End of iA and INTERNSHIP!

So iA ended last week.... It's always very sad when it comes to an end. I miss getting reviews from my mentors and watching the lectures.  Kevin Rucker was an amazing mentor and I have learned A LOT in WS2.  I will be taking a break from iA and not take WS3 just yet. I am disappointed because Michael Carr from SCEA Santa Monica Studios was going to teach that class but there wasn't enough students so they decided to cancel it.  Blah... but it's okay, I really need the break.

Though its not going to be a break at all because I did get an internship at Liquid Entertainment! I am really happy that I got this gig.  They work in 3DS Max and I haven't even touched that program yet, but the more I am learning about it, the more I am liking it.  I have a feeling my workflow for animating will slow down a bit but hopefully I'll get the hang of it soon.

So yeah, I got school that I need to get through.. and now, I'll be at the studio on my days off.  So Sunday is the only day I actually have off. Plus I joined an indie development team working on an FPS game, set to be releasing next month on Steam's Greenlight. SO BUSY!!!!!

But I am LOVING it all. My dream is finally coming to fruition. Hard work is finally paying off. I am still very far from it though so I'm definitely not going to stop.

I've had a few people review my demo reel such as my mentors, and the senior animators at Riot, as well as friends. I see what they are saying and yeah, I do need a lot of work on it.

More dynamic poses, get those "box cover" poses to show, better timing, spacing, issues with popping, animations are too pose to pose, need to be smoother, animations need to show more character, animations need to be polished to the max, and the list goes on.

So I'll be taking a break this summer from WS3 and will be working on my animation and polishing up my demo reel.. TO THE MAX. And I think I will make this demo reel, non-rendered. Kevin Rucker was right...

"There's no big secret to making a great demo except great animation. The rendering, music, title cards, etc don't matter. ONLY great animation matters."

I was really too worried about making that stuff look nice and all rendered out and that I didn't put enough time in my actual animation.  So yeah, I plan to polish my strongest pieces on my demo reel, and do other different shots, that show a lot of character. And hopefully some cinematic type stuff. AND NO MORE RENDERING! NO MORE! I'll render stuff out again when I'm a super badass animator that's worthy of having shit rendered.

Going to be one busy and awesome summer. :)

Animation Project #19,20,21

So this past week, drove all the way up to San Francisco for the Game Developer Conference which took 6-7 hours. I had a pretty good time there but I mainly went there to meet with Riot Games. I actually got a rejection letter from them the day before for their summer internship. I wanted to go so I could show the actual animators my demo reel and get their thoughts and opinions on it. Alex and Tomas literally spent 30 minutes with my critiquing every shot on my demo reel. It was awesome. I've learned so much and I know what I need to focus on next.

Really wished that I could've gotten the internship though because I've grown so much and I am confident that I would have been ready by summer. It sucks being a student because its so hard to get in this game industry. Internships is really all I got, and it feels like even those are harder to get into. I'm still stumped on what sort of skill level they require. Still got a few more internships to hear back from.

Here's the animation projects I've been working on that I've added to my demo reel.

#19

#20

#21

#21 was a Hyuna's Bubble Pop dance that I did for fun to show to Riot since I know they love dances. They have awesome ones for every one of their characters.

We are coming up on our last week at iAnimate. Working on our finisher move. I was so scared of this assignment because it's my first time working with two characters at once. But after I started, it wasn't so bad. I'm really really happy with how it turned out. Things are starting click. I'm starting to understand weight, balance, and timing. It's amazing to see how far I've come.

Thank god it's spring break this week, I get so much time to animate! So after this finisher, I'm working on another Lisa attack that's more game oriented, and gonna work on a few more finishers cause they are just so fun to do. So here's what I got. Done in 2 days.

Will be rendering this tonight and slap it on my demo reel :)

Until next time... working my ass off. Keys and breakdowns all day everyday! Also just signed up for another online animation training class later this fall, focused on feature animation. I cannot wait! I wasn't able to do this months 11SC competition because I had no time. But I really need to start practicing again. Disney's internship deadline is coming up soon.... Maybe I can do ONE super amazing shot to send in.