I'm an Animator

I have news: I made it. I'm an animator.

Looking back through this blog is quite a humbly experience; being able to look back at my journey and how I got here. But I know really that my journey has only just begun...but my leap of faith to do it in the first place, has paid off.

I'm aware that there's quite a bit of missing information in the lead up to my first job. Let me fill you in.

Me and my fabulous course mate, after our graduation.

What happened:
My course at Aardman finished just before Christmas 2014. Our graduation was such a gorgeous, yet bittersweet day. I was proud of the work I had done. I was chomping at the bit to get out into real world again, and starting working. I was sad to say goodbye to all the lovely people I'd met, and I was gutted to be leaving Aardman. But I was excited to see what's next.

By some twist of fate, in my final weeks at Aardman, I was offered a job as a junior animator with a boutique studio up in Glasgow. I had to learn how to use and animate in Cinema4D (which was actually pretty easy, truth be told) and all went well. I was there short term, but three weeks in I got a call from the course co-ordinator at Aardman, telling me I had been invited to join an Internship with Blue Zoo, with potential to stay on for a year contract. How the blinky blonky I ended up with two animator jobs in less than a month after finishing the course, I'll never know!

I spoke to the studio director in Glasgow about the situation, and he gave me his blessing to accept with Blue Zoo. I felt pretty bad about it, as I didn't want to let anyone down. I found somewhere to stay in London and sorted out all my travel (trains are so damn expensive, right?) from York (where I live currently) and I was off. Then three weeks into the Internship, they told me they liked the work I was doing, they thought I fit in, and offered me a contract to stay on...I'm still pinching myself.

When I was at Aardman, I didn't think any studio would come close to the pedestal of greatness that I put it on. Aardman was the ultimate workplace, as far as I was concerned. But, I gotta say, Blue Zoo is up there too. It's a dream. The project I'm working on is called Tree Fu Tom, for CBeebies. It's gorgeous. The episodes are cute and the characters are challenging to work on, which I love...I mean how do you approach animating a character who has four arms, two are enough for the junior to contend with, surely? ;)

So, that's it.

All I can say really, is if I can do it, you can do it. It's funny working with people who are in much higher positions than me, who are younger than me. It makes me think "I wonder where I would be now, if I had gone straight into animation... but hey, let's not get toooo philosophical on that one.

Cheers
Marc :)

What Have I Learnt So Far From Aardman?

I was wondering what I should write about for my next blog post, and whilst browsing through my Learning Diary of what I've learnt on my Character Animation course at Aardman (yes, I do keep a diary of all the things I'm learning each week...is that tragic?), so thought I'd share with you some of my biggest learning triumphs (or Eureka Moments, as we've affectionately started calling them) from the first couple of weeks. So, here they are:
 
1) Lines of Actions and Posing.
If you have good poses, you will be on the way to making good animations. Life Drawing has really helped developed my eye for posing a character, and ultimately creating the right feel for weight and balance. Finding the lines of action in the body, and putting them into my characters have really improved the way that I'm working, and ultimately animating!

Some of my simple Lines of Actions Drawings

2) Check the Silhouette.
It's all very well posing a character, but does that pose tell your story? If you're not sure, check the silhouette. Is the body shape that has been created readable to the viewer? Is the attitude of the character clear? A simple way to check, is to look at the silhouette and simple ask friends or colleagues what they think is going on. As long as you haven't set up any lights, a super simple way to check your silhouette in Maya is to press 7! Easy!

3) Favouring.
If you're transitioning a character from A to B, a much nicer way to pose the body is to make the lines of action in the body favour one side, over the other. So, if you're moving across a plane, lean back from where you came from, then as you cross the half way point, maybe lean towards where you're going, or still towards where you came from...but just don't create a straight line in the middle...ever (well, hardly ever, at least)...it's boring.

4) The Bouncing Ball is Everywhere!
If you've studied animation, undoubtedly, you've animated the bouncing ball. It is a vital part of the animation learning process. The bouncing ball is everywhere. One of my biggest eureka moments, was realising that the bouncing ball is all throughout the body. Especially in the pelvis, or the hips. Of course, it seems obvious, but it wasn't until my tutor pointed at the hips on my rig, and simply said "there is your bouncing ball", that I realised. Keep dem hips moving and a'bouncing!

5) Plant Your Feet.
This is another obvious one, put if you're going to be shifting your character's weight, to make it convincing, make sure the feet are firmly planted to the ground. They can't be floating or sliding. They need to be solid, and supporting the weight, before any weight is moved. Got it? Good!


