Where I am now

Where I am now

When I first joined the Art & Design course at North Notts, I was still quite unsure what I wanted to do as a career, but I know I wanted it to be involved in the creative industry, to be able to work on something with other people that others would enjoy, like a movie, cartoon, animation, illustrations, a game, theatre makeup, fashion, painting etc. I've been inspired by everything I've seen and grown up with up to now like cartoons on TV, detailed animation movie projects, anime, horrors and thrillers, transformation, storylines, concept art, games, books full of a games or movies art etc.

Once I had been at college for a bit and told to look into the subject area I want to do, by now I had became set on doing just animations or game production, but when I looked into them further, I discovered there were more technical skills and practice included in game production, which I don't think I would enjoy, have the patience for or be good at it. So I looked into animation and  found that there was so many other things linked and included in the production of animation, character development, concept art, movement research and reference, backgrounds, voice acting, music, illustrations etc.
I focused on all the links of animation and asked myself what I would want to do and what I'm more suitable for, narrowing down again to things like animation, voice acting, music, illustration and concept art. Though I did drop the idea of voice acting but kept it as a backup idea, the same with making music on a software since I would like to try and develop a skill for it in the future, more skills more outlets.
Though at some point I completely dropped animation from my interest since I was struggling with animating with an animation software at home, becoming frustrated and since I didn't know certain commands I would do it the longer way or on photoshop. But once I got some help from a classmate with the animating software, I'm a lo more confident to take on animation and do animated work.

So at the moment I'm focusing on having skills of a freelance animator, but still be able to join a team or company for concept art and/or animation, though I would want to have other skills to do concept art, backgrounds, illustrations, special effects, maybe some editing and even some characters.


Where I would want to be

 In the future I would want to be in a stable position in life, have a career I'm happy with and good at, have more confidence in doing more things in life, to work in a team with people and have a strong small group of friends. Realistically, I would want to be living with friends or with a partner of mine in a nice cozy or/and spacious house or bungalow, cottage, flat, house with some/little land, while including having a gym room, a spare bedroom, having our own or a shared studio for our work with plenty or artwork all about, paintings, sculptures, plants, rugs etc.
Along with some animals, furry family additions to make it feel like an actual home to me since I believe animals are what makes a home, having animals such as 1 or 2 birds, 1 or 2 cats and a dog, also likely to have them as rescues, though this would all depend on the place, locate and financial situation.
My first dream job was to be working for Nasa, helping explore, even becoming an astronaut, but then I realised a much more achievable dream I had was to become an animator and/or concept artist. Personally, I can stay awake for a long time but cannot get up early without feeling horrible all day, so I would like to work from home for myself as a freelance concept artist/animator, but i feel like I would be more successful and comfortable in these job roles if I worked with/for a studio or company with other people, so I can at least socialise and not be byself all the time while working, and if that means having to get up early I would do it, though if I could, I would come in later such as starting at noon and finishing until the early hours the next day. I would want to do animations for whatever it may be asked for, music videos, short film, advert etc. Aswell as doing concept art and/or illustrations for games, movies, a cartoon, series etc.
I would like to have good relationships with co-workers and directors in my job

How would I get there

To get to where I want to get, I would out in all of my hard work and determination into my portfolio, build it up to become acceptable and better then it has been before to get into a university I want to go to. I would try to get into a course in university I want to do, mainly around animation, illustration and concept art, so overall animation and its production and work before to make it.
I would start putting my work on an online portfolio for companies, studios and people to see my work, I would also want to start selling my work online, this either being illustrations, paintings or for hours making concept art or animations, I would first advertise locally at first before spreading out a bit more.
I would then hope to meet lots of people on my course at university, get along and give criticism, then having a chance where we might suggest each other to other people. I would even like to get with a group form the university to form a little studio or go into a company/studio together, working on commissions and paid professional work. Throughout my time in university and all the way up to hopefully getting into a studio job, I would continue to do side work, illustrations and concepts to add to and improve my portfolio to hopefully get with an even more professional, good budgeted and even more well known company and team to work with.
With a career I want, I would hope I would be getting enough pay to be able to stably live in a nice apartment or small house, just as long as it's somewhere I can happily live with enough space to do work, though I would save up towards this since university and even now.





Concept Artists I aspire to be like

John Sweeny - Worked on The last of Us and Uncharted, both rich and important in environment games

Sam "Samwise" Didiler - Detailed, shaded art, works for blizzard, blizzard artists overall are what I aspire to be

Steven Sugar - A lead background artist for Steven universe, a cartoonish but still beautiful and detailed work - http://stevensugar.tumblr.com/

Spiros Karkavelas - Art of Skah, great form in art, some messy others really detailed - http://artofskar.blogspot.co.uk/

Hidetaka Miyazaki - Incredibly detailed art, worked on Dark Souls series, overall dark, grim, scary

Yoji Shinkawa - Messy design but with great form, worked largely on metal gear solid games

Fumito Ueda - Art director and lead animator of the ICO team and game series