updated comps

more tests

Color Comps

Ok second time trying to do this post because moving images in the compose window is a waste of time. I have been struggling with my logo once again and have modeled a few different versions in maya with no success. I drew an illustrator version and even though it is similar to the sketch I drew I don't find it successful. Think I just need to play with different colors/lines.

wireframes

Design Specs

Fonts:
Header/Logo Das Reicht Gut Regular
Navigation: TscichLightFS
Body: Verdana

Main background: A light almost electric blue was chosen for the main background because it makes my work stand out. I could have gone for a more desaturated look but I felt it was too dull and since most of my work is vivid it would not reflect it. I also used a radial gradient to give the feeling of space and to tie the viewer into the focus.

Navigation bar: A white curve breaks up the background from the navigation segment. I chose high contrast black background with white text. The background is not completely black because I put a very slight gradient so it would match the blue portion.

Site Map

Schematics

I uploaded the home page with a possible background choice as well as updated fonts. Photoshop is giving me an error when I change the fonts for the other ones so the rest are uploaded with a random font.

Caption

This is a piece I designed last year for the Kidsbridge Tolerance Museum. It reads, "Coming together with what sets us apart." I felt the slogan I came up with was more effective then their previous one, "Spanning differences, reaching harmony." It has a feeling of acceptance rather then tolerance. The smaller stars coming together to make a larger star represent each child as an individual coming together as one and being accepted for what makes them unique. The stars were rendered in Maya and the text was done with Photoshop.

I was working on my resume and changed my mind about what font family I wanted to use so I started searching for new ones and in my search a new idea for my logo came to me. Unfortunately I am exhausted and I don't think I can work much longer. I will remake the logo and post it on my resume along with my new font family tomorrow.

Color Schemes and categories

I figured as far as my categories go I would like to use "3D Design, Graphic Design, About" with 3d and graphic design being more prominent. About would have a brief description about what I do as well as my resume and contact information.

I made a few color schemes in class and also tried them out on a design I had for my website.
(just a concept pretty sure I'm gonna scrap it and go for something more interesting)

Portfolio Work

I really think I can produce much better work now and that my portfolio can be greatly improved. With that said I think what I would like to include is my:

3D:
Graffiti image
AK model
"Jacked in the Box" stills
Zippo render
Drift Prod animation
Ipod Nano animation
Pontiac commercial

Graphic Design:
Kidsbridge poster
MCCC Visual Arts poster
Trail mix designs
THQ Annual Report designs

Audience

I checked out a couple 3D sites and found three that I thought were interesting.

http://www.crazypixelproductions.com
http://www.hothouseiwg.com/recruitment.html
http://www.fusedesigngroup.com

Fuse Design and Crazy Pixel Productions had great websites while HotHouse's was not great, the work spoke for itself. For the time being I would ideally like to freelance to learn different industries and what I enjoy the most, because it is one thing to read about certain industries but it's another to actually experience what really happens.

I noticed the requirements for each of the sites were pretty similar and I learned some terminology that will help me sound like I know more in a job interview. Crazy Pixel Productions had familiar terms as far as job titles go such as; 3d generalist, 3d environment modeler, 3d character modeler, texture/concept artist, 3d layout artist, 3d character rigger, 3d effects/lighting artist and a few more. What I saw on hothouse were strange job titles. I might be ignorant or it could be their specific names for jobs in the company. Workshop Manager, Creative Technician, and Junior Technician. They make sense but I didn't understand why they would use different titles. Maybe they are broader terms and things like 3d generalist etc. go under technician?

All of the websites I looked at did some sort of corporate work, Crazy Pixel Productions being the one offering the widest range of solutions. The companies are a little vague on who is doing the work but I guess they have specialists for each area their clients' work falls under. I would like to do something like this but as Meg posted their may be too many specialists so I would rarely get work. This all leads me to believe that to succeed as a freelancer I will have to be a generalist and not just one that is familiar with all the aspects of 3d but one that is proficient in them. Guess I better start learning Maya and pickup some knowledge of 3DS while I'm at it.

