Website update

I revisited my website because it was not showing enough work and the layout was terrible. I looked at other animators' website and found out that there are more styles and option on wix that I can use. Therefore more experiment and play around with different format and presentation of work.

On the showreel page, I updated the latest one and make it slightly bigger in size.

I made a separate page for both animation and illustration. The animation page shows some of my pervious work in a better layout. It does not open another link when click to the image but showing the animation straight away instead also with a slide of thumbnails of other clips under. This is so much better than the previous design, audience can choose what to see immediately also with brief description on top. Much more clear and organised.

I made three sub-page in the illustration section. Character, environment and daily sketches. I think this could allow me show more work both serious and casual art. I used slideshow to show full image instead of showing thumbnails because they look better together in big size.  Previously there were only a section of each illustration showed at the bottom of the animation which looked so unprofessional and audience might not want to click to the image because they were so unclear of what they are especially when character designs and background designs were put together.

I did not put too much daily sketches because most of them are very scribbly and all over the place. This makes me consider the way I sketch...it is time to be more generous about paper. Do not draw in corners of paper. I also include my anime drawings..but not too many since it is not everyone's cup of tea but all these sketches can show how diverse my styles and flexible I am.

Change another profile picture that actually show (some of) my face. I think this is better than just a random gif or illustration. It be also be good to have a drawing of myself which I never done in my life so photo might be a better choice.

I added a mailbox so it is much welcoming and professional looking. What's more, I paid to upgrade my wix account in order to get rid of the wix advert.

My website is also my portfolio. I am happy with how it looks now and how much it improves after that. I will keep updating it (as I paid for that) and share the website in other social media.

http://wingchiuanimation.com     <-----please click!

Illustrator Practice

Since the application to Intoxic Studio, I started praticing Illustrator because it is a skill they are looking for which I am terrible at. I have tried making some proper illustrations from illustrator before but I was not skilled and worked slowly. With these frequent practices, I hope I could be skillful with the basics also speed up the pase. Youtube is where I find the tutorials from, most of them are very simple with direct instruction therefore I just played around the software at the spare time.

I think keeping a theme to all these practice would be quite fun to look at at the end so I illustrate food just because I am a foodie. Usually illustrate what I ate at that day!

A quick reflection after a week of illustator practice: It definitely requires time to be familiar with the software. So far, I remember some hot keys and the pen tool but still a lot to learnt in order to illustrate complicated images. What I am not happy with is that the end product looks right but the working progess is not professional and the vectors are very messy. Therefore I will keep experimenting with easier shapes, really picking up the software from basic, build a strong foundation.

Applying internship:Intoxic Studio

I feel very lucky that I followed Intoxic Studio on Facebook and immediately feeling the impact of social media and follow other studios as well. Found that they hiring summer interns! No doubt and less than a second, rushing to get all my portfolio and website ready for the application!

I encountered difficulties when typing the cover letter because I have never done it professionally. My first draft was a bit short and was not saying any reason why I want to apply to this job.  My second attempt was a bit too flattering said my friends so I kept re-typing...

The final cover letter is done! Proofread by a few friends both from the UK and from HongKong. I think it is important to ask people in Hong Kong how job application is actually like in order to prevent cultural difference since I have not applied jobs through email in Hong Kong before so the advice I received from my friends are very useful. I managed to get the website finished and also add an extra page of illustration because Intoxic Studio wants to see an illustration portfolio. After making sure there are nothing left and triple check the spelling and everything... I hit the spend button! I really hope I could get this internship because Intoxic Studio is a famous and potencies new studio in Hong Kong who include cultural elements in their feature films. What I need to do now is to prepare for interviews(if I get one), research more deeply into their studio, practice my introduction and BE CALM!

Logo design

The Animation Wing brand name and logo I used last year was not good. 1. It is old fashioned. 2. I want my name to be my brand instead because it looks more professional. Therefore I want to come up with another logo using my name.

I want to use image of birds/wings/feather since my name is quite unqiue in English. 

After a few sketches, I had this design which is a feather made by the letter W. I really love this mark because of the uniquness and meaning behind. Cleverly includes my name and a relavent icon. However I struggled to find the matching type for it.

These are too chunky.

Eventually I had this thin and slender font which looks much more better than the fat fonts because the logo becomes the focus of the brand also stay clean and clear. I also layered a watercolour texture on top in order to show my interest in meix media. 

In my showreel, I also hand wrote 'Animator & Illustrator' under the logo. I think having some hand writing can soften down a bit and add more fun elements to my brand. 

For the profile of all my social media, I used this abbreviated logo! Very Chic isn't it!

The social media icons in myshowreel is also hand drawn because I can not find anything similar with the same colours. I think this unify the style of my brand and be original!

