How's the Animation Training going?

Me, where the Animation dream got
reawakened, back in 2009.

Things have been moving on for me at a nice pace! I must say though, being honest, for anyone that doesn't have a lot of experience in VFX, doing the Maya course with Escape Studios and doing another course with Animation Apprentice is a lot of work...especially juggling a regular job at the same time.

I've nearly finished with Escape Studios now (it's flown by), only 4 weeks left, but still have a good few weeks left with Alex at Animation Apprentice. If I had to do it all again, I would probably start off with Animation Apprentice, and maybe do a self-learning online Maya course, in my own time to up my skills.

The tutors at Escape are really lovely, and incredibly talented. However, some classes at Escape were, dare I say, I tad boring as we were learning things that bared no resemblance to anything I actually wanted to do with my career (of course, they were useful things to know about, but felt like teaching a drummer how to play the guitar)...but more recently, at Escape, we've been looking at Animation, it's not a patch on what I'm doing with Animation Apprentice. I recommend the course with Alex at AA, 100%!

I'm not phased by what the future holds...yet. I know jobs are few and far between in Animation, but I'm positive and optimistic. I really enjoy Animation, and feel that I'm being true to myself by taking the bull by the horns and retraining to do a completely different career in something I longed for as a child.

I'm leaving work in a few weeks...eeeek...although I will be back and forth, and doing some hours to tide me over, until a job opportunity comes up... I need to take the step and spend more time on my animation and show reel and really focus on landing that dream job! Very exciting! Kinda nerve-racking! Definitely fulfilling!

A Proud Piece of Animation

I am bloody loving animating! I've created quite a few small pieces, but none of them are really showreel yet - still lots of tweaking to do.

Here's something I'm working on - it's still work in progress, so still some work to do - but I'm happy to show it at this stage.

I took a rig of a big "heavy" character, that comes armed with a machine gun - so typically this is the sort of character you would expect to find roaming the darkened streets killing everyone in sight...so, I decided to turn the character on its head - and give him an effeminate twist. Let me know what you think :)

3D art? How do I become an animator using THAT?

Someone asked me: how do you become an animator ...which I thought was a very good question...and inspired discussion, that I thought I'd share. 3D art and animation is everywhere, so how do you get to train how to work with it? But firstly, let's get one thing out of the way, can you believe it's the end of August already? This year is zipping by. It also means that I have now been training in animation and learning animation techniques for about 2 months now. I'm at the stage where the software I'm using is getting very familiar and I'm feeling almost to the stage of it becoming second nature. Of course there are more programmes to practice animation techniques than just using Maya, but I'll stick with the one programme for now!

Click here for Image Credit

I used to ask myself "How Do I Become an Animator?", and end up getting lost on Google with articles telling me "to become an animator write letters to production companies and ask for experience", I think it's a good idea, but I don't know how much that would help in the long run. I wanted a solid training foundation, particularly in 3D art and 3D animation as that sparked more of an interest with me rather than traditional animation. One thing is for sure, I wanted to make sure I would be equipped with the animation techniques that I would need to know before I even attempted to approach a studio or company to take me on. The best piece of advice I was given (and I believe is paying off) is to network, network, network.

I didn't study Animation at uni*, so at the age of 30, I felt at a disadvantage - I didn't have a clue about any of the latest animation techniques or how to work in 3D art other than traditional sculpture. I've known about Escape studios for a while - I had a friend who studied Compositing there, and I had been to a couple of open days - so it automatically popped up in my mind. As I'm sure I've already explained, Escape couldn't help me with my dream to become an animator because they pulled the course, just as I was ready to sign up...but they did introduce me to Alex Williams...so a course in learning Maya with Escape, and a course learning Animation techniques with Alex followed.

I felt confident with Escape, the 3D art they created blew my away. But not only had I been given a personal recommendation from a friend, but the work their students is excellent - knowing Alex had connections with them, and seeing his showreel, I knew I was in the right company with him too. The animation techniques I'm learning are brilliant and easy to understand and follow (however, mastering them, is another matter). If I hadn't found either, I guess I would be looking for more schools or colleges with good reputations, good work to show for what they do and a good feel for their connections with the industry...THEN I'll approach a studio with my "let me become an animator with you" approach. Escape will help you find work when you finish a course, but I understand that they would charge a finders fee to the studio-potential-employer, which studios don't like, for obvious reasons! So, the networking approach is one I hope to explore to its full potential! It's still early days, but it's always good to be prepared!

*Some great uni courses for animation and working with 3D art, as I understand, are at Bournemouth University and the University of Kent.

Working With Wonderful Wacoms

It's been another busy week. My biggest achievement was to use a Wacom Tablet! To be honest, I was nervous about it, I've always used a mouse. Basically, Wacom tablet lets you use the Maya software (and any software really) using a pen stylus on a tablet. It completely replaces the mouse. It's weird, you just hover the pen over the tablet and it moves the cursor around your screen. It also has little buttons on your pen, to use the respective middle and right clicks. It's going to take some getting used to, but I'm really excited and have already done some Maya modelling with it! I got my Wacom tablet from Amazon, I'm using the Wacom Bamboo Pen Graphics Tablet from Amazon.co.uk and I'm really pleased with it (it only cost me about £50, bargain!). You can also get Wacom tablets on Amazon.com so it's definitely worth shopping around.

See link for image credit.

