Saesam's

こんにちは。まずは返信が遅くなってしまったことをお詫びします。お待たせして大変申し訳ありません！

ご質問ありがとうございます！どのようにして海外のアニメやイラストのお仕事ができるようになったのか、とのことですが…、えー、簡潔に言いますと、自分がやった海外の仕事は100%コネでもらっています！海外のアニメ制作スタジオに勤めている知り合いからオファーが来る（もしくは知り合いから紹介されてラインプロデューサーからオファーが来る）→引き受ける　と、いった流れです。

コネなんて身も蓋もない…とお思いかもしれませんが、この業界は信じられないほど横の繋がりで動いています。自分はCNとニコロデオンのショート作品で背景の仕事をしましたが、両作品ともディレクターが有難い事に以前から私のdAに上げていた絵を見てくれていて、その縁でオファーを頂きました。他にもファンアートばんばんアップしてたら公式から「うちで仕事しない？」と話が来るのは本当によく聞く話です。ですので、もし海外（欧米と定義して）のアニメの仕事をやりたいのであれば、とにかくdA、Tumblr、Pixiv等にどんどん自分の絵を上げて、WEBポートフォリオを充実させていくといいのではないでしょうか。自分の作品を世に発信していくに関しては事欠かないいい時代ですし、実際にスタジオで働いているスタッフはこちらが思っている以上にファンアートをサーチして見てくれてます笑。

それから個人的にオススメなのは、SNSでは海外の人と積極的に交流を図りましょう！向こうの人は結構気軽に絵の感想などを送ってきてくれます。dA、Tumblr、Pixivで英文コメントをもらったら、是非Thank you!だけでなく、一言二言なにか言葉を添えて話しかけやすい雰囲気を作ってください笑。オファーを送るほうも人間ですので、絵だけでなく、何かしら人となりがわかる自分の文章が、ちらほらポートフォリオサイトにあるといいかと思います。

あとは月並みですが、自分にしかない絵の雰囲気やテイストをどんどん作り上げて、「自分にしかかけない絵の味」というのを突き詰めることが大事だと思います。私はdAを最初に始めたのが2008年前後だったと思うのですが、当時はPixivもなくdA一強時代でしたので、本当にいろんな国のアーティストが一挙に集まって賑わっておりました。今でこそ、海外アニメのファンアートを描く日本人は多いですが、当時は本当に少なかったんですよ。（体感的に1％くらい）ですので、日本アニメのファンアートを描く外国人はめちゃくちゃ居ましたが、海外アニメのファンアートを描く日本人は非常に珍しがられたものです。特に自分は日本アニメのテイストを残しつつ、海外アニメ作品のファンアートを描いていたので（というかそう描くのが面白くて）、「ハイブリットでいいね！」と珍しがられ、結構favやfollowをしてもらえました。

自分が現在貰うオファーの内容は、大抵「80～90年代の日本アニメ／マンガみたいなコンセプトでデザインしてください。」という依頼が多いです。オファーする側は漠然と「絵が上手い人に頼もう」ということはしません。「この人なら作風がこのプロットにマッチするから頼もう」という期待を込めてオファーします。なので、是非「自分の作風はこうだ！」というのを突き詰めていくといいですよ！

ついでに言うと、自分は完全なフリーランスではなく、本業は別にありまして、サラリーマンしつつ、オファーが来ればときどきアニメやイラストのお仕事をしております。なので、がっつり制作に関わるというより、お手伝いしている、という感覚の方が近いです。そして一旦プロジェクトが終われば次にいつどんな仕事が来るかは本当にわかりません。（積極的に営業すればまた違うかと思いますが。）

Concept arts for Brandon Auman’s short  Turtles Take Time and Space

So I wrote a whole thread about this on twitter, actually!  I’ll recount it here:

“so to clarify: #fanartgotmepaid doesn’t mean “fanart guarantees you a job,” nor does it mean “you can’t get a job without fanart.” #fanartgotmepaid just means that fanart isn’t always a Scarlet Letter that immediately colors a potential employer’s opinion of you. 

I like to think that the personal art you do can be roughly broken down into three motivations: Conception, Self-Improvement, and Enjoyment (take this with a grain of salt! there are other motivations – commercial, vindictive, goofabouts – I’m just focusing on the heavy hitters):

Conception, meaning “I have a specific creative vision I need to commit to paper.” Concept, idea, composition, style, what have you.

Self-Improvement, meaning “I want to better myself by practicing or taking on a challenge.” Trying that new brush, studying folds, etc.

