5.1 - Schwa

As a collective, we distributed some of the branding work among us, I was responsible for the logo and business cards:

Logo

We wanted to use the same logo we developed for PP last year, but I made sure it was commercially viable by swapping out the font for a free commercial use one.

Business Cards

I came up with 2 simple designs that matched the themes, and presented both individual details and company details (individual details refer to the person's individual brand, not their personal details.) Having a consistent theme helps sell our brand, and helps with being recognised as Schwa.


What could be improved:

• I might make some more personalised designs for the members of Schwa for a bit more personality in the cards.

5 - Brand New Me

Online Presence

I designed a little icon-like logo for my website (it's not my official brand logo, but it'll be around):

The :P emoticon reflects both my personality and my brand and is a P for Prathik. Its simple design means it can be refitted and recoloured to suit the seasons and to match my ever-changing themes. 

https://prathikp.wixsite.com/portfolio

However, for the sake of consistency and brand, I'll be using my icon as my "logo" and the :P as the tiny image in the tab for the website (when I figure out how to do it).

Also, for my personal freelance work (which is on hold since my study visa doesn't allow for freelance) I estimate my hourly rate will be £15 per hour for animation, which translates to about £15 for finished rendered illustrations, or £10 for flat colours. This may be subject to change with a bit more experience, depending on how things turn out.

Social Media

• Instagram: @prathik_art,
• Twitter: @prathik_art,
• LinkedIn: Prathik Poojary,
• Vimeo: Prathik Poojary,
• (Tumblr & Newgrounds are also viable platforms that I exist on, but I will have to update them if I plan to use them).

Business Cards

I've already made 2 versions of business cards, but I decided to update them, since I am not as active on my tumblr and I'm running out (I just changed my tumblr to my twitter):

CV

For my resume, I kept it simple and stuck to my colour theme. I don't have much relevant work experience so I kept it brief and clear, while advertising my skills. Hopefully my showreel and online presence will make up for my lack of experience, if not, I can always apply for more internships to buff up my CV.   

4 - Exit Strategy

My exit strategy, and plan, is to form Schwa after graduation. I will also be doing commission work and freelance on the side to sustain myself while Schwa begins its incubation period.


Things to do before graduation:

• Develop Schwa business cards, showreel and brand (almost done),
• Refine personal business cards, showreel and brand too,
• Research and apply for a Start-up visa and its requirements 
• The processing time is ~8 weeks,
• Requires an endorsement letter from the university, 
• Scout out accommodation in Huddersfield (and look for storage over summer),
• Apply for a National Insurance number (not sure if this is before or after applying for the work visa).

Things to do after graduation:

• Apply for the visa in early July so Schwa can be official in September,
• Register for self-assessment with HMRC,
• Set up art commission sheet and freelance profile as a part-time job alongside Schwa,
• Look for clients as Schwa, and do advertising/music video gigs to build a portfolio, while keeping our passion projects on the backburner.

Early Schwa Brief

Ages ago, we got approached by a doctor interested in making a series of animation (he contacted Tisa as she's our resident doctor animator!) We hadn't really set up our rates and animation style tiers, so this was a good experience to establish them (since we weren't too sure about how determined the client was in commissioning us). I made a quick table to roughly gauge how much we could charge for this project (taking into consideration the number of people involved, the fact that this might count towards our 603 live briefs, and our animation experience).

We judged our rates by a few variables; animation complexity and duration, and made a few tiers. Tisa then created a animation tier showreel:

Even if this projects fall through, we've now got some idea of what and how to present products to clients who don't know much about animation.

3 - Network time

My LinkedIn profile

Updated my banner, showreel and About section

Some people I've connected with (a lot of these had to be online due to social distancing but that's not a problem for me!):

• Renato Roldan
• An art director and a 2D vfx animator I reached out to for advice on 2D vfx and its influence on character appeal for my context of practice module, I was able to do a little written interview over email with them,

• Daniel Hamman
• Held an online storyboarding/composition tutorial during the strange quarantine lockdown period on Zoom, that was incredibly useful (I got a lot of helpful tips and feedback on my storyboards and animations in general).

