Commission

   I finished up my last commission on Monday, so I figured I would do a slightly more detailed write up on this somewhat simple process. While this art commission had been agreed upon months back, it was put on hold until now due to me wanting to focus on Context of Practice 3 and Extended Practice. And now that Easter break has started, I also decided to break in my new tablet monitor. After checking with her to see if she was still interested with this commission (Seeing as I hadn't asked her to pay first as I foresaw that it would take me some time to get to finishing it), I then continued lining and colouring the sketch I had done way back (And let me just say that lining is so much easier now with this tablet, thank the heavens).

Rough sketch that was done months back and
shown to her for her approval.

Lineart.

Base colors.

   I normally use a messy sort of painting style for most of my works, and so I really wanted to get a more polished piece done so that my commissioner could get her money's worth. I don't often line my works first and normally paint over my sketches in blocks of colours instead (Or even better, just paint in blobs of colours before actually shaping them into something recognisable) before painting over some more delicate details over them. But as I wanted to be much more precise on the details this time round and wanted to keep it cleaner, it was necessary to get the line art done first. After that, the base colours are painted in on a multiply frame before I did my usual painting over the lines to cover them up.

And this was actually something I hadn't done before until now,
while I always signed my works, this was the first time I added in
a little watermark in the corner when posting it on my site. As I was
going to reblog it on my other blogs, it felt right to show where
it was originally posted from.

   And in the end, I was actually paid extra as I was told that I was actually charging a lot less than I should. It was overall an incredibly satisfying commission that I had enjoyed working on and I was just so glad that she loved it!

Emailing Arcus Studio

   Finally picked up the courage to email a couple of studios that I hope to visit this Easter break yesterday (And hopefully next week!). The studios in London will be emailed at later date, which will still be pretty soon, after all, there isn't exactly a wrong way to going about this, and the worst possible thing they could say is no, and there is certainly no way that they will be aggressive about it. But speaking of which, I recived my first response from Arcus Studio just a couple of hours later after sending them an email. And oh, I would like to mention that I went to Cara for advice before actually sending of any of these emails out (Bless her), she was constantly encouraging me too throughout all of this.

   I will most certainly take up on their offer to show them my showreel or portfolio for some much needed feedback, it just made my day getting such a friendly response from them despite the fact that I won't get the chance to visit them. Though, I do hope that I will still get the chance to visit at least one or two studios before this break ends...

Tutorial Session

   With all that has been going on, I was glad that I was able to discuss about most of my worries and fears about this module with Mike earlier this week. Having been so focused on Context in Practice 3 and then Extended Practice, I believe that I was completely falling behind on this module, and was especially worried about the later briefs that would soon take place in the coming months. And so after an incredibly helpful if not assuring tutorial seesion with my lecturer, here is a slightly clearer run down for myself:

Brief 1: Research

   There is certainly more than enough animations, video games, practitioners and events for me to write about for this brief. In fact, most of them are just in the drafts and all I need to do is just start getting them out faster. In terms of events that I still need to write up one, here's a list (More for my reference), though it really depends if I can hear any of the awful recordings I took with my phone for some of these talks that I attended:

1. Manchester Animation Festival
2. Leeds Film Festival
3. Thought Bubble

   And about the studio visits themselves, I am hoping to visit a couple of nearer ones this Easter break as Cara and I need more time to prepare ourselves for the studio visits in London, which will actually take place after we have met the deadlines for both this module and Extended Practice. Though it isn't to say that I can't still write about my process of contacting them on visiting in the meantime. 

   So, instead of leaving all these studio names on posted notes, here's a list:

1. Kilogramme Studio, Manchester's Northern Quarter
2. Arcus Animation Studios, Newcastle
3. Milkytea Studios, Liverpool
4. Fettle Animation, Huddersfield
5. Studio Moo, Kendal
6. Sumo Digital, Sheffield
7. Bumpybox Limited, Cardiff
8. Brownbag Films, Manchester
9. The LINE, London
10. Planet Jump, London
11. Electric Lights, London

   I was pretty sure that Cara also mentioned wanting to visit the Cartoon Network studios that focused more on post production work, so I might have to ask her more on that one day.

Brief 2: Engage

   With the present workload for Extended Practice already stressing me out, I actually realise that I should focus more on competitions that I would enjoy more instead of simply forcing myself to meet a criteria by entering whatever competition I could possibly find. And so, my plan has been simplified to entering tee shirt designs into Qwertee, getting a character design done for a montly competition on Tumblr (Which I could then add to my portfolio). I was also told to revisit some old concept art that I could add to my portfolio (Which I am quite excited about doing now that I think about it). I could also mention some of the commission work that I have been doing for friends as well.

Brief 3: Plan

   This 2000 word critical report should focus on my plans after we graduate. Who should I try contacting? What jobs might I apply for? How do I sell myself? Can I perhaps keep in contact with some of the UK studios once I head back? What about animation companies in Singapore? Which ones and where are they? Am I perhaps going to simply freelance for the time being until I find a proper studio job? Another consideration is the fact that I still wish to illustrate some storybook mock ups to send to publishers as I had wanted to after graduating from my illustration course about 3 to 4 years back, though that can thankfully be done online these days.

Brief 4: Position

   Perhaps the most straight forward brief, this can go hand in hand with our Extended Practice. Namecards will be easy to design and print. The showreel should be as well (Though I might have get two kinds done, one for animation and one for concept art). I believe the ones that require more attention than anything else however will be my portfolio sites (Tumblr, Cargocollective and Carbonmade and LinkedIn) as well as my web and social presence, that has certainly diminished greatly due to the fact that I have not gone on there for awhile.

   It has been mentioned many times that promotional material for our Extended Project will be of relation to this brief. So we might be making posters and whatnot for it (Others are already planning to make cut board cutouts and stickers even). This would certainly be fun once I actually finish the concept artbook itself...