Excellent advice from AnthonyHolden.deviantART.com on how to pursue a career in animation.
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.
![thefrogman:
Infinite Nap by Claire Jarvis [website | tumblr | twitter]
Before it was: THEY’LL EAT YOU ALIVE!!! XD](http://25.media.tumblr.com/f91a018c154ca33b01f2bbbc76d4dadc/tumblr_mmexw80FdP1s15trho1_500.jpg)
Comedian Margaret Cho on on (not) parenting. (via explore-blog)Babies scare me more than anything. They’re tiny and fragile and impressionable—and someone else’s! As much as I hate borrowing stuff, that is how much I hate holding other people’s babies. It’s too much responsibility. Of course they are lovely and warm and adorable, and it’s so funny when they decide they like you and hold you in return, but I am frightened of doing something wrong that will alter them forever. Give them a weird look and they might be talking to their therapist about me fifty years later.
[…]
It might not be a fear of kids themselves, as in truth I usually get along with them pretty well. They like my tattoos and my uncomplicated child/adult face. They identify with my orange shoes. I look like I would let them get away with stuff, and I do. My fear of having children is that, frankly, I just don’t want to love anyone that much. I have my own problems with love, and I have processed and played the same games for a lifetime, but what if I had to do that with someone I actually MADE?! (Or went all the way to China and adopted. This is not a joke—I have long thought I would adopt one of those baby girls from China, because really, who’s going to know the difference?)
(via explore-blog)
This requested record wasn’t exactly requested xD it began when my friend Carla Manso shared with me some of the iconic Portuguese music from the 80’s and the artist Marco Paulo was one of most loved by the ladies at the time. I asked if she wanted me to do the cover and she asked of I could come up with something. My response was: challenge accepted xD After doing a cover of this song, I came to the conclusion that even though it has all the components to make it a bad song from that time, it’s actually brilliant. I never had so much fun, the song is about a guy that has two lovers and one is blond and the other’s brunette but he doesn’t know who he loves more. His conclusion of the song his: as long as nobody knows, the three of us are happy. A true player xD if we make the combo of this theme with David Hasselhoff from the time he did the knight rider along with an 80’s electro sound, you get something brilliant, right? XD
I’m probably going nuts but the point is, I had a blast doing this even though it’s pretty simple. Here goes the portuguese hit from the 80’s I’ve got Two Lovers in english, “Eu Tenho Dois Amores” BH Marco Paulo xD
“So my amazing daughter, Emma, turned 5 last month, and I had been searching everywhere for new-creative inspiration for her 5yr pictures. I noticed quite a pattern of so many young girls dressing up as beautiful Disney Princesses, no matter where I looked 95% of the “ideas” were the “How to’s” of how to dress your little girl like a Disney Princess…We chose 5 women (five amazing and strong women), as it was her 5th birthday but there are thousands of unbelievable women (and girls) who have beat the odds and fought (and still fight) for their equal rights all over the world”
- Jaime Moore, Not Just a GirlThis is awesome!
(via julianunes)
Sometimes people have a hard time understanding what a happy relationship between two people who obvs think the other is awesome looks like.
We think this is one great (and holy bananas, so freaking hilarious) example.
WOW THIS IS FUCKING ADORABLE
That was ridiculously cute.
I want to hug them both.
The most adorable thing I’ve seen. Ever.
Dance Break.
Oh my lord, I’m so glad I watched this.
Ahh this is so fun. Made my night.
I actually can’t deal with how cute this is.
Watch this video if you need a pick-me-up
Soooooo cute! I love his solo at the end hahahaha
(via julianunes)
TIME’s new cover makes me so mad I could write essays about it, but instead I’m going to keep job hunting since in today’s world a university degree means nothing and therefore like much of my generation, I’m stuck choosing between minimum wage jobs and internships that I can’t afford to accept in an attempt to pay off my tens of thousands of dollars worth of student debt.
I’d be interested in reading this article to see exactly what makes us entitled and lazy. Are we lazy because more of us are completing high school and going to college than ever before? Are we entitled because our standard of living is declining? Do we live with our parents because we’re too slothful to leave or is because our education costs are getting steeper and steeper while we’re getting less and less aid?
Tell us, Time Magazine, about how we’re narcissistic little slugs when we’re faced with an economic crisis that resulted in a lowering of our standard of living, an increase in tuition costs and how when we get out of our very expensive schools, more and more of us are going to end up working minimum wage jobs.
I also want to note that it’s really frustrating that the face of “lazy, entitled narcissism” is a young woman.
Let’s blame ALL the victims of economic collapse instead of the people who actually caused it.
Honestly I can’t help but laugh at this, I’ve seen this kind of accusation so many times that all that’s left in me is to smile, keep walking and proving them wrong. I’d love to see these people in our shoes to see how long they’d last without crawling. I’d love to see these people in my country so they’d realize that they created the situation we’re in today, to see how heartbreaking it is for me to see people my age walking into the store counting every little cent so they can have a decent meal. People who gave up on their studies and dreams in order to eat. It seems that nowadays an education means luxury to some people…
(via dzioo)
