Position Statement

I am a passionate international student from Hong Kong. Studying aboard enables me to look at animation in new perspectives and developed a strong sense of devotion in 2D animation especially in storytelling. I also interested in filmmaking, photography and character design that expands my experience on moving image media.

 I am self-driven, hard working and organised artist who enjoy working in team. My strong time managing skill enables me to always complete briefs on time as well as manage workloads and interacting with teammates effectively.

 A fusion of Eastern and Western style is my aesthetic. The place where I came from is influenced hugely by Japanese animation and I also starting to enjoy the simplicity of cartoon in the Western country. I love to experiment with multiple media for example watercolour and collage, as I believe storytelling in textures. The diverse approach to work enables me to get involved in various projects from designing characters to set making. I am extremely open to new techniques and approaches to work and keep learning as a practitioner.

 My short-term aim is to strengthen drawing skills, build a firm foundation to prepare for the coming up projects as well as learn a few more animating software such as TV paint and Flash. Additionally, to meet more people, broaden my network to find animation lovers and set up a small community in Hong Kong. Long-term ambition is to encourage new blood in the animation industry in Hong Kong. Sharing the joy and fun of animation!

Please visit http://wingchiuanimation.com for more work!

Professional Portfolio

Wing Chiu Showreel :https://www.wingchiuanimation.com/

Presentation boards

PPP3 Presentation

Daily Drawings

I have a moleskin that is only for instant thoughts and life drawing. I practice watercolour, quick sketching as well as presentation of abstract thoughts which I think will benefit me as a concept artist as well as an illustrator. Since I have quite a diverse style, I like to take inspiration from a wide range of ideas for example, lyrics, interesting conversation to games or dreams. From these practice, I find out that it is OK not having a distinguishable style because I can show different messages via the most appropriate aesthetic. In jobs, I am capable to adopt work style from the previous artist and develop it further or translating style to another. I slowly gain more confident in my style-free ability and less stress about gaining my signature. Hopefully this will help me in networking as well as a channel to talk to professionals.

Snow Miku Competition

I entered the Snow Miku 2018 Design. Hatsune Miku is the most famous virtual idol from Japan. Every year, there will be a 'Snow Miku' competition open for anyone to design a new outfit for her based on the concept 'winter' and a new theme every year. I entered the competition because it is free also I love Hatsune Miku. She was originally just a vocaloid, with just an cover image that's all. People's creativity and imagination brought her to life and gave her some many different songs and identity which I found magical to a creation like her. 

According to the previous design, Japan judges tend to like simple but with a bit of fine detailed outfit, including both 'kawaii' and cyber style in the design. This year's theme is animal so I think of some Hokkaido (Japan most Northern district)famous animals and eventually chose the Japanese red-crowned crane as the foundation of the design.

Forgot to mention, the best design of Miku could turn the design into a little figure, which is the proportion of the template they provide officially that why I have both a cute and cubby version and a anime version. Try to stay chic but cute, including a lot of Japanese traditions like using red, white and black as well as using origami as part of her accessory.

Once it is uploaded onto their officially website which is done already and I got a few thumbs up for this entry. Feeling amazing to participate and really enjoy seeing all the design people put up! Can't wait to know the final design of Miku in Sept!

Asian Creative industry websites

To keep on track with the latest animation trend or news in Asian, I began to follow a lot of websites that aim at asian animators or artists. The difference between Eastern animation website and Western animation website is firstly and obviously introduce/ interviews local artists and exhibition. Additionally, I find Chinese animation industry focuses more on the story behind the animation in stead of the work in progress. The interviews usually asks the concepts and the journey of the work but due to asian is more reserved, we do not talk much about technique unless being asked.

Nevertheless, these few webpages update frequently with the latest news and introduce festivals etc. It is very useful to find out the closest festivals to go to when I am back in Hong Kong. Some of the websites even have a lot of connecting websites to the professional animators and illustrators for anyone who is interested in their work. 

Here is a website less specific to animation but shows any art event happening in Hong Kong. Since art in Hong Kong is less emphasised than Taiwan, Japan and Mainland, it is very essential to keep updated with new events.

developing as an anime artist

Besides the busy academic year, I still have my passion on anime drawing and carry out continuous practice on it. Pixiv, is the largest creative sharing platform in Japan, just like deviant art. The genre is slightly limited to only illustrations and gif, but generally in high quality and have an effective comment system. I had my pixiv account 5 years ago and make consistent posts of my own anime work. I know that my target audience of my anime drawing is the asian artists so I only upload them to these kind of website but still showing a bit of them on my website just to demonstrate this skill.

I keep trying different drawing styles and technique in my anime drawing from the 'traditional' 2D look to one layer painting. I slowly finding the aesthetic I enjoy and develop more  with that. What I enjoy uploading my work on pixiv is I gain some serious comments instead of just good work or nice. People gives good advices on the way to paint or where to improve therefore I enjoy this social network a lot.