I'll add more snippets of my learning in another post soon, but for now, that's all...hopefully you can take something away from this. If you do, drop my a line and let me know, and let's share the glory of learning!

Cheers
Marc :)

The Escape VFX Festival 2013

I just wanted to dedicate a little piece of my animation blog to the Escape Studios VFX Festival, that took place last week. I had such a great time!

Not only did I work it, but I attended a couple of the screenings too. I was at the Getting Into VFX talk, which was great - although to be honest, it didn't differ much from the same talk they did the previous year at Escape. A nice addition to the panel was Eamonn Butler from Cinesite, who was there to talk about Animation! So obviously, I was very tuned into him.

One of the most interesting things he mentioned, is that he likes a showreel to have a story - definitely something to think about...although I'm not sure how the material I have at the moment, will fit nicely into a coherent story...but will certainly be looking at ways to incorporate that into my reel.

I was also at The Future of Digital Creativity Panel Debate which was also interesting, although it was chaired by the disappointingly bland Danny Leigh, from Film2013. Following that, was a screening from Framestore showcasing the work they did on Gravity - which looked exquisite.

All screenings were hosted by Helen O'Hara from Empire magazine, who was charismatic, interesting and humourous, with her question handling via teh roaming microphone and the use of the VFX twitter hashtag. She lightened the evenings I attended and was a very welcome addition to the festival (she would have done a much better job than Danny Leigh - why was he there anyway???)

As that was the last night, I also went along to the Closing Party - which was lots of fun. It has to be said that the volume of the music wasn't incredibly conducive to coherent talking, but maybe that was just me. It was nice to catch up with familiar faces and congratulate everyone involved in a great festival.

The shift from last year's relatively small VFX festival, to this year's massive offering only makes me even more excited for next year's VFX Festival, from Escape. Congrats to everyone who made it happen!

I've Been Animating For a Pregnancy!

Don't worry, no one's pregnant. I just logged into my Animation Apprentice account, and I've been a member for just over 9 months - that's a pregnancy! ...and it does feel like I've been reborn, in some sort of cheesy, cliche way.

I've learnt so much. I feel that I'm using my creativity, and I feel very satisfied for it. Before, it was like I was stuck, somehow. I knew where I wanted to be, vaguely, but didn't know how to get there - and because no sails were in motion, I just spent a lot of my time just treading water.

Now, I'm training in a field that sparks my interests, working with like minded people, learning from my peers - I certainly feel more fulfilled than I have done in a very long time. It feels good.

Here's one of my latest animations. I've still got work to do it, but it's getting there. What do you think?

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!

Books for Animators

I hear all the time, from friends and colleagues, which are the best books for Animators?

The response tends to lean towards a response of "just google what you're looking for" - this is especially the prevalent answer, when asked for the best books to help understand Maya. Maya gets updated every year, so it makes sense to steer away from buying specific books to help with why-won't-keyframes-move-in-the-graph-editor questions.

There are LOADS of great books out there, that become like bibles for animators. Everything from Disney sketchbooks, to the ultimate Animator's Survival Kit, by Richard Williams. So...I made a page especially for them. Take a peek and let me know what you think: Books and Gifts for Animators

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!

It's sinking in...

It's been a busy week. Work (day job) is gearing up for one of its busiest times of the year, and obviously I've cut my hours, to dedicate time to learning how to become an animator. I've got lots of plates spinning, but I'm cool with that...I'm pretty good at keeping everything afloat.

I had a great class at Escape on Tuesday night. We finished off our bottles with texture and colouring, and moved on to the next project. At first (as you could probably tell) I was quite nervous and daunted by what I had let myself in for, I felt like I had put myself well and truly in the deep end, but now I'm feeling more and more like I can start taking the armbands off, and float with more ease.

I've figured and excepted that the course IS going to be tough, but as long as I ask the right questions, or know where to look to find the answers I need, and as long as I keep up with the work, and put effort in, in my own time, I'll get there.

Escape recommended a couple of website to keep an eye on, and join their forums - apparently the people are helpful, and it's a good space to learn things from each other. I need to check out:

1. www.vfxtalk.com/forum/
2. forums.cgsociety.org 
3. www.2-popforums.com

So, consider those well and truly on my "to click" list

My Maya tutor is helpful at keeping us all on track, but I don't panic if I missed something, I just make a note, and refer back and find out what I need to know. If you're thinking about doing a course like this, don't forget a notebook and pen - incredibly foolish, I forgot on the first day, but managed to transfer my notes in time for the second class.

Today, I also got a glimpse of the modules I'm going to be taking for my actual animation training, I'm really excited and can't wait to get going!