My Social Media

Currently my social media is active and has little traction, I do not have many followers on any of them.

LinkedIn: My LinkedIn account is very recent, so there is not much on there so far. I want to begin using this more in terms of a professional presence. I believe so far I have been treating it as too much of a social media instead of a professional environment to share my work, so I need to focus more on this.

TheBritsonian - TheBritsonian is a name/banner I have been going by since early 2015, I am going to write a separate post about that, here are the social medias I have which are listed under this banner.

Facebook: This is also relatively new, I was trying to move my art onto new spaces where I could share my work, however I have not updated it or promoted it at all so it has almost no followers. 

Instagram: My Instagram is the place I am most proud of, as it shows all my side art which I do when I am not in Uni. This has a few more followers than other places, nothing to brag of though. In future I would like to promote and rebrand this to become a bit more professional.

Twitter: I am still not sure how to use this platform properly, but so far I have been using it to promote other artists whilst staying low key. I should probably start using this more, and not just retweeting people I see or like.

My Plan 

In the future I want to expand more in terms of my brand "TheBritsonian". First I am going to look into buying a domain name so I can set up my own website, from this website I will promote on instagram and twitter primarily. I want to rebrand myself in a professional manner. I will try and use illustrator for this to make a vector logo, I have experience in graphics and viscom which will help me make a professional logo which I can use to brand my website and social media accounts. This will be a long term plan which will aid me in my creative endeavours.

Network?

In a competitive industry like animation, we have to take every opportunity to network with creative professionals. I have made a list of ways to talk to professionals which could lead to a better understanding of the industry.

1. Art Station - Art station is a growing website where creatives can like and share each other's work. 
2. Instagram - Instagram is a popular picture based social media network, artists have made a good following there which is easy to understand and easy to share work with others. 
3. Linkedin - Linkedin is a professional site for connecting with people in your industry. Linkedin suggests people for you so that you always have new opportunities to talk to a professional from your practice. 
4. Manchester Animation Festival - MAF is a great way of creating with people in the animation industry, it offers networking events where you can get into a room full of people interested in and from the same industry. 
5. Leeds young film festival - This festival is a great opportunity to meet creatives, they may not necessarily be in the animation industry however it is still the film industry which can greatly aid you in many areas. 
6. Thought Bubble - Art is an essential part of animation, and thought bubble gives opportunities to meet artists from all areas. 
7. Via email - Although it can be daunting, many creatives will reply to emails to answer any questions you may have about the practice. 
8. Animex - Animex is a convention of sorts which offers a variety of talks from professionals which is held at teesside university. 
9.  Cardiff animation festival - although a relatively new festival, I think it would be a great opportunity to network similar to that of MAF. 
10. Studio Visits/Tours - Upon emailing some studios will accept people to come and take a look into their studio to gain an understanding of how the industry works and pratices. 

To help myself in connecting with others in my practice, I have set up a linkedin account, since making my account I have a fair few connections of whom are from different backgrounds and from different practices. Thanks to my brother I have also connected with people in the gaming industry. 

My SWOT Analysis

During the session today, we undertook a practice called SWOT, which means analysing our strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. During this practice I made my own version, and then 2 of my peers also contributed to their own versions for me. From these I made my own final version,

Strengths -

• Drawing
• Fast Paced Work
• Good work ethic
• time management 

Weaknesses - 

• Change of ideas
• Time management of write up
• Drawing females
• Not going out of my comfort zone
• Leaving things until last minute
• shy

Opportunities - 

• Festivals outside of Uni
• Summer Internships at studios
• Studio visits
• Potentially Singapore? 
• Commissions 

Threats - 

• Ever changing technologies ie animation software
• Competitive industry especially in specialisation
• Other classmates going into the industry at the same time
• lack of work for my specialisation 

This is a condensed version of all 3 of my SWOT forms, I believe this effectively analysis's my strengths and weaknesses and what I need to improve upon in the future and over the course of the year.   

Who Am I Now?

What have I learned? 

