Further Style Development

So when I started my new sketch book I felt like it was time to take it to the digital level! I tools some sketches from my notebook and redid them on photoshop, after all practice makes perfect and I feel like they look even better the second time around. Then I decided to do a couple of sketches just to unwind after working on Applied Animation. Basically I started sketching on the Cintique whenever I felt really tired or overworked so it became a way of relaxing by now. So here are a few new sketches-

Character Design development/ new sketch book!

New Sketchbook- new start! This one I will dedicate particularly for my professional development whereas the previous one were for anything and everything.With the previous one I have done quite a bit of soul searching, but now I feel like I have found a style I love and want to develop further. So basically I am trying to do a disney like characters. Why Disney? Because I always found  certain charm in Disney artists sketches, they seem so effortless and lively. That is exactly what I want to achieve at this moment so here we go:

Style Development

So for a while now I have been trying to sketch as much as possible mainly because I del like i need to find a consistent style. Recently I had a conversation about this with my brother and he advised me to keep a constant style so that if employment for any commission work were on the table, the employer would know what to expect from me. It is good to be flexible but I am no genius so I cannot be good at everything, so it would be best to develop consistency in  my work from now on. So I started sketching and looking for a style, as well as studying a bit about body lines and just in general trying to understand  what certain aesthetics demand.

Then I looked other artist sketch work, and what I have noticed is that for the body pose to make sense and look aesthetically pleasing is lines going through the pose. It is sort of the same logic I was going about last year with Animated Self sketches. So I recapped a bit on that.

 

 

 

Another thing I decided would be beneficial was to recap on the basics of drawing. Basically the sculpture we had to draw when I was back at school. It was mainly about breaking down shapes and and understudying how the surfaces sit on objects-

Then I started building from there, just taking bits and bobs from artists that I liked, like the way they draw bodies,eyes, noses, what colours they use. Basically I took all those artists that I have blogged about and tried creating a style borrowing some aspects from them.

Pitch Perfect: Presentation

Finally it was presentation time. I was not nervous at all because I thought we were pretty prepared. but as soon as I saw other groups presentations I got really nervous. Everyone had made amazing presentations and considered a lot of aspects of the start up. Another thing I realised was that I severely miscalculated everything. When I was calculating annual costs I dod not take into consideration holidays or periods when we would't have work. This made me really really really nervous.

So Matt and Wing did the most talking but I covered my section. I admitted on miscalculating everything which sort of felt like a major failure on my end, but then again you learn from mistakes so I am glad knew where I went wrong. 

After the presentation we got some great feedback. The main problem was that it was a bit vague and not specific enough. Also that the logo needed a bit more work as it was not high resolution. Then there was bit of a discussion about game engines but I spaced out because I had no clue what people were talking about. But Mike talked about how considerate you need to be about everything, for instance since the group appointed me to be in charge of relations on behalf of the studio, then I should have done more talking during the presentation to show my communication abilities. 

After the session I felt like we could have done a better job, we had no finalised work and everything was in fact very vague. On the other hand some of our course mates really set a high bar which I was sort of happy about, because even though our group not necessarily work out there still are some prospects for collaboration with others. In a nutshell I went to the presentation thinking we will nail this, but left thinking we had no clue what we were doing. If I were to do it again I would do a lot of thing differently, mostly participate in creative stuff and be in charge of the design rather than finance or research, because that definitely is not my strong suit. I am glad I challenged my self with this task but it just made me more firm about where I stand in the industry.

Here is the complete presentation:

Pitch Perfect: Finance research

So for the Pitch perfect brief I was responsible for researching how much it would cost to start up a studio! Can't say I was too excited about this but here we go.
Providing it doesn't hamper your ability to operate effectively, keep your start-up costs to a minimum. Spending more will place greater pressure on you to generate more money quicker. Saddle yourself with too much debt and you will increase your chances of failure.

You must take into account all your start-up and operating costs for at least 12 months ahead. Relatively small expenses can mount up, while neglecting to include some in your costs will mean you're simply storing up some nasty surprises for later.

Your start-up costs could include equipment and installation, a vehicle, road tax and insurance, premises, fixtures and fittings, initial stock or materials, launch marketing and advertising items, legal and professional fees, possibly a licence, maybe staff uniforms, etc.Premises-related costs can provide a shock for less-experienced business people. First you have to find them, possibly refit and redecorate them, maybe make them safe, secure or legally compliant.If you decide to rent, a landlord will expect a deposit and rent upfront. You might also have to pay a service charge.All of these elements need to be included in your cost calculations.

