Evaluation

PPP as a module this year has been a lot more involving than first year. In first year I didn’t fully grasp the requirements nor what I should be doing a practitioner trying to get myself out there. With this year’s PPP we were encouraged to get an online presence, contact professionals and contact studios, in order to get us more involved in the industry. In contrast to this I haven’t been pursuing these opportunities as much as I would’ve liked. In the first half of the year I was a lot more proactive in doing all this, however after returning after Christmas I became too bogged down with things such as documentation, which felt like it impacted on my creative work.

Module and concepts were good in general, however organisation and communication could have be better. Communication between tutors of different courses was the main issue, as each course appeared to being told different things.

Steve has been an excellent influence on PPP, being the organiser of MAF he has extensive industry contacts and knows how to communicate with and approach them. This has meant he has been able to assist in the wording of communication and how to get us out into the industry, such as volunteering at festivals. This has been a huge boost, bringing in someone who is constantly networking and the advice that passes onto students.

Lifes a Pitch

For studio brief 3 we were required to come together into groups to form collectives. It was encouraged to be cross course so tried to get some illustrators onboard but they wanted to remain with other illustrators. I found myself teaming up with Luca Bisaci, Natalia Llamas and Rey Curley as we all had a mutual interest in characters and character design.

Discussing this we started to put together our presentation and what our aims are as a collective. We chose to call our selves Dagger Collective, with the tagline 'Sharp minds and Killer ideas' with other murderous puns ensuing within our presentation. Our logo was designed by Luca and i found myself really enjoying doing the regular meet ups to go through what we'd discussed and what we need to work on, so while we may not produce any products it definitely gave me a good feeling of what working within a studio or a collective could be like as i was talking with like minded people.

The work felt very evenly distributed with us all contributing and discussing how we could utilise our skills in the most interesting way. We proposed the idea of having life size cut outs of our characters that people could interact with and get a real feel for.

When we went up to do our presentation I felt it went really well and unlike other group presentations there was a lot more of a calm back and forth rather than a hogging of the spotlight with other people encouraging others to speak up and explain a section of our presentation.



As of right now the Dagger Collective has been left fairly untouched but i think it would be a really good place for us to put our character design sheets and entries into the character design challenge. Because we have not had enough time to make anything for Studio 24 we decided to present our character designs and work on the Collectives Facebook page and push the online presence.

Who am I now?

This study task was originally meant to be done at the beginning of the year however I never got round to doing it and now i don't feel i can honestly state how i felt at the beginning of the year. So i have decided to critically evaluate how I view my current state.

Currently I feel I should and could of done more with the PPP year. and the course as a whole. While i have been able to establish my area, my niche if you will, its a big niche. Character Design only requires a few people and a lot of people want to be doing it so to stand out from the crowd I need to be getting better and getting myself out there and constructively speaking I currently feel i did neither. I made a few attempts earlier in the year get out there but then i just stopped my apprehension and nerves got the better of me, i got bogged down by documenting and didn't make anything creative for a while, with the projects i was doing, applied, making my mood ever more down. Looking back on all the work i had done, it felt like there was barely anything. I did a few nice animations but comparing my most recent work with the work I had at the end of first year, theres been no growth as far as skill is concerned. A few new techniques that I've gotten to grips with, maya animating for example but nothing quantifiably another level of improvement. The other factor has been my lack of awareness awards opportunities and ignorance to them, I got lazy. There were so many opportunities literally handed to us over the year and i just ignored them or never followed through with wanting to do it. An example of this is, not putting myself forward for LYFF, because i didnt know, or i didnt think it would be of any benefit for me. I held contempt for it which was the wrong way for me to look at it, I should of done it any way as it could of presented to me a good opportunity to talk and meet professionals on a more natural ground rather than jumping into their faces.

These factors are all down to me and Im very much aware of them now. These mishaps and lack of progress is something I will be aiming to fix over summer and into third year. To start with I am applying for internships and volunteer work to go and visit more festivals and events but its simply a case of hearing back now and applying for more when they become available. I also plan to animate over the summer, not necessarily a short but 11 second clubs with a 3D character and rigs that have been down loaded. Finally i will be working on the preproduction and proposal of a short film to get people on my course to collaborate. Collaboration is something I want to push since we get into groups made up of our friends and not our skill sets meaning were having to do an aspect we don't enjoy lessening the experience. But if a large group of us can work together, working on the areas we like, such as characters, animation, effect, backgrounds etc we'd be able to create something that was clearly everyones project but something that can push all our desired areas of focus up. Im also offering what i can do as character designer and animator to other class mates, for them to essentially use me how they want. Im hoping that all of this will assist in going towards a much more productive and active year.

