Still Need Help

So I no longer can use my student license of Maya and I’m not going to resort to piracy. That being said, without a strong reel/portfolio/training/experience, I don’t know what to do next. I can’t really get any job because I was advised to have my loans from the Art Institute “forgiven.” That means if after three years I never earned above 15K/yr, I’ll never have to pay the loans back. With SSI being all I received in payments, that seemed like a wise choice. However now I can’t work, nor can I afford any of the tools I need to keep my skills sharp, nor can I go back to school because I would have to get more loans which defeats the purpose or starts the whole thing all over again. I may have posted about my predicament before, but I don’t recall ever getting help or support. Seriously, what can I do right now to get into the animation industry to work my way up to getting my own ideas for films produced?

If you want to keep yourself sharp, at the very least try to get yourself a copy of blender. Deliberately set aside regular time through the week to work in it. That way you won’t be standing still and the skillsets you learn using that will mostly be transferable between software packages.

Yes if there’s restrictions to your earnings for three years that’s likely to limit your options. I almost hate to say the option but there’s a lot of places that ‘employ’ the questionable practice of unpaid interns. You’ll probably still need to show such places that you have at least rudimentary skills, which is where your blender work or student reel comes into play.

Blenders rigging tools are a lot different from Maya’s. Is there anything universal I could base a Blender rigging reel on - such as deformations?

Get some professional advice about this before doing anything serious. The law about student loans is complex and you definitely don’t want to wake up in 3 years having foregone 3 years of income and then find out you still owe money! Not to mention having a harder time buying a house or a car for years.

Check with your state and local government, there is probably some free advice available out there from people who do this for a living; you may also be able to get some advice from a community college career office. I don’t know how much useful info you could get from the art institute career office but it can’t hurt to ask. Many cities also have CPAs or CFPs who do pro-bono advice work for people in similar situations. Get all the info you can; it’s a serious decision.

In the meantime:

  1. Blender is free and not bad. Other free tools:
    GIMPfor image editing
    Sketchupfor architectural modelling
    MakeHuman for character modelling
    Unity Free is a great place to experiment with games production. Some people also use it as a real-time filmmaking platform.
    VLMC is a free video editing program if you want to try to put together a short film.
    Source Filmmaker is a good animation tool and has an active community you can learn a lot from
    Hash Animation Masteris cheap (It used to be under $100, not sure now) and is pretty capable. The UI is probably farther from Maya’s than blender is, but its not a bad program.

  2. You’ll have to explain the gap in your resume when you do start looking. The best explanation - and one that probably won’t impact your earnings too much - is to get in on a startup. You won’t make much money, if any, but you’ll have work to do and a reason to keep improving. You can always tell future job interviewers that you were part of a startup that didn’t work out - that sounds much better than “I was waiting out my student loan debts”. There are lots of startups in games – check with your local chapter of the IGDA. I don’t know much about film/tv/vfx startups but there are probably similar communities for those as well; look for local meetup groups for indie filmmakers. Being willing to work for free is an advantage when you’re dealing with cash-strapped indies of any kind.

  3. If you can’t find a startup, a solo project is another way to keep focused. You can make short films and put them up on Youtube – it’s good practice in dealing with criticism. If all else fails, learn Unity and put something up on the app store: it’s not likely to make a ton but it’s a great way to keep yourself focused, keep learning, and avoid a suspicious gap in your CV.

  4. Another solo option is to make and sell content directly on turbosquidor steam workshop. I’m not sure if there are other marketplaces specific to animation. You can also try to market yourself as a freelancer. Any kind of freelancing is tough – it takes a lot of dedication, but if you are aggressive and can make a name for yourself it can be rewarding (plus it builds portfolios and contacts for later job hunting). If you go this route make sure to learn enough about contracts and managing relationships that you don’t work yourself ragged for too little money. Remember that 90% of your contacts won’t turn into work – that’s just the way it goes, don’t let it demoralize you.

Working solo is a real test of determination and focus: I would not recommend it as anything but a last resort unless you are a very driven, focused human being. If you go that route try to find a workspace you can share with other people in creative work so you have company, a social life of sorts, and moral pressure of other people in the same room who know if you’re just watching Youtubes all day.

Thanks for the advice. Just to clarify, my loans were forgiven on the basis of “total and permanent disability” and the “monitoring period” ends in September of 2015. I’ve been dealing with a lot of mental health issues during this period, which has made my previous training atrophy a great deal. I really want to start learning again from the ground up: from the foundations like anatomy, animation, and calculus, to Maya and various programming languages. I wish I could learn Unity too but I’m too afraid of spyware, malware, ransomware, and other Windows threats to move from Linux, and I can’t afford a Mac. Plus there’s a lot of math libraries on Linux that many haven’t even attempted to be supported on Windows, but are mentioned in technical papers relevant to rigging/deformation (“Implicit Skinning…” “Volume-Preserving…” etc) and thus I’d like to use for my portfolio.

I don’t think the gap will be any harder to explain than my overall lack of experience in the first place. My resume is mostly volunteer work. I’ve offered to work for free at many places, but never heard back and I assumed it was because I just didn’t have enough skillfulness yet.

Working solo for me has always succumbed to this cycle…My mental health is too poor to get any work done, and my doctor advised me to go outside, take walks ,etc. My neighborhood, city, and entire area is too dangerous to go outdoors to do my doctor’s recommendations. Not even public transportation is safe enough to take me to a nicer spot for walking. I want to move, but I can’t afford any better location as you might have guessed. So I need work to have an income to support my moving…

Online courses from places like Coursera or Khan Academy may be helpful, especially for math, physics and programming. There’s also Python the Hard Way http://learnpythonthehardway.org/

Look hard for meetups or other groups of like minded people in your area. I know for me working alone in isolation is really a downer; a supportive community can be a big help.

On the bright side: the best way to polish your skills to use them. Find a project - paid or unpaid, private or part of a group - and make it shine. You’ll learn a lot more figuring things out on your own and trying to hit concrete goals than just studying in a vacuum. If it turns into a good portfolio piece or a resume builder so much the better, but above all having an achievable goal to work for is big morale booster.