Dan giving me some storyboard feedback on Zoom (I promise it's him!) 

• Learnt a lot about what the industry is looking for - a specialist is more useful taht a generalist, though a generalist is more suited for their own freelancing.
• Hayk Manukyan - 2D tradigital animator at Warner Bros. Animation, their social media content is very informative and I can learn a lot from their process,
• Thomas & Henry Purrington - went to their talk at Manchester animation festvail and learnt a lot about setting up a studio with a small team (I can put a lot of their advice to practice for Schwa), 
• David Wevill - has a lot of similar interests as me (animation, video games, storyboarding),   
• Ashish Rawat
• Joanna Boyle
• Wayne Maslin

Sound designers/musicians (connections from the Leeds College Music collab meeting):

• Ellie Baker (she's working with us on our 603 film),
• James Hogson (sound designer for our previous Heinz project),
• Rafael Abranches,
• Matteo Falco.

Networking opportunities

• Face to face: 
• Encounters Film Festival 2019,
• Manchester Animation Festival 2019,
• Yorkshire Games Festival 2020,
• Annecy International Animated Film Festival 2020 (in consideration - unfortunately, visa requirements and cost might get in the way),
• Cardiff Animation Festival.
• Online:
• Instagram - have a few commissions on hold (due to my visa restrictions),
• Twitter - also have a few commissions on hold (till I get a work visa and can do entrepreneurial/freelance work),
• Loopdeloop (submitting loops allows me to present my work and link my socials which really gets me out there), 
• LinkedIn
• RubberOnion - a fun animation community I've been part of for a while in quick, monthly 15-second animation competitions, 
• Skwigly events page (for a master list of networking events that I could just list here),
• r/animation on Reddit. 

Yorkshire Games Festival

Last Friday, I went to Yorkshire Games Festival in the National Science and Media Museum in Bradford (it was a 2-day event, but we were scheduled in for uni on Thursday). Even though it was more focused on games development and design, I felt it related to my specialist practice and my interest to be a video game animator/character designer.

Me and the squad posing beside a clock tower whose name I do not know.

Our silhouettes

Here's a summary of what I learnt and how it applies to me:

• William Pugh, Crows Crows Crows - A guide to unconventional games development:
• You can get a lot from simply knowing people, or if people know you have a certain skill/niche/style,
• A lot of free-to-play unprofitable games can pave the way to bigger projects (this could apply to animation/illustration, aka 'exposure'), 
• (I also learnt what twine games were, I might want to have a go at making one).
• If you can't be personal with a pitch, be brief and concise. 

• Patrick O’Luanaigh, nDreams - The futures of games:
• Cloud computing, VR, and AR are is likely to explode in popularity over the next five or ten years, this means a lot of VR/AR animation jobs might open up, or even jobs we don't even have names for yet!

• Alysia Judge - How to talk to games media:
• Games media is important for marketing (useful information in the event I want to create and release a video game),
• A good press release has images/gifs. Good images usually have:
• Human faces
• Bright images
• Action/mid-fight shot
• Main subjects that fall in the rule of thirds grid.

• Emma Hollingsworth, Coatsink - Principles in practice:
• (This was the only animation-focused talk, but it was more focused to beginner animators as it talked about the basics of the timing and spacing principles of animation. However, I did learn a lot too.)
• Timing and spacing have a huge impact on the acting/weight of a movement,
• Some tips and tricks I learnt:
• don't overlook environmental animation (like doors and curtains),
• practice body mechanics,
• make your own reference footage - BE SILLY,
• "Just because you graduate without a job doesn't mean you won't get one,"
• It's important to show the different styles you can do (cartoony/realistic) in a showreel, 
• If you've got your principles down, but no game design experience (like me!), that's not going to stop you getting a job in the games industry.