The good thing about all the companies I am applying for is they are mainly run by artists so at least working with them it would be a more relaxed environment and not in the sense that I wouldn't be rushing all the time, but that everyone hopefully wouldn't be uptight. Depending on the job, I'm guessing I would have to work with corporate type people because if I was to do generalist type work and work on a project by myself I would have to meet with the client personally. I again am just assuming things but I think that communicating through middlemen is inefficient and efficiency is important in a fast-paced industry.

Theme of my work

Looking through my past work I notice a dark feeling to most of it. I tend to use hard lighting and try to use interesting angles while remaining understandable. I would like to keep going with this style but I plan to produce future projects with smoother lighting. I also would like to add a more conceptual part to it. Most of my work was created for school projects or a product of a technique I was testing so there aren't many things happening in each scene.

Portfolio Sites

I found that a lot of websites were actually very poorly designed. They were mainly html based and nothing very interesting was happening. The work generally spoke for itself and was easy to find. I plan on making my site very minimalistic to make it easy to find my work.

I have been in the process of learning dreamweaver but I haven't had much time recently to learn more. I will use DW to make my site. I have enough understanding of photoshop/illustrator to design the site and I have video editing skills which I can use for a demo reel. I also have my skills in 3D which is my focus for now. As I mentioned in a previous post I have a few projects I want to do that will give me a decent enough portfolio to try to get work.

I found a site a while ago but I think it is very creative and interactive.

http://www.amontobin.com/field/

Font Family

Too funny

Vimeo Videos

Pontiac Commercial from Matt Mateiescu on Vimeo.



In the Lab from Matt Mateiescu on Vimeo.

Video got stretched for some reason.

Awesome

Silent Noise from Psycho-Designs on Vimeo.

Distance Night Vision

My favorite video right now.

Distance "Night Vision" from Noah Conopask on Vimeo.

This would have to be my most accurate 3D render (except for the shadow). It is certainly not the best that I can produce now though.




This would have to be the best graphic design piece I have done. I unfortunately do not have most of my original files for my graphic design and will never be able to print most of them again.




As far as video goes this is my best work. There are no spectacular effects just clean cuts and synchronization. I plan on teaching myself after effects soon and getting into motion graphics.

Work

I have been looking over my work lately and am not nearly satisfied. I feel I can do much more with the knowledge I have now I just haven't sat down and worked on a project for a long time. I have come up with one that I plan on working on over the next couple weeks that should display the range of my 3D modeling/rendering/photoshop ability. I will then do a less intricate model but well expressed animation to display my animation ability (which is pretty damn rusty). I feel I have a few decent renders but most aren't worth showing. It might not be true but I believe if I have a few solid pieces on my website it will be enough instead of just putting everything that's decent.

Resume

Having trouble with acrobat and converting docs into pdf so I copy and pasted the resume in Photoshop. Pretty ugly and messed up right now. The spacing and text is being really off. I will try to fix it more tomorrow. After looking at the resumes on Tuesday I found out it was acceptable to use dark backgrounds on a resume, which is something I have wanted for a while. I redesigned the resume I just have to fix the text now and play with the objects some more.

Work Experience

I copy and pasted from my resume for this post and added comments below.

1/26/09 PowerPoint presentation for World Vision

10/29/08 PowerPoint presentation for Cathy LaFlamme of Avanade Inc.

Corporate PowerPoint presentations. 30+ Slides for each. Unique animations/images for each slide.

5/24/08 Poster designs, banner designs, and directional sign designs, selected for professional printing

During Kidsbridge Tolerance Museum design contest.

Learning to create individual pieces of art while staying within a group theme. Working with a team.

3/15/08 Poster design selected for professional print for Mercer County Community College Visual Arts Show

Developing ideas. Learned design methods. Blending 2D/3D artwork seamlessly.

10/07-12/07 Dancer and Party Motivator for Universal DJ Productions, Matawan, NJ

Breakdanced professionally for upscale events around New Jersey and New York.

Communication. Working with people.

7/07-Present Assistant for Tillie’s Kitchen. Princeton, NJ

Assisted in setup and waiting for catering events in New Jersey and New York. Fast-paced environment with events hosting as many as four thousand people.

