Month: March 2026

Week 10 was the final class of the first half of Unit 2. This week, the tutor mainly explained the tasks we needed to complete during the spring break. One important assignment was the Professional Artist Interview. This task required us to interview an artist who is currently working in the industry, so that we could learn about their career experience, daily workflow, industry expectations, and advice for students.

I chose to interview my senior, Harry. He is currently working at Framestore in Montreal, Canada, as a Senior Environment / VFX Artist, and he has more than ten years of experience in the VFX industry. I am very grateful that he agreed to accept my interview and answered my questions carefully. This interview helped me gain a more realistic understanding of the industry.

During the interview, Harry shared his experience of moving from 3D animation into VFX. He mentioned that these two areas use similar software and basic skills, but VFX focuses more on realism and detail. This made me realise that studying 3D animation does not mean my future direction has to be fixed. Different areas are connected in many ways. The key is to find the direction I am truly interested in and continue improving the related skills.

Harry also talked about the difference between university study and industry work. At university, we have more freedom to create our own ideas. However, in a real studio, artists need to work according to the director’s vision, client feedback, and the team pipeline. This made me understand that after entering the industry, technical skills are not the only important thing. Communication, teamwork, and the ability to adapt to feedback are also very important.

The most impressive part of the interview for me was his advice about portfolio. Harry said that students should not put all of their work into their portfolio. Instead, they should prepare more focused work based on the role they want to apply for. This advice was very helpful for me because it made me start thinking about the direction of my future portfolio, rather than only focusing on completing course assignments.

Overall, this was a useful experience. It helped me understand the industry more clearly and made me think about my future direction. I realised that I need to keep improving my basic skills, pay more attention to industry standards, and start planning my portfolio more carefully.

During Week 8 and Week 9, I mainly focused on preparing and presenting my Project 1 formative assessment. In Week 8, I created a PowerPoint presentation to explain my current project idea, research direction and visual tests. In Week 9, I presented my work to the class.

For this Project 1, my main focus is on creating a stylized look through 2D–3D hybrid techniques. I want to explore how different animation styles can be combined in one project, including 3D animation, stop-motion paper-cut style, 2D visual effects, and comic-style visuals. This project is still in development, but I used this presentation to show my current direction and the visual possibilities I want to test.

My research included films such as Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. I was interested in how the film combines different visual styles, such as 3D animation, comic style, pop-art elements and creative transitions. This helped me think about how different styles can exist in the same animation without feeling too disconnected.

In my project, I created a basic story idea about a girl who enjoys fantasy and adventure. She often imagines herself travelling through different parallel universes. In each universe, she could become a different person, such as an FBI agent or a doctor. This setting allows me to connect different imagined worlds together, and each world can have its own visual style.

For the visual direction, I also looked at Turning Red as a reference for stylized 3D character design. I may use a similar approach for the character proportions and base style, but I want to adjust it further to fit my own project. Another important direction is a 3D paper-cut-like stop-motion style. I am interested in creating a visual feeling that looks flat and handmade, but still keeps some 3D depth, lighting and space.

I also considered using layer rendering in the final production. This would allow me to adjust atmosphere, lighting and special effects more freely in Nuke. It may also help me combine 3D elements with 2D visual effects in a more flexible way.

Presentation Reflection

The presentation also helped me think about what I need to test next. I need to continue developing the world-building and storyline, and I also need to do more visual tests to see whether the 2D–3D hybrid style can work well. Overall, Week 8 and Week 9 helped me prepare my Project 1 direction and gave me a clearer starting point for further development.