Worst Professional Advice I've heard preached

[Music] hey guys it's sidney komento and today i'd like to share you guys some of the worst professional advice i've ever received some gabbage material just absolute garbage and these are advice i've received from professionals on top some co-workers and teachers too the first one that i can think of is to adapt to professional art style man don't do anime bro that's noob art so first of all what the hell does a professional art style mean personally i do believe that everyone should have decent drastic shift skills so technical drastic ship skills for solid drawing design dress and ship to utilize the elements of principles and design into your own work and observational skills so you're able to like capture adapt and recreate or adapt another style and there's a lot of projects out there that have different styles so this whole notion of adapting a professional art style doesn't make sense to me i remember when i was at school a student submitted character design artwork and it kind of had an anime style and the teacher warned the student that there are still people in charge out there who still believe anime is this amateurish art style but remember this was seven years ago so i think the landscape has changed a lot especially in western animation now there's a lot of younger people taking charge in the animation industry and embracing the anime style and sometimes you'll see job postings where they're actively looking for people who are familiar with the anime language so i kind of have two counter advices for this keep fostering your own current work and to improve that keep experimenting keep getting out of your comfort zones and study the work that you look up to and break down why it works and then the second advice i would give is that if you really want to work in a certain studio look at all the artists that come from that studio and find common elements that you can find in those artists works and so when you make a portfolio to cater to that studio you're showing them that you too can hit those marks and work in their aesthetics don't do fan art or make any fan content now i've only heard a few professionals kind of preach this where they say not to do any fan art just keep doing original content and honestly most of those people are not really well liked to me they come off as party poopers there's a lot of bs excuses like you're not presenting yourself professionally or that you're not showing your true voice as an artist the only ones that i can sort of agree is related to legal issues or the legality stuff the law stuff remember with fan art you're dealing with copyright characters and sometimes seasoned distance can happen but in terms of your career or your artistic growth people who have done fan art have gotten really great opportunities if you really like an existing story a character then you're gonna do a much better job producing art featuring those and those will sort of showcase your skills and what you're truly capable of in most cases it attracts more viewers to your work and a lot of fan projects fan art fan content have given some people some great job opportunities and about the whole voice sticking out it can still show in fan art since you're pretty much putting your own spin and take while using copyright and existing material as a sort of template so if you like doing fan art and you want to keep doing it by all means don't stop eventually you want to give your fan content a bit more of your spin a bit more of your original takes and then eventually invest in your own original work now this one's a pretty popular one which is have zero distractions while working for example listening to music while working this is pretty well known from the animator survival kit written by richard williams there's a section in the book where richard williams asks milk call is it okay to listen to music or do you listen to music while working and milk call response that's a really dumb question that's stupid and richard concludes that we must be totally focused and engrossed in our work without any distractions so number one everyone's different so personally i like to listen to music when i'm doing mundane things or laborious things like in-betweening but when it comes to writing then i kind of have to turn off music because i can't really focus what i'm writing if i'm listening to music with lyrics for example whereas some people can a lot of my friends do miss working in the building because of that social interaction or that environment where people are working and just that environment that atmosphere and the sounds of people just like working in their offices helps them get in the mood you know some sort of stimulation to get them going so i do have two opinions about this the first one being that i don't think this is a worse advice but i don't think it's an advice that should be enforced i'm a big believer of everyone working in their full optimum whether it's an office space whether it's a nice environment and that also includes whether it has music or not or some form of background noise to sort of stimulate that work mode there's working overtime for a little pay or for free this also includes crunch timing without pay so i'm not going to name the studio but i was in a situation where i was a story artist for a tv show according to the animation guild greats i was severely underpaid for what i was doing and i was coming into the weekend to complete some boards without getting paid for it when i requested to get fair pay i was totally shut down and told that i had to prove myself to deserve that so i had to prove that i was willing to take my weekends off to go to the studio and work unpaid by the way some of the higher ups told me this is normal and it should be a thing it should be normalized one of the higher ups told me that he broke up with his girlfriend because of the crunch time that made him so busy and how it was normalized and how he was totally okay with that this is what's needed to grow in your career so number one that's a very dangerous way of thinking because it sets an example for the future generation or future employees and some of them won't be able to perform those crunch times and some of the shows that had this problem had a huge turnover of artists personally i do crunch myself but i do not enforce it to others so if you have to participate in crunch time make sure that you're getting paid for that over time or they have to work out a pipeline that doesn't make them crunch as much only study successful and well-known professionals so this can happen in any industry where you'll hear repeated names over and over again and sometimes the advice you'll hear is just to study these people because they grant success and they do what works really well in the industry they're in or the discipline they're in so if you're like doing 2d animation or studying to do td animation how many times have you heard the name melt call james baxter glenn keane or richard williams and then how many times have you been told to study them and in some cases just them i'm pretty sure visual development concept art character design they all have recurring popular names that you'll hear again and again and then some advice is to study them to the point where you're being them personally i think it's good to study many artists especially the ones that you like or the things that resonate with you and how their work solved many problems how they came up with their own solutions the only thing i have against this advice is that there's a notion that some people believe that you should only study certain artists only study certain artists that will grant the same level of success like how you should just study and emulate these professionals within the industry one of the main causes of having a bland artistic style is that one limits their number of