- How to use Photoshop to animate
- How to use Adobe Animate
- Effectiveness of life drawing in conjunction with design
- Timing and Spacing in Animation
- Editing in both adobe premier and after effects

What do I want to learn more about?

- Cell shading 3D models 

- Background and layout

- Fast pace animations

- how to make an animatic using 3d software

- How to accurately portray natural light in a space

5 Strengths

- Character Drawing

- Shadows and shading

- Male proportions

- Fast worker

- Shot framing

5 areas to improve

- Female character design

- Animation in general

- Dynamic drawing

- texture and detail 

- consistency in drawing 

5 Practitioners that make me interested in Animation

- Bruce Timm (Character Design and Storytelling)

- Egoraptor/ Arin Hanson (Peaked my interest in Animation to begin with)

- Phil Bourassa (Inspirational Character design which constantly improves and changes)

- Tyson Hesse (Purely for his incredible opening animation to Sonic Mania) 

-  Studio Yotta (Incredible Storyboards for animations)

5 Resources that Demonstrate My interest

- FIGURE DRAWING For All Its Worth (Book) By Andrew Loomis

- STARTING POINT (Book) Hayao Miyazaki

- Pixar Storyboards

- Studio Yotta Works

- Castlevania Animator Spencer Wan (Link to be included)

Howl's Moving Castle

Howls moving castle trailer

This is my favourite Studio Ghibli movie, as with all Ghibli movies, it is a visual masterpiece,  and the designs are so incredibly intricate that only Miyazaki could have directed such a film. The movie follows a woman cursed by a wicked witch, the curse causes her to be turned into an old lady.

This film is inspired by a Welsh fairy tale, and is a masterpiece of a movie. It is constantly inspiring, with visuals which could easily belong to any live action film.  This movie, although an eastern animation, has so much movement and life to everything. Eastern animations are often accused of having no movement to them, this and most Ghibli movies, prove this to be wrong, as there is constant life to everything in it, and you really feel that this could be a real world. Some of the visuals and world remind me of a somewhat English setting, which really fits with the theme and original source material. It actually somewhat reminds me of Ethel and Earnest in it's setting, only it is directed much better, and the sense of scale is constantly there. Having gone to the Studio Ghibli museum, I am well aware of how much detail went in to the castle itself, as Miyazaki designed every small detail himself.

It is amazing as well as to how much life there is to the castle itself, and it is great to see how much emotion they managed to pack in to a walking house, when it easily could have been a static design. 

Boku No Hero Academia (My Hero Academia)

I told myself I wouldn't write about anime for my PPP blogs, but this show is too good to ignore. Often anime nowadays is completely uninspired and rehashed as well as being cliche, but this anime is incredibly fresh and hooks you from episode 1. I think it is this way because of the likeable character's as well as the interesting world which has been created for it. Midoriya (Deku) is a character which is very relatable, even though it isa completely unrealistic concept, his emotion is constantly on screen, and you really feel the hard work he puts into everything.

I feel like this is such a successful anime because it feels very much like an old school anime, unlike a newer style uninspired anime. The anime is so over saturated now that it comes as an amazing surprise when something like this comes a long and really connects with the viewer.

Avatar : The Last Airbender

I have only recently started watching this show, and I am hooked and have almost finished it. So I wanted to make a post about it because of how much I am enjoying this show. Often as a child I over looked this show, because it never interested me, and as an ignorant kid, I assumed it was just a western Dragon Ball rip off to cash in on Dragon Ball's success. However what I can say, is that is completely wrong. This show is original, and full of great writing, amazing character development, and inspiring world building.

It is not often you get a show aimed at kids with so much attention to detail, to a point which it has created a large fanbase online. The animation is also top notch, it is obvious that a lot of love, care and attention which has been put into it which makes it incredibly fun to watch and makes for an experience. It takes a lot for me to really get into a show, but this one had me hooked pretty quickly. Even the voice cast do their absolute best to portray their character's to an incredibly high level. It is incredibly easy to get bad child voice actors, but these ones do their jobs incredibly well.