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!!

Welcome Eila!

Hola, 

my name is Eila and I am a new intern here at Smiley Guy! I am a third year student from Sheridan but I am actually from Texas. Its been three weeks since I have started my internship and it has been nothing but wonderful! Everyone here is incredibly warm and so so nice (and super talented, geez)! I was extremely nervous starting out (partially because I started commuting on my own for the first time) but Erin made sure I was comfortable and I would like to think that I finally got a good handle on things. I have also been reintroduced to flash and I am happy to say that I am finally getting the hang of it (thank goodness for Joel or I would be a lost mess)! So far I have done a walk cycle with flash and built a few rigs as practice and it is a lot of fun! While its not too different from Toon Boom, it definitely took a bit of adjusting to but it is getting there! Having constant feedback definitely helps and I have noticed some improvements in terms of speed with the rig building process and the program. I was invited to go grab a drink with some of the members here in the studio and I am really excited about that since the Mexican in me can never say no to a drink. It has only been three weeks but I feel extremely lucky to have a landed a such a nice studio. I look forward to keeping up the hard work and learning as much as I can.

Elise Says Toodles Poodles to Smiley Guys!

I guess this is my last post. Hard to believe how quickly the 3 months went! I've had a truly
amazing time here at Smiley Guy. I got to work on some great productions and meet some awesome
people, and I feel like I've learned a lot too. I will look back on this experience very fondly,
and I can't wait to see where things go from here!

There was a goodbye party in the park at lunch today (with pizza! Also wasps). It was a fun way
to end the internship! We played frisbee (I can catch it but I sure can't throw it) and caught
pokemon and drank lemonade. A lot of fun! And there were dogs!

And to Earl: My tall son. The 15-leafed apple of my eye. Our time together was short but
fruitful. Don't forget me.

Well, that's it for me. Thanks for everything, Smiley Guy!

*Edit note: Elise was granted adoption rights for her son Earl. They will live a long fulfilling life together solving crime cases and playing sports. 

Mandy Says Farewell to The Smiley Guys!

It was my last week in Smiley Guys Studio, and I was working on the background characters
and modified details of Shadows in the dark. I really hope that I can complete everything
before I leave. On Friday, we had a small pizza party in the park which near the studio, and we also playing the frisbee and POKEMON GO!! Cherry and Juhi were so excited when they found a Lapras near the park, so we quickly made a small pokemon group, and went to catched the Lapras. At the end, Jia and Cherry got the highest Lapras, and Juhi got the lowest, which makes everyone laugh. In general, I was pretty enjoy it. On Wednesday, I had a short meeting with my three superiors to review all my work and performances during the co-op. According to the review, I realized that I got a serious problem when I was working on the animation, which is my characters could not be matched between continued scenes. I was shocked at that moment, and I will take more time on this point in the future.

Juhi Has a Heartfelt Goodbye!

From the first time I stepped foot into the studio, to the last step out at the end of the term, I have enjoyed my time here and learned so much along the way. I cannot thank everyone enough for this opportunity; from the lessons, to the laughs, it had me feeling proud and grateful to be part of Smiley Guy's at the end of each day. It's true when they say if you truly enjoy what you're doing as a job, it doesn't feel like work. Now that I've had this experience, I have a solid confirmation that the studio environment is perfect for me. Once again, thank you for everything you've done for me Smiley Guy fam!

~Juhi Out~

Juhi Works and Plays Pokemon Go!

This week zipped by so quickly! With the launch of Pokemon GO, everyone has been catching the craze left and right. In the midst of it all, I've been working on revising background characters and designing new ones to populate Todd's school. It's fun making up characters in the style and reusing assets wherever I can. Efficiency!

I can't believe it's nearing the end of the internship...the whole period has been a wild ride and I've enjoyed every minute of it. It feels much, much too soon. I hope the next week feels at a normal pace. I feel like pokemon is to blame.

~Juhi Out~

Elise is a Trekkie!

