The Ringling Thread Part Deux (2005 hopefuls) + summary of old thread

[sula_nebouxi]

Ok, I know it seems really damn early to start a thread for this but might as well get a head start eh? :D

I guess I'll follow AgentJ's thread by introducing myself...My name's Anthony Tso and I'm 19 yrs old and currently a sophmore at Rutgers University in New Jersey. Ever since I joined CGtalk I've seen so much talk about Ringling. I was curious if this school lived up to the hype so...I checked out their website and student's work and all I have to say is...DAMN. This place had better reels than every other school out there, some were even better than some professionals. Sadly though I missed the deadline to apply for the 2004 semester by a few weeks. I had only heard about Ringling recently. I applied for SVA in new york city though, but didn't get in. I think it was better I didn't apply for Ringling. I wouldn't have gotten in anyways.

So, fast foward to the present. Ringling is now my first choice for a cg school with SVA 2nd. I'm almost as obsessed about Ringling as AgentJ was(heh no offense). Ringling , as far as I'm concerned is the Harvard of cg animation. I think I'll have a nervous breakdown if I don't get in. That's why I'm busting my ass off, and starting on this portfolio real early. Even if means spending a total of 7 years in school and $80,000 in debt, I'm still going. This has become my dream and I...will...live...it...

I've read through the other Ringling thread and this is my attempt to condense 24 pages of information down to a few paragraphs. This info is basically for Computer Animation(CA) and Illustration majors. Whew...here goes...

Application process and Portfolio:

Official requirements:
Ringling requires a portfolio of artwork which ranges from 10 pieces(if you're in high school) and 15 (if you're transferring). In addition 2 pieces from each studio course must be included if you want credit for it. At least half of the artwork must be done from direct observation. Ringling also requires an essay and 2 letters of recommendation. You need to have a high school GPA of at least 2.0, not sure about college GPA if you're transferring, but I'm guessing it's the same. SAT scores are not required, but they may help if they are high. An essay is also required on one of the following subjects:
1. The creation of art is the result of many influences. Who or what has most influenced your work? In what way?
2. Discuss your goals as an artist or designer. How will attending Ringling School of Art and Design help you achieve your goals?
3. Discuss a local, national or international issue that is important to you. How would you address it in a work of art?
4. Describe an important experience that has shaped you as a person and as an artist.

Unofficial requirements(Or probably what they like to see, in no order)

-Figure studies and still lifes, lots of them. When Ringling means observation from life they mean this. -Don't ignore composition in still lifes, they can turn a dull piece into something really interesting to look at.
-Be very careful in including 3d work, only include it if your 2d skills are top notch and even then only include a few, and even then still, only include it if it kicks ass.
-Be diverse. Include a little bit of everything, by which I mean different mediums. Paintings, charcoal, pencil, etc...
-I've heard from a person who got in that a representative from Ringling said they like to see motion studies, and that you have some understanding of animation or movement (ie walk cycles, the bouncing ball)
-No storyboards. Stick to observational drawings.
-Scanning drawings can be a bad thing. Use slide film or a good digital camera in good lighting.
-It is possible that attending a college prep/precollege program will increase your chances of getting in. The official requirements stated that they like to see that you have taken a bunch of studio art and art history courses prior to going to Ringling.
-Plan to spend LOTS of time with your drawings, expect to spend at the very least 6hrs on each one. It's grueling but the amount of effort will show in your work.
-Your current GPA and portfolio are key to getting in. If you have a very high GPA(3.5 and up) you can probably get by with a decent portfolio, if you show potential. But if your GPA is low(between 2.0 and 3.0), your portfolio must be fantastic to offset the GPA. GPA's are important because they show that you are willing to work hard to improve. And also because academics are also important to Ringling.
-Your essay is also very important. It may tell a bit about you that your drawings cannot. To a lesser extent it also shows that you can put words together to form a sentence ;). Your essay should have a sense of eagerness to work hard, humility, no arrogance, and don't say something like "If I don't get in that's fine, I can do it on my own". They might think "OK, next!".
-Ringling wants to see a few things above all else: Potential, drive, creativity, skill, and your personality shine through your portfolio.
-Not sure if this matters too much but, do your drawings on a nice unwrinkled sheet of paper with no rips or tears or whatnot.
-Showing contrast in drawings is a must. Have a large range of values in your drawings. It's never good to just have grays in your drawings. Include dark blacks and bright whites.
-Play to your strengths. If you have weak figure studies, try not to include too many of them. Instead include what you are good at. Just don't neglect the observational art.
-Show only your best. Including bad or relatively average drawings can hurt your chances. It kinda gives a rushed feeling and they may think you aren't consistent with your work. Even if you have very few pieces, it's better than filling it out with mediocre work.
-Try not to wait until the last minute to send in the portolio, while they may be lenient on this, it doesn't hurt not to take any chances.
-Quick gestures may be a good idea to include. Maybe a large sheet full of them.
-Ringling likes to see creative works alongside the observational stuff. Show them what you are interested in. Remember, this portfolio is supposed to show who you are.
-Ringling, and most other art schools for that matter, don't want to see comic/manga style work. It's hard to be original with those kinds of styles. They also do not want to see stuff drawn from photos. Usually a trained eye can notice whether or not something has been photographed beforehand.

