Chien Ying Yu - A 2017 Sheridan Intern

Hello there!

My name is Chien Ying Yu, but feel free to call me Chien! I’m an upcoming fourth year from Sheridan College, really nervous about starting the school semester but still excited!

I’ve been interning/working at Smiley Guys since mid-May and today was actually my last day. This is my first job within the animation industry and I’m so grateful for them to have hired me. I feel a bit sad that it’s come to an end but overall the experience I had here was great! The people who work here are all amazingly nice and friendly! As proof, they even got me a goodbye dessert!!

Erin has been really great with helping me feel comfortable when I first started interning. Joel and Joe has been so patient with me when they taught me about building flash assets and cleaning up, its helped me become more efficient and understand how rigging a character works. Last but not least, shout out to Brad, Michael, and Darien for helping fix the technical difficulties I’ve encountered. You’re the real MVP.

It’s difficult to express what I feel about my time at Smiley Guys but thank you so much for letting me be a part of this team!

Eila Espinoza - 2017 Sheridan Intern

Hey ya'll!

Welp, today was my last day here at Smiley Guy and its pretty bittersweet.  My time here went by insanely quick and I learned so so much! During my time here I learned how to navigate through Flash (which was super intimidating at first but practice makes perfect!) and managed to help out doing builds and animation clean up. Both came with their challenges but I'm super grateful for them because they allowed me to really think about how I'm going to approach my fourth year film! 

In addition to having incredibly talented and patient supervisors, I'm happy to say that everyone I've met here is SO charming and made this entire experience the best! I mean, GEEZ, the free food is pretty darn great! Everyone is so encouraging, willing to help and all around great to be around. I couldn't have asked for a better experience and am forever grateful. I'm really going to miss everyone here and I'm extremely proud to have been a part of a really cool project! 

With everything I've learned, I definitely feel way more prepared to tackle my fourth year film with confidence and I can't wait to put my new skills to the test!

I wish everyone here the best and can't express my gratitude towards everyone! Thank you for a wonderful experience and for making me feel right at home! Kick ass guys!! 

Hasta luego!!

Vincent Is Back on Builds

I worked on two more resources this week after finishing the Jock character from the previous week. Both are resources that I already worked on that need further revisions. One of them is a Mug in a sock that needs to have the tips of the sock changed and the other is blow up sex doll that needs to be tweaked in a bunch of places. I started with the blow up sex doll just because out of the two it needed more revisions and I wanted to give myself a challenge. The notes Joel gave were very helpful. So far I'm getting through them all without any problems! By the time the day is over they should both be finished.

We also filled out a personality survey a few day back for a Lunch n Learn meeting. It was a short survey with 4 possible personality types based around colors. I expected there to be a description for my personality type by the end of it but the point of the survey was only to match me to a colour so that I could find other people who had the same personalty trait as me. I ended up not going to the lunch and learn though so I never got to find any other greens, haha.

-Vincent Chan

Elise Is Green but Also Really Nice and Stuff!

It's almost the long weekend!

This week was all Todd stuff at work. I did some more revisions on Demon Guy, he's looking
great. Then there were some prop revisions and some face-melting; overall it's been a
pretty chill week.

We did this super complicated test on Monday to find out our "personality colour". Mine is
green! I almost got blue, and I'm kind of sad I didn't, because blue people are apparently
really nice and stuff.

No big news with Earl this week, he's just up to his usual business (sitting still, being
green, etc.) We are both looking forward to Canada Day.

Mandy and the 12 Principles of Animation

The last few weeks we focused more on working on the Cancan Dance project, such as animating the characters and building up the props, which is a nice experience.

I’ve learned a saying after finishing the project, which is The more you’ve worked, the more you learn.

This project, helped me improve on the 12 principles of animation, specially squash and stretch, and anticipation, especially when I was working on the leg up and down pose.

The first time I worked on this project, I felt I was unfamiliar on working animation, but after all I felt it was easy and fun, and I was proficient in it.

Juhi Understands the Pipeline

After finishing up tasks for the Beethoven's Wig Can Can finale short, I went straight back into my projects on Todd. Now that I've gotten experience animating with rigs, it was easier to understand the procedure of designing and flashifying assets cleaned up and ready for animation. I'm enjoying seeing the returns on everything I take on. Every learning experience relates back to how the pipeline works in the studio and gaining a grasp on that I find is important not just during the job but for personal and school projects as well. 

