[Daniel Chou]

Hello guys, let me breifly introduce myself. I am a 16 year old teen who is interested in persueing an art career. In animation or Computer animation. The problem is, I want to know more information on how I can accomplish my goal. Please send me your success stories or URL to a personal biography of an animator or a computer animator. By doing this I can research apond my future, and I can set out goals. Thanks guys

[Daniel Chou]

Sorry I had to post in this section so more people will see it -~

[Sukhoi]

You can check out the homepages of the people here for instance. Not that all are pro's but it might give you a better picture on how such a life COULD be formed.

That my best suggestion, I'm afraid.

Sukhoi

[HawkOne]

Hi there,

I feel that I have to tell you about what I feel is a good, but dangerous choice of education for the future.

Ever since Toy Story came out, there has been a veritable surge of young people who would like to get into that particular business. Now; this is good in the way that more people have the chance to produce original stuff, and it is bad in the way that the industry has become EXTREMELY competitive because of an oversaturation of skilled people.

If you are brave, have big ambitions and are hard working, there is no reason why you shouldn't succeed in your "quest", however there is a large number of very skilled young people already in the business, who are currently just coasting, waiting for the big break.

With the latest surge of CG animation feature films and the like, that is good news to those who started out in the early nineties, but it is unfortunately going to lead to an even greater boom of new talent enrolling into schools all over the world, hoping to be part of a great team in ILM or Pixar or something like that.

The unfortunate part of that is that it will become extremely hard to find satisfying work because the competition is so hard, due to an overabundance of people who want to do the same thing. It will also likely push salaries down and working hours up (80hrs+ per week!!) those who dare to go for this line of work. DO NOT EXPECT to become rich in this line of work, that will take a pretty big miracle.

This has been argued here before, but I will mention it again, don't waste your precious money and time on CG classes and schools. Most software can be learnt in a couple of months, Lightwave has an alleged learning curve of about 3 months, starting from scratch. Learning to draw takes a lot longer, learning to think creatively does too. You should learn software on your own time while being a student at an art school. Most quality software have student pricing of their software.

The creative thinking part, the ability to make up (credible) worlds and characters will also rely on your upbringing, hopefully you have been reading a wide variety of books since you were about 10 (?) and will continue to do so for the rest of your days.
If you have and will, you may well have an advantage over those who have only watched Sesame Street and read spiderman comics. It has a lot to do with exposure to as much material as possible. Needless to say, you will get more substance out of reading one single book, like f.ex. The Lord Of The Rings, than you will from the entire Marvel comics series ever published.

Invest your time in studying art, art history, creative thinking, industrial design, writing, literature (to boost your creativity), and you will become a much more valuable resource. There are so many young people out there who have spent so much time absorbing all they can about the technicalities of CG, while not being able to provide useful ORIGINAL and creative input for the designteam of be it games or films.

It is hard to find quality, creativity and originality nowadays. To many Manga pinhead characters with big hair, Mechazoids and elfins with guns (??!!) is really not helping creativity among young artists overall.

Unfortunately the creative field in particular seems to suffer from these surges of popularity from time to time. Since I started out looking at these areas about 12 years ago, I have seen first a wave of graphic designers, then a wave of multimedia designers (including 3D animation), and finally web designers. Now it seems that hollywood is creating another surge in interest among young people like yourself to be employed in this field.

As for info and biographies I can only suggest you look at places like
CG-Channel artist directory (also, check out their artist interviews)

--- or ---

Highend 3D (look for artist galleries and follow the individual artists to their respective homepages)

Also check out Animation World Network where you should look into the students section of the site, and also the rest of the site in general. This site is huge, and has more info than you can shake a stick at, including interviews with established artist.

If only my career counsellor had this info for me all those years ago ...

I hope some of this info gets you sorted out and on the path to becoming the next John Lasseter.

Good Luck !

[bigfoot]

Hey Hawk,
I think you give gook advive.
But, as you pointed out, If this is what your want....go for it.

Perasonally, I have a totally new idea. I think this is what the industry of
computer art needs,
granted, I have a way's to go, but , talent and perserverience and "ne w" idea's
is what will get one's "foot in the door". I plan to create something "no one"
has ever seen in computer art. I belive this is the way to go!
Originality!

[Daniel Chou]

Holly gee! I must say thanks to all of you that replied. And to the arthur that wrote that huge reply. Thanks now I got 20% more clearer, but I still feel like I need more knowledge.

[VENiM]

cool thread. i also have a few questions about this... hawk, you said that it's difficult to become 'rich' in this business, so i was wondering, on AVERAGE, how much money does a CG artist/animator make per year? i know this is probably a difficult question to answer cause of the many factors involved by it would be cool if there was a set figure to compare with. i was also wondering whether it is possible to be a freelance artist type thing as a side job while having another career. i'm not too keen on becoming a 100% cg artist but i enjoy doing art as a hobby... would it work out?

edit: heh i think we're in the same boat here dan, i'm 16 as well 8)

[ January 13, 2002: Message edited by: Chron!cRAGE ]

[HawkOne]

You want more ??? I thought I talked too much already ...

Well, let's see. I feel that focusing on the art rather on the technology is important, as mentioned already. Training to most of these creative lines of work, have a similar approach, and much of the theory applies in general. I stumbled over this site Drawingclass.com recently and I really enjoyed reading the notes to Art Directors - Fine Art Students and Illustration Students in the Notes area of the site ...