• Craig Duncan and Veronica Heath, Rare - Building the world of Sea of Thieves:
• A very informative look into the dynamics of a games studio, and the relationship dynamics between the sections.

The many different sections of a (very big) games studio

All in all, it was a really informative festival! We also visited the museum and its animation section too:

2 - Scan the Horizon

I am planning to start a small studio with friends called Schwa. As of now, it is a short term plan, if successful it will be developed further, but if not, it will provide valuable skills.

My dream role is not one specific role, but more of a generalist approach. I would like to have the freedom to alternate between roles like art director, 2D character animator and effects animator (though I wouldn’t mind settling into one of them). Potential places I could look for job offers/commissions are social media platforms like LinkedIn, Twitter or Instagram (using my professional art account). Networking at animation related festivals too is a way I could potentially meet people and look for job opportunities.

The skills that I need for this are software proficiency (TVPaint, ToonBoom etc), organisational and time management skills (spreadsheets, Gantt charts etc) and people skills. I have found that the average annual salary of an entry-level animator is around £17,000, which I think will suit my lifestyle. But in a new studio, this average might be different, as work might not be steady enough in the beginning.

A lot of my presence as an artist is on social media too, which I’ve also used to network with other artists (it also pairs well with my introverted personality). However, face-to-face networking is something I need to work on. Most of the networking I’ve done so far has been done in animation and film festivals, meeting up with creators and recruiters alike. For example, at MAF I met Katie Gascoyne, the recruitment coordinator at Blue Zoo (and I enquired about internships, portfolios and CVs). I will need to broaden my networking more and research and attend networking events.

Part of my limitations after university will be the visa requirements if I’m going to be working in the UK. This includes having accommodation set up, and having some form of formal documentation related to the studio. I will have to further research the visa requirements as the rules are likely to change, and also apply beforehand, for a smooth transition from a Tier 4 to a work visa.

My other concern is getting enough work as a studio to sustain ourselves. In the beginning, we might have to rely on grants and funds to break even, and getting clients might also not be steady. We plan to put up showreels and demo work as a method of advertising, but we aren’t very sure how we’re going to get paid work (we will have to research this too). We have also considered putting the studio on the backburner and applying for internships in the meantime but we still have to workshop this idea.

Things I have to research/work on:

• Networking events and actually networking
• Work visa requirements
• Interning at other places while part of this studio?
• Finding clients and paid work as a new studio.

Encounters Film Festival

Over the summer holidays, we (Cameron, Damo and I) submitted our animated documentary, AfterLives, to festivals around the world. We got screened at a few places, Encounters being one of them! We were also invited to go watch our film being screened at Bristol too in September! (We only got two free passes so we split the third, this made me realise most teams are represented by a director-producer combo). 

That's us!

What I learnt:

• I quickly learnt how differently films are judged and presented compared to animation since animation has a whole different set of limitations. However, I did notice what all of them had in common was a captivating narrative, regardless of medium and pace (eg. stories in VRChat, black and white films and isometric CGI), 
• Also tried the "if you're nervous about networking, arrive early" method, managed to network with a few film students,
• The Opening Shot is very important - sets the tone and pace of the film and introduces characters, 
• Went to all the Q&A sessions for the animated films to learn about the process and obstacles behind the making of short films
• Crowdfunding, how it works, where to draw the line, don't promise the audience things you can't deliver,
• Also promoted AfterLives to a film student who was curious about our lanyards (with my rusty social skills).

What could be improved:

• Up on the big screen, I noticed the subtitles I made were massive, I could've submitted a different version so the subtitles would match the screen size.

1 - Presence 👏 Review 👏

I am a generalist animator and illustrator, though my focus is more towards animation. I am drawn to animation because it is both a technical and visual discipline, and this balance pushes me to learn new skills. I also find it fun to do, and want to make a career out it.