I think there is a big market for anime style in Asia so I am not abandoning it. There are monthly comic con events in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Japan and some of my friends asked me to join and obviously I said yes! Mostly of my anime drawings are based on existing anime characters but I still love to create my original characters. I want to practice more anatomy as well as colouring skills through these anime piece which can be beneficial when coming up character design for a project or any other commission work.

CV Update After Easter

We had our CV improved by Mike after Easter. My CV is fine just need to change the wording of my personal profile as well as add Mike and Annabeth's phone number in the reference section.

Mike said it is good that I mentioned language as part of my skill since it will be very useful if I want to work in China or Japan, showing ability to talk to the studio is also a selling point. It might also be useful to have my CV in different language both Chinese and Japanese just to be easier for foreigners to look at if requested. 

*I should have add my original Chinese name in my CV as well if it is sending to local studio. How could I forget to do this haha.

Being a shy connector

The Shy Connector from Sacha Chua

This presentation is on e-studio and I recommend every shy artist to look at it! I can see myself as a shy connector and always afraid to talk to strangers. However I really want to improve this weakness because it is such an disadvantage during conference or meetings where we have opportunity to chat to artists. Some tips from Chus are very useful for example focus on learning and sharing instead of finding a topic to expand. The whole presentation suggests that a shy artist can be offering information instead of being the centre of it for example recommend books and websites that help people learn. But some advices are just not my type like dress quirky to make it easy for strangers to talk to you.

Follow up people you met and make friends with them, share information instead of do nothing.
I always have a fear that people do not interested in me, since I am such a potato, so I defeat myself before talking. It is important to feel confident and do not treat the chance talking to people as a chance to promote myself. Ask them stuffs about what I like and also show them my work. Think opposite, I will also be very happy if someone come to me and ask me opinion on their work. Therefore instead of networking with the new faces, I will think about making friends instead which feel less intimidated and 'remain the usual Wing'.

Reach out to Hong Kong artists-Stella So

Stella So is a famous illustrator in Hong Kong. I found her work during research for my Extended Practice. So's develops her work mainly based on the culture of Hong Kong and preserve the old traditions through drawings and animation. 'Very Fantastic' is her graduation animation that showed beautiful and packed old apartments of Hong Kong, raising an issue of preservation of cultural relics. Unfortunately due to copyright issue, I could not watch the full animation online but from the thumbnails, it looks amazing! Other than that, So has been successfully started up her brand after graduation and received huge amount of job since 2003. I admire her intuition on seeing Hong Kong in a different way. It is an aim to include cultural elements in my work and reflecting politics/ social / communital issues of the world like how So did in all her illustrations.

I sent her an email, showing appreciation to her work specially 'Very fantastic' as well as asking where did the idea came from and did she came across any difficulties during the production. Hope she will answer me and have a good chat about animation!

Chris Luk Talk

Chris Luk came to give us a talk about his journey from being an ex student to working as a ‎Designer at Turner (Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. Actually I talked to him before on instagram at my second year, asked him about networking and chat about job opportunity. He is a really nice and humorous person that so passionate about animation. The main advice from his talk is not to be afraid to reach out to people. Sending them your own work and ask for opinion instead of job opportunity right away. It is believed that they are generally very nice and willing to provide some feedbacks to the work and some may even able to meet up and have a drink. Chris also suggested when reaching out people, try to be friends instead of job partners, most of his job came from talking to friends. I totally agree with him. Being friends with people is more 'long-term' and sustainable. 

Afterwards, he walked around the studio and had some good chat with the class. I also showed him my Extended Practice work and apparently he really enjoyed it and willing to help me to reach out some artists who will also like my style! I am very pleased with that, he is too nice. Although I will probably go back to Hong Kong after graduated, it worth a try asking freelancer job or just have a chat with people! If I become more famous in the animation industry, I will also be helpful to the young animators, exploring their talents and interests, motivate them to enjoy the industry even more.

My plan for the future

First, I am definitely going back to Hong Kong for the rest of the year. Mike asks me a lot about staying in the UK. I still have not make up my mind because family is really important to me but I still want to challenge myself for the future. There is a possibility of working in other side of the world but for now, I want to stay in Hong Kong for a bit longer before going somewhere again.

In the next few month, I will have an interview on an internship from Intoxic Studio. It is one of the very few 2D based animation studio in Hong Kong and they have their own project instead of just receiving commercial job therefore I think it will be a good place to start of  as an junior animator, experiencing both self-directed project as well as doing commission job. There is a huge chance of getting employed by the studio after the internship (said so on their website) so I really looking forward to that!

