I don’t work at Cartoon Network any more. But I’m going to give you a very quick portfolio review in hopes that you find it helpful!
Here are some things I noticed when looking at your stuff - lessons I learned from brilliant people while working on AT for two years:
1) AVOID SYMMETRY. Humans are organic, randomly shaped animals. Perfect symmetry rarely exists in nature and if it does, it’s conspicuous - it’s the exception rather than the rule. Find interesting ways to throw your characters off-balance.
Don’t repeat objects in twos - (buttons or rips or whatever) - it feels prescribed - cluster things in threes or fives if necessary.
2) AVOID CONCAVITY - I don’t know what else to call this. But it’s those lines that go “in” rather than “out”. You are using inward sloping lines to describe many of your characters. As an exercise, try using outward, rounded, voluminous lines to draw EVERYTHING. Humans are fleshy lumps connected together by other fleshy lumps. Each mass is either in front of or behind other masses and as a designer, it’s your job to tell the animator where it is. As a designer, you are providing a technical blueprint for the location of masses.
Only occasionally allow a concavity to connect two convexities. Look at the work of Robert Ryan Cory (spongebob), Tom Herpich (Adventure Time) or Phil Rynda (AT / Gravity Falls) - master character designers - for examples of this. If you need to, trace a couple of their drawings and you will see what I mean.
3) AVOID GRAPHIC DETAILS - Some shows use a graphic style; it’s very appealing and looks clever when done right. But in animation, everything needs to move in space - so if you use a graphic element - it needs to correspond with an actual 3D thing that can move. Therefore it is better to start with a voluminous style and then revert to graphic elements where appropriate. Art directors will look for this. Do not jump straight to graphic representation if you do not yet know what you are representing.
Look at the work of Tiffany Ford and Jasmin Lai for amazing examples of volume expressed graphically.
4) STUDY JAMES MCMULLEN - To truly understand volume, and fully respect your subject, you should read very carefully High Focus Figure Drawing by James McMullen. Slow down and think about drawing “around” your subjects. It’s a truly meditative experience when you get there. Think about the weight and mass that your characters, props and effects are experiencing. Many students from SVA - Tomer Hanuka, Becky Cloonan, Rebecca Sugar, James Jean - studied under McMullen’s philosophy and you can see this common richness in their work.
Jeffrey Smith, a top student of McMullen’s now teaches life drawing at Art Center. These are two of the best illustration schools in North America - anyone who is interested in drawing living things, should probably read his book.
Also look at the work of Andy Ristaino or Danny Hynes - two other character designers’ whose work is seething with volume.
I hope this is useful and I hope you have a wonderful career.
Right now, I’m sifting through 50+ applications for a new entry-level position. Here’s some advice from the person who will actually be looking at your CV/resume and cover letter:
‘You must include a cover letter’ does not mean ‘write a single line about why you want this position’. If you can’t be bothered to write at least one actual paragraphs about why you want this job, I can’t be bothered to read your CV.
Don’t bother including a list of your interests if all you can think of is ‘socialising with friends’ and ‘listening to music’. Everyone likes those things. Unless you can explain why the stuff you do enriches you as a person and a candidate (e.g. playing an instrument or a sport shows dedication and discipline) then I honestly don’t care how you spend your time. I won’t be looking at your CV thinking ‘huh, they haven’t included their interests, they must have none’, I’m just looking for what you have included.
Even if you apply online, I can see the filename you used for your CV. Filenames that don’t include YOUR name are annoying. Filenames like ‘CV - media’ tell me that you’ve got several CVs you send off depending on the kind of job advertised and that you probably didn’t tailor it for this position. ‘[Full name] CV’ is best.
USE. A. PDF. All the meta information, including how long you worked on it, when you created it, times, etc, is right there in a Word doc. PDFs are far more professional looking and clean and mean that I can’t make any (unconscious or not) decisions about you based on information about the file.
I don’t care what the duties in your previous unrelated jobs were unless you can tell me why they’re useful to this job. If you worked in a shop, and you’re applying for an office job which involves talking to lots of people, don’t give me a list of stuff you did, write a sentence about how much you enjoyed working in a team to help everyone you interacted with and did your best to make them leave the shop with a smile. I want to know what makes you happy in a job, because I want you to be happy within the job I’m advertising.
Does the application pack say who you’ll be reporting to? Can you find their name on the company website? Address your application to them. It’s super easy and shows that you give enough of a shit to google something. 95% of people don’t do this.
Tell me who you are. Tell me what makes you want to get up in the morning and go to work and feel fulfilled. Tell me what you’re looking for, not just what you think I’m looking for.
I will skim your CV. If you have a bunch of bullet points, make every one of them count. Make the first one the best one. If it’s not interesting to you, it’s probably not interesting to me. I’m overworked and tired. Make my job easy.
