The Animation Student
A blog about the neverending learning process in Animation
A blog about the neverending learning process in Animation
heya! no problem! i love answering questions that may help! yes i do have an art degree, but since it was not close to animation, i got an ma in animation too I got my gigs as storyboard artist by making a story portfolio i would be feel comfortable showing around and applying, and keep practicing… it means by making storyboards all the time, lots of them..and by also taking part of other parts of the animation process, after all it is a team sport :O The path to become a sboard artist is really different for each person, and for me, it mostly depends on where in the world you are, if you can work in big studios or move close to them , if you get into your local industry…that kind of stuff, if it is a small studio you may need to know other aspects of production such as design and actual animation. Most people won't need an ma, BUT it is necessary for you to have storyboards to show for applying to jobs. Also, you gotta think about starting from the beginning (aka as a revisionist or assistant)… ..but mostly, for being a storyboard artist you gotta truly focus on the story part of it. “why things happen and how to show it the clearest way possible” Most senior storyboard artists and directors i have talked to do not care much if you have AMAZING illustrations if they cant see the potential storytelling…still It requires drawing A LOT so it is a plus if you are clearly comfortable with it i am here to help! if you have any more questions about any part of it, it’s cool! i can talk all day about storyboards …, since..it is my big passion :> Sometimes I get questions in my art blog about studying animation and being a storyboard artist.
A bunch of of artists/animators come together to reanimate an episode of a cartoon scene by scene, a different animator for each scene. Each animator receives a random scene and can interpret it however they please. This was a non profit collaborative project. The final video will not be monetized in any way as respect for all of artists. Staging and Board Reimagining the Characters from Kirby Background Layout Animation Most of the artists I reached work on projects or have online platforms that I have followed for a while. Others were recommended to me. I wrote to fifteen people and received answers from eight of them. After speaking with them, the main lesson was an obvious one: storyboard artists work in all of the fields of visual media. Adaptability is necessary to work on the field, because the size of the crew, the production needs and the resources vary wildly among short films, tv shows, feature films and advertising for different media. Even if my main goal is to be able to work in a studio based job, I know I must learn about the characteristics of freelance jobs, since they make up for a great percentage of the offer. The questions I send to them where: •What was your first job in the industry? How did you get to work as a storyboard artist? •What kind of technology do you work with on a daily basis? •What kind of additional skills may help a storyboard artist working in animation? •How do you approach scripts? is it any different for short projects than for big ones? And in the case of the directors: how their role as storyboard artists influence their role as directors. Key points I found are: •Each project is unique, therefore it must be approached with a brand new mindset. The job of a storyboard artist is to figure out the specific requirements of the story and the clearest way to satisfy them visually. •Each director approaches projects in a different way and the crew operates differently according to this approach. The storyboard artist must be able to adapt and take the best of every new experience. •Type casting is a real thing in the industry. In some features, the storyboard artist is picked to plan a specific scene that requires high skill in action or drama expression, other times, it is more about the general feeling of the entire project. •Related to this, it is vital that the storyboard artist and the director understand each other. •Storyboard is all about planning and a storyboard artist needs to keep all the aspects of storytelling in mind for being able to deliver. Acting, colour, composition, cuts. All must be clear in the storyboard and come natural to the storyboard artists, which is why having experience in several projects is important. Storyboard notes come very handy. •It is important to question everything that is going to be shown to the audience: why the director wants it to be like it is, which is the best way to show it, how will the material get clear enough to make the cut. •The simpler the better. •Mastery comes from practice and experimentation. It is essential to try different scripts, techniques and audiences, as well as studying composition and narration in finished products like movies, ads and TV shows. •Most of the interviewees work digitally, using mainly Adobe Photoshop and Toon Boom Storyboard Pro. Some of them consider the proficiency in the latter a requirement to work as a studio artist in the industry. •The length of a project can go from one or two days for advertising, to two or three years for feature films. •Newcomers normally get jobs as revisionists, where they help tying up the storyboard artist’s work with the director final needs. It is a great way to enter the industry because one can see the storyboards from professional artists and listen to the director’s commentary first hand. I looked up for the requirements big studios have for their storyboard artists, what do they want to see in a portfolio and which skills they appreciate in an animator too, because I got from the interviews that several storyboard artists also work as animators or even concept artists and character designers. They definitely need that the storyboard artist understands the pipeline and commits to make it flow, since a production is a team effort to put a finished product on screen and the storyboard artist is one of the critical pieces in the functioning of this mechanism. The pipeline is the tool to understand the whole process and define who needs to work at every step of it. With it, the storyboard artist can manage to make the blueprints to all the departments in time and assure everything goes as planned and the studio can be sure their money is not going to waste. Behind the scenes documentaries for feature films are great to see this in detail, since they show how the work of the storyboard artists intertwines with the rest of the crew and how different studios approach the challenges of production. Cartoon Network, Pixar and Dreamworks have information about this online for everyone to see The conclusion: For being a successful artist in an industry means to be able to develop a critical eye on your own work and how it is serving to your purpose as a visual artist. For me, the way to achieve this was to realize that I am on an entry level on the industry and the people that would hire me knows that. It means that I have to be incredible perceptive and actively look for feedback from people working on animation. Many established artist on the industry count with years of experience to have a signature style, and knowing that even if that is one of the characteristics of successful artists, they also count with the time and experience to develop it and to keep growing as artists.
