LAUAN502: Brief 2 - Interview questions

1.     How did you get into art as a hobby and when / why did you consider it a professional career.

 2.     Tell me a little history of your art journey before arriving at RoosterTeeth :

3.     How did you arrive at your position with RoosterTeeth

     4.     How would you say working in RoosterTeeth / or the company in general is different from other studio

5.     What are the major points would you say that is different between being juts production artist and an art director, i.e what are the different responsibility / mindsets needed to be an art director.

6.     How has your role change your art.

3D pipeline so 2D art needs to be considered

7.     How will it change in the future. Are there anything that you still aim to achieve or learned in your professional art career . +> creative director I want to see everything

8.     What are the skills that you have learned from your role

9.     What sort of advice would you give for people who wants to get into the industry

LAUAN502 - Studio Brief 2- Study task 3 : RoosterTeeth brief profile

Established in 2003 by 4 people, Roosterteeth is production studio prioritised in the production of net-based entertainment. Their first major hit was Red vs Blue , an animated series created using the game Halo : Combat evolved , thought to have kick-started a whole new genre of animation : "Machinima". With production started in 2003 and still on-going to this day , the series is the longest running web series of all time , and had garnered the company massive success and influence.

As time goes, the company grew to now housing roughly 200 employees, with their content expanding to podcasts, live-action , feature length film, animation, gaming , new,events etc with a significant global reach of audience. This was due to fact that as part of their core business model , they maintain an extremely close bond with their audience ( either through their main website or other media) , choosing to produce "things that you would like to see" and having company's personalities interact with the internet fan-base regularly. The name of "RoosterTeeth" itself stems from line in Red vs Blue, and is considered a tribute to the fans. Overall, if anything, the studio is an example of a successful company for the digital and connected age.

RT Animation : 

Established in 2014 and headed by Mr Gray Haddock , following the company model of aiming at internet-based audience

Productions :

-Red vs Blue : Long running popular hit 

-X-ray and Vav : 

-Camp Camp

-RT animated adventures

-RWBY : 3D Anime style animated show, garnered a huge global audience and success, and gain significant attention in Japan as well - Introduced a much wider audience to the company and is undoubtedly one of their biggest show. 

-Gen:lock (TBD) 

Growing from 4 guys doing machinima from an xbox , the animation team now makes use of the all the modern software and hardware including industry-standard 3D softwares like Maya and also the use of motion capture. 

LAUAN502 : Studio Brief 2 - Chosen contact

My chosen contact will be Rooster Teeth's art director : Mr Patrick Rodriguez , who's work included some of RT's most popular show like RWBY, Camp Camp and is also the host for some show on RT's website as well. Given my interaction with the company over the last couple of months ( as well as my fascination for the company itself ) , I feel really good about this decision , especially since even though we technically "worked" together at one point, I knew almost nothing about his past experience or history in art.

RT Animation team 

LAUAN502: Studio Brief 2: - Potential contacts

Patrick Rodriguez - Art director (Rooster Teeth)
Erin Winn - character designer/ illustrator (Rooster Teeth)
Gray Haddock - Animation director (Rooster Teeth)
Rob Doherty - Director of Programming and Distribution (Larkshead media)
Sam Wright - Director (Bumpybox)
Michael Franchina - Concept artist (Blizzard)
Ted Beargeon - Senior Concept artist (Blizzard)

LAUAN502: Manchester animation festival 2017

For me , the focus of this year's MAF was less actually watching animation and more on networking and going to masterclass to see the inner workings of studios from the industries. In that respect , I found this year to be extremely interesting , especially with the masterclass of Betram fiddle and NEXUS foucusing more on games and interactive animation , in the case of Nexus, VR. It really shows the potential of where animation was heading and inspired me to try out more 3D stuff in the future. However ,the most important thing that it was my first time going in to a networking event and meeting professionals. Though just normal the interaction ( introduction/conversation ) at most, this event has boosted my confidences in social skills, as well as broadening my connections with people like Mr Rob Doherty from Larkshead Media who gave me some really good advice, as well as alumni from our own and other university.

LAUAN502 - Study Task 5 : Social Media

Current media :
- Reddit
-Twitter
-Facebook
-Tumblr
-Artstation
-Deviantart

Use : Artstation/ Deviantart used for main display of work, which is then cross-post to tumblt , twitter, and so on...

Considering the subject of my content ( fanart/ anime ) I target my post to sites that have a connection with those communities ( for example RWBY) via hashtags, specific subreddits , micro blog, etc. That way I found that my content is shared through much quicker and gathered a more significant presence online overall.

Good standing within your own community => expansion to other

Artstation is my current professional display while the rest serves as delivering sites to it, I'm also considering expanding to linkdln and Instagram in terms of professional sites.

PLAN: post regularly (3 times a week) with the relevant topic to Twitter and smaller sites to keep the presence up , while continue doing work to upload onto Artstation for building a professional portfolio

LAUAN502 - Study Task 4 : Networking

Opportunities :
- MAF (Convention)
- London Animation club
- Leeds ILLO ( Facebook)
- GAMAYO (Facebook)
- Manimation
- RTX (Convention)
- Artstation
- Cuberbrush
- Linkedln
- Twitter.