influences and only focuses on just a few and you just become a mere copy of these certain individuals my number one advice for this is to always take in many different influences even the ones that aren't really successful or popular but you tend to resonate with it so let's say if there's an art style that you really like but is not really well known or really well received maybe find a way to take what works for that artist and that style and then use it on top of many different other inspirations remember knowledge is power so while it's good to also know why something is well received or why it works always be open to taking in inspirations from obscure sources or things that do resonate with you and the other advice i have is just to keep experimenting study from life do a completely different approach don't be another james baxter or glenn keane or whatever artist just to be able to get work or be successful in a career just be you and opportunities will find a way to reach you and the other advice i have is just to keep experimenting study from life do a completely different approach and don't limit your sources of inspiration and influences only study what works the rules and things that just grant universal appeal so what does this one actually mean imagine an animation walk cycle and then you're told that a successful walk cycle can only have these poses the up post a contact post to down pose things that you'll find in a richard williams book the same sort of goes for storyboarding there's like so many different philosophies of what shots to use what shots not to use why this shot would never work why you shouldn't have like characters staring right at the camera so again i think it's good to know all of this and if the production that you're working in calls for you to follow these rules at least you know how to do that if we follow the rules all the time or play safe all the time it's going to limit our problem solving skills like who says portraying weight and animation can only be showcased with squash and stretch or that a true walk cycle should only have these up and down and contact poses i've been in productions where a department would come up with excuses of why a simple solution to a problem won't work they say it'll cost money they'll say it resorts to a long restructure of the pipeline or they'll just say it just won't work for the standard but that is also due to the lack of creativity of not like experimenting with newer techniques and methods that could simplify the process the other problem i see with only playing by the rules or what works is that it starts to create a reluctancy or a fear of you know doing new things experimenting or even making mistakes and i guess making mistakes grants instant failure to them we should be expanding our problem solving skills our vocabulary so if we do future work we have a bigger and better understanding in how to solve certain problems or different approaches to hit certain goals keep working hard even in your free time don't waste that time so this one's a bit more general but there are professionals out there who really celebrate hard work crunch time and just spending most of your free time dedicated to your craft in a way it's kind of related to working with zero distractions because some of these professionals preach that you shouldn't really go out to play video games watch movies have leisure time and that you should be fully dedicated to your craft i personally think that everyone should dedicate a bit of their hours just absorbing different influences enjoying life and obtaining those inspiration and influences so it can actually inspire and influence your work part of this craft is all about growing and if you want to grow you can't just stay at one site you have to kind of go out gain all these different experiences and grow from that not just an artist but just as a human so one problem i personally face is that i spent so much time on my own personal projects like i know that i should spend more time playing video games or seeing friends but i lose track of time so easily so sometimes i'll start working on personal projects at like 10 pm and then it's already like 3am i didn't get to play video games i didn't get to watch a movie or show that i could have gained something out of it so the advice i would give is something that my therapist told me and if you're a workaholic is to dedicate at least two hours of just doing something else like working out cleaning your apartment going for a trip and even though you feel like working it's still something that you have to sort of force yourself to do because you might not know it but you're slowly getting burned out from constantly working and when the whole idea of sort of like stepping away from that work scares you because you'll feel like oh you're not getting anything done or you're falling behind and you should step away from your work more often the last one is pretty popular and is always stated with professionals and especially with recruiters which is to keep networking for your career and what happens is that a lot of people when they hear this advice they just think of like meeting a lot of people just for the sake of networking so they can elevate themselves in their career and this is something i personally witness with individuals like they'll only talk to certain people if they are in higher standing within the industry or career and then for people not as high they kind of just disregard them guys my guys what happened to like building relationships if you keep preaching networking as an advice it's going to normalize that attitude of just talking to people just because of career opportunities and it shouldn't be like that at all i personally think that looking for connections just for business or career opportunities it's not going to just burn you out but it's also going to distort how you view people so if i were to kind of give an alternate version of this advice is that it is okay to reach out to people for business reasons and career reasons but you also have to treat people with a level of respect that you treat them as a person more than just a business partner and those things can lead to opportunities that go beyond just mere business so those are my thoughts on the worst professional advice i have ever received but personally i don't think these worst advices are that bad after all because they do have some good intentions behind them whether it's just tough love from a professional or whether it takes to be successful in this line of career and sometimes good intentions and good advice can be taken the wrong way and the reason why i'm relaying these certain advices is that i've heard it so much i've heard it preached over and over again in multiple occasions but the worst thing about these advices is that they don't come from a place that is genuine it's just a preaching that's been passed down over and over again there's nothing personal and intimate about it it's just standard generic advice that i see can lead to many problems and i have seen problems that came from these advice so there you have it those are my thoughts on the worst advice a pro could give anyway interested in learning hand-drawn animation or learning how to finish an animated shot from beginning to end have a look at the store where you'll find the complete introduction to 2d animation video course tutorials and other resources learn classical animation approaches drawing lectures techniques and other process videos visit the store through the link in the description below

Channel: Toniko Pantoja

Views: 43,176

Keywords: Toniko Pantoja, Youtube, Animation, Tutorial, Advice, Lesson, Vlog, Adobe, Photoshop, Animate, Flash, After Effetcts, Premiere, Video, Film, Drawing, Tips, Gestures, professional

Id: hQeH21E4lz4

Length: 13min 58sec (838 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 21 2021