Friend! my my!! many thanks for asking! What I am going to say is totally my opinion tho, so, Just.. yeah, have that in mind. I am not going to go into the should you go to art school or not, I am going with the idea you want to get an art degree :O Let’s see: Money is pretty important in the matter of living :’’)) and i know Calarts and the big usa schools can be hella f expensive, even more for ~~internationals~~ SO, yeah that is a big factor why i never choose to go there.. But also here in the UK can be really good schools and studios imo. One of the reasons to even spend money going to study abroad is, by far, the options of getting real experience from studios and animators and is a good idea to go to a country that actually produces animation you know? My decision was something like: if you are going to invest THAT much money (as any art school is)…it is a good idea to be realistic about how much you can spend, and later how you are going to pay for a loan if you need one. and a place that has an animation industry is the best option. Here is the thing: california has A LOT of the animation industry BUT also is way too expensive. For me the option will always be something rational about paying in the future bc drowning in debt is NOT a good thing to enjoy my career… The other thing is if you want to go to calarts for the sake of going to calarts or if you want to work in places like cartoon network or anywhere where the calarts graduate ppl go. Calarts have all the good connections and netwroking in this industry is like big part of the success… but also there are a lot of good artists that end up working in the same places because they are good, and not necessarily by studying in calarts one of the things my mentor said to me is that is your personal work the one that matters, and that I should be looking at the portfolios from ppl from gobelins and calarts bc that is what the industry is looking for and aim for that level of professionalism. he never said style or anything like that, just that my portfolio should be able to compete with theirs… bc we will be aiming for the same jobs. At the end is something that you can do by studying them from anywhere in the world. Having good mentors and teachers you can ask the basics and that can sit down with you and really help you develop your skills is what you want and there are so many good teachers in the UK it is amazing tbh, i really like it here in that aspect :> (you know, most teachers really want to share what they know, and finding some student that really want to learn is what keep them alive. vivan los profesores tbh) Sorry for the long answer, I hope i t helps: but yeah, in conclusion: I would not recommend drowning in some debt just to go to renown school and maybe better aim for a mid term goal of working alongside them, since you dont really need a specific school to develop skills, but what you gotta do is study what they do, recent graduates, portfolios, that kind of thing. you can do that and end up working with them and even better have also a different perspective in some things, and that may be the things that lands you a spot with them. remember that animation is a team industry and you work with many many artists in a single project, and that is great imo <3 good luck tho, this is such a big decision, if you have any more questions about it or just need someone to bounce ideas, yeah, im here to help ;v; Sometimes I get questions in my art blog about studying animation and being a storyboard artist
In a span of a week | came across with 3 different articles about Animation and Animation History. Since the art itself has only a little more than a century of existing it is still really crude and really secretive. In one hand it is art in the pother is an industry that moves money and a message in the era of communication and mass production. And of course, it also depends o n the place in the world it is created (and this has to do with economic and political reasons). Personally, even if I know about animation in Europe, Eastern Asia and North America I am not as familiar with how animation as an art form is produced everywhere. And my mental image goes firstly to the big american studio idea. This is why these articles that reunite different point of views about it and how things like the internet influence the future of the animation industry seems to be an important starting point for this conversation.
The conclusion : While big studios in America can’t allow themselves to have money losses for gathering little public with their productions, the European has a culture of smaller studios with little secrecy, and general lower budgets but also more risky in terms of art and design. And above those also more inspiration, the public of european animation is seen as wider than the American (who still are deeply rooted in animation as only for children). This kind of research also helped me to know where to look at for references on artists I wanted to follow. Character Thinking. Animation inbetween done in photoshop of the three first keyframes All the keyframes with the timelines.
