David J. Signing Off

Today is my last day as an Intern at Smiley Guy Studios! It's hard to believe just 13 short weeks ago I started my time here. When I first started I was pretty nervous about how my first experience in the industry would turn out. Would I be able to cultivate the skills necessary to become successful in this field? Would I fit into the studio?

I feel very lucky to have been able to work on three different shows during my time here because I think that doing so stretched my skillset and understanding of the different styles and subtleties that making each show look distinct and unique. Getting to do special effects was a lot of fun too!

Furry Force was my first experience in the industry and let me tell you, there’s nothing I won’t animate now. It was a lot of fun working on the shot where Leon timetravels to the past to warn Vivisector because I got to do hand drawn special effects for the lightning, plus it was SO hilarious making Leon shiny. Later I moved on to Chirp.

Doing Scene Setup on Chirp was an interesting experience because it's one of the jobs that I didn't realize existed. I had expected that it would have been the responsibility of the animator to bring all of the characters, backgrounds and audio into the scene. Now I realize that it actually makes it so much easier to get the animations done quickly because the elements are already sitting there waiting for you to make the characters think and act.

Animating on Chirp was really fun! My favourite character on the show is Squawk. I love bluebirds first of all, and Squawk is so fun to animate because he’s so boastful even though he’s always the first to run away. I like that mix of wanting to the great but also having alot of panic and fear. I think Character Animation is by far the most challenging facet of animation. Getting an appealing performance from the characters is always a new challenge every day but I feel like I’ve gotten a lot better at it since working at Smiley Guy.

I have been working on Wussywat for the last couple days. I really like the characters. They have really cute individual personalities and it makes the acting choices a little more obvious because there is more variety between how they think and behave. On Wussy Wat the characters have more complicated rigs and they do a lot more moving around than on Chirp. Yesterday I had my first Skype meeting for Wussy Wat. It went well but I will ask more questions for the next time.

I am incredibly grateful to have been given the opportunity to work with such a great group of people who have mentored me throughout my time here as in intern, and look forward to moving into my new role as an employee at Smiley Guy Studios when I return from a week long trip in Montreal.