FOONG MEI
Portfolio Research
Concept Artist - Developing Process
Industries & Sectors
Artists
Events, Connecting
Nexus Productions
Their work range from commercial, interactive arts, and VR.
What's grabbing my attention was the variety range of projects can be done within animation practice.
They were brought into Ravensbourne twice, once during the Lates to introduce themselves what they did.
Next was when they were brought in again to talk about their project with Google Spotlight Stories.
I was impressed with the idea of 360 story telling. It was sophisticated design and the storytelling was fun. The entire scene was built in 3D but textured into 2D like.
I like the style because it was minimialistic but at the same time it was details enough to tell a story.
Their projects usually work according to the director style, which I think it is more choice to work with them.
I think it will be great for range of professional roles to work with.
BlueZoo
Specialize in children animation.
I went to one of their event at MPC where they spoke about their 16 years journey of building a BAFTA ward winning animation studio.
They start off as a team of 3 initially Tom, Oli, and Adam after graduating from Bournemouth University , but soon expanding into more than 100 employees studio located in London.
Personally, I like Izzy Burton's concept art. She is working as concept artist at Bluezoo. Her artworks were created digitally. I emailed her initially to get some rough idea on the time frame needed for a concept. She did not reply my email so I thought it would be nice I message her on Facebook which she replied. Although she did not exactly reply my email yet, probably after she is not so busy she will reply to my email.
But I did some research on her artwork. She usually create quick concept from Daily Spitpaint, a Facebook group where daily titles were given and artists will challenge the topic within 30 minutes. Here is the link to the group.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1402563099961950/
Izzy's entries actually go into the group and get feature on IAMAG as well.
I went to this event together with Giulia and Peppe, we all were amazed with the short by BlueZoo which was released last Christmas, More Stuff.
A short animation made by the in house artist for the festive season. It was an fun and passion project.
All the artist in BlueZoo were given chance to pitch their idea and finally they vote and go for the project. Izzy was one of the concept art for the project as well.
Here is a vimeo link of the animation.
Animade
Small size animation studio in London.
Their work and style similar to what I am trying to approach.
They are minimal and attractive.
Animade create animation for branding.
Their website is interactive and appeal to potential clients.
The even create animation for high-end fashion brand like Anya Hindmarch. The latest project was created for Net-A-Porter for their Christmas
Below was the animation for the luxury brand website.
Animade also created an online storyboard app for professional.
I tried out the Free version which I think it is great tool for storyboard artists, which I found it really user friendly. The app is call Boords. You can just drop your image and arrange your storyboard and export it as a PDF version.
Here are the examples I try on.
Moth Animation Studio (previously known as Moth Collective)
2D animation studio using Photoshop and After Effects.
Small scale studio. Usually hiring according to projects they received.
Work in commercial, short films and campaigns.
Again, I like the stylize work from Moth.
Because I followed them on social media I get updates and found out about Late Night Work Club.
Late Night Work Club show indie animator works in their collaboration project.
The latest was STRANGERS.
Screened in London on 1st December at Netil360.
Animade submitted their work to London International Animation Festival.
Chronemics
"Based on the notion of light and darkness competing for dominance, the film is set in a world of distinct contrasts. Steeped in an atmosphere of tense anticipation, the sombre mood is injected with elements of macabre comedy through the antics of our two central characters, Light and Dark," by Animade
Studio AKA
London based animation studio. A small size studio. Usually works on commercials, campaigns and some films. Due to small size and busy, they do not provide feedback to students.
But they do offer internship occasionally.
Some concept art by Studio AKA.
Karrot Animation
They worked for Cartoon Network, Disney, Nickelodeon, CBeebies, Discovery, Ford, Rovio and Amazon.
Specialize in Animation Production Design - Storytelling.
Their latest work on Sarah & Duck for CBBC.
Sarah & Duck : children animation series.
It was a winning pitching project through Cartoon Forum.
The information was from Michael O'neil when I attend the Animation Workflow with Creative Cloud Workshop.
Will talk about this in details under Events.
All of the companies above that I researched was based on my personal preference to work with in the future. It was either their style or their approach.
I wanted to focus on concept design for children animation. Most of their animation seems to be appealing to the children. It will be great if I could get in touch with them for the degree show. The style was mostly 2D. As for concept artist, I want to create concept for both 2D and 3D.
