| What to do now...
Now that you’re done with this course, what should you do next? Well here’s some suggestions: |
|||||
| 1) Find a life drawing class somewhere, through a local art gallery or art society, a community college that offers night classes, anywhere. If you can’t find one you may have to ask for the help of family members to at least get started. Let’s just hope your parents don’t get right into it and pose for you naked... Yikes! 2) Join an animation club or society. Most large cities have one, ask at your local comic shop if they know of any. These usually have some great meetings which feature actual working artists who lecture on a wide variety of topics. I am a member of the Toronto Animated Image Society. They have a monthly meeting with some very interesting speakers, discussion groups, workshops, portfolio nights, etc. A great place to meet people with similar interests and aspirations. 3) Attend comic conventions. Sometimes they have guests from the animation industry who you can meet and talk to. 4) Even better than this is to go to some Animation Festivals. Most of the people there are actually in the industry. Try to see if you can spot them from the regular people, it’s not easy! 5) Draw every day or at the very least 6 hours a week. Try to fit in a minimum of 2 hours per drawing session. It will take you at least 45 minutes to simply warm up. 6) Do object drawing. Pick some simple objects around your house to draw, like a can opener, tv remote control, a salt shaker, the toaster, a Kleenex box, etc. Don’t pick anything that will take you more than 15 minutes to draw. Anything longer than that is a waste of time at this point in your education. Draw the object from a number of different points of view and treat them as though they are characters for a model sheet you’re putting together. Watch for consistency in size, dimensions, and volumes. 7) Become analytical. Analyze everything. Analyze not criticize. When you’re looking at a video release of a cartoon, don’t be critical but rather look at it for what the artists have done. Were they consistent? How did they arrive at that particular design? What do you like about that style? How does it compare to another film? By the same studio? By another studio? Can you mimic the style? Try to design another character for the film as though you were working on the project as a designer for the sequel. |
|||||
| Previous Page - Final Thoughts | |||||