If something i enjoy of learning in traditional drawn animation is the habit of numbering the frames. (and it also makes timing easier) When I watch an animated series, the first thing that I ask myself is if it makes sense to it be an animation. Not everything does. And some stories are just animated for no reason. This is one of those series in which the animation is one of the main story components. it would be nearly impossible to make such bold contrasting scenarios, and touch the humor on it so smoothly with scenes full on drama. The design, the scenery, this entire world makes sense visually and is not that easy to achieve. When I was little I didn't liked Samurai Jack. mainly because it was impossible to me to follow the story and even more the way cartoon network transmited the episodes.
Now they have a new season and so far I can tell that it wont be disappointing. This is a series based in composition and strong sense of action. Atmospheric with this glimpses of humor even in darkness treating serious moments as heavy and full of emotion. A series that also has the main character wear heels without being degrading.
This one is in my top 10 series of all time. And I am going to keep studying it for its humor, storytelling, composition and design. .Passing a weight between characters. Even tho I like the subtle things in this one, overall I am not happy with the movement itself. It has too many inconsistencies. But I want to name what Chris calls housekeeping.
For working with two characters it is necessary and make things easier. Having two timings make thing messy, but the moment I know what I am doing I can worry about inbetweening. Also timing the small actions such as the grabby hands or the gentle push of the object to child; has a lot of acting by itself and acting is something I really like to do (that is why i am still stubbornly wanting to be an animator, even tho I am slow animating). This week task: Lifting a heavy object. I find myself driven to traditional pen a paper, light box and pencil test animation. It makes thinking about the timing, planing the movement more tangible than being able to try it all the time, like it happens in digital animation. Even with the weird snaps in the neck and the nailed knee, I can tell that my guy, this guy is lifting something. Thinking about the movement beforehand was Incredible important. As an illustrator terribly driven to comic for almost a decade, I am used to braking down movements focusing in how it is more logical, and for animation, I plan and plan the keys, maybe that is a good thing now that I am starting. Also getting use to draw the thing you are going to draw seems REALLY useful, mostly if you want to think about movement and no how you were drawing hands or heads or something. I took some of the characters of Percy Jackson and the Olympians book (that I recently read) and decided to design them and make animated head rotations to see how the designs and the style would work animated. Also as a practice to get use to TVPaint software setting myself a goal of making two characters a week in any free time I got between university projects. Rough design of the characters from the book: Animation: This can be the first time I've been animating human characters and not faceless puppets for animation practice. I was aiming to improve:
-Working myself around the shapes of characters I designed fir animation made me realize that the construction is essential to keep consistency, even in the details. -Testing how the design is fit for purpose was a really important practice. Having to decide abandon details or solve curly hair. -The face feature I found more difficult to keep in consistency were the eyebrows. Until I realized how the layers worked on TVPaint.. - It started taking me 3 hours getting satisfied(~ish) with the rotation and at the end I could work it in around 1 hour. Organization as key to achieve...anything Working on several different projects at the same time during my MA led me to the first and more important lesson: organization is vital. As I have noticed in my research, storyboard artists (and freelance artists in general) need to be perfectly organized to tackle all the challenges of a production and keep the pipeline flowing, but the concept goes further, since work needs to coexist with independent practice, study and the ordinary life. The ability to multitask is appreciated in this scenario, and it’s something the industry values greatly, but, at the heart of it, what counts is efficient scheduling, skill that I had to learn during the first months of the MA. The time I spent getting to a workflow and learning how to prioritize aspects in a production or in my own projects was worth it, since now I know the way to perform more efficiently without stressing over getting things done. I spent my first weeks understanding how I work, to be able to improve as much as possible in a short time. I kept a record of my work times next to a task list, to check the relation between what I had to do and what I was actually getting done. Currently, my activities are divided in three categories: projects of the MA, skills development and academic research. My schedules are separated by project, each having a different set of requirements and timeframes. Also the general approach to each is different and it requires a specific adjustment in the development pipeline. I personal use minimum 2 Schedules, Personal and Professional Practice Schedule Refers to software training, practice in animation principles, life drawing, colour studies and speed painting. It also includes the MA lectures, industry scoping, readings about animation, composition, storytelling, and interviews with professional artists Finding a way in in which I complete my goals was more efficient every week and that is how I developed this “weekly goal” schedule.