I also started modelling heads and modelling furniture this week! Quite a comparison, lol. The head picture on the left is from a design page at Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne I'm linking because there are some pretty nifty tutorials on how to model in Maya, so definitely worth taking a peek.

I'm beginning to feel more and more confident about using Maya. It's taken a few weeks, but things are starting to sink in, and some techniques are turning into autopilot in my mind.

As far as travelling to my course goes, I've not had any commutable problems into London, with the Olympics in full swing...which is always a bonus!

Bloody Textures!

Hmm. That was a tough class. For some reason lots of things not working for me. Very frustrating, the perfectionist in me is struggling. The "don't panic" voice inside me is trying desperately to take over.

I guess I just need to reassure myself that that was only the 7th session and still at the very early stages of getting to grips with Maya.

I've given myself extra homework to try and catch up - its texture mapping that doesn't seem to behave. Grrr.

Bring on the Animation teaching!

Finding My Feet

I've had a pretty good week, as far as learning how to become a 3D Animator goes. Actually, no, that doesn't make sense, because technically speaking, I haven't started any animation training yet...so, far I'm still learning the fundamentals of Maya...but that's going pretty good, so that's good, right? Yup.

Last Thursday we made a bottle using a NURBS curve, then created a surface with it. It was so much fun. I'm still finding it a little bit tricky to keep up with the pace of the class, but I'll get there.

One thing I like about the course, is at the start of the session, we have a chance to go through any questions that have come up since the last time. So, that's a really good opportunity for me to dig a little deeper with anything I don't understand!

In the past 10 days or so, I've been thinking how grateful I am that this course is twice a week, in other words, part time. Escape Studios do full time intensive courses, that are all day every day for a period of 12-16 weeks. I don't think I would do very well with that one. I'm really enjoying having the time to go home, reflect on what's been taught, and practice and go other bits that I'm not sure on. A bit like driving a car, I found the experience of having a lesson per week, gave me more time to think about what I was doing, than had I done an intensive crash course over a short period.

I don't have an incredibly strong, technical background when it comes to IT and computers, I am slower than most of the others in the class I've noticed. Oh well, we all learn at different paces and ways don't we? When we made the bottles in class, there was one guy who had not only made a bottle, but a cork to sit in it, a table to place the bottle, and a glass to accompany it!

I'm confident in my creative background - having a degree in Art and Theatre. My puppetry and animation manipulation should tap into my theatrical directorial work, and the whole look of the shot should tap into my artist's eye...at least that's the theory. That's what I figure.

Hoping to find out more about the Animation side of things this week, to get that underway...I'm tres excitedo indeedio! As soon as I have more news and updates, I'll be sure to update this trusty blog :)

Well, that knocked the wind out of my sails...

I started my course in Maya Core last Tuesday (26/06/12), and had my second session last night. I'm not going to lie, I'm finding it challenging (but I have only been on the software for a total of 6 hours, so far!) I can work my way round what we've done so far, but the pace of the class is very fast.

The biggest struggle I'm finding, is getting used to the teaching style. We're working our way round introductions to the elements that make up the Maya software...but I find that I need a bit of time to reflect on my notes, to work out how to do something (...such as showing a cube's vertices)...I'm getting there - but feel just as I get to the point of "right, I know where we are, now", the tutor has moved on to something else! Argh!

I'm answering a lot of questions (correctly too, I'm proud to report). Some people say I like the sound of my own voice, so I like answering questions (especially if I'm right, lol). I struggled a bit last night on pivots (stupid pivots, tsk) and snapping a pivot to a vertex (don't you hate it when that happens?). The tutor helped me out, but perhaps he thought I was slow...because that's the only thing I can think of that inspired a comment along the lines of...

"Doing this course, and another course in Animation is a lot of work...if you're struggling with this...how are you going to 3D Animation as well" ...Nothing like a bit of support, right? (...and that's nothing like a bit of support!)

I could be paraphrasing, and I could be being over sensitive, but honestly, I felt devastated. Firstly, because by that time, I had only been on the course for 4 hours of contact time (about 4 minutes of which have been 121, helping me)...and secondly because it's encouragement I'm after, not criticism...yet! By all means criticise the creative work I produce, but not my ability, without some sort of proper assessment first.

Anyway, he seems like a nice guy, so I'm reserving all judgement until we get a few weeks into the course. A little voice in the back of my head did say "You're paying all that money, to be told THIS?"...anywaaaay - what doesn't kill you makes you stronger and all that jazz. I'll be catching up with my Animation tutor later today, who will hopefully make me feel a bit better about what I'm doing and reignite some enthusiasm, spirit and confidence in me again.

Starting the Journey into 3D Animation

I've taken the plunge and decided I'm going to train in 3D Animation. For lots of reasons that I'll probably cover at various intervals throughout this blog. Primarily, to fulfil a childhood ambition that went dormant, and reignited 3 years ago at EuroDisney (of course!).

Initially, I was going to enrol on a 12 week intensive course, at Escape Studios. But after they pulled the plug on the course, I endeavoured to find my own route to get trained up. Upon advice from the studios, I am enrolling on Escape Studios 30 week, part time evening course, to train in Maya (the key software that people in VFX and Animation use) as well as a 30 week part time course in 3D Animation itself.

I'm very nervous, as I'm not technical (my background is in Theatre, Art and Marketing). Excited about the unknown...but most importantly, I'm up for it!