Careers Archives - Page 2 of 6

2018 Concept Art Grads, Dhenzel Obeng and Zabi Hassan Talk About Being An Effective Concept Artist!

Students stayed on after classes last night to meet with Zabi Hassan and Dhenzel Obeng , 2018 Max the Mutt Concept Art for Animation & Video Games graduates, who are both working as Concept Artists at UbiSoft Toronto. They were introduced by Dayna Griffiths, year 4 Concept Art student and Tiffani Brown, another year 4 student, took the photos and sent this report:

“Some of what was discussed:

-Transitioning to workplace from school. Leaving ego at the door and understanding you’re working to achieve a whole.
-What to expect on the job – problem solving and collaboration. Many art directors. Communication is key. You have awesome people with great knowledge at your fingertips. Use them.
-Exposing yourself online and in a community (events, “meetups”,etc) outside of school. Getting comfortable with being vulnerable with your art. The importance of being open to critiques.
-Understanding that even now, as students, you’re making connections. Value them.

Of course they shared tons more and the students were very engaged. It was a great evening!”

Find out more about Max the Mutt’s 4 year Concept Art for Animation & Video Games Diploma Program!

For more information, email us at admissions@maxthemutt.com or book a tour today!

UbiSoft Art Director Patrick Ingoldsby Visits Max The Mutt!

Concept Art students at Max the Mutt enjoyed a presentation by UbiSoft Toronto Art Director Patrick Ingoldsby.

Pat has supported Max the Mutt from the very beginning of the 4 year Concept Art Diploma Program, and attended the very first Industry Event that included the first Concept Art graduates, but this was the first time he held a meeting to speak with students about his career, about UbiSoft and what students should be including in their portfolios.

Hilary Phillips, Concept Art Program Coordinator, had this to say about Patrick Ingoldsby’s visit:

“Patrick spoke in depth about working for UbiSoft Toronto, a company and community he really enjoys. He’s been directing there for 9 years and feels it’s the best job he’s had. Pat gave the students real insights into what kind of skills Ubisoft is looking for, both hard skills like what to put in a portfolio, and soft skills like professionalism, team work, how to comport themselves in an interview. His break down of the departments in game creation gave the students an idea of the various career paths that the skills they are developing will open for them.

Finally he spoke of his personal journey as an artist and the jobs he had before becoming an Art Director at Ubisoft. Pat is a former production artist, now Art Director. He was a production 3D artist in games before becoming an Art Director, and before he got into games, an illustrator in both print and animation. The story of Pat’s professional journey really resonated with the students, who are thinking themselves about how their careers may unfold once they graduate.”

Visit from Ubisoft Art Director- Patrick Ingoldsby - Jan 17/19 - with Hilary Phillips — Ubisoft Art Director- Patrick Ingoldsby – with Hilary Phillips, MTM Concept Art Program Coordinator

Our sincere thanks to Patrick Ingoldsby for taking the time to visit Max the Mutt’s Concept Art students!

We are proud that many Max the Mutt graduates, including two 2018 graduates, are currently working as concept artists and animators at UbiSoft.

Concept Art / Digital Illustration for Entertainment Arts…A Great Career Option!

Max the Mutt is happy to speak with you and share information about the 4 year Concept Art Diploma Program!

We can give you a deep skill base that prepares you for a wide variety of possible career options, everything from designing the art for AAA games, to designing for animation, film, storyboarding, becoming a game artist…the list goes on! Career opportunities are varied and exciting.

Max the Mutt’s 4 year Concept Art Diploma Program is a great option if you love to draw, have an interest in painting, and want to learn traditional, fine art representational painting and drawing skills — plus how to use those skills in the digital world. This program requires imagination as well as observational skills, a passion to create worlds, determination and hard work. What’s more, employers need people who fit this description!

Max the Mutt is well known and respected for graduates who have developed skills, imagination and professionalism. The success rate for our concept art graduates is high. We’ve been rated internationally as one of the top places to study digital illustration…

If what I’ve written above excites you, contact us at admissions@maxthemutt.com. It would be my pleasure to meet with you, look at your work, make suggestions and answer your questions.

