Noob Animator Looking For Advice

crappyguy

Hi there! I don't know if disclosing your real name here is common or not but, i am Bijoy, an aspiring suprsta.. i mean Animator from Kolkata, India.
I'm fairly new to animation, been to a few places here and there, took some classes and  have a very basic reel set up.
here's the reel if you're curious


Ideally, i would continue on with my classes until i am at a decent place with some good acting shots in the reel but for reasons, i had to try look for freelance work. And i soon discovered, it is so tough. I literally have nothing after a couple of months of trying. But i get it, no body is interested in a guy who can't do facial anim. so i gate it a go, with a short test

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DS538cg__K8

and to be honest, i am not very happy with how it is going, and i realized "Oh, i don't have the same mentors i had back in the school, so i do not know what to do". That classic stage where i discover "oh, i'm kind of alone right now".

So here's my first silly question to you all fine people, how do i push beyond what i already know when i am on my own? how can i study other people's animations to gain info? what do i look for?

My second question :  am i really ready to actually start animating faces yet? what i actually want to do at this stage is play around with body acting and pantomime for some time until i get very comfortable with them (and finish shots that i can be proud of and show people comfortably). But then again comes the freelancing dilemma. What would you suggest someone like me to do?

i'll appreciate any answer/advice you have for me. If this gets no replies/attention, ill simply keep swimming deeper into my depressionPool xD

as a bonus, if anyone has any feedback on the demo reel itself, i'd be very happy to hear it
[[ open for general conversations too]]
Thanks!

Neox

how many freelance animators are actually tasked with facial animation in games? i can't tell, thats why i am asking. I would assume that anything that is this important to storytelling will not be outsourced to individual freelancers? I would have assumed that outsourcers do the more generic tasks, taking care of NPC movement for instance and other such things.

Thats said, i feel like your initial reel shows a lot of potential, i really like it. The second... i am certainly not professional enough to properly judge it.

crappyguy

Hey Neox. i did not think about that yet but sounds kind of true. Most companies wouldn't give Facial animation work to newly hired freelance/remote guys. But then again, even i am not sure how it works, i still do not perfectly know the difference between things like full-time freelancer or contract guy. Still a lot to learn

Thanks! that is exactly what i mean, the final reel is somewhat nice but at the same time, i got a lot of help from professional animators, and i want to improve on my own as well now still trying to figure things out hah. I'm a mess

Eric Chadwick

Some resources here that might help
http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/Animation

crappyguy

ooh nice! thanks for the links, Eric!