And finally Enjoyment, meaning “I physically/emotionally enjoy the process of making art, and choose to do it because it’s fun/therapeutic.” 

Art fulfills each of these to varying degrees; sometimes a piece can be all three at once, but it doesn’t have to. That’s up to the artist. Fanart will almost always include some degree of Enjoyment. We make fanart because we love a thing, because it provides a familiar framework. For example, here are some pieces of fanart I’ve done that are PURELY for Enjoyment:

…These aren’t going to win me any awards, they aren’t going to get me any jobs! But they’re good, they’re fun, and I’m glad I did them (and not to mention, any art is better than no art! Like playing a cover of a song, drawing fanart is still building artistic muscle memory).

NOW, let’s talk about fanart that gets you hired. Compared to the above, what is it about some fanart that gets the attention of employers? Generally, employers are hiring you for what YOU bring to the table. If fanart is the hook, your particular vision is what reels them in. No one ever got a job just because they drew a Sailor Moon that one time. You get jobs because you treat fanart as a tool in your toolbox. Are you redesigning characters? Interpreting them through a compelling stylistic lens? Rendering them in a fresh way? That’s your vision.

So here are some examples of my fanart that HAS gotten the attention of employers, with some rough notes on why I think they stand out:

The reason I was hired for Bioshock wasn’t because of Disney princesses: I was hired because of my eye for historical costume design. You aren’t hired for fanart, you aren’t hired for the hook: You’re hired for your vision. You’re hired for what keeps them interested.

If you want to draw fanart purely for Enjoyment, that is completely rad and fine! Appreciating an IP by way of creation is pretty amazing. And if you want to use fanart to pursue a professional career, find a way to balance that Enjoyment with Conception and Self-Improvement!

Today I gave my students a quick presentation on some of the basic considerations for composition, which I am now sharing with you! I’ve given them separate talks about color and tonal value/contrast, which are also super important compositional concerns. (I’ll be sharing those presentations too once I properly format them)

I personally love learning about different compositional techniques. It’s fun to think about the ways that the brain views & sorts images, and how we can trick it into feeling a certain way or looking at certain aspects of an image first! It’s easy to fall into compositional ruts (which I am also guilty of) because a lot of art gets by with mediocre, though serviceable, compositions. If you can generally understand what’s happening in an image then it’s generally fine. However, it’s the truly great compositions, where everything in the whole image has been considered and ‘clicks’ together, that bump up an illustration to a visual slam dunk. NC Wyeth is one of my favorite artists for this reason: his compositions are rock solid, varied based on the image’s intent, and always enhance the mood or action he is depicting.

For extra reading, some online compositional resources that I’ve found helpful or interesting include: Creative Illustration by Andrew Loomis (download it for FREE. Such a great book all-around.) Gurney Journey (check out the “Composition” tag, but really everything he posts is great) The Schweitzer guide to spotting tangents Cinemosaic (a blog by Lou Romano with some truly WONDERFUL compositions captured from various films) Where to Put the Cow by Anita Griffin

I understand your pain. And it’s something that even people in art-related jobs have to deal with. How do you make enough time to work on your own art when you’re exhausted by the work you need to do to survive?

There’s no easy answer, but a lot of methods. Some people get up earlier and sketch for an hour before they go to work. Some people work at lunch. Some after their day job, and even more on the weekends. You have to find a way to make time to do what you need to do to advance your art, keep working on the portfolio, or art will always be a side gig, or a hobby. The only other way is to find an art-related job and then work your way up from there. 

It’s hard and it takes dedication and discipline, but this is literally the point that you make yourself a professional artist. Are you an artist who is working a job to fund their art career while they develop OR are you a working person who does art on the side? Do you want to be an artist more than you want a social life? Do you want to be an artist more than you want that extra hour of sleep? Do you want to be an artist enough that you will keep looking for a job that gives you room to make art too, or is an art-related job? Keep striving, keep trying to find something better, keep drawing. It may take time, but there’s no time limit on being an artist. 

I suggest the daily practice time, because just doing it is a kind of art meditation that will make you feel better as you go. It can start at 15min, or 30min. Work your way up. Do it first thing in the morning, because you are proving to yourself that being an artist is your priority to yourself, then put your pencil down, secure in the knowledge that the shitty job is in the service of a higher goal. Then pick that pencil up again the next morning, and the next. Don’t do nothing, because something small doesn’t feel like “enough” — You’re planting a seed that will grow until it encourages you to do more and more. Just get started now.