I could not wrap my head around all this information,so basically what I did was asked my dad for advice, because he has his own business in Lithuania. Also he as this amazing ability of explaining the most complicated things in a very simple way.So he gave me a pretty long lecture, here are some key points:

He advised me to add up what costs we would do for the start up- computers, tables desks, business  licences, registration fees, etc.
Then make a separate monthly costs calculation, so this would include rent, insurance, bills, soft wear licenses. Then calculate the bear minimum it would take us to survive a month if we were to spend the minimum amount of expenses. Then calculate the annual costs and that would show us how much we would need to charge, as we would know how much we need for expenses, then double that because you need include any additional costs and profit. Another thing we should consider is bank loans, how much of a percentage they charge for business loans. That is pretty realistic to think about loaning money for a startup. Another thin I was really surprised about to find out was that in Lithuania, you have to pay 40% of your income for taxes. I thought that was in sane, because it is almost half! How are you supposed to break even?! Anyway in UK the situation is a lot better, the taxes are only 20% so I figured starting a business here would be a lot of better. Then I went on trying to calculate what my dad advised me to.

I went over this information with Wing and  we both agreed we would have to hire an accountant. I started looking up how much does it cost to hire an accountant, Wing mentioned that one of her friends studies accounting and he would charge about 5000 per year. But that is just for students, obviously a professional one would cost significantly more. Another thing I remembered from last years business start ups seminars was that it is better to pay yourself minimum wage and pay the rest in dividends.

We’ve estimated that if we were to take up a project for 3 months worth of time, the cost would be around 64.000 pounds. This is assuming we would charge double the expenses and we would pay ourselves minimum wage plus dividents. If we were to look into a start up campaign or an investor, a realistic goal to break even would be in five years time. As soon as we would start making profit, we would look into expansion possibilities such as hiring programmers for game making, we also have the upper hand on international networking (Wing and I thought we would have an upper hand on this because we come from foreign countries) so we would try and cast a net on a broader market.

So in the end I came with these numbers:

Lone Digger video

I found a new video to obsess about! This is the single most insane music video I have seen so far. I am re watching it for the 20th time and I am still not tired of it. It goes so well with the music, if anything it sells it even better. I was aware of Caravan Place before it it seemed to be taking a completely different turn with this video, it is a lot darker, a lot more naughty and sure as hell more cool.  I love the single toned 3d feel to it, the lighting, colour scheme character design, camera positioning, very single aspect of it seems to be polished out to help and tell the story. The story escalates really quickly during the second chorus but I think it kind of amplifies the music it self with that break out of sudden violence.
For some reason I fell in love with the dog gang, I kind of liked them more than the cats. Can't say that i didn't see where it was going but the dog gang seemed so natural and realistic, it real made me believe the character were real. Just their body language  was so subtle, that is probably what made me like them so much and ultimately in a really weird way I found myself rooting for them.
The violence scene was mind blowing to me, straight up, it has nothing on action movies. It's fast paced, the camera angles are amazingly placed and paced. And the ending leaves you with a strong emotion.

Overall, Lone Digger is an eyegasm. I don't think that's a word, but that is how it made me feel. It is just so satisfying to watch and it does it's job so well. I know for a fact I would have not went on got the song if not for the video.

Brand Me: Showreel

So for the page I needed a showreel to sum my work up. The biggest problem with this was not finding material but the soundtrack. I have asked Mike if it would be alright to use the same one as last year, because it fit my work so perfectly, I just loved it. I was told that I should find another one. So I did.
I have spent hours of research. I kept thinking about my work and what kind of music would suit it. For  some reason I looked up russian gypsy music because. Mainly because i thought the upbeat fast pace would work-

But then I just did not feel like suit me. I went on going through the music I liked. One of the songs I really wanted to use was Walla Walla by glass animals because it is mystical, quick and interesting. But I could not find and instrumental version and extracting the vocals was not something I was capable of so i went on looking.

Then there was another song which I really really really wanted to use, which was Drowning Butterflies by Bipolar Sunshine. The reason I wanted to use it because it was my favourite song this year, but I felt it would give my animation this deeper and more interesting vibe-

But once again I could not find a version with no vocals. So I had to scarp that idea. I have sent three hours browsing through music and looking for something and I could not find anything i genuinely liked. So I came back to the soundtrack I took last years music from and just took another song. So ut was similar, but actually a different song so I trout it is a win win.
Once the music was picked, putting together the show reel was a piece of cake, I have kept all the image sequences for all the projects I have done recently so all of it was high quality and same size. This saved me a lot of time because I could have spent hours figuring out how make all the footage the same. So in the end I am really happy bout my showreel and i have put it up on my page immediately.
CHECK IT:

Brand Me: Logo Design

We were recently briefed of the Brand Me brief. The point of the brief is to establish a personal brand and establishing a consistent and professional online presence. Basically putting our work out there and giving ourselves a name. This would require to develop a logo, show reel and whatever would help us look professional when looking for a job.