P.S. The high level of work you see on our website is the end result of good education and hard work, not what students were able to do when they started!

Have the courage to investigate your options. Contact us now!

All the best,

Maxine Schacker, Co-Director

admissions@maxthemutt.com 416-703-6877/ 1-877-486- MUTT (North America)

How to Prepare a Portfolio for Art School Applications, A General Guide.

Whether you’d like to start formal studies in art and design, animation, concept art or a sequential arts program, it helps to learn more about how to prepare the portfolio required for your review. For an outstanding portfolio, we suggest that in addition to the required pieces asked for by the college, you should consider asking if you can include extras that you feel good about. These pieces can reflect some of your personality; your ideas, technical skill and interests. This helps set your portfolio apart from others when college admissions officers review it.

Tips for Preparing a Portfolio for Art College

The following tips and guidelines will help you prepare a better portfolio.

Double Check the Requirements – One of the most basic, and biggest mistakes you can make is to miss something that is clearly stated in the college’s application requirements. If it isn’t stated, a rule of thumb is to include 10 to 20 pieces in the portfolio. And submit your portfolio on time!
Pay Attention to the presentation:
- if you need to photograph some pieces, do it well! The best concept art ever can look terrible if it is photographed in poor lighting.
- Clean up your drawings. If you are showing your sketchbook, for example, use a kneaded rubber eraser to clean up smudged or messy pages.
- Organize the pieces so that is easy for the reviewer to check off required pieces.
- Double check that you have everything required for your application! What else did you need to include besides the portfolio? The care you take is an indication that you will be a serious, focused student who can follow directions.
- If the college does an in-person interview, get there a few minutes early. Think of this as a job interview. Be sure you are well groomed. Smile. Make eye contact… Introduce yourself.

If you liked this post, check out our article on how to begin a career in animation and many others on fine art, graphic design, and much more.

What Does a Character Designer Do?

Even if we do say so ourselves, that’s a great question! If you’re interested in character design, you may have designed lots of your own characters. But you’ve probably not come close to doing what a character designer does.

What is Character Design?

It’ll help to talk about character design itself before we get into what a character designer does. Generally, character design is the development of new, original characters for a computer or traditional illustration or animation. Character designers may also be used to design characters for toy manufacturers.

Character designers work from a character definition that might be part of a story outline or script for a film, TV series, video game, graphic novel, or book illustration. Character styles can range from very graphic, like ‘Stewie’ on Family Guy, to photorealistic, like ‘The Incredible Hulk’.

What a Character Designer Does

Character design is firmly based in 2D drawing. Whether by hand with pencil and paper, or with digital drawing tools, a solid ability to draw, particularly human and animal anatomy, is key to being a character designer.

Among other details, the following are some of the steps a character designer takes to design a character from scratch.

Immerse themselves in the story or script to understand the character’s role in it.
Research anatomy, costuming, physical settings, time-related references (past, present, future), specific to the script and character.
Review concept art to understand the look and style of the project
Draw. And draw some more. From initial impressions of the general look of different versions of a character, to showing each character version ‘in action’, there’s lots of drawing to be done.
Give the character personality and believability. While not a separate step in character design, each layout must be more than a visual design of a character. Even if it’s done in stages, a believable personality must be conveyed in the design layouts.
Once characters are approved, the designer may be tasked with creating a model sheet of the character that shows the character from different angles
Some projects may need other layouts showing the character in particular poses, or expressing different moods and emotions.

This is a just a brief explanation of what a character designer does. To learn more, get in touch with MTM College today.

How to Begin a Career in Animation

Maybe you started animating stick figures on a notepad as a kid. Maybe you love playing video games and would like to experiment with animation software. Or the idea of seeing your characters come to life really excites you. If so, a career in animation might be for you!

In any case, you’re in luck. There are lots of opportunities for people like you to make a good living doing what they love. Except the reality is that talent, skill and passion are usually not enough for you to start a career in animation. So what does it take to get a toehold in the animation industry?

