A Wild Blog Appears!

anthonyholden: What are studios looking for? How can I get into...

Thu, 16 May 2013 14:40:02 -0600

What are studios looking for? How can I get into a good animation school? What should I be studying?

I get a lot of these types of questions now and again, and I never know how to answer them. I can’t be sure of what studios are looking for, I don’t control admissions policies to schools, and I have little idea what makes for a current and relevant curriculum. There are a lot of variables in your bid for a career in animation, and it’s kind of impossible to control most of them. You must be crazy to want this job!

I find it helpful to focus on the things I can control. Among those things are your study habits and how you spend your personal time. It’s good to work hard and have goals—without them we would get nowhere. Study hard and make decisive strides towards achieving your art goals. But in the heat of that pursuit, don’t forget to go out and live your life!

If you spend any amount of time looking at artists online, you’ve probably figured out by now that there are about a million dudes and dudettes in internetville who draw better than you (I relive this realization daily). Once your have done your best to rise to their level, the only tool you have to compete with these crazy talents is your background, your personal character—is you!

Consider developing your whole self with the same raw focus and intensity that you develop a particular skill set. Get focused. Go out, have adventures. Run, jump, skin your knee, fall in love, root loudly for the away team at a baseball game, barely escape a crash of stampeding rhinos, live to see another day. Experience things big and small. Go for a walk. The world is full of wonders.

I know this advice is not particularly animation-specific, but maybe that’s for the best. At any rate, it is something I feel strongly about. Animation is great, and there are few things that I enjoy doing more than drawing and storytelling. But in order to have stories to tell, first you have to live them.

Be good, and see you soon!

PS, if you were looking for advice on draftsmanship you should probably be reading this.

This is Morroth, the abyssal treasure hoarding drake I made for...

Thu, 02 May 2013 17:05:14 -0600

This is Morroth, the abyssal treasure hoarding drake I made for a campaign I was in a while ago.

I designed her with “Earthstriding” in mind, which is a method of travel similar to swimming or flying, but through solid ground. So I thought of including shapes that suggested feathers and fins, without actually using either and ended up with these flat spine things. Abyssal dragons, if I remember right, were described as having flaps of skin for wings, which kind of reminded me of flippers, so I designed the wings sort of like sea turtle fins initially, but I ended up with a shape that looks more like a penguin flipper.

She has a large mouth and expanding throat pouch that allow her to carry a large amount of treasure back to her underground lair. She’s supposed to have treasure embedded in her underbelly (but I forgot to render it.)

I was going to post the whole thing, but I’m too tired...

Thu, 02 May 2013 03:22:09 -0600

I was going to post the whole thing, but I’m too tired right now to write about it, so have a head shot.

My Secondary Blogs

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 20:33:22 -0600

I originally made some of these to keep my liked posts organized so that I could find them again, but then they kind of turned into their own thing. I figured that I should post them since some of you might be interested in them.

Zovik13- This started out as a general reblogging blog, since I want to keep my primary blog free of clutter, but then it became a fandom blog. ~~There’s some cosplay stuff and Ghibli stuff, but~~ really it’s mostly just Bleach stuff now.

Blogofanimals- Blog of animal pictures. Since I collect a lot of these for visual reference in drawing and designing creatures I tag them for interesting visual things like textures, colors, actions, poses, etc.

Ascentinspiration- This one has a lot of forest/mountain/environment stuff, architecture, statues, and other things. I made this blog to tag and organize liked posts that are inspirational/reference/etc. for a particular project I’m working on. Afterwards it will probably become an environment reference blog.

Inagify- A blog of some gifs.

Another environment. I exaggerated the little houses a bit more...

Fri, 26 Apr 2013 00:38:55 -0600

Another environment. I exaggerated the little houses a bit more than the last one that featured them. I may or may not color this one later.

Almost there with the rabbit statue. Needs more emphasis on the...

Wed, 10 Apr 2013 20:28:13 -0600

Almost there with the rabbit statue. Needs more emphasis on the ears and less on the “feather prongs”.

I made a new mask for Anime Salt Lake last week. The mask is...

Mon, 25 Mar 2013 13:21:00 -0600

I made a new mask for Anime Salt Lake last week. The mask is mostly paper mache and the eyes are painted on the back of glass hemispheres. They have a neat following effect too.

I’ll probably work on this some more later.

Sun, 10 Mar 2013 22:48:46 -0600

I’ll probably work on this some more later.

Some NPC concepts. They started out as cow headed chicken...

Sun, 10 Mar 2013 22:36:00 -0600

Some NPC concepts. They started out as cow headed chicken things, but then turned into jackalopes or something. It’s hilarious how often my designs will enter a jackalope phase unintentionally.

i like turtles

Thu, 24 Jan 2013 01:04:00 -0700

i like turtles

Photo

Wed, 23 Jan 2013 10:01:00 -0700

Photo

Tue, 22 Jan 2013 10:02:08 -0700

Photo

Sun, 20 Jan 2013 15:01:08 -0700

Some sketches that pertain to a particular character in my BFA...

Sun, 20 Jan 2013 01:44:00 -0700

Some sketches that pertain to a particular character in my BFA project. He’s supposed to be a fiery ghost/wisp kind of thing. I started working in a feather motif into his design for symbolic reasons, though at some point he started turning into a fish.

Environment painting final/BFA concept stuff

Thu, 20 Dec 2012 16:19:50 -0700

Environment painting final/BFA concept stuff

Richard III poster for school.

Wed, 12 Dec 2012 23:36:00 -0700

Richard III poster for school.

Here is all of the cosplay I’ve done so far. They’re...

Sun, 18 Nov 2012 00:16:00 -0700

Here is all of the cosplay I’ve done so far. They’re essentially all works in progress being in a constant state of needing either improvement or repair.

Photo

Sun, 11 Nov 2012 16:34:04 -0700

Photo

Thu, 08 Nov 2012 21:45:27 -0700

Photo

Fri, 13 Jul 2012 20:24:00 -0600