—Agent KillFee

Hi

Thank you very much for your support :)

I m french, I love speaking english, but please forgive me if there is some english spoken mistakes :

To answer your question I would like to give you some advices and not a tutorial about how to become a character designer or how to draw cool stuff. You can find many tips about graphic design all over tumblr I suppose :)

I have to say that I m teacher since a long time, and more recently I had the chance to teach through Gobelins school as character design/ storyteller teacher.

I would prefer to share with you some informations that nobody use to share but who are much more important than graphic tutorials so I recommand people who read this post to share it a lot :)

I think the most important things I have understood to become art director / character designer is :

1/ practicing, I guess you have to find tutorials about drawing, you have to find life drawing lessons, you have to practice life drawing a lot, nude drawing a lot, you have to find a way to tell a lot of stories, thrygh comicbooks, animations, writing books, fiming..

2/ always focusing first on storytelling in your character design, and not only about “esthetic” , (I will talk more about it below)

3/ and staying curious of discovering many different influences from every kind of Arts or cultures or ages. (I will talk more about it below)

To be franck, I didn’t learn this job through my art school (Gobelins), but through my differents jobs as storyartist, comicker, character designer in real productions.

I mean that you can not do a proper design if you don’t have a strong story behind.

I also mean that my skills as a storyteller (storyartist, writer) are absolutely essential to be a good character designer / art director. for sure, 100%. I have became a better art director when I became a better storyteller (and I still have so much to learn of course)

A good design has to tell a good story. If not, whatever this design is good looking and with nice shapes, with nice brush photoshop made, it is not a good design but a vain design. You can not become a good character designer and less a good art director if you don’t understand that deeply.

The designs below from Ratatouille Pixar movie, are not about doing great esthetic designs (but they are also great good looking in that example) but they are first of all, created from a great story and created to push the story and to tell the story : you can understand relatonships, behaviours of each character, who is main character, who is second character,  through these  line up (below)

Pixar artists doesn’t care about puting graphic details, cool details, they remove all the details who don’t push their story deeper. Pixar artists care about what they are talking about. They want to stay readable, clear, coherent, meaningfull for the audience. This is the main difference between them and for example most of the designers from video games who lost themself in too many meaningless details in their designs (I love video games by the way^^ but they are not good example for you to follow to become a good designer for animation industry)

A good design has to be readable in one second, does not need subtitles to be uderstandable to an audience. that’s all. the rest is vain.

>>>>> in a word : a good design is like an ICON, it has to become iconic. For that purpose,you have to create a strong synopsis, a strong story then to imagine from that story  a strong, pure concept, pure idea to illustrate this story through one or several designs.

so a good design is about thinking good, not really drawing good… :))

 some other great and iconic designs readable in one second without knowing the movie, yes they are not drawing but it does not matter :

So : Do your personal stories, practice scriptwriting as much as drawing, all the time . As you can see, my last design are done from my personal project. I never split drawing and scriptwriting.

I mean don’t wait to get an art school to practice seriously, don’t wait to get a great job as character designer to practice. Practice seriously through many personal projects that you write yourself. So great companies and projects will come to you.^^

_____

learn how to write story through many scenario book or filming book:

here some books I suggest you to read as soon as possible and as much as possible:

in english I guess it is this one: but I m not certain sorry:

“filming” from Eisenstein:

http://www.amazon.com/Lessons-With-Eisenstein-Vladimir-Nizhny/dp/0809013509

in french : “lecon de mise en scene d’Eisenstein”

http://www.eyrolles.com/Audiovisuel/Livre/lecons-de-mise-en-scene-9782907114059

This book from Eisenstein is the most important book I have read about storytelling, and nobody knows it. Thomas Astruc, “Miraculous” creator, is the one who told me about it. There is a lot of books about scenario, storyboard, but none of them will learn you how about filming. This book explain you how the great director put deep meaning in their filming. This book tells about the scenography in a sequence. It explain you how to put meanings everywhere in a story, from the background design, through the character design, and to the storyboard of course.

another book I like is : Story from Mc Kee:

http://www.mckeestore.com/Robert-McKees-book-STORY_p_11.html

Why this book in particular? because it is made from “the Poetic” from Aristote. It is a very shematic book, hard to read, just take your time, take notes, make some exercices from it to understand it. It learnt me a mental grammar about how to think about a story.

____

so: conclusion : I have done a whole feature film screenplay about this personal project. My design are really stronger because they are made from a proper and strong story. This is the most important advice I could give to you.

My deep meaning is : a good drawing means something, tell a story. A good drawing is a drawing that you have thought about before you have started to draw.

