Summer 2011 - Internship, post-grad employment, stolen car

 What a crazy Summer this has been for me! As many people know, I've happily spent the first few months of my post-grad time interning at Hallmark Cards in Kansas City, MO. It was  an awesome experience working in such a creative, multi-talented environment of writers, illustrators, sculptors, designers, and animators.

Mostly, I spent my time both at work and outside of work glued to my computer screen as I had a lot of side projects going on in addition to my time at Hallmark. I had to learn the hard way that taking on more than you can chew is sometimes a very bad idea, especially in the working world where going to work half-conscious from an all-nighter just won't fly. Still, I managed to get a lot done this Summer even if I was stretched thin between my side projects and my 8-5.

I was fairly surprised when I was offered the job of Multimedia Designer II at the company. To be honest, I was constantly humbled all Summer at the sheer talent of the workers there, and although I possess animation skills not yet supersaturated there, it's hard to imagine me living up to those high standards of art direction and design! Ultimately, I'm excited for the challenge.

 It also took a lot of consideration to fully decide whether or not it was something I wanted. A lot of my peers are either in California or New York right now and I needed to do a lot of soul searching as to whether or not I should try to join them.


It made me think of my time at SCAD. I walked in the graduation ceremony in June and was honored with an outstanding achievement award!
I do think I did a pretty good job in school, although I'm not sure outstanding is the word I'd use! I could have done better with my education- used my resources more, planned out my classes better, and the like.  I did take school pretty seriously and I loved it though because I was learning constantly. Over all I'm honored to have received the award.


I think the downfall I see in myself was that I didn't really know the direction I wanted to go with my art skills when I entered art school, and even now I'm torn between so many interests that I really can't sit down and master anything.  I think if I could go back though, I'd focus more on storyboard and illustration, but then I guess I'd lose my animation skills which I do hold very dear.

In the end, I realized this is probably how it's supposed to be that I'm going to be working in a place that will help train me in what I've missed out on while still working with the skills I loved learning from the start. I'm excited to expand my horizons and take a step out of my comfort zone.

 

Though,  it really was the people who sold me on the idea of working at the company. Everyone in the Hallmark community is so talented, humble, and unique. The creativity in the building is amazing! For instance, On the last day of my internship I got a little party and hand-made presents! I was really touched.

My car, hot-wired.

 Besides that, the only other really big thing to mention is that my car was stolen from my apartment's parking lot two days before I was supposed to go home to Virginia! On a list of not-fun experiences I'd say this would be near the top, although it does give me some stories to tell and everything turned out alright at the end. We got the car back and I managed to drive safely home to Virginia (only after a grueling waiting period of getting my car fixed from the burglar's damages, of course). I'll be starting my job at Hallmark in January and until then I'll be spending my time tying up some loose ends. All the while, there'll be a lot of new personal art coming up which I'm excited to tackle and a lot to be done for Taffetas!

All in all, thank you everyone who generally supports me and my artwork, especially my good friends and family. Without all the encouragement I receive daily I do not think I would be where I am today- doing so many cool things and going to work in a place where I get to do my hobby for a living. I am really lucky and thankful for what I have and I hope to continue working hard to make my art and animation something to be proud of! I love you all <3

Intern Show Presentation

Today was the annual creative intern show at Hallmark HQ in Kansas City, MO. Every year at Hallmark, the creative interns show off the work they have done over the Summer. It is mainly for the interns who are leaving in about a week (I and a few of other interns will be there until September), and it is a treat to see what everyone else has done during their time at Hallmark.

I spent 3 days on my presentation including an all-nighter that rendered me pretty useless today (having been out of SCAD for a few weeks now, I've grown much less tolerant of them). I'm pretty proud of the concept though. I used my usual cat-screaming branding to help save some time with looking for fonts, theme, and color choices. Essentially since I am primarily digital, the centerpiece of my presentation is a 21" mac that just displays a close-up the cat's face looking around. Physical word bubbles floating out from the computer direct the user to do 3 things: click the cat's face (to see my digital work), take a business card, or look through a process book/sketchbook I made from my work this Summer.



Click His Face! - the interactive portion of my presentation, his face fills the whole screen of the computer and when idling he just looks around in a loop until clicked.

(You need Flash Player to see this)

I think you can see the inspiration from some of my past works both in illustration and animation for this one (most notably my recent Taffetas animations), and it is kind of exciting for me to see how I was able to re-use old ideas with a new concept to make something unique.

I'm not sure what all I can show right now on my blog as far as the work I've been doing there at Hallmark since nothing has gone live yet, so I'll play it on the safe side and only post the stuff I know won't get me in trouble, a few simple things from the sketchbook in my presentation :).

Lastly, this presentation would not have come together if it weren't for my amazing friend, Yesenia Carrero, who stayed up until the early hours of the morning to help me out a great deal with the Actionscript for the presentation as well as had my back with printing the physical material.

More than anything though her encouragement of me and my abilities really takes the cake. As an artist I have a fairly fragile ego, and while I think I take critiques well and have a fair bit of self-motivation, I can be really down about myself and my work sometimes. I had a particularly rough time this week with that and Jess was a good enough friend to patiently remind me of my strengths and give me the encouragement I needed.

Taffetas & Hallmark : I'm so excited I can't sleep

Here's the turnaround for Gemini Taffeta I did last weekend!

The absolutely amazing Yesenia Carrero is vectoring the turnaround now which will double as our base puppets for Gemini. Might I say: goodness, that girl is A-mazing! The vectored version makes my sketch version cry in shame - Jess is able to add just little small nuances to the final vectors, little fixes and nudges here and there, that really bring the character to life. I can't wait to start animation!

Might I add, Jess is a brilliant designer, illustrator, friend, and co-worker. She and I are co-directors/creators/producers of Taffetas and I wouldn't want to have it any other way! You should totally check out her newly updated website.

Likewise, I would really like to stop and say thank you to everyone who has been supportive of me and my artistic endeavors. It means a lot because I live, eat, and breathe this stuff.

And on a super-exciting note, I am 1 of 17 interns that will be going to Hallmark's annual Summer internship this year (we were selected out of almost 1,000 applicants from around the country!) ! I think I was told I am also the only animator this year, so that's pretty exciting (though a tad nerve-racking).

I'm so excited because I know I'm going to learn a lot and meet a lot of awesome creative-types. I'm extremely grateful for the opportunity.

So, yes, in short: thanks everyone!