[T-cude]

Greeting all..~ This is the first time i'm posting althought i have been to this site umpteen time. Think i can't resist the temptation of asking if anyone can commend on my site, althought my sole purpose is to seek advises.
Well. i a diploma holder, majoring in animation. Am serving my national service now. In another word, in army now. Will be finishing in half a years time.
Have been thinking of studying aboard. Kind of in the dileman of whether to study animation or film making or illustration or even go into fine art. But the thing is, is study essence, what i saying is more of like maybe i can self train, read more book, interact with masters (kind of refering to this site.) and grow creativity. This problem keep on pondering in my mind becos i'm kind of not so rich but i am really looking forward to foreign exposure.
To really go aboard to studying( kind of looking at UK or european area.) i have to like work two to three years time, and still i may not still have the amount of money to go aboard.Have been looking into a few scholarship that exist locally, but still, is it worth it.Going to school and study.
Will really appreciate it if anyone can get back to this post

*sorry if my english isn't that good.

[ May 10, 2002: Message edited by: rei ]

[bearsclover]

I don't see why you can't do both. A formal education is a wonderful thing. Sometimes, for many professional fields, it is a necessary thing. You say that you already have a diploma in animation? I assume that your current degree would get you a job in many fields?

So, is your goal to get an additional degree, or to just study and learn more, to widen your artistic range?

There is no doubt that you could learn a lot on your own, and by studying and practicing. And getting feedback from online art forums, such as this is also undoubtedly very helpful. But some education is better if it is hands-on. And only you can decide if it is worth your money and effort to work at going overseas to get further education.

Perhaps you should study on your own for a while, and see if you are improving at the pace and in the direction you want. And if you are unsatisfied with your progress, then seek out overseas education.

[HawkOne]

Hi there rei, or should I say Ray, welcome to the forums.

I have kind of done the opposite of what you are looking to do, I am a Norwegian, I got a BA(Hons) in Visual Communication (a pretty broad subject) from an art institute in the UK and then moved to Asia after 3 years of studies.

bearsclover's advice is sound I think, but just to add my own longwinded mumbo-jumbo in here, as for your question, in my biased mind, yes it is worth it.

Not necessarily just because of what exactly you learn, and exposure to learning many related subjects, but also to learn to think differently from what you may be used to from the SE Asian mindset and to live/experience a different culture.

I met my wife in UK, while studying, she is a Malaysian and she had 2 years in a pretty good private art college here, before going to UK for the following 2 years. She (and her friends) has told me about the methods of education/lectures here, where you are handed out photocopies of everything you need. This is called spoon feeding in my mind, and it does not encourage students to research and dig up their own answers, as a result of this, the general knowledge is pretty bad, since it is limited only to what you are provided by the lecturer, and many students from SE Asia are having huge problems with the methods of studying in the "western way" in Europe or the USA.

There has been a lot of talk about this phenomena in the local press here in Malaysia, and the current method of "spoon feeding" (the official term) the students is being scrutinized heavily by the various faculties because the Malaysian students who are not aware that they are being spoon-fed, and think everything is as it should be, perform badly, especially in the theoretical subjects when doing their studies in the EU or USA. According to my Singaporean friends, this whole issue is only slightly better in Singapore.

The same is the case with language skills; it is hard to get a report, or worse still to get your degree Thesis written in "Singlish" (Singapore-English) or "Manglish" (Malaysian-English) past the pass mark in an English based institution. This is another concern for the local governments, and they are thinking about reintroducing the English educational system that was left here by the English colonial "Lords" in order to bring the English skills back up to what it once was. The strange "trigger" being that older peoples mastery of English is better than the new generation, when the opposite is usually the case in non-English speaking European countries. I assume the same is the case in Singapore, since its history is almost identical to Malaysias.

Creativity is appreciated very differently in Europe/USA and Asia. I've lived just across the border from you, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia now only since August '98, but have had some time to try to figure out how things work here. With Singaporeans being slightly more "sophisticated/fortunate" than the average Malaysian as far as I've seen, because of better economics and education, however the situation here is still quite similar to that of Singapore.

There are of course plenty of exceptions to this statement, I'm sure; I just haven't met any of them. ( I've worked with about 30 Malaysian Designers / Web Designers / Illustrators / Video Editors and 3D animators/modelers.) and with one exception, they all strike me as mindless drones, they see it ,more as a chore, rather than their passion, being a creative person only from 8:30 to 6. Some are VERY passionate about making money though, bordering to con-artists , not caring much for the quality/pride of their work or if the client is reasonably happy.

( Some trivia for those of you not familiar with SE Asia, 8:30 to 6 is the normal working hours here in Malaysia, often working half day on Saturdays, average salary for a Graphic Designer is about US$400-550 per month, if you're REALLY lucky you could be earning towards US$750. The same exact conditions apply to those other categories I mentioned, for Singapore, I believe you can double those rates, but then again you'd double the rates for your living expenses too, so it sort of evens out )

I must say that the design/creative scene here is very commercially focused, with substantial influences from modern Japanese/American culture, which is both good and bad. Good because the inspiration is generally of a high quality, bad because it is discouraging/hard to compete with the best, and it is also not encouraging originality and possibly also a more exotic local flavor.

The little local content worth noticing, such as
A Malaysian Friday
, that may be immaculately well done technically, but is virtually without content or substance, and if it does have content, it is often uninteresting / mundane / naive / childish and toothless, or any combination of those, maybe also because of strictly enforced government censorship in both Malaysia and Singapore. There are some highlights here and there, but they are very few and far between.

Many designers here continue to try to "emulate" (read: copy) styles and concepts rather than inventing their own. This happens all over the world of course, but to an almost pathetic degree here in Malaysia. Some of my ex colleagues have brought the term "rip off" to new heights and are generally praised for doing so.

Also here in Malaysia it is also common procedure that managers without art education or knowledge are managing the teams of artists in their departments. This is of course leading to some hilariously bad design decisions here. I don't think that situation is as bad in Singapore though, since ADs have a bit more influence and grip on the situation.


The artwork on your website is really nice stuff; you have definitely got some sort of personal style going, which is so hard to develop. I really like most of your illustrations minus a few of the manga ones. I�d say that in my humble opinion your strongest pieces by far are your �own style� characters, that is, those that are not �overly inspired� by some other manga movie or comic. The website is pretty good too, maybe you could use a bit more �design� as in your �Sprith� ( Sprith webpage ) illustration where you consider text and background and such. Making small thumbnails of your artwork instead of just hyperlinked text-titles would be good too. Maybe you could hunt around a little for a free web server that doesn�t spawn quite as many pop-ups as tripod does. Lycos Multimania France for example. ( ... in french obviously, but you should be able to work it out with a bit of research)

Holy smokes ... if you read all that you deserve a medal ...

[T-cude]

>bearsclover
Thanks for u'r advise. Well.~ i'm actually looking forward to foreign exposure. At time i kind of feel that the working environment here dun allow u to explore. The onli thing u end up giving client is something that is seen somewhere. At time that irritate me. But kind of been thinking, maybe just do whatever i like than to do so much pointless thinking.
"Action speak louder than word."
Will try to excel..
>HawkOne
Thanks for visiting my site. Well, actually i have been thinking of re-designing my site, but i guess it will onli happen whenever time permit.
Actually i'm really looking forward to go aboard to study, but the fact that i not rich make me think twice.~ Think i will kind of take up bearsclover's idea, keeping a look out whether i'm developing into what i want to be..~
Sometime i keep on telling myself. michelangelo is self train so can u. haa..~
looking more on the postive side.~

thanks for the advise
Will be visiting the site more often