Then I can give you some advices about my method of course but believe me, they are nothing compared to thoss about storytelling:

_ gather a lot of documentation and materials when you want to create a design. avoiding cliché is knowling deeply your subject. As I m doing a story about russian revolution and I m not russian, I try to gather many many information about the russian history , russian mythology, russian revolution, russian clothesabout this century, russian people…. This is not only about esthetic materials but about feeling the whole picture of your subject. so you have to read a lot, not only gather pictures.

_ Avoid to follow the “mode” but mix it.^^

I suppose you know we can not create stuff from nothing. We have to start from some pointin Art. But :

To create a new and interesting stuff, you have to mix two ancients stuff (at least) , not starting from only one influence.

My graphic style is a mix between many many influences. I don’t do “japanese stuff”, or “disney stuff”, or “comics stuff”, or “european stuff”, I have mixed everything I have learnt in my life.

Try to stay very curious of all kind of influences ; not only animation but Art in general, litterature, arcitecture, cinema, travelling, history of Arts (I have a History of art 2nd college degree which helps me a lot in my graphic researches). Try to stay open minded in every kind of cultures.

By example : Tezuka, creator of the manga, was very influenced by Disney. Kurosawa, best director ever, was very influenced by american cinema, georges lucas was very influenced by Kurosawa when he did Star Wars…..etc…

Try to discover as many art pieces as you can, never give up that in you whole life to stay inspired.

Personally I ma big fan of History, History of Arts, History of whatever in general. This is the main material I use for my work.^^

For that purpose , try to read many books, old books, shakespeare, Dostoievski, Homere, mythology books, whatever you want but really meaningfull books not only recent best seller(which are great of course^^ but do not focus only on them). this is a main part of your work , this is not lazyness don’t worry^^

same for movies: you can not tell good stories if you have nothing to tell :D : take the time to watch as many movies as you can, this is a main part of your work , this is not lazyness don’t worry^^  :

here some directors I love:

_ Kurosawa

_ Melville

_ Jonnhie To

_ Zemeckis

_ Nicolas Winding Refn

_ Mc Tiernam

_ Kurick

_ Takahata

_ Spielberg

My favorite movies :

_ Pusher II

_ Silence of the lambs

_ Benhur

_ Dersu Uzala

_ 10 commandements

_ Spartacus

_ Rush

_ Ikiru

_ Yojimbo

_ Kaguya princess

_ Munich

_ Mad max fury road

_ die hard 1

_ Hardboiled

_ A.I.

_ Contact

_ Compare yourself with the best artists in the world, not with your classmate in your artschool. If you want to be the best, and do the best production, be demanding and challenge yourself. Comapre your stuff to Pixar, Laika, Dreamworks, oldschool japanese mangaka and animator, ancient painters. Ask yourself why they are better than me? What should I do to improve myself? a lot of answer are not in the esthetic way but in the storytelling way believe me.^^

_ Don’t be shy, don’t be afraid to bother professional artists, show your work to professional as much as you can, ask them advice, be respectful with them and do whatever they will tell you to do to improve yourself. The only way to thank a teacher or a professional who helps you is to work harder and to follow his advices hardly.

_ Work full time, this is like a olympic game, this is serious : you have to be the best to get that kind of extremely competitive job. You need to implicate yourself a lot. You need to find a routine, you can’t work part time for this job. stay very implicated, stay extremely enthousiast.

_ To become better than other, that’s simple : work twice, triple more than other students. really. When a teacher, your boss seems satisfied, it does not have to be the end of the job.You have to impress people, not only satisfied them. Even if your boss seems satisfied, continue to improve your work after the deadline, until it is really great.

_believe in your potential but stay humble all your life, even after school, keep learning form others, never think you are the best.

Hello Gwynne,

thanks for your kind words. 

I try to first envision the characters I’m drawing as real people. And try to think and feel what they may be thinking and feeling in that moment.

In order to do this to the extent that the drawing is “strongly felt” by the viewer, I believe that the artist needs a large visual vocabulary for human behavior. And to do that, it’s my belief that people need to be very empathic. That means, you need to be able to see other people and be very sharp-eyed and aware of their thoughts, feelings, and attitudes, and really understand it. I’ve seen many solid draftsmen who can communicate complex forms in dimension very well, but not those unspeakable human nuances or subtitles. And it’s my personal belief(subject to change as I grow) that it is because they don’t have the same sensitivity or empathic observation capacity as they probably could if they were aware. 

HOW TO MAKE YOUR ART LOOK NICE: Mindsets

For those wanting to improve their work ethics, here are some friendly reminders that can help improve the way you view your art.