The Benefits of Animation Career Training

In addition to artistic skills and dedication, animation studios look for people who understand what it takes to survive and prosper in the business of animation. Among other elements of what is needed to work in animation, animation career training will help you develop the following:

Develop Your Foundation Skills

Young people are often surprised to discover that in this era of 3D films that old-fashioned drawing is still required. Software can manipulate objects but imagination is what drives everything! Begin your artistic education with a strong foundation of perspective, composition, still-life/object drawing as well as plenty of life drawing. From learning more of the basics of drawing and cartooning, to exploring character design and studying both classical, 2D software-based as well as advanced 3D animation, an in-depth education will help throughout your animation career, wherever it takes you. And a broader range of skills opens up more possibilities for finding a position as well as keeping it.

Learn to Be a Professional Animator

The perceived wisdom in the industry is that it takes about 10 years to become a really good animator. When you finish college, you cannot expect to be an expert but you can be ready to have a professional attitude. Being professional in the workplace means being punctual for work and for meetings, being prepared to take criticism and be ready to redo your work and following directions. Having good professional skills and being a good communicator makes for a better team player. Animation is a team endeavour not unlike an effective and winning sports team.

Build a Solid Demo Reel and website

Studios looking to hire will be interested in seeing what you can do; your website and a demo reel will showcase your skills. Firstly, the studio reps will want to see that you can draw and your demo reel will show off your animation skills. If you get called in for an interview, then you can be assured you have the job as far as your skill level is concerned.

A personal interview so that they can assess your professionalism comes next!

Getting ready for the interview

If you have a solid foundation of animation training you may apply for a variety of different jobs that an animation studio may be offering. Before you even apply for a specific posting, do your homework! Research to become familiar with the production work the studio creates and consider whether you will be a good fit for the company. That way, when they ask you why they should consider hiring you, you’ll be ready with a good answer.

The Animation Diploma Program at Max the Mutt not only teaches you all the artistic and professional skills you’ll need for a career in animation, it prepares you for the realities of that career and will help you develop the necessary skills you need to help launch your dream!

To learn more, contact Max the Mutt today.

Congratulations Dhenzel Obeng, 2018 UbiSoft Toronto NXT Showcase Award & Internship Winner!

NXT Showcase Concept - by Dhenzel Obeng — NXT Showcase Concept – by Dhenzel Obeng

On Tuesday evening, May 15th, with excitement running high, UbiSoft Toronto held this year’s NXT Showcase awards presentation. The five finalists for each category were present along with faculty members from many Ontario university and college programs, some family, and UbiSoft employees. As usual, the atmosphere was warm, positive… and the food was great!

The pic below was taken before the announcements of winners. Dhenzel Obeng and close friend Zabi Hassan, also an MTM 2018 Concept Art grad, and a current concept artist at UbiSoft, joined Tina Seemann (she took the pic) and me in celebrating the fact that Dhenzel made it as a finalist, an honour in itself!

Maxine Schacker with Dhenzel Obeng and Zabi Hassan at Ubisoft Toronto NXT Showcase Awards 2018

This one was taken after the awards! HOORAY FOR DHENZEL !!!

Dhenzel has passion, drive, curiosity, and a generous spirit. He’s worked hard to develop the skills to create worlds and share his vision. We are all very, very happy for him!

Maxine Schacker

(Click on the link for info about 4 year program, unique in Canada)

Concept Art Diploma

Year End Open House at Max the Mutt! Graduate Work on View!

8 Graphic Novel Stats You Need to Know

Before we reveal some of the impressive graphic novel stats that every aspiring illustrator and/or storyboard artist should know, it’ll help to clarify just what is a ‘graphic novel’.

Except that’s not so easy. Wikipedia even says “the term is not strictly defined” and “…the exact definition of a graphic novel is debated…”. Other definitions include: “a novel in the form of comic strips.” (Dictionary.com) and “a fictional story that is presented in comic-strip format and published as a book” (Merriam-Webster).