Random Info: (Also in no order)
-You should get your response from Ringling between the end of February and mid-March. It seems to depend on how many have applied and when and if you get weeded out(sorry if that sounded harsh).
-It doesn't really matter if your drawings are done on large paper or small paper. Whatever you're comfortable with.
-Solid foundation in art goes a long way. Understanding the human body will help tremdously in creating not just realistic works but believable ones.
-You can call the computer animation department to see if you have been accpeted. Sometimes they can check for you. Or they might give in from all the requests :)
-To be eligible for the Presidential scholarship(all expenses paid) you must complete your application and submit your FAFSA by March 1st. It goes to one person from each major and depends on your entrance portfolio. It only goes to the best.
-Unconfirmed: You can reduce your tuition by working as a Resident Advisor in the dorms. By doing this you do not have to pay for housing. That's $5000 less each year you have to pay.
-Freshmen are required to have a meal plan, after freshmen year you do not have to have one. This is because Freshmen dorms do not have a kitchen.
-FEWS is a great extra-curricular activity. Kids get together and just draw live models. Perfect for those who want to improve their skills.
-There are LOTS of scholarships out there. Pretty much every major corporation has one(it's a nice tax write off) Target, McDonald's, Taco Bell etc...It is possible to pay off a major part of your tuition with just scholarships. Check fastweb.com, lots of scholarships are available for those that just graduated high school and those who are undergraduates in college. Hell...I found a scholarship just for atheists.
-Word is, the Keating Freshmen dorms are full of fresh out of high school partiers. It will be loud and hard to concentrate on work there. Look into "family housing" or check to see if you can transfer into the Quads or Bayou dorms. Quads are also considered to be the nicest of the dorms so, if you're transferring in as a freshman and you have transfer credits and you are older than a traditional freshman, you have a good chance of getting in there. The Cove is supposedly quiet but it's quite a walk to the main campus.

Hmm...I think that pretty much sums up the last Ringling thread. Just remember to do your best and don't ever give up! Oh, and if you don't get in immediately, don't worry. Get on the waiting list and usually a couple people who got accpeted choose not to attend. It seems the wait list position can be anywhere from 3 to 10. Wow this took quite a while to write...well...anyways good luck...we'll need it. :D

[sula_nebouxi]

Here's some more stuff from the other thread...It's a good read.

Originally posted by keithlango
I'm very familiar with the Ringling program. I know the faculty and have been involved as a visiting artist and guest lecturer on several occasions over the last several years.

