Animation portfolio

HotSwat

Hey guys.

Im applying for the animation course at ballyfermot, interview 16th March.
So far I have:

3 full a1 finished observational pieces
1 a2 finished observational piece
1 halfway completed a2 page of life drawings.
1 notebook filled a third of the way up with concepts
Also doing quick observational drawings in an a5 sketchbook.

Am I on track so far? Or doing anything horribly wrong?
Or do you guys have any suggestions.

Sanjuro

Hey HotSwat. Sorry about the delay in replying, but I only saw your post now. I did the animation course in Ballyfermot, jesus, almost a decade ago. I now work in the industry. If I were to give you a few tips for your portfolio, I'd say this- life drawings. Life drawings. Life drawings. Trust me, they love that stuff, and it's one of the most important classes you'll take in animation.

I know it's pretty late in the day to suggest you get yourself into a life-drawing course. If you can, brilliant. If not, all is not lost.

Get yourself a few drawing books. Head out to somewhere with a lot of people. Where we frequented was shopping centers. Find yourself a seat and just start drawing the people you see. Don't concentrate on making nice pictures. Instead, just concentrate on getting the essence of their poses and gestures. Quick 30 second sketches, and plenty of them. What this does is give you an idea of how the human body actually moves and that'll benefit you no end.

Sorry about the long post, but hey, it'll certainly help! Trust me, they love the kind of work I listed above. If you've any other questions, drop me a pm and I'll do my best to help. Otherwise, best of luck with the interview!

HotSwat

Sanjuro wrote: »

Hey HotSwat. Sorry about the delay in replying, but I only saw your post now. I did the animation course in Ballyfermot, jesus, almost a decade ago. I now work in the industry. If I were to give you a few tips for your portfolio, I'd say this- life drawings. Life drawings. Life drawings. Trust me, they love that stuff, and it's one of the most important classes you'll take in animation.

I know it's pretty late in the day to suggest you get yourself into a life-drawing course. If you can, brilliant. If not, all is not lost.

Get yourself a few drawing books. Head out to somewhere with a lot of people. Where we frequented was shopping centers. Find yourself a seat and just start drawing the people you see. Don't concentrate on making nice pictures. Instead, just concentrate on getting the essence of their poses and gestures. Quick 30 second sketches, and plenty of them. What this does is give you an idea of how the human body actually moves and that'll benefit you no end.

Sorry about the long post, but hey, it'll certainly help! Trust me, they love the kind of work I listed above. If you've any other questions, drop me a pm and I'll do my best to help. Otherwise, best of luck with the interview!

thanks alot for the post! It's much appreciated
I see that you saw my other post in the IADT forum, thanks for noticing too! (Although, Ballyfermot is my first choice :P)
Luckily for me, since I posted I have joined a Life drawing class. At the moment my drawings from there are just "ok". They're sometimes only very quick 20 second poses, but at times can be up to 30 minutes. But even the 30 minute ones are not up to my usual standard. Do you think I should bring these to the interview to show I have been taking proper classes? Hopefully they will improve by the time of the interview, but I wanted to know just in case..

I got my hands on a great drawing book too (The Animators Survival Kit).

I have done 4 A3 drawings in pencil, half an hour each, of my family...showing emotion. I'm pretty happy with them, though obviously they are just sketches as the brief indicates.
I have also done an A2 perspective drawing of my road (also in pencil). And a Life Drawing A2 piece of my sister lying on a couch with a blanket.

I'm a bit worried about my notebook right now, as it is only halfway finished with mainly observational/life drawings now. Do you think one is enough..?

and final thing..: I have dabbled quite alot in Video Compositing, After Effects more specifically. Is there any way I can incorporate this in the portfolio?

Sorry for the long(er) post, but you really seem to know your stuff.
May I ask where you work now?

Sanjuro

Okay, good on you for doing the life-drawing classes! They will do nothing but help your drawing and observation skills. And they'll definitely help your portfolio. Don't worry about the quality of everything you've done in these classes. Believe me, I went through about 400 drawings for my final assessment in college and dumped about 350 of them! For your portfolio, I'd go through all of your life-drawings and pick 10-15 of them for your portfolio. You don't want the teachers going through reams of paper as, frankly, they wont. You just need to give them an idea of what you can do. They don't have to be daVinci-level drawings. Just pick ones that communicate the pose. They don't have to be fully rendered, true-to-life portraits. This is an example of one of my better life-drawings. Took about 5 minutes, very little rendering, but you see the pose. This is the kind of thing life-drawing teachers love.

As for the notebooks, don't fret too much about them. Honestly, I didn't have any notebooks in my portfolio when I started college. But now, I've always got a notebook on the go. For observation, character design, ideas and doodles. If you pursue animation, you'll always have notebooks going, believe me. And frankly, it looks cool when you've got a bookshelf full of your own drawing books! Put your notebook into your portfolio. It's not about having a full book, but showing that you're improving your drawing skills.

The After Effects stuff. Good call on that. When I applied for Ballyer, there was no After Effects (as we know it)! So compositing wasn't really an avenue. I wish it had been, in retrospect. I bloody love After Effects. And it's used a hell of a lot now. You can indeed include it in your portfolio. Honestly, I don't think it'll be the primary thing the teachers will be looking for. What I'd do if I were you is make up a DVD or content CD and put it in your portfolio. Label it clearly so the teachers know what it is. I don't know if they'll look at it, but it wont do you any harm including that work. The worst they'll say or do is pass it over due to time constraints. They tend to go through portfolios pretty quickly.

So yeah, drawing skills. That's what the panel are after. It sounds like you've got a pretty good portfolio as is, but by all means, keep working on it. Life drawing, observational drawing are the primary things the teachers are after. But do include any imaginative or creative stuff you like too. Don't be too critical of your own work. Believe me, by the time even your first year is finished, you'll be thinking about your drawing in a whole different way. But that's the point of college! To learn!

As for me, well I just finished in Boulder Media after 7 years there. They're on down-time at the moment, but we're due to go back in August. So I'm doing free-lance stuff in the meantime. I've worked as a Flash Animator on Foster's Home For Imaginary Friends, El Tigre: The Adventures of Manny Rivera, a couple of Disney shorts and pilots. I was Animation Director on Funky Fables for Jam Media and the BBC, and I just finished up a year as a 3D animator on a show due out in September on Cartoon Network. So that's my experience in the business so far. College is great. But getting paid to do this stuff is pretty awesome!!

HotSwat

awesome, glad to see I'm on track at least!
the one thing I have to hope for now is that I have enough drawing talent to make it through

and Wooooooooow....you worked on Foster's Home For Imaginary Friends?!?!?!

Only my favourite cartoon network show of all time haha. I'm speechless..
Were you working here or over in the US for these projects?

Sanjuro

Yeah, Foster's was a great show to work on. A lot of fun. Not all of it, but a great deal of it was made here by Boulder Media, a company based in the city center. I finished working on that show in 2007, I think it was.

Don't worry about having too little work. You probably have enough as is. You seem to be pretty serious about presenting a good portfolio, and that'll carry through.

p1000

Thanks to the two of you for having this conversation. I'm goin for the 1-year and the two-year diploma courses, my interview's on the 16th as well so good luck to you too, and this thread has been a good reassurer (is there such a word?)... though i might be finding it a bit late. I've got to do some A2 or A1 life drawings tomorrow. If you're still following this, do they ask many questions outside of the portfolio ones? Like 'who's your favorite animator and why', etc.?
Thanks.