For our purposes, a graphic novel can be any story that has more than one chapter ( similar to the difference between a short story and a novella or novel) and is told through a combination of sequential drawings and words. However there are rare examples of terrific graphic novels that don’t fit this description: one is told completely through sequential drawings with no words at all, another is a sequence of one sequential drawing chapter followed by a written chapter. Sometimes a sequence of individual comic books is published over time as a continuous story and is later published as a graphic novel.

In general graphic novels are a story in book form that is largely told through the use of illustrations, like “This One Summer”, written by Mariko Tamaki and illustrated by Jillian Tamaki.

That said, take a look at some of the graphic novel stats listed below. They show, in a world of increasing digital animations and illustrations, that traditional forms of the art are not only still used, they are thriving. Even if you want to be a purely digital animator or illustrator, learning more about about ‘pen and paper’ techniques will add a new dimension to your work.

Graphic Novel Stats

$1.085 billion

Total graphic novel sales in the U.S. and Canada in 2016 (comichron.com)

16% – 23% – 16%

The growth in graphic novel sales in 2014, 2015 and 2016 respectively, to a total of $405 million in 2016. The graphic novel category is considered one of the biggest growth categories in all book publishing. (comichron.com)

The First Graphic Novel to Receive the U.S. National Book Award

Released in March 2016, “March: Book 3” became the first ever graphic novel to receive the National Book Award. A story about the Civil Rights movement in the U.S., every installment of the March Trilogy, written by John Lewis and Andrew Aydi and illustrated by Nate Powell, held the top three spots in the New York Times Graphic Novel Bestseller list for six weeks. (Wikipedia)

Six of the Top 10 Grossing Films of 2014 Were Based on a Graphic Novel

Have you seen “Guardians of the Galaxy”; “Transformers: Age of Extinction”; “X-Men: Days of Future Passed”; “Captain America: The Winter Soldier”; “The Amazing Spiderman”; and “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes”? All of them are based on graphic novels. (CNBC.com)

Graphic Novels Boost Library Circulation

As traditional libraries continue to redefine themselves in an online, on-demand world, graphic novels are a welcome area of growth.

“In our library it’s (graphic novels) 3% of the collection and 30% of our circulation,” says Esther Keller, a New York school media specialist. (publishersweekly.com)

11.3 Million

The number of graphic novels sold in 2017 (comicsbeat.com)

992,000

Number of copies sold of the #1 selling graphic book of 2017, “Wimpy Kid #12: The Getaway” by Jeff Kinney. (comicsbeat.com)

Wide Employment Horizons

In addition to jobs as illustrators for graphic novels, those who learn traditional illustrating have success in finding job opportunities in gaming, animation, digital graphics, graphic facilitation, advertising and marketing.

To learn more about learning traditional illustration and animation skills and techniques, get in touch with us at Max the Mutt College of Animation Art & Design.

Congratulations Zabi, Dhenzel, Adam and Josh!

Congratulations to year 4 students who are working for top companies part time before graduation!

Concept Art student – Zabi Hassan received a concept art paid internship at UbiSoft last summer, was asked to stay on in September while completing year 4 at MTM, and is currently part of a team developing a new game! He works 4 days a week at UbiSoft, and has one full day, Saturday and evening classes at MTM.

Concept Art student – Dhenzel Obenga was given a 3 day a week contract by Secret Location during the middle of first semester.

In December Concept Art student Adam Homonylo also began working for Secret Location as an intern 3 days a week.

Classical & Computer Animation & Production year 4 student Josh Hill has been hired to freelance for the month of January as a classical animator on a TV show that will be in its first season of 13 episodes! Yowza is overseeing this production that Josh is working 20 hours a week. Josh will be working on the same project as Canadian greats Roger Chiasson and Claude Chiasson !

Max the Mutt is very proud of all of you and wishes you all a very Happy Holiday!

Special thanks to UbiSoft, Secret Location and Yowza for caring about our students and working with them to accommodate their course work!