Post Animation Mentor

2010-2011 has been pretty intense - studying at Animation Mentor while working 3 full days over an hour's commute away as a junior 3D Generalist for a Medical Production company. It was a struggle, but I finally finished Animation Mentor. And I'm glad I did it. It was a super awesome program. I learnt a tonne and had a lot of fun there. I now feel a lot more confident about approaching character animation, and am keen to continually refine my workflow and try new types of shots. My time character animating has solidified my desire to leave generalist work and become a professional character animator. In fact, the company I was working for just closed down, so I'm ready to jump into any character animator opportunities that may arise.

I am currently wrapping up the best of my AM shots for Version 001 of my character animator reel, and in 2012 I will start making new shots. My end goal is to become a feature film character animator creating believable, entertaining and unique character performances that serve a story - and continually being challenged to grow by the talented people that surround me. I am also open to trying opportunities in games, TV and other areas. What could be better than being paid to make CG puppets come to life?

I believe that character animators never stop learning, and I have many plans for the future to help my growth as a character animator. I am aware that many animation jobs are contract-based and that there might be months where no projects are happening. I plan to use those 'between jobs' times constructively to make new shots for my showreel, and to take some more animation classes to push me to increasingly new levels. Animation Mentor's Creature classes are definetely on the 'to do list,' and I'm also quite interested in Jason Ryan's iAnimate - with all their cool rigs and philosophy of pushing people to a feature film level.

Other things I am keen to do include more Improv and life drawing classes, as well as read up on books in related areas such as acting and anatomy.

I see a strong parallel between character animators and actors, and hence I think pursuing just about any interest and skill such as horse riding, handgliding and so on have potential to inform our character animation work. In this sense travelling and soaking up life are also valuable. It's pretty cool, I can just about justify any experience as being beneficial to my profession.

My current reel. More coming in January.



Or check it at http://vimeo.com/34207108