Category: Term 4

I want to be an animator. I say this still after two tedious months of animating for my grad film. I want to be an animator and I’ve never been more excited about it.

I’d love to start off as a 2D animator and be willing to explore further if the studios are willing to guide me on it. This term has gotten me better acquainted with After Effects and that’s one more thing I’d like to explore some more.

I’ve been keeping up with the online animation job sheet and I joined the Asians for Animation community a month ago where I continue to look for positions and keep up with industry events. I’ve had a website for a couple of years now, but last month, I completely revamped it. Now its more of an animation portfolio and less of an illustration one.

Within London, I’ve been interested in studios like Art&Graft, Blinkink, Nexus, StudioAKA, etc. and hope to work on a 2D project with them. I’d also like to explore being a freelance animator at some point, considering I’ve had almost 6 years of experience being a freelance illustrator. I know I have the drive to work remotely.

In the past month or so I’ve only had time to apply for two positions – one with the BT group as an in house animator to which I got a rejection letter, and the second was for the summer internship at Art&Graft – which I got to give an interview for. I will be continuing to apply for positions in the coming few weeks.

Recently, I redid my website entirely to present myself more as an animator. I curated what goes on my site a little better and it’s more precise now.

First, the showreel:

After my unit 2 film The Original Human and my unit 3 film If I Raised My Mother, I had a much wider platter of work to chose from, so I got to be more picky. I knew I wanted a song that was catchy and memorable. Maybe from the 80s. I was aiming for an instrumental cover of Smalltown Boy and went with Hey You by the Cure instead because of the fast pace and continuous beats, but mostly – the opening with the drums.

I started the showreel with a piece of personal art that I worked on in 2020 so it synced up with the drums and jumped to all my best pieces of work immediately after. There are quite a few turnaround shots in the first half, but I did that intentionally to showcase by understanding of a 3D object even when animating in 2D. I also have character interactions in the first half.

Next, categorising my projects:

My strong suit is character art, and it only makes sense to put that first. Inside my character art gallery, I have designs I’ve done for my films, pitches and class. I have character designs I made as fanart and later got licensed by the publishing house for a promotional event for a short period. I also have a character sheet I did for my Dungeons & Dragons character.

Next, backgrounds. Over the years, through freelance experience and self initiated drive, I’ve worked on a few notable backgrounds that I think speak for my skills. Besides being a character focused animator/artist, I’m also completely open to be a background artist for animation.

Then my published work. Even though these are some of my greatest achievements, I think its only right to place character art and backgrounds before this to showcase my skills. This section however, is purely just to demonstrate that I’ve had experience working with clients and strict schedules before. In this page are some book covers I’ve illustrated and other cool projects I’ve gotten to be a part of.

Following these categories are two pages. One for my term 3 film The Original Human and the other for my undergrad film Star-Borne. The website ends with a bio and a contact form. These parts of the website can also be accessed at the top of my website.

More about my social media portfolio in the blog entry about self-promotion.

As someone who has worked with clients mostly because of the reach I’ve had through social media, I understand the power it holds and how important it is to curate to an audience.

I’ve built a platform on most websites under the username @kidovna and I’ve done that drawing for things I love and engage. This is where I met most of the authors I’ve worked with and made connections.

_{pictured above: my instagram and tumblr}

As my graduation comes close and I finish up my grad film, I realised it would be a good idea to make an account to promote the film share some behind the scenes action.

Promotional content for the film will include progress shots, character art and posters. An example would be:

Apart from social media promotion, I’ve also been to two Festivus events organised in the past year and gotten to introduce myself to many animators. After the submissions I plan on researching festivals and sending out my film to as many festivals as I can. And hopefully make more connections wherever it gets accepted.

I’ve had conversations with industrial professionals about my film and would love to be able to continue to do so.