Studio Brief 1 Constructive self criticism and my public self damning, oh and a crap sandwich

I am very much aware that i am very self critical of myself. this was very prevalent when I started to put together this presentation. Looking back on the year I felt like there was so much more I could of done and to complete in all my modules and i wasn't proactive in the latter half of the year. This presentation allowed me to critically get it off my chest. While putting it together i went with a crap sandwich layout, start with somethings good/ok, middle is the bad part the 'crap' if you will and then end on a positive. Lets just say it had a very big filling. However while i was knocking my self I had considered and talked about how I'm going to change this over summer and third year, but i don't want to turn summer into catch up time. Finally I made a point of ending on the note of wanting to collaborate with people and for people to use the skills that i have developed over the past few years, namely character design and character animation.

Character Design challenge - April

The previous months theme was Game of Thrones, now this was an interesting one because we had to work with preexisting characters. I found myself trying to draw many characters and my drawing of Sansa stark was only really a scribble but out of all the drawings it was the one i was most pleased with so i scanned it into photo shop and started to integrate it with a digital landscape. Christ it looks bad and needs work! but i do like how integrated Sansa Stark became to the scenery especially with the snow building up on her hair and coat. unfortunately when i posted this to the page it never showed up so i never found out what others thought of it.

Character Design Challenge - March

The theme was the Venice masquerade ball. At first I tried to work on this design in illustrator since i was currently working with the software on another brief. But i wasn't liking how the image was looking, the colours were coming out too bold so i tried going back to my traditional mediums such as watercolours. It is very clear i need a lot of practice with water colours in the future if i want it to be one of my go to medias.

Character Design Challenge - February

Maori Warrior was this months challenge but i dint post my entry over concerns that it wasn't accurate enough to the theme and it had become a little bit too fan art-esque of Moana for my liking. Im once again pleased with the look, using the textured lines gave it a much more appealing look rather than having block colours that would of made her appear flat. the thing that pleases me the most about this though is her expression, it looks genuine.

I also had a planned sketch of a warrior scaling a cliff face but resorted to this design when the cliff face was not complying.

Character Design Challenge - November

The theme back in November was gladiator and I entered the competition just as a simple distraction and to take a break from the other work that was going on so there wasn't a lot of thought that went into this guys design I just spent around 2 hours drawing him till i was satisfied. The flat cell shaded look is really nice and he looks great with no definitive lines, but rather the usage of shapes, shading and highlight. I made his body a simple square shape for a very basic character design but i think my proudest part is the lighting on his mace.

Creative Report

Japan Trip

The University had an trip for five days to go to japan two would be spent traveling to and from japan leaving us with three days in Japan. First off. THE JET LAG WAS HORRIBLE. I'd return to the hotel in the evening and crash out in my clothes, waking up at times like 1 or 2 in the morning. However ignoring the exhaustion... JAPAN! excuse the fanboying, just releasing my inner weaboo teen self for a moment! I wanted to use this trip as an opportunity to see wether or not I wanted to go again or wether Manga and Anime had created an unrealistic image of the place. Anime and Manga didnt do it justice. When we arrived in Tokyo we were hit with so many sights that were familiar because of the media and incredibly new. We were based in Shinjuku I found myself looking at the area that was used for the Digimon Tamers anime a presentation of the accuracy of the tv show and how surreal the experience became. Going up the government we were able to see Mt Fuji which was incredible. Final piece of fanboying, studio ghibli museum. I god damned near cried when i sat on the cat bus inside! Studio Ghibli was with out a doubt the best part as we got to watch an animation that was only shown there in the world and the entire museum was interactive.

The Japan trip was a trip that for me was an opportunity to truly experience and see another culture, to see another perspective. Their treatment of animation is incredibly different to ours. While ours is normally used only for children, the japanese use characters, manga and anime in almost all their advertisement and graphics. Their culture in the way they treat the environment is starkly different to us as while we were in the city there was only a few instances where a street was messy and there were no cigarette butts or gum on the streets, they also built around the parks, temples and shrines, surrounding these ancient structures with towering skyscrapers.

Below are a few of my sketches from my time in Japan and i most certainly wish to return.

Business Cards

For MAF last year I wanted to have something to hand over to people to attempt to be remembered by them, so i looked at the work I had produced and wondered which would be suitable to use for my cards.

I found a couple of images that i was satisfied with, an inktober drawing and a frame from an unfinished animation. I started to fiddle with the two of them seeing which would look good and what colours and layouts fitted. Colour wise i used effects to make it look tea stained because i do view myself as old fashioned rather than modern I didn't have a set style for things bearing my details.

Below are my variations

I used the bottom two as they were informative and showcased more detail of my character design and portrayal of characters.