I asked lots of my friends in Hong Kong about applying job advices. Most of them do not encourage me to turn studio down, it might due to the cultural differences between Hong Kong and the UK. Most of them said companies in Hong Kong are not generous to interviewers, since the city is so small, they tend to remember who has turned the offer down. I am a bit scared of this so not planning to send my CV to too many studios at the same time to prevent crashing offers. If I did not get the internship from Intoxic studio, I will keep sending CV to a few studio at one time as well as working as a theatre backdrop animator again. 

My aim is to find a steady job within three years. It does not limited to having a full time animation job. I really not bothered doing freelance or part-time. Life in Hong Kong is tough, animators are so demanding who also needs to know web making, illustration and graphic design. I will see this year of building a firm foundation, practice more animating and illustrating skills and hopefully this can lead me to more job possibility in Hong Kong as well as from anywhere of the world. I am glad that Uni forces us to do branding... Thank you LCA.

Showreel Update

We had a lecture about making a perfect showreel. Annabeth showed us a lot of good examples from online, explaining the do's and don'ts of showreel also some professionals talking about how they would select the interviewers from looking at their showreels. 

It is said that to put the best clip at front of the showreel. Professional animator said they do not have much time examing every single showreel from the interviews so it is important to draw their atttention! They also want to see working process and whether if the interviewers can animate thinking process of the characters through actions or expression. 

There are a lot of useful website from e-studio with good advices on creating showreel as well.

The showreel I had during first and sceond year have all the don'ts! It is unbearable to look at them now. 1. the first clip is boring, 2. too many clips. I was trying to include everything I did into the showreel instead of showing the best. 3. No working process

The professional animators said most of them do not care about the music but I think it is still a very essential element to make the showreel more enjoyable to watch that the moving images from the clip could move with the rhythm. 

Therefore my new showreel put the most interesting clip at the front which is the loopdeloop animation. I think the gossip rabbits draw the audience to watch closely to the showreel, showing interaction and leading the audience. I also shorten according to Mike's suggestion, quickly jump into the other visually interesting shorts.The showreel is consisted of quiet and dynamic, simple and bold, making a good balance in the genre of clips. Showing mainly my current work from the Extended Practice which I proud of and no more first year work. I also edited some working progress clips, showing how I went from lines drawing to a finished scene, explaining my working style and working order.

At the end of the showreel is an explosion clip which makes an exciting ending. Afterall, other classmates think it has a good rhythm, some actions sync well with the music and recieving positive feedbacks in general. I am also pleased with it. Comparing to the previous showreel, it definitely looks more professional and attractive. The work shown within is in better quality and showcasing a lot of skills as an animator as well as explaining my ability of adapting mutiple styles. 

Update Social Media

My facebook page was not updated since last year, which is not good. I used instagram a lot and facebook is not as convenient as the rest of the social media but I will try my best to keep up. One of the reason why I do not like facebook is the constantly poping up commercial suggestion. They always want you to pay to promote the website that is really annoying. What is more, instagram and other media reach out to people more actively and easy whereas facebook is quite passive and quite limited to the people you've already know.

Anyway, I changed the name of my page from Animation wing to Wing Chiu animation. Linked to my website and replaced the logo. Basically changed almost everything as if I am starting up a new brand. I fell more motivated when the images of the page is the latest.

I constantly uploaded working process of my Extended Practice work.

Also the trailer!

How silly of me uploaded a bunch of old work from foundation year to some immature first year work. I feel so embarrassed looking at them so they are all delected straight away and replaced with some new commission work which are much visually interesting and more professional. With a short description of the work, allowing visitors to understand the job hence the content. I will keep posting more recent school and possibly some daily life photos as well to let people know that this page is run by a real person! keeping the transparency in public.

Reply from Studio!

I am very happy Intoxic studio willing to wait for me to go back to Hong Kong in June! It is unbelievably excited! Before the interview, I need to do a lot of research on the studio(I have already done tho). They are interviewed by a animation organisation in Mainland China due to their award winning animation in Annecy and from that interview video I learnt more about the studio history and the founders as well as their aim and softwares. I will also tidy up my laptop since they asked interviewers to bring their own notebook. All the work will be packed in a folder and less messy desktop. Moreover, bring sketch books and other artwork to show some physical work, showing the ability to sketch and continuous drawing practice.

Festival Research 2

Seoul International Cartoon & Animation Festival (Koera)

I am entering asian animation festival. SICAF is one of them. Koera is the city of animation. So many talents and pofessional are in Koera and we have seen many Koeran films in the UK festival showing the potential of foreign animators. Animators in asian focus more on a narraive story as well as the aestheic and entering SICAF is a challenge and a real reward if my animation is selected. Free of charge!