LAUAN502: Responsibility on Social media

Over the past week I ran into a trouble of miscommunication with my employers at RoosterTeeth. The problem was me wanting to release my version of the poster for the show that has already been out in the public, but failing to wait for appropriate permissions from the company, which got me into a little trouble with the head of Animation. Fortunately enough, what I put out was only a little snip bit of the full thing which doesn’t present any new information from whats already out there, so he was quite forgiving, explaining to me that the purpose of doing this was not to confuse the audience on what/how the show is going to look (as this poster was done quite a while back and we’re currently going through a process of changing the look of the show). This experience also highlights the prominent of role on social media now, as being a concept artist/ insider, I’m a legit source of information for the public and anything that I put out now will be an extension of what the company itself, so it calls for much more careful consideration, not only in the content of my post but also my public image- all needed knowledge for the digital-age professional

The poster that was available for the public

 

LAUAN502 : Rooster Teeth and RTX London

The weekend on the 14th and 15th of October saw me travelling down to London for RTX, a convention held by RoosterTeeth whom I am working with on a animated series- In short, it was the most surreal weekend I've ever experience. Being a fan of the company for ages, it was already great honour that I got offered a fully-paid position on their new show and a large one at that ( concept design for all the characters) , it was even more exciting to get exclusive access to the convention and panel. When there, I got to meet Mr Gray Haddock , head of animation of RT who I've been speaking with closely for work, and also another concept artist , Gavin Manners working from Brighton. It was really interesting to hear his story going from interior designs to character design just recently and also his process of making a character ( which utilise alot of 3D elements ). More than that , I get to see for myself the 1st trailer for the show and see the impact it made on the audience, which was a major boost in inspiration to keep going. It goes to show, beside getting paid and all that , what sets artists out from other profession is seeing how much their work gets to influence the life of ordinary people and in turn , how their passion fuel the creative drive of his/her work. Oh and the cosplay was all very nice 

The series I'm working on 

Thats me ! (Asian dude) 

LAUAN502 Study Task 1: Who am I ?

Things I've learned so far :

- Comprising different elements in an animation
- Basic 3D animation
- Interesting character movement
- Storyboarding and shot set-up
- project management

Things I want to know more :

- 2D action scenes and fight scenes
- 3D and 2D intergration (2D overlayers)
- Greyscale painting and thumbnailing
- 3D characters sculpting
- Lighting and VFX

Things I'm strong at :

- Illustration/ painting
- Composition
- Setting moods in picture
- Character design
- perspective in scenes

Things I want to improve :

- 2D animation
- Grey scale painting
- Character turnarounds (2D)
- Anatomy
- Colour palette and lighting

Practitioners that interest me :

- Shinkai Makoto (film director)
- Hayao Miyazaki (film director)
- Testuya Nomura (Game designer-Final Fantasy )
-Akihiko Yoshida (Character artist )
-Studio Ufotable ( animation studio)



Websites/Online resource :
- Artstation
- Cuberbrush
- Skwigly
- Youtube ( multiple channels )
- The living lines library

Ceramic induction 3 : completed models

 

The model is a little bit rough around the edges but I'd say its a pretty good for a first try ! It is quite heavy though , as the original design had very slim limbs therefore it is quite difficult to try and balance all that weight (her head ).The screws at her feet also came off so I had to stick her down with loads of extra clay which effectively turn her into a static model. this was helped along by the fact that I changed the hat design into a smaller more hollow chef hat to make it more easier to sit on her head.

Overall , she still can do with a lot more refinement in terms of detailing but the overall shape and look of the design is very much in line with what I'd imagined

Obari's cube

Little piece of animation I did for Steve's enhancement session on squashing and stretching . Though sketchy , I absolutely enjoyed making this , as I provided me with a chance to practice more anime techniques , particularly those features in fight scenes like the Obari's cube ground explosion or warp and blasts, all the while keeping true to the task goal's of producing squash and stretch . With this I feel like I'm really starting to improve on timing and knowing how to create force and weight using camera movements. I also starting to move away from  straight ahead animating to a more conventional keyframe animation , which has been very useful in the point prior. Overall , very happy with what Im doing right now , considering the fact that when I entered uni I was pretty new to this

Ceramic induction 2 : Tape and clay

With the wireframe done and the foam applied for structural support , I began to tape everything up to make it more durable as well as building a surface for the clay to stick on- creating a mummy like creature in the process. After that came the most challenging part of the build : the modelling . Now, I did an entire blog on how 2D-oriented designs like those of anime don't really translate well onto  3D and it certainly shows at this stage. However , I did my best to deal with it and I have to say that what I did with the character's face is pretty decent , looking good in both 3D and similar to my 2D designs. The hardest thing to get was the eyes , as it is a very small indentation, with a curve surface for the eyeball itself , so I had to really get in there with the smaller tools. The clay itself is pretty tricky to use as it id very soft and picks up a lot of small accidental movement that creates blemishes in the model. I find that having something thats a bit harder would be more suiting for my liking . For what I have done in this session though , I'm very happy , the character is looking great and just need some final touch up in the face to be perfect !.