doing some more poses which I was proud of, but they still aren't that fluid.

I decided I should do some gesture drawing after that to help my poses a little bit more. I only spent 45 seconds on each because I knew that I would spend too long thinking over the anatomy, and it helped me capture the poses much better.

I did that with fight scenes afterwards because that is something that I'd really love to be able to draw. I did get distracted by anatomy a little more on that since many of the poses were from shows like Justice League, since the poses are more dynamic and interesting than a lot of photographs, and I could pause the video on any frame. Some of these are more fluid than others, but I think that I'm getting the hang of it.

Next I think I need to try more perspective with these - and actually put some designs onto them. I think that my designs will look much more effective with poses like this (as long as they are relevant to the character) than before.

I aim to do a lot more different, stylised designs this year, showing their personalities through much more fluid poses and a lot more colour experimenting. I would like to take more influence from the artists above who I have got a lot of inspiration from and see how far I can push my designs.

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.