Deadline 21/5/2017
The deadline is next week so need to hurly up for the preparation

Cartoon underground (Singapo)

I only know this festival during research and it is claimed to be the first and largest animation festival. I saw some pictures of the previous festival which is very casual and there is nothing formal, everyone was chilled and having a good time, watching animation outdoor! What a fantastic event! Although there is no awards or competition, it is good to show my animation in other country and I saw some animation we watched in MAF 2016 which proved this is a festival worth entering.

Deadline:30/6/2017

No restriction at all!

Festival Research

I think my final extended practice film can be submitted to quite a lot of festiva due to the genre of it. I wish to strengthen my brand in the eastern countries so I have chosen quite a lot of overseas and asian festival which near my future working environment.

I want to entre MAF because I experienced the festival before and I love how they shows students films and other professional films as well. The general atmosphere is young and energetic, aiming at young potential animator but at the same time they invite experienced lecturer and judges as well. The mixture of people generate the creative environment which I enjoyed so much.

MAF deadline:28/7/2017 (England)

there are not much restriction to the submission and it is free as well! If my film is selected there will be a big chance gaining so much reputation in the UK and also enhance my CV.

Klik in amsterdam is also a festival I wanted to entre for so long! The location of the festival is in town centre which is so easy to get there so it is packed every year (and the tickets are insanely expensive as well) It is a good chance to show my work to animation professionals and people who like animation from all over the world. Klik is very famous worldwide. I want to entre it not only because of its fame but also their aim to expand the creative industry and not being just competitive. It will be an honour to contribute and let more people enjoy animation.

Klik deadline:1/6/2017 (Amsterdam)

My animation could fit into the students short and possibly the documentary as well. I can assign it in mutiple slots and they could move it to the most suitable catagory.

The awards are very tempting(not mentioning money) but to be recognised by the public!!

Business Card

I decided to have the style of my final Extended Practice animation on my business card since people might interested in me after watching my final film. I still include watercolour texture but instead of watercolour paper because it is fragile and not preservable than normal card paper. To even be more consistent of my brand, I apply the same background I have on my website on the business. Keeping the card simple is my first aim and I think having the only important information, in this case my website and email, is all I need on my card. Totally not interested in putting too many social media on it to ruin the look. The shapes and the illustration represent my as a mix-media artist but also able to draw in detail which I think this is the best design for my brand. Nevertheless, I also want to create more sets of business card for the final year show, comparing which one is the most popular to pick and reflect on it.

Website update

I revisited my website because it was not showing enough work and the layout was terrible. I looked at other animators' website and found out that there are more styles and option on wix that I can use. Therefore more experiment and play around with different format and presentation of work.

On the showreel page, I updated the latest one and make it slightly bigger in size.

I made a separate page for both animation and illustration. The animation page shows some of my pervious work in a better layout. It does not open another link when click to the image but showing the animation straight away instead also with a slide of thumbnails of other clips under. This is so much better than the previous design, audience can choose what to see immediately also with brief description on top. Much more clear and organised.

I made three sub-page in the illustration section. Character, environment and daily sketches. I think this could allow me show more work both serious and casual art. I used slideshow to show full image instead of showing thumbnails because they look better together in big size.  Previously there were only a section of each illustration showed at the bottom of the animation which looked so unprofessional and audience might not want to click to the image because they were so unclear of what they are especially when character designs and background designs were put together.

I did not put too much daily sketches because most of them are very scribbly and all over the place. This makes me consider the way I sketch...it is time to be more generous about paper. Do not draw in corners of paper. I also include my anime drawings..but not too many since it is not everyone's cup of tea but all these sketches can show how diverse my styles and flexible I am.

Change another profile picture that actually show (some of) my face. I think this is better than just a random gif or illustration. It be also be good to have a drawing of myself which I never done in my life so photo might be a better choice.

I added a mailbox so it is much welcoming and professional looking. What's more, I paid to upgrade my wix account in order to get rid of the wix advert.

My website is also my portfolio. I am happy with how it looks now and how much it improves after that. I will keep updating it (as I paid for that) and share the website in other social media.

http://wingchiuanimation.com     <-----please click!

Illustrator Practice

Since the application to Intoxic Studio, I started praticing Illustrator because it is a skill they are looking for which I am terrible at. I have tried making some proper illustrations from illustrator before but I was not skilled and worked slowly. With these frequent practices, I hope I could be skillful with the basics also speed up the pase. Youtube is where I find the tutorials from, most of them are very simple with direct instruction therefore I just played around the software at the spare time.

I think keeping a theme to all these practice would be quite fun to look at at the end so I illustrate food just because I am a foodie. Usually illustrate what I ate at that day!

A quick reflection after a week of illustator practice: It definitely requires time to be familiar with the software. So far, I remember some hot keys and the pen tool but still a lot to learnt in order to illustrate complicated images. What I am not happy with is that the end product looks right but the working progess is not professional and the vectors are very messy. Therefore I will keep experimenting with easier shapes, really picking up the software from basic, build a strong foundation.