My interests are character and vfx animation and I mostly animate in 2D. I have some experience with other mediums, like 3D CGI and 2D puppets. A lot of my skills are quite technical - I have a strong understanding of different software, and when I don't, I'm quick to learn using online resources. My academic side is not as strong as I’d like, but I have been reading relevant books and articles.

At the end of the course, I plan to form a small studio with my friends, called Schwa. This will need a lot of research and development, and will also have a fair share of networking, but we have already begun to take steps towards this. We plan to take on advertising and other gigs, and then expand to bigger projects.

My online presence is fairly frequent on Instagram and Twitter. My LinkedIn, however, will need some attention - it needs to be updated. Schwa too, has an Instagram account, but we will have to expand Schwa's online presence with its own website and other social media accounts. I plan to have a website for my own brand too to act as a central hub.

Study Task 10 - Showreel

This showreel contains mostly my second year work (with a few clips from first year) and it features bits of animations made both for the course, and for other online competitions and personal practice. It also has a mild focus on special effects animation (the Heinz explosion and stopmotion ketchup beam, speed lines and sparkles etc) which I think will be something I might specialise in.
Since a lot of the animation projects in this were made in teams, a lot of our roles in these teams were very broad, with bits and pieces of everyone in almost every scene. This made it difficult to outline exactly what my contributions were, so I made sure to choose scenes where I did most of the work.

Studio Brief 3 - Talk the Talk

Collective Presentation

Our collective is called Schwa and comprises of Damo, Εleni, Prathik and Tisa.

Our roles:

• Individually:
• Damo - producer, networking manager, generalist animator with specialist interest in backgrounds
• Tisa - studio manager, editor, generalist animator with specialist interest in storyboarding
• Me - director, branding, generalist animator with specialist interest in special effects and post production
• Ελένη - social media director, generalist animator with specialist interest in character design and 3D modelling

• As a group:
• We represent the link between words and worlds,
• We are an international group of creatives with a variety of skill sets, with a common interest in 2D animation, both digital and traditional

Our target audience is children and young adults
Our showcase will be in the form of a showreel on our (mock) website.

Personal Research

My personal research was the visual elements of the collective, more specifically the branding:

The logo was an adaptation of the 'Schwa' (ə) symbol brought to life.

Various iterations of the logo

The final logo

I also animated it to reflect our collectives' ideas and imagination:

I was tasked with identifying our competition and potential clientele:

• Some of the clientele we would like to work with are:
• Cartoonnetwork, CBeebies, and other kids animated series channels,
• Netflix, Adult Swim and other online streaming services,
• Making animated advertisements for different companies too, such as:
• Nike
• John Lewis
• Starbucks
• Red Bull

• Our competition are the animation studios we look up to and are inspired by:
• TheLine
• Adult Swim
• Ankama
• Tinmouse Animation Studio
• Brown Bag Films
• Goldenwolf
• Our peers and colleagues!

Brand Style

I tried to keep our brand style consistent with a specific rules:

• The tone of our brand is wacky, fun and professional, which is why we have a consistent (royalty free) font for headings (Supersonic Rocketship) and for body text (Roboto).
• I have chosen a colour palette that has bold, bright and wacky colours, with enough contrast to work together:

• The brand style also has no sharp edges/borders, it has curves instead to reflect a friendly, non-hostile aesthetic.

Studio Brief 2 - Going Live!

Feb/March Loop de Loop - PIG

I've animated plenty of pigs before, but instead of use of using a previous animation, I used this opportunity to practice drawing backgrounds, and experiment with lighting (there's a lens flare from After Effects for about 3 frame when the pig eclipses the moon).

The background is inspired by Steven Sugar's backgrounds in Steven Universe.

I also used this competition brief to familiarise myself with TVPaint. 

What went well:

• The integration between animation, and post effects worked well, enhancing and interacting with each other,
• The audio used was recorded myself (the footsteps) to help with the timing of the pig walk cycle.