In my opinion, the quality of the education in the Ringling Computer Animation department is top notch. There's a strong emphasis on traditional art throughout, as well as for developing the ability to tell a story. The faculty are constantly inviting working professional artists to review and critique student work in progress. Every year the faculty also hires working pros to come and do faculty training so that they stay current with the industry. Not to mention that the faculty also do a fair amount of actual professional freelance work during the off months of the year. So there's no basis for implying the Ringling program is not among the best in the world from a quality of education standpoint.

Having said that, going to Ringling is not a guarantee that you'll get a high paying job in the CG industry right out of school. I'd say a good 50% of each graduating class isn't ready for the job market upon graduation. They need more work on their own time after graduation to get up to par. I make that judgement based on a simple question: Would I hire this person right now as a junior artist in my studio? To more than half the graduates I'd say that answer would be "No, not yet."

Is that a fault of the program? I don't think it is. Those are actually pretty good averages for hire-able people from a given pool of graduates. I've seen entire classes of students coming from other programs that I wouldn't hire if you held a gun to my head.

Every year there's 1 or 2 Ringling graduates who are so good they have multiple offers awaiting them upon graduaton. Then there's the next level, perhaps the top 5-8 graduates who will get a job offer within 2 months of graduation. There's the next level of students (perhaps 10-15 of the 35 or so who graduate) will need to work on their reels on their own time for a period of 6-12 months after graduation, occasionally getting a spot assignment here or there until they can catch on with more consistent work. They have training and ability, they just need to get more practice and grow in their skills. Even so, that's not bad. Again I've seen whole classes of graduates from other schools that I would say would need years of additional work on their own in order to be good enough to get in as a junior level artist.

Sadly, just as every graduating class from Ringling produces some super stars, it also produces it's share of duds. People who never took the program seriously, rebelled against the faculty's instruction because they thought they knew it all already or were so talented that they didn't need to listen, folks who goofed off or didn't feel a burning need to improve their craft and take advantage of the opportunities they'd been given. Almost universally the people who fall into this category have their schooling paid for by their parents. Such folks likely will never work in the CG industry without a significant change of attitude, but they won't have any loans either. They'll just have taken their parents for a $100,000 joy ride on the sunny beaches along the Gulf Coast of Florida.

When calculating the costs of the education, you need to weigh what it's worth to you to have access to knowledgeable, well trained faculty, industry pro reviews and a competitive class environment which will push you artistically. The typical pay for a graduating Cg artist from Ringling may be a bit higher than from your usual Art Institute, but not much. After all this is a merit driven business that judges the artist by their work, not by their class ring. The hire-able Ringling graduates have offers that are typically in the $30-40,000 range. Maybe $45k if it's the right studio or game company. But not typically. Still, $30-40k is quite good for a first job right out of school. The top guys will get a bit more (maybe $50-65k, but VERY rarely). The folks who have to work on their reels for a few months will get less to start because they won't be walking into the top studios right away. Overall the payoff is not bad for a typical graduate. But you'd better not be dreaming for a 6 figure income right out of school because that just doesn't happen anymore. That pay scale is reserved for high end TD's, senior level artists with many years of experience and supervisors. The occasional production artist may hit that mark in a very few select studios if they work a ton of paid overtime (key word here is "paid"). But fresh graduates won't get a sniff of anything near 6 figures, not even superstar Ringling graduates.

The way to ensure that you get an offer for employment when graduating from Ringling is to be in that top 5-10 students in your class. Those are the folks who will get work. The rest have to do it the way the rest of us mere mortals do and work their way up from the bottom over a longer period of time. You need to HONESTLY assess your abilities right now. If you cannot say with confidence that you are capable of producing work that is on par with the SIGGRAPH Electronic Theater or Animation Theater shorts coming out of Ringling each year, then you're best served not spending your money to go there. You're better served keeping your overall debt load low and taking the longer, slower path to a job in this business because that's the way you'll have to go if you can't do stuff that is on the same level as something like Poor Bogo.
http://www.animwatch.com/Spotlight-PoorBogo.shtml

That's just my opinion.

-k

Originally posted by danistheman
Kieth is dead on, that should be required reading if you even think of going.

