3 months after graduation

ah. it has been nearly 2 months ^^
have been doing a freelance job that ends this week.
in september i am taking a month trip overseas, and in october i'm going to do my best to find an apartment in new york..somewhere..haha.
i've been really confused about how i should "market" myself.
i have trouble trying to call myself one specific thing, like "illustrator," or "animator," etc. etc. because i don't think i'm any of those.
i'm probably a bit scared, because i'm not quite good at anything yet, and in the industry, they say you get your foot in the door by doing one thing really well. a technical skill.
.....aiya.
honestly, more and more i think i'm not an animator. i love and appreciate the medium so much, but actually doing it is a little bit like torture. is it because my technical skills are too lacking? or am i genuinely not interested in animating in and of itself?
i do love most the design and development part of production.

so while i flounder around hopelessly, i've been developing a story. it's been fun just drawing, like when i was little. the ideas have been floating in my mind since may.

more to come. i don't know in what way this story should be executed. but if there's anything i learned from school, it's that every time i think i "should" do something a certain way, it always fails. some things are their own thing, have their own innate way of expression.

i guess it's my job to try and let that happen without letting my own brain get in the way.

photos and doodles

I've been in Brooklyn for the past week and a half, and I have one week left on my brief stay. I grew up in the suburbs, so the city feels so big. Have been really enjoying it all.

my lovely RISD friends ^^

the lovely moon

I'd like to make a little model of this little guy. I've found some scraps of fabric from when my roommate and I went wandering around the area....deep red, deep orange, and mustard yellow :)

aaannddd I recently was told how I can make models in a super cheap and easy fashion without sacrificing too much detail, so I started making a fat little horse this evening, lol. Newspaper and tape. I'm going to buy some paper tape and do the detailed layer in the next few days. see how it goes....

it's kind of fun! I can take away from the shape easily with just a simple exacto blade. clunky sculpting.

some random things. 

I have to get better at drawing...I should do lots of observational stuff. 

Have been in-between animating on a former teacher's film. It's kind of fun because I haven't done a lot of 2D animating in a while. Frankly I did very little of it in school.

Does this technically make me a freelancer? lol.

charcoal pencil is so nice ^^ not sure why, but I tend to feel much better when drawing with "messy" material, like charcoal, fat graphite stick, or pastel. 

sketchbook photo, then the cleaned up version in photoshop. I wrote on my art Tumblr that I made a rookie mistake about the cape. It should probably be stretched taut, streamlined behind him, haha. 

I graduated!

I graduated!
tada.
my school has a fun tradition of decorating/altering the cap+gowns for graduation, so the night before commencement, I put a little bird on top of my cap with computer paper, hot glue gun, and one Q-tip in the bathroom of a hotel room whilst my family snored in the room outside HAHA.

there's a lot I could say about my time at RISD, but it was probably the best three years of my life, and I'm so happy and blessed to have been able to go. I miss my classmates so much already. We basically lived together in studio, every day of the week, morning til night (coughcough...more like late afternoon til the next morning HAHA), ate together, pulled a million allnighters together. laughed together, got mad together. 

It feels weird to be back in my hometown knowing I won't be going back to school, and it might be some time before I can see anyone from school again, but this is where I say THANK GOD FOR FACEBOOK.

Never really thought I'd be "one of those," but yep, I have absolutely no idea what to do next, lol.

I'm quite good at rambling, so I'll cut it relatively short. Frankly speaking, I'm terrified of what I'm "supposed to do" now that I've finished college. I love animation, but I also love many other ways of creating art, and I guess now it's up to me to decide to what extent I want to devote my time+energy to making stuff. Because that's what art is....just making stuff, because you just have to do it. It's really not complicated, lol. 

But this is also the exciting part, too...where I am thrown into the unknown, and unceremoniously confronted with my insecurities. So congrats to all graduates, and let's do our best to keep making stuff. 

Here are some old little iPhone+Tumblr things, in the meantime. (Also, I'm hoping to upload my film online in the next couple months!)

never used paperclay before...i quite like it!! needed to do a time-based project for my weird painting class, so i'm planning on trying to project something inside this little house. but things always change last minute...so we'll see how it goes this week. 

i'm really confused about what i want to do or be...graduation is really soon. but they say the most important thing is to just keep making stuff. i can do that, lol. 

i was thinking the other day, that when i was in kindergarten, i wanted to be an artist. and i never really wanted to be anything else. even in high school when i thought becoming an artist was something meant to happen to other people. 

i must say, it's been little over a week since finishing my film and it's been....really nice to be able to think about other things. like reading~ 

FILM COMPLETE

I FINISHED MAH FIILLMMMM

ho mai gaht, that was way more difficult/emotionally challenging/humbling than I ever thought it could be, and I can't judge whether it's good or bad, but I have to say I did my best! And I did a lot of failing, but somehow I have a short film now. You wouldn't know it by looking at it, but the entire process from character conception to final render took NEARLY 9 months. ACCHhh.

Lots more to think about, especially now that I have to switch my brain mode into looking for a way to earn a living. Somehow. Some way. LOL. oh dear. Not sure what my "career goal" is anymore. I just want to experience as much as I can in a way that lets me explore without false intentions.

But that is the most difficult part of calling yourself an artist, no? I assume so. I mean. HAVEN'T GRADUATED YET. It happens on June 1 :)

Can't wait to post it up soon ^^ Not sure exactly when that will be, but thanks to my friends for your encouragement, and to the random passersby who sent encouragement as well. Means a lot when one person believes in you! There is a big difference between someone complimenting your work, and someone telling you that they think you have the ability to make good work.

I wonder what will happen next.