I'm currently in charge of hiring for my department at an animation studio and i REALLY WISH i had the time to respond to 500+ emails with advice on how people can improve their portfolios. it's frustrating because i see potential but either their website design is hard to navigate, they didn't provide a website at all in their email, or they dont have common things we look for like anatomy studies. it feels like a failure to put art school grads out there without these common sense resources.
WE FEEL YOU. All of us are in the same boat. Most folks who are ADs or in a similar hiring-artist position really DO want to help artists, but we would drown and never get our real job done if we answered one person at a time. That’s why this Tumblr exists, and all the resources at Drawn + Drafted and Make Your Art Work. Art schools really should be teaching this stuff, but Art Biz Education is spotty at best. So our merry band of Art Directors are doing the best we can to spread reliable info from the people actually hiring artists. Feel free to refer all these folks to our free downloadable onesheets on gumroad. There’s ones on how to set up a portfolio, how to self-promote on social media, how to read contracts. etc.
P.S. If you ever want to answer questions here at Dear AD drop us a note! We’d love to have more folks weighing in from the animation biz!
—Agent KillFee