I feel that this info is excellent for people just starting out in the creative field. I know that I was subjected to lecturers who tried to make us see things like they did, and how dangerous I think that is to your own individual creativity and originality. Studying Rothko's squares or any of his peers work, and supposing to find the great truths about life in a splat painted on a canvas is a big waste of time if you ask me. There are many other ways of learning creative/abstract thinking, and learning to see things that are not necessarily there ... it is part of creative thinking, I will admit that. But when I see David Gelerntner (big head, "artist", programmer and author) Studying De Koenigs splats intently, looking for what is not there in the intentions of the painter. I feel that it is the next generations job to "dethrone" the whole scam infested “artists for critics” thing.

Oh well, moving on to salaries. They are of course depending on a LOT of things so it is difficult to generalize. However, I will give it a try. Hopefully others will add to my findings as this thread goes on.

After graduating with a stack full of nice work that you made during your studies, you might look for a job straight away. More often than not, I think fresh grads, if they are lucky enough to be able to work for nothing, will start out as runners, coffeemakers and stuff like that in a good studio. That may last for a year, maybe more, watching the artists work during the day, and then getting access to the machines after work (8pm ?) if you are lucky. Then it is your time to get busy on the machines, to prove how fast you can learn, and if you can produce nice looking stuff. Do not expect to have much of a life during this period, invest your time in learning as much as you can from those who have "been there, done that" as you can, and try to practice it when you can. Salaries during this time vary from absolutely nothing (!!! ) to those lucky few who will have an "apprentice" salary of maybe up to 10-15K (US$) Those who expect high salaries right out of school probably need to wake up out of their dream. As far as I know that has never happened. This runner position is usually just available in big companies, they are few and far between, and you may well have to move, leaving behind family and friends to look for your dream job.

After you have passed the stage where you have picked up enough knowledge (and trust from the AD) you may be assigned to do little things like modeling simple 3D props(lampposts, trashcans), look for/make textures, library research (historical events to dragon anatomy) and stuff like that that will include you in the process.
Hopefully you will have an increased salary from 10-15K up to about 30K if you are lucky.

From that stage you can see how it goes in this link, Career in Animation, where there is plenty of good info, including salaries you can expect if you succeed in your early years.

Since the users of Sijun does not only come from the US of A, I will quickly add that I believe it (USA) probably does have the highest salaries in this field in the world, and also the largest amount of companies producing stuff.
If you go for the next stop down on the ladder, the next spot on the planet will probably be London and Paris and probably some cities in Canada. From there (in Europe) salaries and opportunities go sharply downhill, especially when it comes to developing countries (like in Malaysia where I currently stay), 10K US$ is considered a very high salary for a person working in the creative field, seldom overtime payment is given, and if it is, it will be a symbolic sum of say 10$ per day of overtime, regardless of you leaving an hour after or stay until the next day. Usually, there are no benefits either. To add to that, Malaysia and India is also booming in the 3D department, due to easy access to pirated software, a copy of Maya Unlimited/Complete costs maybe 2 US$ on a CD here, XSI, Houdini, Lightwave, 3D Studio Max and a whole host of Plugins that alone would cost thousands of US$ are also easily accessible. This is, contrary to belief, a good thing I feel, as it exposes artists to tools that would be impossible to get hold of otherwise, thereby creating a user base of whatever product. These artist would never otherwise had purchased the software, but they are able to learn it, and get hired somewhere where they did buy it (hopefully).
Of course, if companies who could afford to buy it use the pirated versions too, to make profits, that is of course an entirely different matter, since they DO represent a loss for the owners of the software.

OK, lots of rambling on there in that last paragraph, but here is why it matters ... Because of this surge in skills/interest in 3D and CG graphics in general, developing countries here in SE Asia, will very likely offer manpower to US companies, for only a fraction of the cost of labor they would have to pay in the USA.
Also, people here are well used to being exploited like this, because the hand drawn 2D animation industry in US and Europe have been using this cheap manpower for 2 decades already. People happily (more or less) work until they pass out of exhaustion without whining too much. With a nice filling dinner costing 1US$ here, you may see why this is bad news to US CG artists ...

The only good news I think is that, like with 2D features, the CREATIVE part of making films and games (writing, development, conceptualisation) will still remain in US and Europe, simply because fresh initiative, creativity and originality here in Asia is not (yet) able to compete. This has many reasons, upbringing, and education here is not even close to what we are used to in the developed world, and it will take a long time before people here will admit to this. Of course there are plenty of exceptions to this “rule” and some people really do know their stuff. The trouble is that they are not organized, and the capitalists ( read money) here have little or no respect for artists in general, treating them like factory assembly line workers, interfering with the creative process, thereby killing off any chance of a good product.

Phew ... that was two long posts in one thread ...

Hopefully, among all my personal views and rambling, there is some useful info.

[Daniel Chou]

Holy! You completely borw me away again!!! I thank you so much for these information, your words are like GOLD TO ME!!!

[HawkOne]

Hey again,

I just bumped into some more info regarding salaries (in USA)from Motion Picture Screen Cartoonists - Union
In the info section there, you can dig up loads of interesting info, like what a lead animator or a modeler would earn at ILM.

They also have a load of employment contracts from many of the biggest Hollywood studios there ...

I particularily liked the salary wage minimums in the general cartoon and movie industry .... it is kinda klunky to find so here is a direct link bypassing the frames ..
Wages