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animama — Dancing with the Devil
Published: 2008-07-24 18:38:22 +0000 UTC; Views: 3987; Favourites: 145; Downloads: 64
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Description
Fast sketch, and OMG, it's not yaoi!Related content
Comments: 49
so you're a storyboard artist eh? no wonder! (animator here 
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Yup! I have been in the animation biz for 20 years now...things are pretty comfortable at this point. I don't mention actual show names here because I don't want my bosses to find the yaoi fan art, ahaha. They will never let me live it down. But yeah, storyboarding mostly. Random character designs and illustration work too.
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Nice~ I'm still a newbie in the biz
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Ahaha, if they were surprised they must not be spending much time on the internet. I do kid's TV cartoons too and webtoons, mostly preschool and pretty girly stuff. I have worked for South Korean and US studios...the Korean women animators kept piles of manhua at their desks, including quite a bit of yaoi.
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yaoi manhwa at work desks? That's AWESOME!!! Too bad yaoi is still not as out in the open as I like it to be here
The show I'm currently working on is for girls too. It's aimed at pre-teen girls, and is apparently created by 30-year-old men... It's a good show and all, but I sometimes find it annoying that in the West here, ppl define "girls' show" very narrowly. There are "girls' shows" in japanese anime too, but they're much more varied.
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Yaoi might get an eyeroll over there, especially if you are really obnoxious about it. But that is about it. Even middle aged ajummas like me read boyslove during lunch break. I kind of miss working over there, but US pays a heck of a lot more. Besides, my American Hubby did not like living in Seoul.
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openly reading boyslove on lunch breaks... that sounds lovely! I have noticed some of our storyboard artists keeping little sketches of Sephiroth and Edward Elric and Roy Mustang of Fullmetal Alchemist on their work desks though.
Aww. Yes, living abroad can be tough sometimes. Still, I'd like to work for a bit in Asia or Europe sometime. Even if I end up not liking it, it'd be nice to see what studios are like elsewhere and what different things other people do in their productions.
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Back when I worked in Seoul things were seriously old school...no 3D software, and we were just beginning to switch from hand coloring cels to computer coloring. The business has changed so much. I used to do character layout on gasp! punched animation paper. Still have a stash of them somewhere, if my Kidlet hasn't scribbled over them.
I would like to see how the animation studios in Vancouver operate. The US studios outsource so much of the work, that it is hard to find an actual animator position for a TV production. Seems like you guys keep more work in-house. Do you have to be Canadian to work in the animation studios there?
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lol I see so many people addicted to Cintiqs these days. ...I want one XD
Cool, This year's Siggraph is at LA isn't it. I went to the Vancouver one last year, but I hear that the LA one is much larger. I probably won't have the time to go this year though.
Hehe, it's good to have a steady supply of work. How does one become a storyboard artist though? I've yet to see a job posting for one in all the companies I've looked.
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If my Cintiq ever broke I would be a basket case until it got replaced. I have a big Cintiq with 2 additional monitors set up for work.
The animation union has job posting emails. Nickelodeon and Warner Brothers usually have portfolio reviews for new projects several times a year. With smaller studios, jobs are often filled by word of mouth. You could start with an assistant storyboard position, get some pro samples together, and go from there. I became a storyboard artist via a long, twisted route...first it was toy illos, then character designer, then an assistant storyboard position at the same studio, blah blah. I like storyboarding because it is a job you can do offsite.
I worked in LA for years. Now that I have a cozy home studio in the boonies, I try to avoid going down there if at all possible! Some of the people I work with I have never met in person.
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big Cintiq AND 2 additional monitors...damn... You know, at least two storyboard artists (seniors artists I think) in my company still use pencil and paper and draw on those old animation tables with the three pegs. And the company does provide their storyboard artists and designers cintiqs if they ask.
animation union eh? Don't have that here
I've always wondered, how much of the camera moves and the composition of the shots are decided by the storyboard artist? And usually art programs in schools don't teach camera moves to artists unless it's the film program, so do storyboard artist learn these things on the job?
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Most studios here only want digital art. For big places like Nickelodeon, proficiency with Photoshop and/or Illustrator and Cintiq is mandatory. There must be a few old school storyboard artists who still do paper and pencil, but I personally do not know any.
Animation union keeps the wage prices up, which is good for the artists but tend to drive the work out-of-country at times. For example, I think union minimum for storyboard artists is up to $1700 a week now. Experienced storyboard artists earn much more.
It depends on the director. Sometimes the director gives detailed thumbnails of setups the storyboard artist should use, other times they just give vague verbal directions and the script. Some visual direction is given in the script( you have probably read stuff like "zip pan from character x to Y"), but we do not necessarily follow them. My directors just let me do what I want, and change very little to the final product. So I set up most of the shots and camera moves. But we have had a long working relationship (10+ years) so we know each others' visual style.
If you have grown up watching movies and cartoons, you already know how the camera moves! Everything else we learn on the job. It is kind of automatic at this point, but I remember agonizing about shot choices way in the beginning. Like everything else it gets easier with practice.
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O_O $1700 a week? As in $42.50 per hour? For inexperienced artists? Wow! What about animators then?
