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1/ Advice for Illustrators Transitioning to Animation Work
For whatever reason, every time i offer to help an illustrator get their portfolio ready for animation work, they don’t follow up. The advice is simple, and can apply to a lot of people! A THREAD:
For whatever reason, every time i offer to help an illustrator get their portfolio ready for animation work, they don’t follow up. The advice is simple, and can apply to a lot of people! A THREAD:
2/ Illustrators-- you’re talented. I admire your skills so much. But illustration skills don’t always translate to animation. This means you need to go out of your way to do animation work to make your portfolio LOOK like animator’s portfolios.
3/ First, pick one job, for now. You can try other things later, but you need to pick either story, prop/FX, character, color, paint, or bg design. Your portfolio should take me straight to the work you want to be hired for. Illustration should take a back seat, for now.
4/ ADs are very busy and can't dig through your work to figure out what you want to be hired for and if you can do it. You have to make it -super- obvious. Again, those illustration skills may indicate you can draw super well, but it unfortunately doesn’t equate animation skills.
5/ Research animation portfolios, and emulate them. BG designers have almost exclusively black and white designs, int/ext examples. Usually, no characters in the scene-- after all, you aren’t a character designer. Painters portfolios will all be painted bgs, no characters.
6/ BG artists- your perspective has to be rock solid. ROCK SOLID. DON’T FUDGE IT. Clean lines, rock solid perspective, charming ideas. Anyone who needs bg portfolio reviews can reach out to me-- this is my expertise.
7/ If you are a character designer-- simplify. A lot of illustrators have beautiful details, great drawing chops. But animators can’t animate so many small details. Shapes must be easy to follow. Expressions must be easy to read. Make sure they are animate-able.
8/ You should include turnarounds-- at least ¾ front and ¾ back. Typically in a neutral pose, on a blank background. A few special poses is great. You need to demonstrate that you can turn your characters in space, flawlessly.
9/ Props! A prop is anything that moves or interacts with a character. Like characters, they must be easy to animate and turn in space, and your designs should reflect that. FX are things like water, fire, etc. Prop artists usually do FX, too, so it’s good to have both.
10/ Color designers apply color to props and characters and indicate special lighting. They place bw designs on top of painted bgs and make sure the colors they assign jive with the overall shot. Probably the hardest portfolio to build w/o professional work, but bg paint can help
11/ Story! Some of you comics artists would be a natural fit for story, but the skills, again, aren’t 1:1! Do film studies and practice boarding at a constrained ratio. Maybe try cutting together animatics that show you understand pacing for film, not just pacing for comics.
12/ Tests. Nobody wants to do unpaid tests, i get it. Unfortunately, talented artists who have never done animation work are perfect candidates for tests so the AD can see you’re capable of matching show style. Animation artists have to be able to adapt their styles to a show.
13/ If you do get an unpaid test offer, don’t be afraid to ask for more time. Let them know you can get it to them in 2 weeks, if you think you’re gonna kill yourself trying to do it in one. Tests are also a great way for illustrators to learn what an animation job will be like.
14/ Obviously, paid tests are better. Nobody wants you to kill yourself over an unpaid test. But if you’re new to the industry, this COULD be a useful tool for you to prove you understand and are capable of the work. If a test feels like too much, pass and report it to TAG.
15/ Anyway this is my BASIC advice to illustrators. I see these things all the time. Curating your portfolio to imitate animation artists’ portfolio will go a long way. The goal is for ADs to see your stuff and immediately think “oh they know how to do this.”
16/16 Hopefully this helps????? I am so happy to do portfolio reviews and talk more specifics with anyone who is struggling to get their footing in animation. I offer this to people a lot, but rarely get taken up on it, so i wanted to put this out there in case it could help.
One addition here-- If you're emailing me for a portfolio review, i am more than happy to help out! But please make sure you apply all the advice laid out in this thread before contacting me, so i don't end up repeating myself over and over! That's why i made the thread :)