“I work well in a team or individually” okay cool, you and everyone else. If the job means you’ll be part of a big team, talk about how much you love teamwork and how collaborating with people is the best way to solve problems. If the job requires lots of independence, talk about how you are great at taking direction and running with it, and how you have the confidence to follow your own ideas and seek out the insight of others when necessary. I am profoundly uninterested in cookie-cutter statements. I want to know how you actually work, not how a teacher once told you you should work.
For an entry-level role, tell me how you’re looking forward to growing and developing and learning as much as you can. I will hire genuine enthusiasm and drive over cherry-picked skills any day. You can teach someone to use Excel, but you can’t teach someone to give a shit. It makes a real difference.
This is my advice for small, independent orgs like charities, etc. We usually don’t go through agencies, and the person reading through the applications is usually the person who will manage you, so it helps if you can give them a real sense of who you are and how you’ll grab hold of that entry level position and give it all you’ve got. This stuff might not apply to big companies with actual HR departments - it’s up to you to figure out the culture and what they’re looking for and mirror it. Do they use buzzwords? Use the same buzzwords! Do they write in a friendly, informal way? Do the same! And remember, 95% of job hunting (beyond who you know and flat-out nepotism, ugh) is luck. If you keep getting rejected, it’s not because you suck. You might just need a different approach, or it might just take the right pair of eyes landing on your CV.
And if you get rejected, it’s worthwhile asking why. You’ve already been rejected, the worst has already happened, there’s really nothing bad that can come out of you asking them for some constructive feedback (politely, informally, “if it isn’t too much trouble”). Pretty much all of us have been hopeless jobseekers at one point or another. We know it’s shitty and hard and soul-crushing. Friendliness goes a long way. Even if it’s just one line like “your cover letter wasn’t inspiring" at least you know where to start.
And seriously, if you have any friends that do any kind of hiring or have any involvement with that side of things, ask them to look at your CV with a big red pen and brutal honesty. I do this all the time, and the most important thing I do is making it so their CV doesn’t read exactly like that of every other person who took the same ‘how-to-get-a-job’ class in school. If your CV has a paragraph that starts with something like ‘I am a highly motivated and punctual individual who–’ then oh my god I AM ALREADY ASLEEP.
Very good post thanks for this.
Excellent advice for building and submitting job application documents.
This is the first good resume advice post I’ve seen on this site. Much better advice than the “lists of active verbs to use” and “here are resume templates”. Follow this advice.
some dude on survivor outed another survivor who happened to be trans and called it “deception” like this was some damn soap opera and everyone was like ”lmao that’s personal and not your fucking problem?” and the host immediately said “We don’t need to vote, just grab your torch” and had him kicked off. that’s some instant fucking karma.
here’s the clip if anyone is wondering
it was really shitty and a super aggressive tactic, and the host made a great point of saying “you didn’t just tell 6 people, you told millions of people”.
what i like about the full clip is that you can visibly see this guy slowly realize what he just did, and how it would affect his fellow contestant outside of the game, and he is absolutely HORRIFIED with himself. it’s a much more satisfying conclusion knowing that the guy wasnt actually hateful, he was just a stupid dick who wanted an upper-hand in the bullshit television show game, and he was fully willing to be voted off because he knows what he did was unimaginably damning.
also the host is cool as shit
Literally just reblogged it but reblogging again for the added content
❝ Hey uh, I dunno if you've heard of this but I thought you should know. There's a yearly tradition in Queensferry, Scotland called Burryman Day, where they cover a guy in giant burrs and parade him through town, feed him whiskey and he brings you luck. There's a super good video on YouTube about it if you're interested. Hope you're having a good day~ ❞
honestly, one of the best things about samurai jack is that subdued 30% of the show that consists of jack seeing the weirdest shit ever and just giving this tight, polite, yet vaguely pained look, like
I have no idea what the story of this anime is, and it’s pretty obvious who the protag is, but I’m gonna add character to the girls to the left with no face
introducing these two background characters in this slice of life romantic comedy/drama - they love each other a lot, and the girl to the left is grumpy because her girlfriend to the right forgot to give her her good morning kiss.
taller girl on the right is oblivious because she was so excited when they got up because she’s treating her girlfriend to a surprise date at the amusement park that she forgot to give her a good morning kiss. they’ll have their first smooch of the day at the very top of the ferris wheel 💋
the guy to the right of the protag (with the glasses) is a simple office worker who loves his family very very much and cannot wait to get back home to his children
The guy on the far left is wanting to get home to make dinner. He lives alone, but he promised his kitten they would have some grilled fish as a treat! He loves her very much.
The tall one behind the two girls just got back from a job interview. He didn’t get the job but he’s confidant he’ll get the next one. He needs to provide for his son and two daughters after all.
Person to the left of the pink hair girl is a retired hit-man struggling to adjust to a normal life but hes recently found a woman that works at a cafe down the street from his new job and things seem to be going well.
the man on the far far right is anxious as it’s his and his boyfriend first date aniversary and that’s the longest he lasted in a relationship, he is confident that this one will last tho
