Hi hi!!
Just so say in advance but for some reason i cant write questionmarks so ive just put them in brackets of where they go lmao.
I wanted to shoot you a message and so I hope you dont mind but I was wondering what sort of portfolio you submitted to be able to work on Unicorn Warriors Eternal, I currently am an animator who has been struggling on getting a 2d animation job for a few years now and I was wondering if you would have any advice for someone who feels like they are struggling to get into the industry (Questionmark) Your animation for the show is amazing and I love the little bit of fanart that you made of melinda and edred too!!
Once again, sorry if this is a bother but I figured that I would atleast try to ask :)
I still feel super lucky honestly and I've only ever been at this one studio so far, so I don't know how helpful this is gonna be but I'll give it my best shot haha
This was my old showreel straight from the end of university which I had on my portfolio site when I applied:
https://youtu.be/42ubnrPGx2Y
I was lucky in the fact that the main thing I enjoyed doing during uni was animation clean-up in TVPaint, aaaand then I saw the job listing looking for... animation clean-up in TVPaint! I'm still not the best at rough animation, but as you can see my reel had lots and lots of clean-up examples, and that was exactly what Studio Zmei was looking for.
So, first tip: Focus your showreel on what you want to get a job for! If you're applying for rough traditional animation, show your roughs vs the final thing, or a clean-up heavy reel like mine if you wanna do clean-up, or a reel just for ToonBoom rigged animation if that's what you're applying for.
Second? Tip? Look for more obscure studios, or ask around your local studios (if you have any) if they offer internships or even junior level jobs? Studios are often really biased towards local people, and I was lucky that Zmei just happened to be situated in my home city. We often get interns not from any listings but just from people showing interest in an email. But I also know that's a bit unusual and a lot of studios are more closed off?? And going back to the more obscure studios part: The more well known a studio is, the more insane the competition to get a spot is, hence why usually it's not so much your portfolio's fault rather than the huge influx of candidates. This is where looking at general animation job listings sites can help a lot, and I even found Zmei's listing here in the first place:
https://animatedjobs.com/
aaand there's one for games too: https://gamejobs.work/
Lots of studios use these and they also have twitter/instagram pages to keep you updated as well. If a job is listed as remote, go for it! A lot of smaller studios that handle outsource animation are often starved for animators. (a lot of those do 2D rigged animation in ToonBoom or Adobe too, so it's def worth making a fresh reel for that if it's up your alley) Following a lot of studios on social media and especially LinkedIn helps too, as some of them post listings there exclusively.
And, third tip - there's no shame in starting small. I constantly get spammed by studios looking for mobile game animators or educational video animators on LinkedIn. Sure not all of those are gonna be worth looking into, but a lot of my friends started off like that. Every little bit of experience counts and builds up your CV. It's really hard to jump straight into being a rough animator, or a designer, or a storyboarder. Even my role of doing clean-up is considered more junior, and we had lots of people who did only coloring and shading too. And the more entry level version of a storyboard artist would be a storyboard revisionist. Everyone starts somewhere!
Other things like putting a direct link or linktree to your portfolio site or showreel easily accessible on all of your social medias could also help, as recruiters often have no time to dig for that stuff. (altho I'll be honest I've only ever been approached once (1) by a local studio on just instagram, so that's a really rare occurrence. still helps to be prepared though!)
I hope this was somewhat helpful haha. Good luck!!!
ellievsbear
gummygunk
baratheonpilled
titsay
andulkaphoto
germansingergirl
kaledo-art
turnnoffyourmind