Branding yourself is not easy. You have to know specifically what it is that you do and or specialise in. this requires to have consistent style and portfolio of work. I am not sure if I already have that, but I have a deadline and brief so I better figure it out now. To be honest, I kept putting this brief off for later, and sort of left it for last. Mainly for strategic reason, I wanted my showreel to contain the most current work so I waited until all my other projects were handed in to start branding myself.

So I have already established that I specialise in character design. I guess my style has become rather consistent the last few months. So I will work off what I made recently. In most of my work I have put in my signatures GN. So I figured for my logo I would just keep that. For some more idea generating I did a bit of a sketching session:

The reason I felt more comfortable with the one I was already using was I felt that it was simple, not pretentious and I liked that finishing touch feeling of drawing it on my work when it is finished. Matt pointed out to me that my logo looked like a GA so I just modified it a bit to be a bit more clear-

Brand Me: Creating a Page

So as another stage of the Brand Me brief I figure I should make a Facebook page. Why Facebook? because it is easy, I update really often, and I have established already quite of an audience by putting my work on my personal page. Im glad i did not put everything there, because that means I had more unseen material for the page.

As the page was made I picked the most recent work of mine, basically the one I thought would be the most relevant for my speciality. I kept in mind that if I were an employer what would I look for? So I built the page around that idea. I am real happy with how it turned out and I am going to be happy with sending it to studios asking for internships or jus any type of work. After the first day, already 12 likes! such popularity, many famous, wow. So check it out-
https://www.facebook.com/gn646/

Commission Work

So a few days ago the general manager from the restaurant I work at asked me if I could help out with some creative stuff. Basically, I work at Cabana which is a chain restaurant. The one in Leeds   was the first one in the North. In April a new one opened up in New Castle. Most of the New Castle staff was trained with us, so I have a lot of positive feeling towards it. So the company decided to create a contest, basically all of the Cabana's were asked to make a gift for the New Castle Cabana. So basically I was appointed to make something under the the supervision of our supervisor. So once again I was team working!

We did not have a lot of time so we had to work quick. My supervisor had a lot of great ideas, but I remembered my golden lion thing I did last year so I proposed we would do it in the same way, just a lot less detailed. Supervisor gave me the thumbs up so I went ahead and did it. Basically, Cabana is a Brazilian themed restaurant, and as it is Brazilian the first thing that pops in your head is the Redeemer statue. So that was the main object in the poster. For the background we figured the favela would look good, but stylised and simplified.

I made a few quick sketches and went on working. So I just made the outlines in silver on a black cardboard. I was happy with just having a drawn poster, but my partner felt it was not creative enough, so she kept thinking of a way to make it bait more interesting. We finally car to a compromise of incorporating Portuguese phrases translated to english into the favela windows and some photos of the New Castle staff.

So here are some photos of the process.

In the end I thought the poster looked better without the pictures and stuff but what can you do. I got paid for it in the end so as long as the managers were happy , I was happy. And we got an email from the head administrator of the company saying "Wowee this looks AMAZING! Fantastic effort team Leeds".
Also we ended up winining the competition so all in all, a pretty successful project.

Pitch Perfect

So recently we had a new brief! I was not excited about it especially with the overwhelming workload we have already have. But I guess you gotta do what you gotta do.
But in all seriousness this brief seemed very important and relevant for me because i know for a fact that ultimately I want to have my own studio one day. So I looked up my blog posts from last year, when I went to all this start up seminars and it came in so handy.
I have already blogged about making a business plan last year, so I don;t want o repeat myself. In a nutshell, try and foresee what you might need for your business as specifically as possible.
Shortly enough I teamed up with Wing, Matt and Molly. I was really happy with the team. Mostly because Wing was in it and we have a really productive working relationship. To be completely honest,  Wing was the driving force of the team. She did an amazing job at keeping everyone in check and managing the group as well as distributing workload. So props for her amazing management skills!
I ended up being responsible for finance. Maths was never my friend, as well as finance. But I guess it's time to challenge myself a bit more.

