Study task II : Networking - Linkedln profile

Link : https://www.linkedin.com/in/bach-do-7b785a152/

Study task III - Professional contact - Additional :

Along with Erin, I made attempts to contact other professional working at RT as well, one of them being Michael Pedro - art director of the recently released Gen:Lock and concept design who have worked on major titles such as Halo and Doom. I only briefly interacted with Michael through our share contributions to Gen:lock (especially with me working some designs that are base on Michael's and vice versa) so it would be good to pick his brain further on his experience and practice.

 

 Another RT employee I attempted to contact was Melanie Stern, Lead animator for the latest RWBY volume. Considering the excellent quality of the animated sequences in the new volume, I'd definitely want to get some insight from her about the process of achieving it !!

Outside of RT, I'm also trying to contact AnhDang, who works as a concept artist at Blizzard, designing skins for characters such as from Overwatch. Being not only a character designer as well but a massive fan of Blizzard and their design aesthetic, Anh is certainly a persona I'd like to get some info from about working in the studio as well as other technical knowledges regarding design.

Study task III - Professional contact - Erin Winn

Another professional that I reached out to over the past week was Erin Winn - A lead concept artist working at Rooster Teeth studio - a company that had been a major pillar of influence for my art journey. It was a very informative experience as I when I had work with RT, I've only exchanged some files and work on the company's server and didn't actually have the opportunity to talk to her. As such, this conversation has helped me to learn a lot more about her art journey, as well as the knowledge she has gained working as a character designer for major productions like RWBY and Gen-lock ( which is the area I'm very much moving towards).



It's quite funny then to learn that we shares a few similarities in terms of our professional aspirations. We're both are majorly inspired by Yoji Shinkawa's work on the Metal Gear solid series, and both of us wanted to go into Game studios. RT was her only animation studio application, and she's been with them ever since !

Undoubtedly though, the most important part was learning about her experience in working on projects, as well as Rooster Teeth working pipeline. Even though I have actually experienced working in the company's production and thereby have a pretty clear idea of how it works, its much better to get a point of view from someone who has a more broader role, as well as a longer history with the company than you.

This is really good to see with RT, as in the context of mental health being an ever increasing concern, especially in production companies where there's a culture of crunch time and tight deadlines, It is nice to know that the company makes an effort to avoid it !. 

Then, I picked her brain on what she found was the most challenging aspect of character designs.

This is all very insightful and it makes me really happy then about my decision to choose animation as my degree, as the experience working in uni animation projects certainly reflects what she said above and as a result,  prepares me better to tackle the challenges that she faces, and what I might as well.

And finally, I took advantage of the opportunity to ask her review my portfolio, which her feedback was more than encouraging and helpful in setting a direction for me to work on bettering it.

LAUAN602 : Studio Brief 2 - Part 2 : Visual Identity

Having already created my logo since last year, it was just the case of refining it down ( which itself was very minimal as I really like the design already) and applying it across different media. This includes my letterhead, invoice, contract and business card.

LOGO

version designed for horizontal orientation 

Version for vertical orientation 

digital application

Letterhead. 

Invoice template 

My thinking for much of this was clean and simplistic , as to make it look as professional and slick as it can be, and overall I think I've achieved that quite well 

LAUAN602 : Brief 2 - Part 3: Promo pack

I'm pretty happy with this introduction, as I think it's short, concise and explain all the key info that any potential employer would like to know. 

Business card template 

Study task III : Professional contact - Kirarito Inc

I recently made contact with representatives from Kirarito Inc, who discovered my portfolio on Artstation and is interested in establishing a working relationship with me. After a little searching through their website, I found out that they are a major outsourcing agency for Japanese game publisher. This is quite exciting as my style would undoubtedly fit in the Japanese game market much better, which in turn may yield more business opportunities than compare to West. Overall I'm looking forward to what can come from this contact !

LAUAN602 : Studio Brief 2 - Part 4 : Online presence

Thanks to my extensive background in doing fanarts , I've built up a significant online presence over my time here in university. On top of that, I've also developed a method of multi-layer posting that funnels audience toward a particular destination, mainly my Patreon, where it can enhance my earnings, as well as push my art to a much wider audience.

As of now, the main sites I use are :

https://www.deviantart.com/dishwasher1910

https://www.artstation.com/dishwasher1910

https://www.instagram.com/dishwasher1910/ 

https://www.facebook.com/Dishwasher1910/

http://dishwasherultimate1910.tumblr.com/ 

https://twitter.com/Dishwasher1910

https://www.pixiv.net/member.php?id=13408193

Study task III - professional meeting : Leeds Illo

My first meet up with Leeds Illo this evening turned out to be really engaging and fun, proof being I sat for 3 hours without even noticing it ! There, I got to meet some awesome local artists, in particular, Fon Fon , who is a Leeds Arts' alumni, currently working as a card desgner for UK greetings and Peter Bradley, a freelance illustrator. It was really interesting to see their work in person, and hearing about their path within the industry. Fon Fon for example, wanted to do a lot more illustration for children's book , but as her bread and butter now is card design, she directed that desire towards the little illustrations she does of her kid ( which in my opinion looks absolutely adorable and has a lot of potential to be adapted into an animated character). Thats is not to say that her car design is not as good, in fact it looked fantastic as well. It made me chuckle though when she started ranting about the indecisive people she had to work with 

Peter's journey on the hand is something that I really want to move toward. He had stayed in 3 different countries, worked with big names, such as with the original creator of DnD , as well as, with Riot on League of Legends. Hearing the opportunities he had, as well as his passion in game illustration, as well as in Asian culture was really inspiring and delightful ( as both are interests of mine). On top of that he had some helpful info on living in California, as well some introduction to portfolio site such as https://www.hireanillustrator.com/i/.

