What to include in a Portfolio?

[Jaik]

Hey everyone!

Hopefully in a couple of weeks, I will have an interview for a internship at a local animation studio. When I was talking to the person who introduced me to the opportunity, he said to bring in a portfolio or relevant papers to the interview. The studio produces animation which is a mixture of eastern and western style art.
This opportunity sort of dropped into my lap so I havent really been trying to put together a portfolio, especially not one for animation, but they also said there may be room for concept artists in the future, so I think the internship is pretty general and would be a great experience.

The basic question is: What goes in to a portfolio, or set of drawings, for an internship program at an animation studio?
I know that for an art school application they like life drawings, for a portfolio to get into a studio they don't like life drawings but do like design oriented things. This to me is sort of a cross between the two.

Any help you can provide will be appreciated,
Jaik

[eizOga]

Hey Jaik - sounds like this could be good.

Answering is a little tough - as it really depends on what the studio creates in animation (primarily 2D or 3D? Using Flash or toonboom for 2D - or is it classical animation? - is it television series work, or advertising work, or web based?) and what the studio plans on having you do task wise.

I trained in classical animation and worked using flash for video games for a while - so I'll give you a few basic (simplifying things here) guidelines that seem to stay true to most animation outfits.

1. Animation usualy seperates into two categories - layout and animation. Storyboard is often the conjunction of both, while character design mostly stays within the realm of animation.

2. Either way - drawing with a solid 3D foundation is key - understanding 3 dimensional shape and the ability to use economy of line to still describe that shape is important. This means showing character rotations and multi angle views of locations/buidlings/props is good.

3. Though stroytelling is always the emphasis in animation - this distills into drawings in one way - strong silhouette. Making character poses that read well is very important - while always trying to represent some emotion that shows us a little about the charater's personality. Strong use of S and C shapes within your action lines will help retain life in your posing.

4. Expressions - always nice to see someone who isn't afraid of showing their characters emoting - so model sheets of a character or two's faces, using a pinch of squash and stretch in your emotive exageration, would also go a long way.

5. Style - most animation artists are trained to mimic style - so showing artwork of at least a couple diffferent styles will show you are capable of adapting to the various productions they are likely to have - this is specialy true in the case of animation firms that work heavily in advertising.

I think this is enough for you to get started with - and of course if you haven't drawn in this way - I suggest you troll the web for some animation model sheets from some of the big guys - Disney, Don Bluth, Dreamworks, Pixar.

A note on colour - always nice to have colour - though it won't save a drawing - it can help make it stand out. Keep em simple, don't go too far with your rendering, and keep it to basic gradients.

Hope this helps

Cheers
izog

[Jaik]

Thanks Izog!

"new process of animation, combining existing techniques with innovative new ones, to create a process they call Thetamation. The imagery has a stunning aesthetic akin to the classic anime styles of the 80s but embracing the latest in cinematic and noir graphic novel storytelling, that have so influenced blockbuster movies recently. Combined with a unique and top secret colour palette and 5 tone shading system that the Studio calls Sigmacolor" is the description from the studio, I understand most of that, so it's 2D animation.

All of those things are great, I'll get right on to some of those, I'll probably go with creating a character or two with different expressions, a turn around and some basic colour schemes.

Thanks for taking the time to answer.