12 month plan

As a part of my assignment I have to write up a twelve month plan for when I finish university. It is quite difficult, I have been thinking about what I want to do after I finish this course throughout the whole year, it was quite stressful. I have gone through a few situations where I thought I will give up on this work and start something else. Most of the time it was thoughts along the lines of selling my car buying a hippie van and going to Australia, live on the beach with the turtles. But something kept me going. And I thought and re-considered everything, all my options and possibilities and I still do not know completely, where I will end up or where I will want to end up. There are a lot of things I want to be doing to come to a decision. Things that will develop my skills and prepare me for what’s out there.

The most important thing for me is to find a job after I graduate. Pursuing a career is very important to me but I still have responsibilities and bills to pay. For that reason I am putting a professional curriculum vitae together in order to start applying for jobs in and around Leeds so I do not create any more hassle and stress for myself. While hopefully working I can develop my creative portfolio in my spare time. Perfect things that still need polishing up, and create variety of other things to make my portfolio more interesting. Gain new skills. And keeping it as a hobby for a little while will take all the stress away from it. For the past few months I felt like I hate what I do but it is purely because I have been stressing about it for far too long now. I am not giving up on seeking creative work. But I believe it is something that will take time so I am just trying to work out the best way to do it and having a steady income while I search for another job sounds like the best idea.

By the time I finish this course I will have a showreel and a social media account for my creative work. I am planning on keeping it alive to attract people and hopefully after a month or two of working hard on it I will have developed a good audience. Social media is just a great way to get your work out there and I am planning on using it to the best of my ability.

I will be posting progress of my work and occasional tutorials there to inspire and share my knowledge with fellow artists. The idea of doing tutorials came from my vfx project. Last year I created a huge challenge for myself by wanting to create a tornado with maya fluids. It was a huge task and took a lot of time. It was very difficult because it seemed to be such complicated thing to do the people who knew how to use it did not want to share with others because it gave them an advantage over other artists. There were no tutorials or much explanations on how to deal with fluids. The tutorials that are out there barely cover the basics of how to use this tool. So it took a lot of time to figure out, I have been uploading tests and playblasts to youtube. Since then I had quite a few people wanting me to share with them and create a tutorial on how to use fluids. Doing it will do a lot of good. I think it is a great thing to do, be able to teach someone something they do not yet know. I also think it will be a great way to attract people to my website and build relationship with other artists, it may come in handy further down the road.

Another thing I want to do is upload progress of my work and anything I do. I want to explore and learn new software because when I was flicking through job advertisements I realized that a good artist should have plenty of tricks up their sleeve. In a world with so many artists any bonus skill is great because you will have a little advantage. The software I want to explore and master are things like Mudbox, and Houdini. These are the things that pop up everywhere, and I have been wanting to try them for a long time now. I realized that most of the professionals use it so knowledge of Houdini will definitely be a great asset. When searching for a job it will definitely come in as a bonus.

When I am financially stable and will feel like have a strong portfolio I will start approaching creative companies to maybe gain some experience or maybe start applying for junior positions if I feel I have a strong enough portfolio. I do not want to do it before because I always felt like you have one chance at making a good impression and I just would not feel right spamming someone with my showreels and portfolio more than once. So I want to make it count. Another reason is that 90% of jobs are not even near Leeds. I would have to relocate and for that I need money for. So a sensible thing to do would be to save up, and that is what I am going to do.

During my research into the creative companies I have figured that I am in some cases more than qualified to apply for the junior positions. They sometimes ask for fewer skills than I already have and it makes me feel very confident. I want to keep an eye out for this kinds of opportunities while I still work on my skills. I was not able to apply for this particular one because it was only for residents of New Zealand but next time… When a similar opportunity arises I will not hesitate.

Even if I have a full time job, I still want to keep working creatively. I need to keep perfecting my skills because there is still a lot to learn. Another reason is that when you leave it for a little while you forget how to do things. You get thrown out of a routine and often you make mistakes that should never take place. I have learned that recently after not using Maya for a few months. I completely forgot to do the simplest things like freezing transformations and deleting history. It cost me some time and it is something that is unacceptable in a workplace. Obviously mistakes happen and it is a human thing but I do not think anyone would appreciate if they were as unprofessional as these. So my main priority will be to keep modeling and keep designing more and more environments, keep using all the main programs so I do not forget how to use any of them. It will also enhance my portfolio and show my determination.

As a part of my assignment I was to take part in a competition or collaborate with other artists. I spent a while approaching artists asking if I could use their concept art and create an environment based on it but the truth is, it is hard to find someone who will do it for free. Then I came across a thread on Polycount’s forum where artists share their work with permission for it to be used, obviously as long as the artists get credit. So I found a piece that I liked and learned how it is working with someone else’s idea. I must say it was an experience. I kept catching myself flipping things and tweaking them to my liking and completely forgot it is not how it is supposed to look like. Anyway yes it was a great experience and since then I definitely wanted to do more of it to get used to working that way. Shortly after one of the artists I got in touch with previously explained how the message went straight to the “others” folder hence why he is replying so late. He was nice enough to let me use his concepts for me to develop my own skills, he gave me a link to his website and I cannot wait to start watching this amazing artwork come to life. Contacts like these will keep me motivated to keep doing what I want to be doing. I will definitely keep in touch with everyone I have come across and keep collaborating. It will help getting my name out there and keep me motivated to work.

I am a very crafty person and this idea came up before but university really did not leave me much time for any other hobbies so it died down a little. But, I always wanted to sell my crafts. It is very easy nowadays and I am planning on setting this up. Something like making a scarf is a pleasure to me and truth be told my whole family already has scarfs, including my dog. So while I procrastinate, think of ideas and wait for things to render etc I can do these little things and sell them. They will be one off buys so I will never run into a situation where I have a lot of orders and not enough time to make them. It will be a stress free hobby. So I am planning on setting up a website for this. It is quite easy to set things up and running with websites like etsy. And even easier to spread the word with websites like facebook and instagram. I will sell things like christmas decorations so I will definitely have it up and running before christmas. Which means it will be one of the first things I start doing.

To sum up. For the first few months I am planning on just enhancing my portfolio and gaining more skills for it will give me a better chance at getting a job in the creative industry as well as save up so moving to a different city (or country) will be less stressful. After these 3-4 months if I am comfortable enough with my portfolio and a set of skills I will start applying for job positions. By that time I should also have a clear idea of where I want to be and what I want to do. If I will not be successful the first few times I apply for any jobs I will keep practising and keep updating my showreels and portfolio till a good opportunity arises. Along the line of that work I am planning on keeping involved within the online artist communities. Work alongside concept artists on polycount LevelUp and Brainstorm forums which I am currently a part of. By doing that I will receive constant feedback and also spread the word about my arts. Hopefully if I keep doing that and soonish I shall have a desired job within a year.