Laura Quinn (above)  from TELETOON  spoke to third year animation students (below) about the TELETOON scholarship competition.

Max the Mutt Open House
May 26th - June 1st, 2008 10:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m.

Featuring 2nd and 3rd year student art work

A great opportunity to take a tour of the school, view graduating student demo reels

 Concept Art… Art and Design…Media Art and Design…Video Game Art and Design…   It really can get confusing - there are so many words and titles used for the same things.

Max the Mutt is a Career College offering a four year Diploma Program in  Concept Art as well as other diploma programs. That is, our college focuses on “art and design.”  In fact, all of our programs concentrate on giving students a solid skill base.

Some schools offer “game design” programs (diploma or degree) that include some courses in concept art ( also known as video game art design).  However, concept art is a career that demands deep drawing and painting skills in addition to concept specific courses and it’s doubtful that in 3 or 4 years any program can adequately teach both!  That’s why we don’t teach “game design.”

“Concept Art” can be used to refer to “Design For Animation” as well as “Design for Video Games,”  although  recently  it seems  often to be used  to refer to the background, character and prop design for video games.

We want our students to have a broad-based concept art education that will give them flexibility in the workplace now and in the future.  That’s why our college’s concept art program includes Concept Art for Animation as well as 2D and 3D game design!  Our Concept Art graduates will be employable in both industries. We’ve  already had numerous visits from major video game companies, and our animation grads are working for EA and UbiSoft as concept artists, animators, and lighting specialists

Martin Sawkins is an Art Director for video games and has been in the business for more than 15 years. One of his posts on conceptart.org, seemed so pertinent that I thanked him and asked if I could quote it on our Blog. Here it is:

“One of the lucky and unlucky things about being an artist is that your
portfolio is all that matter’s when it comes to getting a job, nobody is
going to care where or if you went to art school. This is not to say you
should or shouldn’t go, it’s just that when you are being assessed by the
Art Director it’s going to be your work that he looks at.

As for what type of course to take, well I’ve hired and worked with
concept designers who have mainly come from Industrial Design or
Illustration educational backgrounds. Generally speaking, and of course
there can be exceptions, I would avoid game design courses if you want to
become a concept artist, for the most part these course will not give you
full time study in concept design and will not have the best instructors
for concept design/illustration.

What do we look for in concept designers? Sometimes companies hire for
specific projects in which case they tend to like concept artists who have
the same style or can adapt to that style, but in general the broader your
skill set is the more appealing you are to the employer. If you have a
broad portfolio that shows you can handle characters, vehicles,
environments, mood paintings, storyboards in a wide variety of styles then
you become much more employable than an artist who has a portfolio that
shows only fantasy monsters. There are many, many things that contribute
to what we look for, personally once the basics have been covered,
design, perspective, color, proportion, anatomy, the biggest thing that I
look for is, can this artist give me things I haven’t seen before.”
I’m happy to say that Max the Mutt’s four year Diploma Program In Concept Art for Animation and Video Games includes courses that teach (in depth) all the skills Martin Sawkins has stressed. This is not a school that teaches game design. Our focus is entirely on teaching drawing and painting skills necessary for traditional fine art and illustration. In addition, we teach concept specific courses that help students learn to think creatively, find and execute concept ideas. Computer applications come last! Best of all, Max the Mutt’s commitment to trying to keep tuition as low as possible without compromising your education, means tuition is lower than other schools

I just couldn’t wait a week! Please leave me comments. I’d enjoy hearing from you.

February 8, 2008

This is a new venture for me. I would like to invite you all to add your thoughts and comments. My plan is to simply share with you each week what’s on my mind. Right now I’m thinking about animation schools, computer animation schools, and the close relationship between the skills required for these professions and illustration for sequential arts, which is a fancy way of referring to comics and graphic novels. We now, of course, also have a Diploma program in Illustration for Sequential Arts. Both programs are about story telling, conveying action and emotion through drawing, understanding cinematic language… they really do have a lot in common. Both fields require the ability to work as a team player: although comic and graphic novel artists may be working alone at home, they are generally still part of a team and are communicating with the writer and other artists on the project via the internet, or telephone.

I have heard of so many fine and talented artists who have not had successful careers because they lacked professionalism! An Animation or Computer Animation Diploma or Degree, an Illustration Diploma or Degree, are meaningless in getting and keeping jobs. What’s necessary is a solid skill base, backed up by a portfolio (and, for animation, a demo reel) and a solid grasp of professionalism. As a Career College, we incorporate this training into our Animation, Illustration and Concept Art Diploma Programs. I really think that’s why our graduates are doing so well.

Please share your thoughts and experiences with me!

Comic Book Artist Comes to Visit Max The Mutt Animation School.

Richard Pace, Maxine Schacker and Matthew Toner.

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Max The Mutt team meet the folks at UBi Soft.

Visiting Max The Mutt Animation School, Toronto.

UBi Soft Came to visit the Max The Mutt Students to speak about working for their company.

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