The Blog Themed Hat Simulator

Small drops in a big bucket

12,652 notes

anthonyholden:

What are studios looking for? How can I get into a good animation school? What should I be studying?

I get a lot of these types of questions now and again, and I never know how to answer them. I can’t be sure of what studios are looking for, I don’t control admissions policies to schools, and I have little idea what makes for a current and relevant curriculum. There are a lot of variables in your bid for a career in animation, and it’s kind of impossible to control most of them. You must be crazy to want this job!

I find it helpful to focus on the things I can control. Among those things are your study habits and how you spend your personal time. It’s good to work hard and have goals—without them we would get nowhere. Study hard and make decisive strides towards achieving your art goals. But in the heat of that pursuit, don’t forget to go out and live your life!

If you spend any amount of time looking at artists online, you’ve probably figured out by now that there are about a million dudes and dudettes in internetville who draw better than you (I relive this realization daily). Once your have done your best to rise to their level, the only tool you have to compete with these crazy talents is your background, your personal character—is you!

Consider developing your whole self with the same raw focus and intensity that you develop a particular skill set. Get focused. Go out, have adventures. Run, jump, skin your knee, fall in love, root loudly for the away team at a baseball game, barely escape a crash of stampeding rhinos, live to see another day. Experience things big and small. Go for a walk. The world is full of wonders.

I know this advice is not particularly animation-specific, but maybe that’s for the best. At any rate, it is something I feel strongly about. Animation is great, and there are few things that I enjoy doing more than drawing and storytelling. But in order to have stories to tell, first you have to live them.

Be good, and see you soon!

PS, if you were looking for advice on draftsmanship you should probably be reading this.

I’d hate for this to become another reblog, but this is too awesome.
I shall follow this wisdom and put up original content soon.  

(via phillipfga)

2 notes

Scandals

westcoastliberal:

Headline on Yahoo News Homepage says “Obama Dogged by Controversy” so I just wanted to say a few things. 

1. Can someone explain to me how Obama is responsible for the IRS’s practices?

Yeah, IRS isn’t under the President. They answer to an inspector General, who then answers to congress. It’s still pretty shady, as political interests would favor the President over the other parties involved. I guess in the end we’ll all chalk it up to some Obama boosters who got a little overzealous. 

2. Can someone explain to me how Obama is personally responsible for the Justice Department’s surveillance of the A.P.

The DoJ, on the other hand, does answer to the President. Being that the office of Attorney General is an appointed position, one would think the President would at least say to Mr Holder “don’t fucking mess with the press”.  Even the AP is pissed. I am too, considering that the reporter is as much an agent of the people as the newspapers.

3. What the fuck is the scandal in Benghazi? Been half a year and I still have no fucking clue what the big deal is. 

I’m a bit fuzzy on the Benghazi thing myself, but the basics are

  • Benghazi should have had more marines guarding what was fast becoming a volatile situation. They didn’t.
  • The White House has had some contradicting communications revealed as of late that doesn’t match the public record. But rather than confront hearsay with evidence or a paper trail, they kept it internal.

Benghazi is going to remain a clusterfuck of he-said/they-said for a while, especially when only half of Americans are even paying attention.  Violence at US diplomatic posts are nothing new, it’s just that we lost an Ambassador of the United States, and angry people want to know why. Of course it’s being politicized, every thing is politicized in DC. But I’m thinking that unless the president himself publicly takes up the reigns and act as leader of his government, people are going to lose faith and hope of a competent and faithful administration and president. 

For the President’s sake, and our own, all this shit needs to go down. Now the question is who will have the balls to do it.