6 months after I graduated and after I started getting bills for my huge loan I finally found a 3 month contract doing very tedious stuff making $13 an hour. I wasn't at the top of my class but I wasn't at the bottom either.

But the education there is topnotch.

[filtered]

Graphic Design 2005

Most recent designs:
Poster 1 (http://www.gigposters.com/posters/31358.jpg)
Poster 2 (http://www.gigposters.com/posters/24367.jpg)

* If the new window says 403 Forbidden, just hit refresh.

Fixed the links - my server is down forever.

[sula_nebouxi]

Those are some pretty nice designs but then again, I don't know a damn thing about graphic design. I can't really help ya there, filtered :(. But, since everyone needs observational drawings to get into any of the programs...maybe you could post some drawings or paintings. I'm a little better at looking at those kinds of things.

[filtered]

I don't have any drawings or paintings..yet..

[Daissan]

Yeah, I just got into the Illustration program for 2004-2005 and I dunno how helpful I can be on getting a portfolio together, but I'll try.

Biggest thing by far is to have a decent variety of traditional drawing techniques represented. Even if it is the most Fancy Shmancy tech art school in the whatever, they're gonna expect you to know traditional rendering when you show up. Know how to do value shading as well as line work, get your perspetive up to snuff, and study figure drawing.
My porfolio consisted of about 40 percent still lives, 40 percent figure drawing, an architectural drawing, a perspective drawing, a portrait, and two sculptures. (traditional sculptures, out of clay and glass respectively) The drawings themselves usually took a minimum of three hours, usually more for the better ones. I drew at least three times as many pictures with the intent of prepping my portfolio than I actually ended up using. (about 35) In other words, do enough work you can pick and choose your best.

Bell just rang, and I have a final, but I'll edit this one with a bit more info later.

[Hett15]

Well here goes. I decided not to put it off another year. I'm going to try to get into the Computer Animation Program for 2005. The wife gave me a green light and now it's all engines go. So hello all you other hopefuls and applicants. Let the journey begin!

[AnarchyAo2]

I'm going to apply there, but I haven't made up my made as to what school I really want to go to.
Heres some stuff I plan on doing for my portfolio:
-Setting up some still lifes.
-Doing some self-portraits
-Drawing outside ( I'd say life drawing, but thats misleading).
-Taking a hike in the woods just to draw whatever. Maybe I'l find a stream or something.
-Going by the pool an the apartment complex where I live. I spotted about 3 different angles where I can draw some really cool things. Like, drawing the gazeebo (sp), or standing in the gazeebo and drawing the forest and the mountains (If your standing there, you see no buildings, just nature)
-Maybe go up the mountains. There are a lot of peaks I know about up there, and old run down houses which would be great.
-In the fall, do a painting of the leaves changing colors on the mountains (If you know what the Shenandoah Valley is, you know what the leaves look like, if you don't, here is what I'm talking about: http://www.shenandoahriver.com/images/redbarnhorse.jpg

Basically, draw a lot of stuff from the mountains because it kind of shows who I am, and my roots. Anyone have any ideas? Or anything I should change?

[sula_nebouxi]

Alright Hett15 and Anarchy, that's great! If we all get in maybe we'll see each other around campus and we can all do...something...

Anyways Anarchy, still lifes and drawing from life(which is what you're doing) is great. Ringling loves it. I even heard an admissions person say it. They love observational stuff. Make sure your portfolio is at least half done from observation. I think it's a good idea to do landscapes showing your roots. I think it may give a bit of a creative edge. (Curses...now I'll have to do the same to compete...hehe j/k) seriously though, I'd say it's a lot more well thought out than a randomly put together still life. Self-portraits are good too, just don't make them too boring like where you look straight ahead with no change in emotion. While it's a lot easier to draw, it needs to show some creativity too. Make sure you spend a LOT of time on them too. Make them look finished and polished. Oh and contrast too, have lots of contrasting tones. Don't have everything in midtones.

Which major are you applying for? It may help to throw in some work that you are interested in doing later on. Like motion studies for computer animation etc...