What could be improved:

• A static camera was used which might make the scene boring,
• The pig was simple enough to have been done in the painterly style of the background (but due to time restraints I refrained from this!).

Character Design Challenge - Caveman [UNFINISHED]

I began painting this really detailed piece, experimenting with Photoshop brushes, till I realised I had only worked on the background. I vaguely remember a rule from the Character Design Challenge and looked it up:



What could be improved:

• READ THE RULES!

Character Design Challenge - Alebrije

This challenge was interesting in that I needed to do a bit of research first to find out what an alebrije was. They are fantastical creatures with bright colours and patterns, much like the creatures in the animated film Coco. I referred to the Art of Coco book to look for interesting patterns and designs. A lot of the alebrije were combinations of animals so I combined two flashy creatures, the crab and the peacock.

Study Task 9 - Collective Enterprise

Our collective is called Schwa and comprises of Damo, Εleni, Prathik and Tisa.

Our roles:
Damo - producer, networking manager, generalist animator with specialist interest in backgrounds

Tisa - studio manager, editor, generalist animator with specialist interest in storyboarding

Prathik - director, branding, generalist animator with specialist interest in special effects and post production

Ελένη - social media director, generalist animator with specialist interest in character design and 3D modelling

We chose to be a collective as that would allow for more creative freedom for us to pursue our own projects, and it would allow us to contribute our skills to a project when needed.

Employability Fortnight

The speaking professionals that came in to give talks were quite useful to me as I tend to be slightly uncomfortable when it comes to networking, and seeing myself as a brand.

I enjoyed the talks by the people from The Bulb; Sheila Young and Rick Ferguson were very bold and interesting. Their talks were interactive, by using team-building drama games, which worked well since I mostly learn by doing.

I also learnt a lot about dealing with stress,  thanks to the talk by Mind It. It made me re-evaluate my my outlook on things. I've recognised that a lot of my coping mechanisms for stress are unhealthy; not sleeping enough, not eating etc, and so I've learnt to consciously deal with stress using more healthy coping mechanisms (walking, exercise, doing the dishes). I also started making a 'Grateful list' where I identify what I'm grateful for each day, which has made me more optimistic.

Other talks about C.Vs and my brand, although quite sluggish, were very informative. They were a wake-up call for me to do something and be active. I made a few business card prototypes that reflect me and my brand:

Study Task 8 - Work Freelance/Self Employment

Day Rate

I whipped up a spreadsheet to calculate my day rate. To simplify it, I assumed I will be a full-time freelance animator in the UK (the UK.GOV website is very convenient!):

Since my annual income was beyond the Personal Allowance Limit I had to pay 20% income tax.

Income Tax rates and bands as of now (2018-2019) from the UK.GOV website

But £10.23 seemed a bit low... it was just over minimum wage! 

I then used YourRate to calculate an estimated day rate:

£17 per hour seems more appropriate, YourRate got to this number by multiply the rates by two to account for taxes and savings. Since the average animators hourly rate is about £15, as a freelancer I'd charge £17 per hour, or £136 per 8-hour working day.

Study Task 2 - Bless you

Bless You - David Barlow-Krelina

I stumbled upon this animation through an article, outlining David Barlow-Krelina's latest work Caterpillarplasty. Although it did interest me, it didn't catch my eye quite like his previous work Bless You.

I really liked the experimental vibe of it, the art style and ultimately the simple concept of a sneeze.
This made me look further into fish eye, and try to get a 2d look with 3d assets.

http://www.skwigly.co.uk/david-barlow-krelina/

I recreated the digital fish eye effect in after effects, by applying the CC Bulge effect on a 2d animation in After Effects;

This however, wasn't very effective since the source footage was 2d. I should attempt to try this in 3D now but alas, time is a cruel master.

