Christmas Break

Hi everyone. I hope you had a great Christmas. Sorry for not getting back, I have been super busy with the holidays. I had an 1 on 1 with my mentor and we talked about what my next steps should be.

We had a new project where we got to determine the story of our next storyboard project. The premise is someone is coming home to a surprise party. You must have at least 6 characters and the rest is up to you. This assignment is to help work on staging.

Instead of working on that idea, (right now anyways), we decided it would be best to go back to the other project I worked on for the thumbnails and work on fixing some of the shots, and take them a step further. I have been working on these and on another storyboard from an old idea I had a while back. I realized my portfolio doesn't have that much comedy in it so I wanted to fix that.

I have also been working on coloring the D&D illustration I did for Inktober. You can check it out my progress on my Instagram along with some of the boards I have been working on. Hope you stop by again next week. Board On!!!

Holiday Card and Mentor Group Meeting

Welcome back everyone. I hope you all had a great week. I got to have a group meeting for my mentorship, I worked on a holiday card for my full time job, and I got work on a gray scale version of my Inktober illustration.

My group meeting, we got to review some my talented “classmates’” (I am not sure what to call the other people in the same mentorship I am in lol) storyboards. I learned a lot during the review, such as importance of shot variation. I tend you reuse similar shots, with the idea of making it easier for smaller productions to tell their stories. I see that’s not the best way to proceed or think when working on boards. This is something I am going to keep in mind.

Every year my IT job contracts me to create a Holiday card. Every year I pitch an idea of a snow man melting in the server room trying to manually turn on the AC to keep from melting and the server room getting too hot. To me it is the funniest thing and works because our motto is “Whatever It Takes”. We always work our hardest and go above and beyond our customers. This year I finally got it ok’d to be this year’s holiday card. Check out my Instagram page to see how it turned out.

My Inktober illustration had all the prompts this year and I combined them in to one super illustration. Keep an eye on my Instagram page to see how it turned out. Hope you stop by again next week. Board On!!!

Job Interview Results and Thumbnail Critique

Welcome back everyone. I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving. I had my interview for a freelance storyboard job, I got my review for my thumbnails back from my mentor and I worked on an animated logo for myself.

The job interview went well. My interviewer was really nice and liked my work. The job was for a self-driving Ford car. Unfortunately, I did not get the job, but I did make a good connection. They are looking for local people in the future and Robert Half the company doing the hiring for another company does not have a lot of people that do Storyboarding. The lady I interviewed with liked my work and is going to put my name out in their weekly newsletter to their clients letting them know they do have people that can storyboard. It’s a nice way to get my name out there.

My mentor did a critique of my thumbnails this past week and I got a lot of good feedback. He wants to see more perspective and better composition for thumbnails. Adding quick perspective lines will help show if we are looking up or down at the character and even though I know how where the camera is, if I was showing this to a client, I need to be able to convey this to them. Some of my shots had a lot of dead space in them too so I need to focus on better compositions as I work on them. Starting today I am working on my perspective drawing and reading up on what makes a good composition. If I find any books that are helpful, I will list them here as well.

You can check out my new animated logo on my Instagram. Thanks for stopping by again. I hope to see you next week. BOARD ON!

Thumbnail Process and Possible Job Opportunity

Welcome back everyone. Hope you had a wonderful week. I found a storyboard job online that I applied for and during my mentor-ship we had a project to do thumbnails for a story. I turned them earlier this week to get reviewed by my mentor. You can check them out on my Instagram.

I had a lot of fun working on these boards because I got to play around and find what works and what doesn’t for the story. The story in a nutshell is about a boy seeing a magician perform. This magician says that he is going to choose “the chosen one” from the crowd. He ends up picking the little boy and some people pick on him because he is little and couldn’t possibly be the chosen one. The magician does some magic and proves that the boy is the chosen one by moving a bottle with his mind.

My thought process for this was since everyone looks down on the little boy, including the little boy who doubts that he is the chosen one, I would have the camera looking down on him. As the story continues the camera lowers and we meet the little boy at eye level as he starts to believe. Finally when he moves the bottle we end up looking up at him because he is the chosen one and there is no room left for disbelief.

There are still a lot I need to fix on this first pass, but I think it is coming along. There are some parts it’s hard to see where people are in relation to each other and I do cut the 180 rule at one point but I think I can fix that with a camera move. This is a great learning opportunity for me especially since it will get reviewed by my mentor and I can see where I should improve.

As far as the job I applied for, it looks like it is a freelance job that could lead to more down the road. I have a phone interview/meeting on Monday and I will let you all know how it goes. Thanks for stopping by and I hope to see you next week to see how the meeting goes and more progress on my thumbnails. BOARD ON!

My Journey Begins

Welcome all. I have created this blog to document my journey as a Storyboard artist and getting a full-time job at a Studio. I will keep you updated with any new freelance jobs I get, jobs I apply for and the outcome. I will also post some of my artwork and any videos I make.

A little about me, I have been working as a freelance storyboard artist and have worked on Music Videos, Short Films, Commercials and even helped a photographer with his concepts. I went to Academy of Art University and found my passion with storyboards. To help accomplish my dream working as a full-time storyboard artist, I have signed up for a Mentorship with Sergio Paez. I will be working with him to improve my abilities as a storyboard artist and build a better portfolio.

I am looking forward to this coming year to see how much I improve. I hope all of you enjoy my journey as well.