Anual Costs

During our recent PPP session we were given an annual costs form and asked to fill it in. The point of this exercise was to show us roughly how much we spend annually and therefore it would be easier to understand how much we should charge our clients, or how to manage our money. I thought it was very clever to introduce this to us because as students most of do not have that much experience with budget management. I know I don't always do. But in all honesty, ever since I moved to UK money was tight so my mom made me keep an update exel file with my daily expenses, and send it to her every now and then so she could forecast if I needed any support later on. And then she would give me advice and what to cut down on and what to not be cheap about. That whipped me into shape very quickly. After the first year I kind of left the exel file because I felt like I did not need it anymore, I haven't need any support from parents for a while now and I don't have that much trouble managing my money.

So this exercise was kind of a recap for me. Also I found out that my annual expenses era really cheap. I tried my best to calculate the approximate spendings on everything and it did not add up to as much as (i think). 

The total income section seemed to have some kind of an error in it which I could not figure out, but the overall exercise was very useful. This will come in really hand if I ever need to access my financial situation or open a studio. Actually I should start using it again now. Once you see o paper your expenses is it a lot easier to reconsider before buying stuff you do not need.

Character Design development

This year I discovered that I  actually want to specialise in character design. I have had this idea before but then I thought it is too difficult. Especially during first year I was not so sure about what it is I actually want to do. I guess the breaking point was the animated documentary brief. Before hand we had the 3d character and narrative brief where we had to model a 3d character, I thought maybe it was fun but then again I still did not think I have that back for it. Then during the animated documentary brief I started sketching a lot more and the character designs turned out better and better. I never seemed to get them look exactly how I want them to but this time I just kept redrawing until it looked exactly the way it was supposed to. I will admit, a lot of ctrl+z's add up to one sketch, and redrawing the same thing a hundred time felt really unsparing. But then once I got it right it took me less an less times to get it right.  I looked at other artist work, such Randy Bishop for reference, proportions and what not.

After a lot of painful drawing and deleting I finally got in the zone. Now I can't go through a day without drawing something. But the surgeon character in the FOOD documentary was the point where I really found myself.

This particular sketch took me ages to make, it might not look that way but I assure you it took a while.

But afterwards I kept doodling on my own time and it seemed to get better, sketch by sketch I started looking for style I like. So far so good.

Visiting Lecturer Zane Wittingiham

We had a guest speaker from Fettle animation studio Zane Wittingham. He started off by introducing himself and who he started doing animation. Apparently, he started drawing pen on paper but rather quickly figured it would be easier to create cut out animation. Currently Fettle animation specialises in Flash animation which is actually very relevant to me because that is what I would like to specialise in.
We were also showed what projects Fettle has done so far and aha kind of animation they have produced.
Personally my favourite was this one-

I thought it was really funny and cute at the same time. I found myself bursting with laughter however all the students around me seemed to take it too seriously, so my giggling seemed a bit out of line. I mean if this animation is not meant to make you laugh then I don't know what it is for. Zane kept talking about these interns (I have forgotten their names by now to be honest), it kind of gave me hope that I could land an internship in a studio since Zane talked a lot about personality and ability to work in teams and in this case being good at Flash.
But to be honest the whole lecture seemed to make me a bit depressed. I thought for a professional studio this kind of work was underwhelming to say the least. I understand that they try to keep consistent style but it seemed like something a fifteen year old could do in their free time, but not an entire studio. Since character design is my main focus I did not find anything that would interest me in this studio. All of this might sound harsh but Zane said himself that the british animation industry is not producing anything amazing anyway. When he said that I though to myself "well with that attitude it never will"
Also I did not agree with that. I have an impression that UK is one of the heavyweights of animation industry, it has a lot of good stuff but maybe it does not receive such big attention as say american animation. After all, why would I move to study animation in country that has no prospects for it? Anyway, Fettle studio came across as nothing special. I guess it is cool in a way because the leader of the studio is passionate about it but I don't see myself working there.

Liz Clements illustration

Liz Clements illustrations are amazing! I think it is simply eye candy, there does not seemed to be any story or deeper meaning to her work but it is so well detailed and pops out that it is amazing to look at. Yet again I love an artist mainly because their inspiration subject is females, but her style seems to be really detailed and the drawings look like they took ages to make, the colors and designs are very contemporary and speaks to the modern artist or fan of art. It is not that sort of art that every age group would love, mainly young people my age, but if I showed this to my mom she wouldn't get it. Maybe that is why I like it so much?