Teamwork. Managerial skills. Working with people. Efficiency in every task.

8-07-7-07 Housekeeping for St. Joseph’s Seminary, Princeton NJ

Maintained three buildings on a daily basis.

06-01 Volunteer office assistant with Westminster Conservatory, Princeton NJ

Final exam management - scheduling, setup, monitoring, sorting and filing documents; stage manager for community concerts.

12/05-9/05 Computer lab monitor for Mercer County College, West Windsor, NJ

Maintained safe computer labs and assisted students with design work.

Entry Level

I focused my search on 3d for tv/film but compared it with game design and architecture. I found that the most 3d jobs were in Hollywood. The requirements for the entry level positions usually said 2-3 years experience in the industry which doesn't make any sense. I was relieved when I saw some that said "or 2-3 years relevant coursework." I have known for a while now that being a digital artist demands knowledge of many different programs but I became a little irritated at the fact that for the same position the five or so programs required for every job seem to be different. I'm all for learning a few more programs but when there are fifteen different programs in rotation it seems a little ridiculous.

I think for the first few years I would like to work in New York since most of my friends and family live around here but since there aren't that many opportunities for film I feel I would enjoy working on tv productions whether it be commercials, animations for science programs or whatever I find interesting in the area.

In the game design field I found that employers tend to require some understanding of coding and of course another set of programs that alternate. It was interesting though that modeling/rendering for architecture the main requirements are a brief understanding of autoCAD and usually one of the major 3D programs or sometimes any of them.

Careers

The things used in my field will generally be the same from place to place. People tend to use high end computers for their work. Depending on the situation animators will send out their work to render farms for efficiency and save time on long renders. I have heard of people modeling in house and sending the models out with some keyframes and storyboards to animation houses in Korea or cheaper places to save money. People tend to use Maya a lot these days but 3DS and other 3D programs are still used. I hope now that Autodesk owns Maya they will merge the two programs into one and save me the trouble of learning another program.

I checked out monster, simplyhired, and careerbuilder. Something about monster.com annoyed me. Might have been the bubbly layout. The way you can preview a job entry when you search is pretty useful though. The job listings were about the same as craigslist just more nonsense to look through.

3D Artist

Careerbuilder was good too. The layout is easy to navigate through and not too much going on. I found a pretty good job for graphic design but not too much for 3D. Mainly 3D software engineering which is far from what I want to do.

Graphic Designer

Simplyhired had a lot of results for random things but again not too much for 3D besides software engineering and other comp sci type things. I am pretty sure that finding a job off these kind of websites is kind of like playing the lottery for work. If there are maybe five decent job postings a week and there are thousands of people doing the same thing I am everyday then the chance that someone will even open your email is slim. Worth a shot I guess.

3D artist

Questions

In the Lab

• What software do you know?
• Maya, Photoshop, Illustrator, DreamWeaver, MS Office, VirtualDub, Sony Vegas Pro
  
• What creative skills and talents do you have?
• 3D Design, Character Modeling, Architectural Modeling, 3d Animation, Character Rigging, Lighting/Rendering, Branding, Print Design, Advertising Design, Web Design, Video Editing
  
• What are your favorite things?
• Ipod, computer, studio monitor headphones, elbow pad
  
• What are you interested in?
• DJing, video production, photography, learning interesting things, traveling, watching good movies, playing video games
  
• What are you passionate in?
• Producing music, Muay Thai, breakdancing, climbing, art, efficiency, any good music, electronic music
  
• What do you hate, can't stand or despise?
• Wasting time, fake people, pretentious people, arrogance, ignorant people with strong opinions,
  

Job Postings

The website I chose to use was Craigslist. I have used it before to find jobs and I generally find what I am looking for. It does have a very amateur, scattered kind of feel to it but it's not to o difficult to navigate through. I have more technical ability in 3D modeling/animation then with 2D digital art but I also am interested in and enjoy the conceptual aspects of computer graphics.

3D Artist/Digital Retoucher

Freelance CGI Artist

VFX Artist

3D Animation/Artist

Realtime 3D Video Game Artists

Testing

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