Selling yourself seems to be the most important part of becoming an animator in the industry whether that’s in studio or as a freelancer. You have to be your own advocate. Maybe someday I’ll have an agent or manager who can help me with new work, connections and the like. I do know of many…

The scariest part of graduation will be job-hunting. There are a few studios I would love to work at, mainly those with London offices. I wish to work here if I can, either hybrid or in studio, since I have a long-term partner and family here. Blink-Ink primarily creates idents, adverts and short films. Some…

Finishing up my grad film has certainly given me the short film bug. There is something nice about a project being entirely your own start to finish, but there is a part of me feeling unfulfilled. There was such a rush with this film that I feel I squandered the opportunity somewhat. In some twisted…

Clean up is the most important yet underrated parts of the making of animation. How else do you get clean lines and consistency? Christina Naerland also says it’s frequently the job given to newbies. It’s usually the biggest, most expensive department of an animation studio. I still don’t know much about it, other than its…

I adore concept art. It is my favourite part of the production process. Designing characters and backgrounds in a purely experimental capacity allows for creative freedom. As such, I collect art books for animated works I am a fan of. They inspire me in my own practice. So here are a few which have particularly…

Colour and light are what set great from good animated films and tv shows. Making sure all the aspects of a scene fit together correctly, to create the atmosphere needed in your story. The industry standard for these aspects of animation post production is Adobe After Effects. I found this video very helpful in learning…

Whilst I am still not done working with helping work on Abbie’s second year film, I’ll report on what I have done so far. I was given two separate tasks, the first was to animate a rough pass of a scene. Interestingly, Abbie’s film is not a short, but a reel containing many short clips…

So I really wanted to finish off my character turnaround sheet to add a cloak to the character. While I was there I decided to revamp my character inspired by the styles that influenced their creation. Two films influenced the art style I went with; Turning Red by Pixar Studios and Wolfwalkers by Cartoon Saloon.…

So the main issue that I have with lip syncing is speed. If they aren’t voice actors who’s job it is to create dialogue suitable for animation, the natural talking speed is incredibly fast. The vine exercise in particular was fast- I mean, they have to cut everything down to 6 seconds. I was continuously…