Yeah unions have their goods and bads. My previous job was a union job. (not animation)
Huh, so it's pretty much like how animators get directions from storyboards then. I've seen storyboards that are so detailed that it's almost the key-poses/blocking stage of animation, and storyboards where there's only one picture of two or three heads floating in blank space just to tell that it's supposed to be a waist-up close-up and to give the general emotions of the characters in that shot. So how closely do the animators follow your storyboards then?
True, but you don't always know the names of the various camera moves just from watching shows. Sometimes our directors, even with new people, will use a lot of abbreviations for the names of the camera moves and field of view, and we have to ask our animation leads what they meant 
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That price would be for people who have already gone past the journeyman stage, so about two, three years into the job. Many artists who work full time in the animation biz make 6 figures. I think even assistant animators in the US should be doing at least $1000 a week.
I am one of those storyboard artists who do a really detailed board. I used to do character layout so it kind of comes naturally. My current project is CG, so the animators are using my drawings for acting prompts and set-ups. On some 2D projects though, you see mistakes on storyboards copied directly onto the final animation. XD
I never took any animation classes. I have an illustration degree. Everything I know I learned on the job!
PS I will send you some pics in a couple of days! I have a project due Monday, and I know if I go digging through the hard drive now time will flash by and work will never get done.
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Ah I see. Still quite a bit higher than the wage for assistant animators over here though. But then again, schools in the US also seem to be more expensive. I've seen US animation schools with 90k tuition, while the highest I've seen in Canada is 40k, and can go as low as 10k.
No worries, take your time. Whenever I try to organize my hard drive I get lost in there and get very little done too
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School prices here are absolutely atrocious. And it has gotten even worse in the past 10 years, with all the easily available student loans. I have seen 30 year olds still struggling to pay the student loan debts. I suppose if you are going to get a medical degree 200k in student loan debt is bearable, but art majors? Good luck with that. Back when I was in uni it was only around 1k per semester.
I have scary amounts of fan arts in that hard drive. XD Most of it is old and ucky, which is why it is not up on the gallery here.
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I saw on the news some time ago of a young man who's 200k in debt (most of it in interest and other penalties) from culinary school and is now homeless. I've wondered if all those young people who go to those super expensive schools had any relatives or other elders who could have given them advice on finances and told them it is not a good idea to take out 90k loans for an industry which entry-level jobs paid $8 per hour. I mean, even though student loans are easily available, it's still quite far from being free money. And there has got to be cheaper alternatives or schools with lower tuition. In Canada, depending on the major, it is still possible to get post-secondary education for under 2k per semester.
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Haha, I should send my kid to school in Canada...
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gotta warn you though, we have rather frequent periodic teacher strikes and/or student protest over either tuition or government support for tuition
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I think a few strikes over tuition prices would have been useful over here!
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lol a few maybe, but everything in moderation I guess. Those things can get a bit ugly on both sides. And a few people I know had had to delay the completion of their degree by an entire semester because of a teacher strike.
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*Gasp* Paper! Pencils and Pens! I thought they only have those in museums now! hehe, kidding
No, you don't have to be a Canadian citizen to work, but if you're entry-level or junior-level, then it's very hard to get a work permit for the industry. If you're mid-level and above, then you can pretty much work anywhere. It's a way for the government to keep entry-level jobs for their own citizens. It's the same thing in most other places too, same for US so I've heard.
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I don't remember the last time I drew a picture with a pencil. *hugs Cintiq*
I actually live pretty close to Canada(20 miles south of border) but Vancouver would probably still be a day's drive away. If work ever dries up in LA I might check up there. I am booked up for the rest of the year though...my studio does not like to keep me idle!
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The action in this piece looks really good! The cape and the hair going in opposite directions really add to the movement...it looks great! For a fast sketch...it's amazing!
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Thank you much! I do animation storyboards for a living, so fast sketches is pretty much all I do for RL work.
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VINCENT! LOOK OUT! Oh God, where's my sword when I need it!?!?!?
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Two bishies in one pic, and it's not yaoi! Oh my....
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Oh MY!
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Awesome action sketch! You can really feel the movement in this piece!
-Mist
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This is closer to my RL work style. Most of the real work I do is very sketchy.
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Great action! This is one battle I'd love to see.
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This is so amazing!
The sense of motion and action, their expressions, the details...
Absoultley wonderful!
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If they were real monsters they wouldn't have to hide under the bed
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I get tired of doing people just standing around sometimes!
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This is a sketch?! You have amazing talent.
Sephiroth's expression amuses me greatly. xD
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Thanks. I think this probably took about 15 minutes. The color pics with clean lines take longer of course, but they tend to be quick too, since I never have that much time to spare!
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wow i never saw this on on LJ ^_^ is it new? i love Sephys little smirk/smile lol ^_^ and i love vinny too ^_^
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This is an old one...probably was buried too deep in the LJ files!
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yeah but i could swear that i looked at every single one of your entries all the way back to when you first started your LJ lol yeah im obsessed with you ^_^
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::snorfle:: I shall be on the lookout for random people showing up on my doorstep with suitcases now.
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lol only if you invited me lol ^_^ jk
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Well, we could always use an extra hand to clean out the chicken coop...
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i've cleaned out a cat box, horse stall, and kennels for animals chicken coops are nothing for me ^__^
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