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 Starts Posing

This week was a good week. I watched High Plains Drifter on the weekend and then decided to watch the entire Man with No Name trilogy afterwards. All I can say is that I made the right decision.

As of now, I'm putting the finishing touches on a foreground character for Todd. The character is a highschooler who's supposed to be walking from left to right on the screen. It's my job to rough out a pose and then go in to line and color it. It's essential that the acting comes across in the initial sketch.

-Vincent

Mandy Likes to Design!

After a long weekend, we got back to work. Instead of working on the main props and main characters, this week we were working on the background stuff, like background characters. There are a lot of passersby in the film, some of them have only one shot, and some have two to three shots or different angles. Compared with the main characters in the film, working on the passersby characters has more creative latitude. Since most of those passersby characters doesn’t have their own designed poses, I can design them based on the style of the main characters or by myself. It is really fun to work on, because I feel like I am playing a Role-playing game, and I can decide what stuff should put on my characters, and pick up the color I prefer. Moreover, I will get notes of how to modify those characters’ poses and designs to make them better, which is really helpful to improve my skills and I enjoy it. 

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 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~