I wouldn't change anything to your plan Anarchy, you're on the right track. I think it'll be a LONG time before we see stuff we can all critique so...I think for now we should all try to see what Ringling wants in a portfolio(besides observational stuff). Maybe I should go and bug some admissions counselors...:) Anyways...good luck!

[Hett15]

The longer version of my decision is that I was planning to apply for the 2006 school year because my wife and I are moving to Sarasota for her teaching career. (we are only 22 years old) I have just graduated from FSU with a business degree, but that was only because my parents refused to pay for Ringling right out of highschool. They didn't see the point in spending that much money on art school. Well back then when I still was dependent on their financial support I turned my interest into going to the film school at FSU. It is very selective and I missed the cut by 3 people and they put me on the waiting list. One person dropped out, but I still had another person in front of me. I was already committed to going to FSU and holding out until the last instant for hope of getting into the filmschool. Well I ended up getting an international business management degree and I never got into the film school. I did however make friends in the film school and I storyboarded a couple of the Senior films (one film which won a student Academy Award) I got married to my highschool sweetheart my senior year of College, and one day before my junior year while we were in the Animation Tour at MGM Florida she blew me away when she told me that no matter what it would take we would put me through art school. She is the greatest woman in the world! Then I got very hardcore obsessed with all things animation and drawing related (hence how I came across this site) We devised a plan for how we would pay for school. I would work until she finished her masters (Spring 2005) Then we would move to Sarasota so she could teach special education and I would work for a year saving up as much money as I could and then apply for the Fall 2006 admissions. Well after some talks we've been having we decided that it would be better for me to get through school sooner so that when she wanted to have kids I wouldn't be in school still. Then I would be able to get a better job post-Ringling instead of wasting my time at a crappy job the year before in Sarasota. We are debt free because we both earned scholarships to pay for our time at FSU we have already paid off both of our cars (and her wedding ring $$!!!) So with her income as a teacher we will be able to support ourselves just fine for a few years since we are already used to living off of about $25,000 a year. being a teacher in Florida means that all of her families health, dental, and vision insurance will be covered and we are eligible to get lower interest rates for loans through the educational credit union. I have taken all of my Art history classes already as electives here at FSU so I get to save my money there and I also will get to pass out of almost all of the "extra" required classes like the liberal arts and math classes because I already have a degree from a liberal arts school Everything just seems to be right for me to just bite the bullet and start school a.s.a.p. Another thing is that I don't want to be too old before I get started. I want to make friends there too (although at FSU I have found that nobody likes hanging out with a married guy that doesn't drink or do drugs :chug: Maybe some art people will like me :)

The funny thing is that I actually got a job right now as a non-linear editor here in Tallahassee and many of the film school kids are still looking for any kind of job related to film. I just came in at the right time and talked to the right person I guess. They don't know that I will be leaving in a year to move to Sarasota so lets keep that on the DL.

Hope we all get in and if it comes down to me or one of you.... well lets just say in college you learn how to make things look like an accident:cool: Hee hee just kidding

Anyone want to be drawing buddies kind of like Alcoholics Anonymous where we would check in on each other to see eachother's progress and support and critique eachother and rant on eachother for the days that we don't draw! I'm up for it if any of you are?

I wonder what this thread will look like in a few months after we start filling it up.

[sula_nebouxi]

Heya Hett... alright! A fellow Super Senior! hehe;) That was a nice little story, I wish I someone like your wife. Hell, I wish I had someone *period*. But, that's another story...

About paying for Ringling, apply for every scholarship you can! I heard of a person who paid his entire way through Harvard with just scholarships. Plus you can always do artsy stuff down in Sarasota for work. There's plenty of things to do(or so I hear). Worse comes to worse you can camp at some sidewalk in Sarasota and do caricatures;) Everywhere I go to in NYC the sidewalks are crammed with people who paint names, do caricatures or sell some of their own art. They seem to get a lot of business too from tourists and such. I always see a bunch of people carrying big pieces of bristol board with names on them. And they're like $10 each! Not bad if you can do a couple a day.