My second-last week as an intern is over! I'm excited for the weekend (I'm gonna go watch the new
Trek movie!) but I'm also very sad that my time here is almost over.

I did more work on the background characters for Todd. Not much new to report, it's mostly been
revision work. There was some confusion about whether one background character was supposed to
be wearing clothes or not. After some debate, it was agreed that he would be naked. I had to
re-pose everyone around him to censor him, which was kind of tedious, but also pretty funny.

Earl survived last week's mystery plant massacre and is growing a new leaf to celebrate. He is
tall and wise now.

Mandy and the Shadow's in the Dark

This week, I completed a layout test on Monday, so mostly this week I was working on the
background characters and the Indiegogo Winners. Shadows in the Dark is the one of the scene’s
 name in Todd project. This scene is an important one which I spent a lot of time on. Each
character has to be rebuilt, since the angle in the scene is ¾ front, but the characters were
already built as front views, so they have to be rebuilt and fixed. As I mentioned before,
I like designing characters and posing them out, therefore, I am quite enjoying working on the
Shadow's in the Dark.

Mandy Creates The Mood!

This week we were working on the revised files, fixing some parts of drawings, and modeling the characters according to the rough drawing. On Wednesday, we had a short meeting on animation on how to do the animation, how to make the animation perfect, and also some tips on how to fix the symbols in Flash. The meeting took an hour long, and I gained a lot of knowledge and experience.

On Thursday, I started working on the layout test for the Todd project. The layout style is based on Hellboy, specifically focusing on creating the mood within the background. Because there are a lot of actions and emotions in the Todd project, so we are looking for more mood creations.

Elise Waits in Anticipation!

This week was pretty standard stuff. I worked some more on background characters for Todd mostly.
We also had a background painting test, which was fun! They haven't been reviewed yet, but I'm
hoping I did alright.

There was a big meeting yesterday where the animating process for Todd was discussed. They explained a lot of stuff about how to reuse animation effectively and how to hybridize. It was interesting, and there were some very impressive test animations!

On a less fun note, one of our office plants got beat up last night. Earl is fine, but I am concerned for his safety. Erin made him a nice name tag to try and scare off the attacker. Hopefully
he will be okay.

Juhi and the Background Test

This week we were assigned a background test so I've been working on creating a layout for the Todd feature. The style we're going for is Mike Mignola's use of harsh black shadows and bold colors for dramatic effect. I personally love the look and it's an inspiration for my style development. I think it fits the comic book style of Todd really well, and I am further excited to see the film in color!

I have also continued to work on designing and flashifying background characters, paying special attention to the Indie GoGo Funders. It was fun adapting to less exaggerated styles and getting the likeliness of the actual people.

~Juhi out~

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

Elise Gets a Free Coffee but Loses a Cintiq

I had to give up my Cintiq this week because a full-time employee needed it. I miss it
already, but I have an Intuos now, which works pretty well. Also, as a consolation prize
I got a voucher for a free coffee, which I haven't redeemed yet.

Today we got to see an extended Todd teaser that's going to air at a festival soon. It was
really exciting, I thought it looked great! I feel very lucky to be a part of this project,
albeit a very small part!

There's less than a month left of interning for me. I'm going to miss Earl. I have so many
life lessons to teach him before I leave.

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. 

Juhi Loves to learn!

Continuing on with Todd, I've got to tweaking and revising props, as well as going through the latest animatic and making additional angles. It's quite exciting to see the animatic as it update with early music and sound effects. I especially liked the match cuts supported by musical cues, as it brings the animatic that much closer to the final.

Currently, I'm on the task of designing background characters to populate the school. It's a fun challenge designing based on the established Todd style, gain feedback and designing with possible reuses in mind. And then, taking it straight to flashifying after approval. It's incredibly exciting to imagine the assets I create debut on the final!

I'm also constantly absorbing and learning new tips and tricks from the software. No matter how much you'd think you're used to working, it's always a joy finding out more faster, efficient tools that function the same. I will always be exploring and hoping to develop that level of workflow.

~Juhi out~

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~