Hopefully , the next meeting will be as every bit as good as this one was ! 

Fon in the middle 

Study task III - professional meeting : Kate Lander

I had a lovely opportunity along with the rest of animation in talking to Kate Lander - who works as a Recruitment liaison officer for Brown bag studio, to learn about what the studio are expecting from graduates who want to join them, as well as some hard facts about the working in an animation studio. This was definitely an extremely helpful and insightful conversation, as Kate approached it with a no-nonsense attitudes and laid out specific details regarding pipelines, expectations, salaries, work loads, even the impact that Brexit had had on studio business.  This, coming straight from a potential employer, and a sizeable on at that, means that more than likely it can be transferrable to other studios as well, and not just limiting to animation but to game, film,... Some of the notable information for me included :

+ Specific details regarding employment for graduates :
- Starting positions are usually Layout artist, and Backgrounds
- The starting salary is around 18k-20k
- The estimated time for a Junior position is 2-3 years
- Most are on short terms contracts that lasts around 6-9 months and will be extended if another project is briefed.

( These information are absolutely helpful, as it helps me to formulates my strategy much better, as im dealing with specific numbers)

+ Expectations when working professionally for Brown Bag

Money is business and business affects design 

(Kate brought up an fascinating example about one of their series where the designs were changed from cats to dogs, since Disney conducted a survey that concluded that cats simply don't sell as much merchandise as dogs)

Speed . is . everything 

Kate repeatedly mention this factor as one of the major factor for Brown Bag whenever they work on projects - which is also of the key reason why they tend to look for artists from a more professional pool rather than newly graduated ones.

(animators at BB churn out around 8 shots of animation per day, and storyboard artists takes around a month per episode for storyboard artists)

In regard to this matter, I feel really happy about my own art philosophy of speed and efficiency that had been a cornerstone to all of my university projects thus far ( as noted in the past studio practices posts). It is certainly a boost in confidence to know what you're doing right now is a move in the right direction, and I certainly feel that I'm more prepared than most to work in that professional pace. 

Overall, a short but absolutely fantastic talk ! 

Study task III - professional meeting : James Chapman

I had the lovely opportunity to attend a talk by James Chapman, an freelance illustrator currently working for Brown Box animation.

What set him apart from other professional I've is how similar my own path and thinking is mirroring his, considering the fact that I'm also working freelance and have acquire my own wealth of knowledge about it. The difference between us then was that he was primarily a comic artist and his business thereby is more physical-based ( selling comic books, art, etc) which is a more traditional method, whereas I'm pretty much all digital and illustration focus, and follow the paid-subscription model of Patreon. That being said, his core advices about the pros and cons of working freelance all speak to me dearly, especially the quote below, on which I have built my entire philosophy on working. And of course, seeing your ideas being shared by successful people, will always give you a massive boost in confidence

His story on how he got his current position at Brown Box ( by meeting the art director at an event that was recommended by some one else) also encouraged to take an more active approach in order to achieve similar results.

Other than that , James was an absolute chilled and funny guy, and it certainly translated really well in the works that he showed us !! A very good meeting indeed !

Study tasks II : Networking opportunities

This is a compiled lists of potential events and contacts for networking opportunities that I've gathered from around the web, most of which generally relates to the core pillars of my practice :
Animation, Gaming and Illustration.

Live events

Leeds Illo (illustration) 

- a gathering of local Leeds Illustrator for networking with a sketching event coming up in March

Gamayo (Gaming) 

- Group dedicated to promote Yorkshire gaming industry

Thoughtbubble ( Comic arts events ) 

Manchester Animation festival

Insomnia  64 Gaming festival (UK Biggest gaming festival) -April 19th -22nd

London Games festival

Animex (gaming and animation)

Birmingham MCM

List of contacts :

Many of which are from Roosterteeth studio whom I shared a working relation with and thereby much easier to make contact 

Gray Haddock : Animation head – Roosterteeth

Michael Pedro : Art director – RT

Melanie Stern : Lead Animator – RT

Kim Newman : Lead Animator  - RT

Rachel Doda : Storyboarding artist – RT

Erin Winn : Character designer – RT

Brian K Lee : Associate producer - RT

Character designers : 

Raiko : Freelance Illustrator

Krenz : Illustrator , art teacher (Taiwan)

Z E R O : Senior character design at Riot Games

AnhDang : Character design at Blizzard (Overwatch)

Matte Painters , 3D modellers : 

Gavin Manners : Matte painter , concept artist

Robin Chyo : Senior Concept artist at Sanzaru Games

Joe Gloria : Senior Concept artist at Ubisoft Paris

Hai Phan : Character art outsource supervisor at Blizzard Entertainment.