Heh college really does teach you to live on the bare minimum, something I need to learn :( Which is one of the reasons why I chose Ringling. I need to get the hell away from New Jersey. It's driving me insane and I'm living with some very *ahem* disgusting people. I won't mention what they do but I guarantee you will not want to eat anything for a loooooong time.

Oh and Hett, I'll be your study buddy! Heh, it's definetly a good idea. In fact I have a thread over on the life drawing forum, I'll post my stuff here too. The first few are crap which i did a few months ago the rest are pretty recent(and are still crap I might add). The earlier ones are bad in that I pretty much had no conception of contrasting tones. A big no no. Haven't really done much that would be considered finished. They're mostly gesture drawings with charcoal and a few paintings. Nothing portfolio worthy so far heh...I'm still a n00b to oil paint. I need to get me an easel too so I can paint outdoors. Anyways...here's some of my work...Warning! really friggin big download. I really hope I don't kill my bandwidth(it's my school's webspace) Anyways, they're in order from oldest to newest. Gotta retake pics of my paintings, they were all underexposed.

http://www.eden.rutgers.edu/~atso/Craptastic%20Art/girl-small.jpg
http://www.eden.rutgers.edu/~atso/Craptastic%20Art/oldguy-small.jpg
http://www.eden.rutgers.edu/~atso/Craptastic%20Art/seamonkeys-small.jpg
http://www.eden.rutgers.edu/~atso/Craptastic%20Art/selfportrait-small.jpg
http://www.eden.rutgers.edu/~atso/Craptastic%20Art/sittingguy-small.jpg
http://www.eden.rutgers.edu/~atso/Craptastic%20Art/conte-cup-and-bowl-small.jpg
http://www.eden.rutgers.edu/~atso/Craptastic%20Art/conte-teapot-small.jpg
http://www.eden.rutgers.edu/~atso/Craptastic%20Art/mourning-priest-small.jpg
http://www.eden.rutgers.edu/~atso/Craptastic%20Art/figure1-small.jpg
http://www.eden.rutgers.edu/~atso/Craptastic%20Art/figure2-small.jpg
http://www.eden.rutgers.edu/~atso/Craptastic%20Art/figure3-small.jpg
http://www.eden.rutgers.edu/~atso/Craptastic%20Art/figure4-small.jpg
http://www.eden.rutgers.edu/~atso/Craptastic%20Art/figure5-small.jpg http://www.eden.rutgers.edu/~atso/Craptastic%20Art/figure6-small.jpg
http://www.eden.rutgers.edu/~atso/Craptastic%20Art/figure7-small.jpg
http://www.eden.rutgers.edu/~atso/Craptastic%20Art/figure8-small.jpg
http://www.eden.rutgers.edu/~atso/Craptastic%20Art/figure9-small.jpg
http://www.eden.rutgers.edu/~atso/Craptastic%20Art/figure10-small.jpg
http://www.eden.rutgers.edu/~atso/Craptastic%20Art/figure11-small.jpg
http://www.eden.rutgers.edu/~atso/Craptastic%20Art/figure12-small.jpg
http://www.eden.rutgers.edu/~atso/Craptastic%20Art/figure13-small.jpg
http://www.eden.rutgers.edu/~atso/Craptastic%20Art/figure14-small.jpg
http://www.eden.rutgers.edu/~atso/Craptastic%20Art/figure15-small.jpg

I'll get some more up within a few days hopefully. (Assuming I can figure out what aperture width/ISO setting/shutter speed I need to shoot something in low light without a flash...ugh...) Well...Cheers guys and gals. Here's to hoping we all get the coveted acceptance letters. :)

[Hett15]

Well all right study buddy I'll start trying to get mine posted soon too. I was just in Jersey last weekend to see my brother and his fiance. They live in Hillsbourough just north of Princeton. Anyways I'll give you the first critique.