I also researched on Malaysia animation studio that I would like to work with. To be honest, it will not be realistic if I did not include animation studios in Malaysia. I might have problems obtaining working visa in the UK once my Tier 4 (General) visa expired on October 2017. It will be another process to get a job in London or UK.
ANIMONSTA
Animonsta is one of the top animation studio in Malaysia. They just screened the first 3D animated featured film and earn the highest grossing in cinema worldwide. It was also exported to neighbourhood countries including Singapore, Indonesia, and Philippine yet receiving a good response. It was a start for the animation industry in Malaysia to improve.
Their studio production pipeline is quite similar to the standard, so I believe it was worth to try to work with them in order to improve my skills.
Inspidea
Inspidea is a 2D animation studio in Malaysia.
They work for Cartoon Network mostly. They also work with Nickelodeon.
Softwares used is ToonBoom.
They hired background artist and 2D animator all the time.
Izzy Burton
Concept Artist at BlueZoo. She just graduated in 2015 and worked in BlueZoo after graduation.
The way she get herself out there was doing a lot of daily speed painting and get recognition through social media like Facebook and Instagram.
I emailed her and try to get an idea of how a concept artist workflow usually is. Unfortunately I did not get her email reply. But I try to drop her a message on Facebook and see if she will reply. She did reply saying that she is busy at the moment.
I did research and followed her for some time on social media. She seems to be illustrating a picture book for adult. This will be helpful in the future if I wanted to publish an illustration book I might able to ask for guidance.
Felix Massie
Director : Rain or Shine
Children's book author
Personally I really want to create concept art and illustration books for children. I wanted to be more solid in work before reaching out and ask for feedback.
He also make trailer animation for books which I think there is a new approach for animation.
Hannah Jacobs
British animator, director and illustration.
I have a passion in creating illustration and making it life at the same time.
The example I found on her website had variety of work she work on. Her clients include Penguin books, WWF, The Design Museum and Vogue.
She worked as a freelance artist as well.
I am keeping her as a potential professional artist to keep in touch as well.
Rebecca Green
Illustrator. Her artwork style was used in animation as well. The varieties of medias she used really impress with black and white / colours. It is a unique style and you can easily recognise it was her work immediately. I wanted to create a style where people knew it was my artwork immediately.
Celine Desrumaux
Visual Development for Netflix animated film : Le Petit Prince (The Little Prince)
I came across her on Instagram.
I did some research on her and I found out she gave tips on one of her follower.
It was really useful for me because it actually answer my question for a concept artist job.
http://celinedesrumaux.tumblr.com/post/128287484536/the-little-prince-3-do-a-colorscript-is-never
http://celinedesrumaux.tumblr.com/post/148883194446/hi-i-really-love-your-work-and-i-was-wondering
Specifically in her work on Little Prince.
She worked for a month concepting with just with black&white, playing with sequences, light and contrast.
These are some of the example she did on Little Prince.
I found this really helpful for me to considered the workflow I should work as a concept artist.
Companies
Animated children's book trailer.
I looked into this because I really wanted to publish a children books. I came across an article saying that animator is the best in term of creating a children books. Because everything is digital now, even books trailer are animated to promote the books.
http://www.gcastellano.com/arttips/2015/2/2/animation-and-childrens-books
We had guest lecturers coming in to talk about finance and working as freelance
-
Maurice Cumber : Finance
-
Athena Bourika : 3D Generalist Freelancer
-
Jessica Ashman : Freelance animator
I am holding a Tier 4 (General) which does not allowed me to be self employed which mean including doing freelance job. I am only allowed to be employed and work placement. The details can be found here.
Finances & Freelance
Marketing Myself
CV, Business Card, Invoice
I used my CV and got myself a job as a children art tutor at the moment. I have updated it and customized it as concept artist CV.
As for my invoice I used it to get payment for my job and client works.
Although technically it is illegal for me to be self employed, I am using it to get paid and as a record.
As you can see there, I put my National Insurance number instead of UTR number(self employed).
My rate for art tutoring offered was 20 per hour. I am not sure what is the market rate for art tutor, but I think I have a really good pay in terms of hour which will be discussed in finance and freelance.
Seed Animation
A small size animation studio based in London.
Seed is a full service animation production company that develops ideas from script, through to finished piece. They do everything in-between, from concepts to character designs to animation to delivery.