Efficiency is key!

~Juhi Out~

Vincent Says Happy Father's Day!

This week I worked on two more character concepts. One of them was a dancing Italian and the other was a dancing Frenchmen.

I've thought it over and I've decided it's time to make an art blog where I can put my stuff. I'm 20 right now and I'll be 21 in December. (three years ago I was 17). I'll make sure to include my middle name, Jon-hin because my last name is the most common Chinese last name. 21 is supposed to be the age of maturity, which sounds so obvious but this knowledge had to pass through history to get here.

Father's day is coming up soon. Love you dad! Love you mom!  

Elise Makes Ostriches Dance

I did a lot of animating this week. I was assigned to pose out a bunch of different characters for a dance sequence. It was very challenging! I handled 3 pirates that wouldn't dance in sync before being brought to my knees by an ostrich rig. Ostriches aren't really built for dance. I tried so hard to make it look not-weird. I hope it worked.

Someone (Joel possibly?) brought in a really neat character design book yesterday. Looking at
it was super inspiring! I should really do more character stuff in my spare time.

My child Earl is growing a 13th leaf, and I personally feel it's his best work yet. Erin put a
tiny plastic elephant in his pot a few hours ago. The two of them are getting along well so far.

Mandy Learns Flash

Time flies so fast. It is halfway of the internship. This week I was focusing on the Can Can Dance project, which is the same stuff as last week.

Meanwhile, on Wednesday, I got to start animating the Can Can Dance. I think it is a great opportunity to improve my animation skills, especially like how to make the sound match the movement of the characters, and how to use Flash to create the Motion Tween.  It is important for me to learn Flash and acquire more knowledge of Flash, not only drawing animation on Flash, but also learning how to animate quickly and professionally. I remember the first time I got an animation test for a Co-op opportunity, and I failed. The reason is I don't know how to animate using Flash. Therefore, I realized I need to learn more about it to be a professional animator, so thanks Smiley Guys Studio for giving me this chance to learn and work.

Vincent and the Dancing Robot

I started on two new characters this week. Both from a new series, Beethoven's wig. One is a dancing robot and the other character's a bald guy, not Beethoven though. The Todd style 's better in my opinion. It's less 'plastic'. If you can't attach a character design to a real life person there's no point to it. Even really cartoony characters. There's something that's just scary about character designs that don't come from reality. Well, it's okay if they're really simple shapes I guess.

Pippa left the studio this week. It was her last week here. Didn't get to talk talk to her much but I wish her luck wherever she may go. Maybe our paths will cross one day. It's been a month here already. I worked on a lot of cool character's and concepts so far.

-Vincent

Elise Goes From Creepy to Cute!

Another busy week!

The interns got assigned to a new project this week. It's an animation for young kids, really cute and full of music! Switching between this adorable stuff and the Todd project has been crazy. I'm sure more seasoned animators are used to switching gears like this, but I'm pretty new at this and jumping from dick demons to big-eyed animals playing violins kind of gives me whiplash. The cutesy animals are pretty fun to animate though!

The studio people went out to lunch two days in a row! Yesterday we went to a pub and I ate a poutine as big as my head. We also played Dig Dug there, which I was not great at. I got to chat  a bit with Aaron, the new employee. He's a cool guy!

Earl got his first haircut this week. By which I mean I pulled the dead parts of his leaves off. Also some of his alive parts by mistake, because I am a bad hairdresser. All in all, he's looking pretty spiffy.

Juhi Celebrates Her Day of Birth!

This week seemed to zip by, but I retained a lot of good memories from it! We started on an exciting new project, and I've been having a lot of fun posing and drawing out the appropriate characters for an intense CAN CAN finale.

Along with the ice cream and lunch outings, puppy visits, and a birthday surprise I've grown even more attached to the studio and everyone's kindness here. Everyone emphasizes a good "work hard play hard" attitude so naturally I feel compelled to do the same!

~Juhi out~

Mandy Loves to Lunch!

We got a new project this week, which is about the Can Can song. I think this project is pretty easy, because all models have already been built in Flash, so we just need to set up character's poses and figure out the perspective of their legs and feet.