First off I really like the gesture drawings the best.
You are getting fairly good proportions and the body angles are coming along nicely. The figure drawings do need work (but I know you said this isn't portfolio stuff) Some of the muscles could be more defined and the facial features are generic looking. How long did you have to draw each one? You already mentioned differing the tones and values up so you know some are too light (also a scanner problem often) The still lifes look really good in form and value. I can tell you have a wide variety of work here as far as how much time you have put into them. Some look really good and some need work, but overall nice work.

I would reccommend getting a drawing anatomy book. I have one that is helpful. It's by Christopher Hart, Human anaotmy made amazingly easy http://www.bookideas.com/reviews/index.cfm?fuseaction=displayReview&id=946

Alright I am at work but I'll post something by tomorrow morning. Since I am too lazy to go search which thread do you have up in the drawing area? I'll check it out because I don't think you are allowed to post images in two places on here becasue it uses too much bandwidth. Also if possible resize your image in photoshop to something around 300x200 pixels so you can post more

[sula_nebouxi]

Heya Hett, I live over in Old Bridge which is just a few miles from Hillsborough. Thanks for the crit, I need as many opinions as I can get.

I didn't have much time to do the figure drawings, most were around 15 min. I think the most time spent was half an hour, so I couldn't get too much detail in. Oh, I should note, in my figure drawing class, sometimes we were restricted to how we could draw. Particularly in the ones that are really dark. We had to use only the side of a charcoal stick(about 2 inches long) so...I'm not really happy with those.

On facial features, yeah I have trouble seeing detail there.Especially in the self portrait(i'm the guy with glasses:)) I actually have trouble drawing it in general unless I have hours and hours to spend on it. So, I think an anatomy book would be a good idea, thanks for the book suggestion, I'll have to check it out. I already have one of Andrew Lommis's books, Figure Drawing for all it's worth. It's not in depth enough I think in the anatomy area. I was also thinking of getting one of the old classics, Gray's Anatomy. It's pretty cheap too($10) considering this version is almost 1300 pages long. There's a more recent version with photos and over 2000 pages but the damn thing costs $200.

Anyways, thanks for the crit again, I can't wait to see some of your stuff :). Oh and I'll resize the images from now on...maybe 500x300 or something. 300x200 seems a bit too small.

edit: oh yeah the thread I have over on the life drawing forum is here: http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=23571

[sula_nebouxi]

On a side note, I just found out that Ringling is actually one of the most haunted campuses in the US. Not to dissuade anyone from going but...just a fair warning, if you believe in ghosts, stay the hell away from Keating, Appleton, Idelson and the Cove. Supposedly a woman named Mary committed suicide in Keating in one of the fire escapes(between the 2nd and third floors) back in the 1920's when Ringling was still a hotel. There's a bunch of stories of her around and it's quite well documented. I think there's supposed to be a TLC special on haunted college campuses airing soon(Ringling and Mary is one of the top 3 stories) Oh, and a student supposedly said her mirror spontaneously shattered, she was also housed in Keating.

Don't know too much about Idelson, but there is this one story of a student seeing a man standing behind him in the bathroom mirror, he was all alone. In Appleton, one of the RA's was all alone in the hall and she could hear high heeled shoes and she could smell perfume in the hallways. Thing is, it was before students moved in and the doors to the hall were all locked. The Cove used to be a nursing home before it became a dorm. I don't know about you but a haunted nursing home is a pretty damn scary thing to imagine.