They also work with advertising and digital agencies, as well as direct with brands and companies.
I found that they might be helpful in FMP because they did everything from concept until delivery.
Mummu
Their passion in creating animation within creative producers, directors, animators, and illustrator. Most of their projects show in the website are either 2D and 2.5D which can be achievable with After Effects, Photoshop and Illustrators. I like their style and linked to them on twitter where I can easily see their updates.
Concept Artist - Development
Getting my role sort out since last summer. I was thinking about compositing at first because I enjoy compositing at some point. When I submit my work for MPC internship, I received feedback that my work compositing reel does not meet the minimum requirement, which I kind of agree. I look into it and I feel that I actually need to have a stronger concept before really going into compositing.
But at the same time, I really like to come up with concept for children animation. So in this term I want to focus on concept artist and decide later if I really want to go into VFX in the future.
The whole term I am focusing on concepting environment with light, colour, and mood. As for characters, I am focusing on creating children animation design.
I started off with traditional water colour for my colour studies, quick painting and quick ideas.
Colour script using watercolours, so that I could easily pick my colours for my concept.
Watercolour Paintings : 30 minutes
Cold and warm colour studies.
The paintings were just based on memories of places in Malaysia, country side.
Feedback from Dan : The painting did not bring viewer to focus on something. It was almost no direction, lack of composition.
Have to try on digital paintings rather than traditional paintings. I can paint easily with watercolours, but when it comes to photoshop I did not feel comfortable at all.
This is the next challenge that I have to work on.
Quick ideas from different shapes.
Because I wanted to start challenging digital painting, I bought Photoshop brushes from KyleTwebster.
I chose the brushes that I like to use and create a custom templates. I did some quick line drawings.
Progressing from the feedback, I tried to sketch straight in Photoshop and trying with lighting. I did some foxes sketches and 3 simple lit up fox.
The sketches were based on images,some just based on imagination which can be easily figured out because the proportion is off.
Feedback : lighting, no depth shown, highlights did not work properly. Try to think of how light bounce and hit the subject.
Suggested for animals studies : Pick 3 animals, look into strong pose, fill up 1 sketch book each. ( Did not able to finish this task, I will use the Christmas break to complete the task)
I tried to do an environment next for a city. I started with perspective drawing. Reference was based on the photograph I took while I travel in Korea back in September. But for the light/night environment, I just get them from internet.
As you can see above was Jellyfish design I did based on reference.
I start off with sketches, before moving on to colour the jellyfish, I study the colours and light in the deep sea water. I wanted to apply the light into my finish jellyfish, but I am distracted by moving on to next environment. I tried both the animation in Photoshop but in different technique.
The above was a grouping technique, while the bottom was a frame by frame animation.
In term of 2D animation, I just started to learn into Toonboom and see how it actually work. As far as I realise, Toonboom allow more fluidity in animation. I only have a month trial version of Toonboom which I don't really have much time to look into it. But I will keep this as my future decision.
So right now, I will be focusing on concept art rather than dig into 2D animation at the moment.
Below was environment design based on Jellyfish habitat.
I start off with black and white and then I use complimentary colours for the 3 environment.
*Still need to be polished* in term of contrast, highlight. Be bold in making it dark when you need to.
Next I did some design of Jellyfish and testing with light and trying to animate in Photoshop. ( wanted to try out the animation so that I know how the design have to be worked on.)
The feedbacks were be careful of camera depth. The building far behind should have less details. The light diffuse evenly. The fox doesn't seems to go into the environment under the light. Too dark.
From the process above, I took feedback regarding the depth and light contrast and finally finished the last piece.
Establishing my online present, I distracted myself from doing concepts. Instead I give a topic for myself and create a group of props for the theme.
I found it helps me to gain online promotion by doing that.
Moving back to environment concepts. I used photograph I took while I visited Giulia and Peppe in Catania, Sicily last August. I had the passion in photography buildings of different design because I just love it. Realising that, photography actually helps me in concepting my environment and building.
I look into perspective drawings in my next test. I took all of the photographs myself.
In this test, I understand perspective more in a way because when I draw from imagination, I couldn't get the right perspective. I believe if I practice more, I could do it one day just with imagination for a perspective for a quicker turn around.
Move on to another lighting test in indoor, I used a reference from my photograph in a restaurant we went in Taormina. It was a really lovely restaurant.
