Friday, November 27, 2009

pollywog sketches


sketches before the painting.

Pollywogs



pollywog type creature: this was result of a brainstorming session with some other folks. Believe me there is a backstory behind this guy.

Saturday, November 14, 2009

Friday, November 13, 2009

My friend who likes leather


caricature for a friend.. this and the previous drawing both have heads turned a bit too extreme. . I gotta pay more attention to that!

Friday, November 06, 2009

The future of the animator in a global market

Hey folks..
I haven't posted on here in a long. . long time. One of the reasons being that I was in Beijing for almost 2 years and Blogspot is one of the websites that get blacklisted and blocked in China.

Working in animation in China gave me a good understanding of what happens when animation work gets sent to the mysterious "overseas". Animators (including all the creative positions in animation industry) in China are every bit as keen on learning and improving their art as are young animators in North America. And from what I've seen of their artistic ability, China has no shortage of well schooled and talented visual artists, who are quite comfortable with the pencil and brush. China has many very good "old school" art schools where you learn the hands on skills thoroughly. Present day China has tons of animation studios and schools popping up all over the place with the government very much interested in funding and developing Chinese animation content . . which was destroyed by the Cultural Revolution (think "Dark Ages"). They had to start from "zero" but are quickly catching up. Most of the animation schools mainly focus on the technical and are purely for profit. Almost every animation company in China also has their own training centre or school. Often the profit they get from their school is equal or greater to the profit they make from production.

In my experience they have a lot to learn still about managing an animation studio and running things efficiently. Often in China the way to solve a problem is to throw more people at it. . rather than spend more money or try to solve it with the existing people involved. For animation this does not help improve quality or the bottom line. Chinese animators do work longer hours and Canadian animators and they do of course get much lower pay. . but they can pretty much afford the same lifestyle a Canadian animator can because of the lower cost of living in China. Probably the biggest obstacle to the evolution of animation in China is something that is linked directly with her Communist past and Confucian culture. There is very little creativity or innovation. . only an exceedingly good ability to copy and reverse engineer. This can be attributed to an education system that rewards compliance and discourages and even punishes dissent and cynical or critical thought. "The nail that sticks out gets hammered down" is from a Chinese proverb. Also the government that so wants Chinese to stop consuming Japanese, Korean and American animation and comic books. . . is shooting itself in the foot with all of its censorship, overviews, interference and other draconian measures. All of which stifle creativity, but which are necessary to preserving "harmony". Many Chinese have said " We should have been the ones to make "Kung Fu Panda" which was of course wildly successful in China. But no director would have gotten funding for a film that portrays China's national symbol as anything less than perfect. However an infallible hero is a boring hero that nobody can relate to.

These are my criticisms, but all in all the quality of animation in CHina is rapidly improving. The bulk of work that gets sent overseas is production work for TV and games, where the quality does not have to be too high and the cost needs to be low and output fast. It should be fairly easy for a good animation studio manager in China to make profit. They have the unfair advantage of not needing to follow copyright laws.. so they can saves hundreds of thousands of dollars by using all pirated software (which ALL the studios in CHina do). Labor is cheap, though training people takes time. Government is very supportive of studios in CHina. . often providing them rent free state of the art buildings for several years! Most Chinese focus on 3D, so 2D and Flash animation are not very good quality in most studios.

So what is the future going to be for us North American animators? Well we better get back to the basics because probably more production work will get done overseas, but highly creative and culture-centric pre-production will not and can not be exported. I'm thinking I had better hone up my drawing and design skills! Astro Boy is an example of an American movie that did not employ Americans. It was animated entirely in Hong Kong. .. something that most reviews of the movie do not mention. .

We animators are experiencing the evolution of Global Capitalism. The end result is that it will probably be a great equalizer for countries. . Places like CHina will and are getting richer. THere will be more competition for jobs. .not just with your own countrymen. .but with everyone around the world! USA and Canada will probably get a bit poorer. Soon you won't so much have very poor countries beside very rich countries. . but you will have very rich people living just down the block from very poor people in ALL countries around the world that have embraced global capitalism. This is all already happening. . not some prediction about a distant future. So if you are used to living very cheaply, and continue to work hard.. you'll do alright. But if you have been riding on the first wave or second wave of CG animation boom.. and making a 6 figure salary. .you will be in for a shock.. because nobody is going to pay you that much anymore when they have other options. And they have plenty of options now! Even Los Angelos won't be sheltered from this reality much longer. Right now there are more animation professionals than ever before. . thanks to the highrolling and fun lifestyle depicted by the media of those who were lucky enough to ride the first and 2nd waves of CG animation craze. .. but in time I think only those who truly love animation and couldn't be happy doing anything else, or those who have a very understanding spouse.. are going to stay in this industry.