This "experiment" made me consider in specialising in compositing, especially in the context of compositing 3d and 2d assets together

Study Task 2 - Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

I recently just watched Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, and it is a stunning piece of animation. It has a beautiful art style, integrating 2D and 3D together seamlessly, and still getting that comic book feel.

One thing that particularly stood out to me was the colour-bleed-depth effect, which I later found out was called chromatic aberation. I attempted to recreate this in a small study piece of fan art.

Spiderman: Into the Spider-Verse has no doubt turned a lot of heads, and this made me realise that animation can be very powerful not just in the animation world, but in the broader film industry too. In the future, I might look at animating feature films and/or animated films as part of a studio (or as a freelance animator if I'm big enough!)

Before chromatic aberation

After chromatic aberation

Study Task 7 - Social Media Pro

My current social media for art-related stuff:

• Instagram - @prathik_art
• Newgrounds - produde123
• Twitter - ProDude_123
• Tumblr - prathik-art

I use these as an online portfolio/ art log book, to track my progress and interact with artists with similar interests. Also for self-validation...

 I usually post illustrations of things that interest me, with the occasional animation (since they take longer to make). Sometimes I will document my process too, with work in progresses and/or timelapses.  

I plan to restrict my Instagram account into a more professional account, to reach out to potential clients. This will meaning unfollowing all the meme accounts and making a separate private account. 

Twitter is really receptive to work in progress animations, this could be the platform that I post more regularly on, while Instagram will be my polished portfolio type social media platform. 

Newgrounds will be the art platform to post art that doesn't fit in either. 

I plan to post at least 2 work in progresses per week, with finished pieces sprinkled in between. When I have more free time (like during Easter and Summer) I plan to bump this up to 2 finished pieces per week.

I want to try to narrow down my focus on what type of animation I produce, but for now it is a tie between looping animations and/or tradigital hand drawn animation.

Study Task 2 - Special effects

I am an avid fan of Rebecca Sugar's Steven Universe series. So much so, that I obsess over the smallest details - especially the special effects.

I love the bubbly aesthetic, with child-like wonder in the show, I even tried to implement that into my Character and Narrative story, which is why I volunteered to do the special effects in our group.

Steven Universe special effects slowed down

By going through an episode, frame by frame, I managed to replicate some of the sparkles, energy and intensity, in the Sally's invitation scene;

What went well: 

•  Special effects usually enhance visuals but they are rarely, consciously noticed. Actually studying special effects helped me animate them better.

What could be improved:

• I could experiment with different types of 2D special effects, such as steam, smoke, fire and water,
• I need to know the rules and limits, have I used too many sparkles?

Study Task 5 - Copyshop

I've been posting my art online since late 2015, but I've only recently seriously invested time and energy to making my brand. 

My main internet art place is Instagram, where I've been posting quite a lot. Although there are a few, personal, unprofessional aspects, such as the highlights, I don't mean to monetize this account yet. 

 

I use my Instagram as a documentation of some sorts, where I experiment and mess around with things I find interesting.  

I even went so far as to make a pie chart of my Instagram posts!

Instagram has standard U.S copyright rules, so I can only post artwork I've created as long as they don't violate Community Guidelines. However, this doesn't stop people from "reposting" artwork or posts... but I don't really find reposting (with credit to me) annoying...

I also occasionally post collaborative artworks with other artists on Instagram, but I make sure to ask for permission and credit them in that post with their social media handles:

I also post artwork on Newgrounds, but I initially used it as a platform to participate in competitions. Newgrounds focuses much more on animations and storytelling, unlike Instagram which is slightly more diluted. 

Newgrounds makes it clear which Creative Commons license you want to use which I find quite helpful. 

I don't really feel the need to watermark my work, as I am not making money off any of it (due to visa restrictions) but I do occasionally sign the bottom-right of my art pieces. 

UPDATE:

I have since updated my Instagram, and made a separate personal account (I also did this with my Twitter):