Applying for Internships and Volunteering

Through out the year I have tried a couple of times to apply for internships. I started by looking at the larger studios like Disney and Pixar and found that they required a CV and portfolio, however I didn't have a CV or an online presence of any degree at the time. So I set about putting together a creative portfolio. I wanted to try and show case what i could do as a character designer and get across who I was to a certain degree. However the deadline for the disney internship was fast approaching so I panicked, I sent my CV off and no work. Not my finest moment. Obviously i didn't get any response back but i did get a bot reply from pixar which i was at least happy to of received. I was told to send it off to other companies and internship programs but i didn't know which companies were doing internships. My issue here is that i don't have a studio i necessarily idolise, theres no one place i know the ins and outs of and I've never really been a fan of a specific company so i wasn't aware of what they do towards finding interns or finding more places, thus i didn't apply for any where else for a while.

Recently I applied for an internship at BlueZoo. They are looking for Maya animators and for this i needed to create an animation showreel showcasing character animation as they specify that they are looking for someone interested in learning more about maya and character animation. The internship covered workshops in acting for animation and on the job, paid experience. It wasn't the fact its paid that interests me its those classes on animated acting that really drew me in and the chance to refine my maya animations. Applicants who have received an interview will here back on the 15th of May, so until then.

Steve also recommended I apply for volunteer work at festivals as they will help to give me the opportunity and the confidence to talk with professionals as they will be who id be responding to and running around for so naturally I'd begin to talk with them. Im now applying and keeping my eye out for festivals and i plan to apply for volunteer work at MAF next year.

Contacting Adam Oliver

After thought bubble I contacted Adam Oliver a few months later. I should of done this sooner but I was too apprehensive and I continued to put it off. Thankfully though he got back to me and I was able to start a small back and forth with him asking very broad and general questions about the animation industry and what its like working for a studio since it is something i would much prefer since it has more stability to me. Below are the emails to and from him.











At this point i didnt feel i had any character designs i could send or any idea of how to send it so fro three months i didnt  send anything, once again nervousness and forgetfulness but last week i sent off an email with character designs and i plan to chase it up in the next few days.

Thought Bubble

While the thought bubble comic book convention was on I took part as a student ambassador for the Leeds College of Art stand advertising the college. It was a bit dead to say the least, since most people had come for the sake of comics and graphic novels, not really looking to find a uni to go to. However we did get a few people and one person was looking for work as a possible visiting lecturer which i passed on to Mike.

While i did some work the most interesting moment was when i was at Luke Pearsons table I over heard some one talking to him about turning his series, 'Hilda' into an animated tv series. Okay so i was earwigging but still. So I started talking to him about Animation and the fact that i was an animation student from leeds college of art. He told me he was Adam Oliver and he worked for Brown Bag Studios as an animator giving me his email and to contact him about any questions i had.

Finally I went to talk with Mike Mignola very briefly getting his autograph which was really cool including a small sketch of the flying fish machines from atlantis. I was just asking him small questions on what it was like when he worked on Atlantis at Disney.

Golden Wolf Talk - Tom and Henry Purrington

We had a talk with two of Martins old pupils, twins Tom and Henry Purring ton and their work together at Golden Wolf. Their talk covered how their studio works and functions as it is small but active advertisement studio. Their view on the industry appears to be focused on keeping a close knit and fun family of a studio. With mandatory weekend work holidays to places around the globe and activities they want to keep their employees happy and for them to be enjoying life and their jobs. It was a really positive mindset looking back. Work had to be play but in turn play had to be work making sure that the jobs they took on were enjoyable. Speaking of the jobs they said that they didn't mind taking on any kind of job as long as it wasn't pornographic/sexual or cigarettes as these would push their company in a direction they didn't want it going since it would stop them from getting work for children shows and they would get more of that sort of topic and content asked of them restricting their hopes of doing more variety.

Their clients have been very varied from big brand companies like Disney XD and Nike to smaller local chains such as Wawa sandwiches. So its clear that their focus has been on products and shows, this didn't necessarily mean character animation which is my main point of interest rather than effects, products and transitions. However my other interest, hybrid animation, is incredibly prevalent within their work with the usage of base 3D models then with 2D drawn on top to create seamless 2D turn arounds and transitions was incredible i especially liked their guardians of the galaxy ident with the action and overall look. Unfortunately i did not talk with them or ask any questions because at the time there was a lot on my mind and we had a hand in the next day. So to try and reach out to them i have emailed their office with first a thank you to the Purrington Brothers, and secondly questions covering the topic of how to effectively and efficiently use hybrid animation, explains my interest in the topic and how I've used it in the past linking my attempt to the email.



I regret not talking to them but it helped me to realise how I've been feeling recently with myself and my work which i will explain in another blog post.