I PROMISE THE NEXT ONE WILL COVER DRAWING CONCEPTS THIS TIME!

_________

How to Make Your Art Look Nice: Lighting

Think your drawings are lacking that extra “oomph”? Maybe adding a little bit of lighting can help!

_________

The “How to Make Your Art Look Nice” Series

Hi

Forgive me I didn’t see your answer, I was really very busy these weeks because I was moving from a continent to another..

It s very hard to answer but it is a very good question. :)

I guess everything is possible. Every paths are possible. Mine is not really normal too… Try to learn from the choice you will do. That’s all. I honestly feel that I m doing the opposite of other people , in the opposite chronological way. I m 34 and I m entering a big company only now. But I also feel that every of my choices made me stronger in order to be able to enter to that company now. I could not have done the classic way. So listen to yourself.. unclassic path make you stronger, but are harder to follow.

My main answer is :  You should choose your own path and trust yourself. Don’t follow other people ‘s path if it does not fits you

If you feel you want to work, don’t go to school. If you feel you are too much alone and you need more feedback, go to school.

 more specificly : I know very good storyartists and directors who has not been in an art school. Most of them are much better than many of other who has been in art schools. a very good reason is : there is no good storyboard class in france. True story. But I know also many great directors storyartits and concept artist have also been in art school. It depends of the person.

I guess it is easier to go into an art school. It reassure your parents, you are like a train moving through rails. You feel safe. 

If you choose to not go into a school, you can succeed but it will be harder. But it doesn’t mean you won’t succeed. It be will harder, that’s all. You will have to grow up and so, why not? And that’s great because when you will got what you want, you will be proud of yourself.

Yes you won’t have all the skill like art student, but you will have humanity skills, growing up skill and believe me, that’s much more precious.. know who you are and what make you different and interesting, and use it in your work.. and of course work twice, or three time more than other people. 

negative point of starting freelancing directly :  you will have to be careful of your own skill, of questioning yourself in order to improve yourself. Because you will start working on bad jobs, and it may kill you creativity if you are not careful. Even when you start a job after having go to art school.. 

main word is : choose well your jobs, focus on your integrity, of why you are doing this job. If you are not satisfied by your job, don’t complain and start working harder. the best you will be, the most choice of jobs you will have.But if you give up, you may loose your creative energy. This is what bad art job can bring you. 

I m not trying to convince you but to tell you what’s good and bad, in each paths, in my own opinion and experience of course. you choose what you want at the end.

Danger with art school in general in france, is they don’t teach you the real production pipe line. so you are trained about art but not work. 

About starting professional life; Why not, again, I have learnt most in my professional experience. But the problem is to loose yourself, to only focus of earning money and not anymore about learning stuff, about exploring your own artistic world. 

So my main advice whatever you choose,  is to stop working for companies or school as often a possible,  during a few months, a year if possible, or only during week ends, in order to do your own stuff. Even if you have a family to feed.. 

remember : art schools or art jobs will never make you become an artist. Only you, your creative energy, and your curiosity can make you growing up as an artist. Don’t wait anything from anybody. So don’t wait to be there or there to go to museum, to read, to watch many movies and not only animation, and not only recent movies, and not only english spoken movies, to travel, to meet new people, to try new art stuff..

don’t play with your artistic energy. Take care of yourself. Time is most important than money. 

Money and job proposal will come if you are the best in your work, don’t worry about it.. Energy, artistic integrity are the keys of whatever you will choose.. listen to yourself and stay enthousiast whatever you will choose.

1. Ah Fai was a chief animator for McDull’s animated features. He’s super cool. Ultimate senpai. 

2. Previous post on breakdowns right here 

Some thoughts on acceleration and force

I presented this in the order of how I slowly understood the trick of delivering force - first an abstract concept of impact taught by Ah Fai, then a more complicated discovery on the acceleration pattern, last back to a more abstract concept of breakdowns. 

Like I’ve previously stressed, 2D animation is everything but one single approach. There’s no one rule that rules them all, but interchangeable ideas with math, or physics, or music, etc. There’s no “perfect” animation either, but what is perceived as organic and dynamic. E.g., using the Fibonacci numbers to animate didn’t bring me a perfect animation! On the other hand, a tiny change in the pattern could already make the feeling of force so much more powerful. 

Illustrations of Gorilla anatomy from: “Des Caractéres Anatomiques des Grands Singes Pseudo-Anthropomorphes.” Archives du Muséum d'histoire naturelle, Paris t. VIII (1855) by G. L. Duvernoy