Online course
Character Modeling for Production

Character Modeling for Production

The hardest part of this industry, like most, is finding your first job. But there’s also the difficulty of keeping that job in a competitive market.

The vfx/animation industry has exploded in the past decade; an influx of international visual effects movies are being made every year by more and more smaller companies which has created this boom in our field. It’s a fast paced and exciting industry to be part of and in this class I want to share with you some techniques and tips that I’ve learned not only to help you learn the basics but also to push you further in your career path.

I want to treat this course as if it’s the first day on the job so you understand how modeling is done as a professional but this doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to be an advanced modeler to take this class as this can also be excellent for beginner level modelers.

With more and more people entering the field every year, how do you stand out? Thomas Jefferson said, “I'm a great believer in luck and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it.” In this course I’ll go over modeling in a production pipeline and go over some common characteristics of successful artists that I’ve noticed in my experience that make them succeed and continue to thrive.

Modeling is much more than just making something look “cool.” Your model has to be functional, believable, economical, appealing and practical for other departments to work with. Working in production isn’t like working on your own personal projects; you don’t have the convenience of being the only one working on the asset, you have to be aware of how your artistic decisions affect the rest of the departments in the pipeline. I’ll go over some do’s and don’ts with you to make you understand this process more easily. To name a few: you’ll have to juggle nailing a design from someone else’s vision, handle tight deadlines, multiple supervisors' feedback, manage long hours, work within a team environment, handle criticism and indecision, make rapid changes and present your work well, with confidence. The big key to all of this, I’ve found, is maintaining a positive attitude. Remember, people have to want to work with you. “For success, attitude is equally as important as ability.” - Harry F. Banks

At the end of this course I hope you will have learned a lot about making a successful character model for production, how to improve your own workflow to increase your skills and efficiency, and lastly, I hope that you now have a solid understanding of what it takes to excel in the vfx/animation industry as a successful Digital Artist.