This week, we had two group lunches, one at a sushi bar, and the other one at a sports bar.  Both had delicious food, and a nice environment. I really like having lunch with others, because it helps people get to know each other, and makes me feel like we're in a family.

Juhi Likes Melting Faces Off

A month had already passed! It's incredible how time flies but I also feel like I've been working here for much longer. I'm continuing with tweaking props and getting them ready for animation. A fun task I was handed this week was taking reference photos of real people and designing them to fit the Todd style. I even got a chance to design a background character (getting their face melted off haha) and I indulged by designing myself in the Todd style. Although they may not be final, it definitely feels rewarding and I can't wait till they're animated!

~Juhi out~

Mandy is Developing her Skills!

This week we did not have as many meetings as last week.

Mostly, what we have done this week was revised the props which we did before.  Compared with the second week, I think my jobs are getting heavier, which makes me feel challenged and excited.

Joel gave me two empty flash file this week, one is working on the character called Coty Hetler, and another one is “Shadows in the Dark”. For these missions, I need to draw a rough of the characters, and build it up. It is sort of more different than last week. Before what I worked on was half finished stuff, while now I am building all of the angle of character, including their emotions and poses.

In the coming weeks, I hope I could try other work positions, such as post production and pre- production. I like working on more challenging work, because it can help me develop my skills and improve my knowledge.

Callie, the Human Popsicle

It is shorts season which is fabulous but the air conditioning in the studio is infinitely better than in my school, meaning that I turn into a Callie Popsicle after an hour. Next time I will bring a sweater. Slash I will only need to bring a sweater twice because oh my god, next week is my last week at Smiley Guy. That’s insanity, I cant believe it. On Tuesday of this week Joel was busy so I couldn’t go downstairs to work on special effects with him and instead I worked on prop builds again for Vampire Steve. That was pretty cool because it was like a memory test on all the stuff I learned earlier in the year about Flash. Turns out I actually remember how to use it. Yay!! So I built a cellphone, a clip board and a pen.

Today, Thursday, Joel was busy again (some looming deadline), so I sat at my desk and drew a lot. That was a nice treat actually. I am just not sure if I will end up adding special effects because I do not have Joel to help and also the computer I was working on was removed because it was needed for a new project. If I don’t get to add special effects, I will be a little disappointed because I saw how cool they could make something, but I will also be okay. See you next week! :)

Juhi is Hyped

This week I did revisions based on the helpful notes I got back for the props I built. It was great to receive feedback and make the necessary changes to make animating go smoothly. Along with building props, I had my hand at designing them too which I really enjoyed. It was a good break from flashifying props; but with the experience it made designing for the look of Todd and the animation in mind easier.

This week was also full of events including a VR info session and a pizza leica viewing day! It was super cool to fully watch the rough draft of the production we've been working on for weeks, together with the studio. Definitely hyped!

~Juhi out~

Elise and Earl Forever

Intern Elise again. Can't believe it's already been 3 weeks here!

I had a lot of assignments this week. There were more demon-related revisions to do, and on top of that I did some prop designing and flashifying. It was fun, I really enjoy getting to try a bunch of different things! I'm doing some photoshop painting right now, a super-chill way to cap off the week. I forgot how much I like digital painting, I should do it more often!

The plant on my desk looks much more alive lately, which is pretty cool. Erin called him Earl the other day, it's a better name than anything I've thought up, so I guess that's his name now. When he gets older I'm going to teach him sports.

That's about it!

Mandy Stays on Tempo

This week we’re working on the film project, revised the stuff according to the note written by Joel.
“Unholy Grail of Sumatra” is one of the props name, and it was more challenging than I thought, even though it is just in one shot of the film.

This evil grail has some eyes on its surface. My job contains to build the grail, and I also need to make the eyes blink and adjust it in different tempo while eyes are blinking.

To sum up, I learned two new things, which are “Move Regpoint” and “Random frames”. The first one is used to key the reg point, and second one is used for helping the animator to animate the same thing in different timing.

Juhi on Props

On the third week, I moved from posing and building out skeletons to building some props used by the characters in the Todd feature. It ranged from a simple bag to a tape recorder, where I created the different angles for both that were needed according to the animatic. From the practice, using shortcuts and manipulating the software comes much quickly and easier now. I definitely feel accomplished to see the progress come along!

~Juhi out~