Studios in Hong Kong(2)

Intoxic
http://www.intoxic.com.hk/contact


They specialise in 2D/3D Animation, Character Design, Motion Graphic, VR 2D Animation and Visual Effect. Our services include TVC, Online Promo, Facebook/Instagram Promo, Animation Episode, Animated Feature Film, Event Animation, Internal Communications, etc. Our works have won numerous awards, including: ANNECY, HKICT, IFVA, TBS Digicon6, GCIA, HKMFF, etc.

Intoxic becomes my most wanting to get in studio in the list because of the main aesthetic and their achievement. They mostly focus on 2D and motion graphics and produces their own short films and projects. On their facebook page, it seems like a very cheerful working environment, not very big but cozy. Only one thing I concern about is that they required professional in illustrator. I do not know illustrator very well and it is time to practice more and get really for the job. Other than that, this is my dream studio for now and really hope I would get a good respond after sending them my CV.

Treehouse studio
http://www.treehse.com/plus/contact

Treehouse Studio provide the entire creative pipeline for animation production.
We do animation, character designs and other digital visual contents
for advertising purposes.

Treehouse Studio is a 3D based studio that there is hardly any pure 2D animation shown on their website. I like this studio because their ideas for commercials are interesting as well as the beautifully created characters. I can see they pay great attention in characters and most of the clips are character driven so the there might be a chance they need character designer. However there is still a big possibility that they look for 3D animator as well so it might be a good idea to start recalling some maya we learnt from second year, just to practice character modelling again before saying I could animate in 3D. Nevertheless, I do not mind to learnt from scratches if they offer training to their animators so it worth a try contacting them as well.

Studios in Hong Kong(1)

The animation industry in Hong Kong is growing slowly and gradually since the last decade. Even the industry is not rapidly developed as other industries do, there are still quite a lot of small animation companies or studios in HongKong. Some are originally local studios and some are branches of overseas animation companies. Most of them I saw on their website focus on 3D which is understandable because it is the trend but still luckily there are still some remind 2D and character based.

Treacle animation post production
http://treacle.com.hk/index.html

A post production animation studio that does:
Video Production

Commercials (TV & Online)
Event Visuals
Corporate Communications
Animation (2D & 3D)
Live action
Motion Graphics

They do a range of different animation and involved in overseas' projects and collaborations such as animation for BBC worldwide. On their facebook page, they only use English and showing a lot of pictures including foreign animators so I wonder it is a studio with mix culture. I think a studio with different people in the world will be very interesting and allow creativity grow continuously and the types of job they received is very diverse and challenging. The only thing I concern is the main focus in post production which means editing will be the majority of the work. There might be fewer original project or character focused animation but i guess it is very difficult to achieve in Hong Kong. It is believed that most of the studios in Hong Kong could survive mainly due to doing commercials... they are not big enough to produce feature films and earn from them. Therefore working on commercials will become the main job in the future I guess so there is no reason to be picky at this point.

Simage
https://www.simage.hk/

aim of the studio:
Simage animation and media ltd specialied in the art and technique of creating commercial production for all styles of animation. They persist in the originality and creativity and to tell great stories with fun. 

Short film:SIMAGE has spent over a decade in mastering story-telling techniques by consistently developing new stories.  Every now and then, the team challenges themselves with original short films and experimental creative projects.  With over 20 awards from Japan, U.S., Taiwan, and of course Hong Kong, we have been widely recognized for our exquiste talent in story-telling through moving images.

Pre-production and concept development:


I am so intrigued by this studio! Their diverse style allows so many different genre of work to be created. I love how they look into the latest VR technology and encouraging the team to create original short films from now and then. They also collaborate with overseas animation studios such as Digital Frontier in Japan working on the clothes and hair simulation in Resident Evil:Damnation, 2012. The preproduction also looks awesome and it seems like they hire people with a wide range of style from 2D to 3D.

I think this is a big studio because they produce their own animation and short films also involving in overseas' projects. Also their animations won a lot of awards so it is a relatively well-known animation studio in Asia I think. Since they embrace various styles I think I will be suitable for this studio because my work is quite flexible as well.

CV

I decided to start making my professional CV and there is a template on the E-studio which I think 

is a good starting place. Additionally I looked at my boyfriend's CV for references as well just as to see how different people do their CV.

So after looking at the template I knew that my very first CV was terrible (which I typed during first year). Absolutely a disaster and not professional at all. The format is wrong, no covering letter and so little information I put..do not even want to post it online. Anyway here is the improved version mostly inspired by the template CV

With the big bold name and all the work experience and interests, it is more like the professional CV that could proudly show to others. I am very regretting sending my previous CV to the C-major studio in Hong Kong last year and thinking I should resend this to them again to see if I would get an internship or work experience from them as well as other studios. Mike said the wording of personal profile could be rearranged...it is a bit difficult for me so I might ask other classmates to help me with that.