In this way I can see quickly the specific thing I am working on a week and determine their priority. It also help me to see if I am overloading by having too many or too little tasks. It is a personal way to maintaining each project running without feeling overwhelmed by it and that has been helping my practice since I started making it every week. Tips: - Work smarter not harder, meaning that there are several resources online for scheduling from the web, from your phone...even from excel. - Some use and only use the classic pen and paper on a notebook. But working on several projects even more if they are collective projects using online ways of planing is a probably a smart option, in my opinion, - Excel is a perfect tool, only by the fact you can use tables that are already there, and that Drive from Google and Microsoft and probably more services have their version, that can be updates online. By this moment I am fairly used to organizing important data in my online schedule, since I can adjust it and , overall, be more professional about important data. And Remember
Following a schedule also implies knowing when it requires certain flexibility to respond to the different problems that each project may have during their production. I’ve always knew I was interested in narration through images, being this the center of my practice for many years. This is why my research into the animation world started from knowing what role in the immense pipeline intersection my innate interest in drawing belonged to. My final decision of becoming a storyboard artist for animation came after a long process of first, to understand how things actually work in the animation industry; second, to explore the scope that the different positions in an animation crew have, so I could see in which one I could really feel satisfied; and third, to identify the type of projects I would like to be part of. But it is, as alway,s a decisions that should be made alongside practice considering that in a creative career is not only important to know the aspects of the work but also to have the experience of doing it. My initial research led me to find information first hand, communicating with storyboard artist from around the world via email, about what is to be a storyboard artist in the industry. WIthout leaving aside other tools like books such as Levy, D.B. (2006) Your Career in Animation, and even more online resources like Creative Skillset (2016) Animation Job Roles (animation) and the pages of the same animation companies, they usually have no secrets about what they aspire to get from someone applying to any of the different roles in their studios. After coming through with my initial research on how the animation industry works ,my idea of storyboard changed and I started to perceive the possibility of a professional development in this area. For being a storyboard artist in animation, generating clear images for the rest of the team to work from is a priority. For this reason, as Richard Williams says in his book The animator’s survival kit (Williams 2001, p. 23) “Drawing should become second nature, so that the animator can concentrate on the actual actions and the timing of them and give the performance life”.
Big changes in the Pokemon animated series in the new season and I again, was kind of divided between if it is good or if they are going for a more careless approach since with this series sometimes money overwrites anything else. I am a big fan of the anime and I've been watching it for years, so I am pretty familiar on how pokemon has changed. For me it has been 14 years of watching the anime. The last season was an incredible surprise, some episodes being so well crafted that you could see the long production they went through. And even if they repeat animation, they also did fantastic thing that I never saw before. With pokemon everything is difficult because one of the main reasons the series is still going is because it drains money of the fans. Money everywhere, game merchandising series special tv shows. For me it is a real transmedia series and somehow it does NOT make less of each opportunity even when more conservative people start arguing of the ruin of the series just for some new deign or because it is aimed for preteens and the characters reflect that. I was asking myself this the other day, part of me enjoys the more personality in one of my all times faves: pikachu. But i also was concerned about the entire idea of they just changing for the sake of change. Now that I know it is about 3D - 2D animation software upgrades and their real way to try to use this /in a series that each season has over 30 episodes/ it is amazing to know they are still going up and up. "Try everything new. Once again, the other option is the worst option." UPDATE: I watched the first 7 episodes in one go. I did it. At some point in my life all the stars aligned for me to go to the Warner Studios in London to see the Harry Potter Tour. And it was so incredible magical!! I am telling it not only as a life long fan of the wizarding world, but as an artist that want to spend her life working in the preproduction area of films and series and what not. It is so endearing and amazing to be able to see all the behind stage work of a big franchise and all the world building in every single detail and showing that no desicion is made randomly. Details that in the movie that may never make the screen and yet were there for the story to become real. Nothing is equal to enjoy the maquet and the maquet of the maquet and the maquet of the maquet of the maquet. And yes, there are such as many maquets as that. When you see it all together you get a feeling of the decissions made by several different artists: what is this world like to the people who make it happen visually. The idea of having it all displayed for generations and long time fans to see it is fantastic in itself. I want to name the next one, having the sketch with a little explanation and in front, the entire set. You can look at them both and admire them not only for the memories and the good times and making dreams true, but also as a marvelous piece of craftmanship and intense imaginative thinking. Special Mention: the Graphic Design of the wizarding world. When you see it all it leaves a feeling of a specific time. Of a specific society, and also the influence of different artstyles from the early 20th century (perfect for a really slow and steady society that is also dragged in the modern world of muggle inventions, in my opinion) I would go back any time, there is so much to look at, the people working in the tour make the experience really amazing and worthy.
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