Breakdown for each piece
-
Fox in the city : Sketches: 3hrs, Details: 4hrs, Colours: 3hrs, Lightings: 1 hr.
-
Jellyfish : Sketches :0.5 hrs, Light test: 1.5 hrs, Colours & Details : 3 hrs.
-
Jellyfish Environment : Black&White: 1 hr, Colours & Details: 4.5 hrs.
-
Random Pieces : 2 hrs each
-
Perspective drawings : 1 hour for a panel of 6
-
Lamp for sale : Sketches : 0.5 hr, Colours : 1hr, Light and details: 0.5 hr.
-
Siracusa : 8 hours for a complete piece (excluding research)
I have a personal website that showcase all my works. It is also links to social media that only showcase my artworks,
including Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn and Vimeo.
The design of the online presence is consistent throughout everywhere.
Please click on the image, it will be directed to the website as well.
Improvised version.
Improvised version.
Feedback : Harsh light, Form, Narrative needed
Improvised piece.
Environment Piece - perspective, blocking, details, mood and colours, lighting
For next concept art it was based on a photograph i took.However, I wanted to change the perspective where low angle view to show magnificent size of building. I find it a bit hard when I try to do a complete different perspective, I source out different angle I made earlier and finally came out with my final piece. I also wanted to test of different lighting of a day in the same scene.
Completed concept
BBC Connect
Earlier this term, we were invited to BBC Connect events that allowed all their artists they hire to connect and possibly collaborating in the future.
I am really glad that my works is shown and shared with everyone else in the room including producer and directors. During that events, I get in contact with other illustrators, animators, and also film maker who wanted to do some animation.
Katana - The Foundry at MPC
I followed London SIGGRAPH frequently to see what events that really useful for me. I went to few events organised by them such as Walt Disney Animation Studio : The Making of Zootopia back in May, BlueZoo animation and the recent one was the katana.
Katana is a pipeline software dedicating for Look Development and Lighting.
The Senior Production Manager from Foundry was trying to sell the idea of using Katana in their pipeline.
He actually make me realised that lighting are a huge pipeline itself.
That includes colour scripts, look development, asset, shader library, light sampling.
I found it really useful in that event though I am not going to use Katana right now, but the approach needed to create a piece of concept
Adobe Storytelling : Sarah & Duck
Michael O'neill who came in did a really good job of introducing pitching an idea to a client.
He introduced Cartoon Forum and Annecy Festival for getting idea out to audience.
He also talk about the process of pitching Sarah & Duck.
London International Animation Festival : British Showcase
I thought the event might inspire me at some point.
But then I realised a lot of animation screened are either illustrated, or stop motion, and documentary.
Overall it is good to see what is out there submitting for competition or festivals.
Advertising & Commercial
From the companies that I had research on, seems like advertisement or commercial also use animation as a part of marketing.
I can see myself a position, getting concept done for commercial and having it produced in animation
Charity & Campaign
Animation was used in charity and campaign recently.
For example Mosaic Film had been doing it and won award in documentary.
Even thought I am not allowed to be self employed, I researched on daily rates for concept artist and job descriptions for concept artist.
During Maurice's lecture, I created this using her templates and calculated my day rate.
Turnover / No. of days working in a year = Day Rate
Weekends = 104 days
Bank Holidays = 9 days
Holiday = 20 days
Sick days = 5 days
Days at work = 227 days
Personal Expenses = £1600 p/m x 12 = £19200 p/a (£20450)
(from the table above, it shows £ 20450 because I only added holiday spending money and haircuts in a year column)
Tax = 23%
23% of £20450 = £4703.5
Personal Expenses + Tax = £25153.50
£25152.50 / 227 (Working Days) = £110.80 (Day Rate)
Hourly Rate = £11.08 (Based on an 8 hour day)
Based on the day rate, my rate is only a bit higher than London minimum pay wage.
I looked into how much concept artist charge per hour on internet. Usually it is £15-£25.
Tips from guest lecturers.
Passion work or finance work? Make it balance and realistic between both of them.
Even though you might not get pay more than your day rate, measure it weather it helps you into exposure or not.
Submit your film for festivals such as Encounters, Annecy and Edinburgh Film Festivals.
Work in a huge company or smaller studio?
Huge company : Standard pipeline, in a specific work space, under hierarchy
Small Studio : Basically generalist
"Animation is not forever!" Jessica Ashman