Heh, I pretty much named all the residence halls. Supposedly there's more stories. I hope I didn't scare any hopefuls from applying...but not too worry I'm bringing my Proton Pack and my ghost traps! I ain't afraid of no ghosts! :D

[AnarchyAo2]

I can make this really creepy child's laugh. Its great to hide behind bushes and laugh when people walk by, it freaks the hell out of them. They think its a ghost of something. Oh yeah, my grandmother said that a demon in her basement tried on my uncle's old clothes. lol

Anyway, I hope you don't mind me giving you some crits. First, make your pictures smaller, they're really big for me. Your anatomy looks good but the hatching in your lines make the person seem hairy. It would look a lot better with smooth lines. With shading, I think I know what you're going through. You're using the paper as a base tone for the person's skin when the paper is too lite and the tone needs to be darker. Here is how I solved that problem. I bought a stick of graphite, and a sketchbook. I picked some random models from pictures and determined how dark their skin tone is. I tried to achive that same tone by rubbing the graphite stick evenly across my paper. Now you have something to build off of, you can shade in the darks, or use an eraser (or white chalk) to hieghten the highlights. I use a kneaded eraser to bring out the highlights because you can shape it into a small point so its more accruate. All-and-all, your drawings are good. You're using your eyes accurately to determine lines and you just need a few things to practice on, but who doesn't eh?

I'm going to go out drawing again today, and going to sketch a few things outside and later today pick which sketches I like. That way I can start on a final drawing. I'll see if I can post those sometime this week. I'd like to hear what you guy think about them. Seeya.
OH yeah, warning to anyone who wants to draw at the pool, DON'T. I had little kids swarming me asking "Is that a-", "What's that?" and the parents just say, "If you don't get him away now, he will ask you a million questions". After contemplating the idea of throwing the kids into the pool, I decided to go back home.

[sula_nebouxi]

Hehe...there ya go guys, made them half the size. Anarchy, of course you're welcome to critique my stuff! :) I welcome any and all critiques. I can only get better from them. Thanks for the suggestion, it really does make sense. Heh now I have a good reason for using brown toned paper(I used it in the sketches below) Hmm...I have some white charcoal I can use. Maybe I'll give that a shot. My kneaded eraser doesn't erase charcoal all too well. The things I know I need more practice on: "seeing" correctly, tone/value, loosening up, color theory(way over my head), composition...I'm pretty sure I'm missing something but that's pretty much it. Oh and Anarchy, my Mom thinks demons have possessed her a few times too heh, and my aunt just called yesterday telling my family to go to church since she seriously thinks armageddon is coming soon. Anyways back on topic...

I've got another dump for all you guys :) These are pretty recent. The paintings were for a painting class(first time i've ever touched oil) all done in the last month. And they're in the order they were assigned. The 4th wasn't a life drawing, we had to make an abstract painting. And needless to say the 6th one royally sucks ass. I've got 3 more paintings to do till the end of my class...i dunno if I'm gonna have enough time...

http://www.eden.rutgers.edu/~atso/Craptastic%20Art/painting1-small.jpg
http://www.eden.rutgers.edu/~atso/Craptastic%20Art/painting2-small.jpg
http://www.eden.rutgers.edu/~atso/Craptastic%20Art/painting3-small.jpg
http://www.eden.rutgers.edu/~atso/Craptastic%20Art/painting4-small.jpg
http://www.eden.rutgers.edu/~atso/Craptastic%20Art/painting5-small.jpg
http://www.eden.rutgers.edu/~atso/Craptastic%20Art/painting6-small.jpg

Right now we have to paint in the style of a master painter. I chose Caravaggio...ooh boy...So, I had to do some tonal studies before I went ahead and painted in his trademark chiaroscuro style. Heh I spent the entire class period(3hrs) just sketching our model while everyone was almost half done with their stuff. Anyways here's the sketches I came up with:

http://www.eden.rutgers.edu/~atso/Craptastic%20Art/tonesketch1a.jpg
http://www.eden.rutgers.edu/~atso/Craptastic%20Art/tonesketch2a.jpg

I was actually pretty surprised at the profile I did. Quite an improvement from the self-portrait I did 4 months ago I'd say :) And definetly a HUGE difference from the page before. I tried to do a profile there but...it didn't turn out well as you can see, I was kinda rushing. So, I slowed down and started to really look at the subject(Yeah her hair really did shoot out like that ;)) It took me about 45 min to draw that(or was it an hour?) . Although...I don't think I captured her likeness all too well... And as you can see I have real trouble with feet. Hands are not *that* hard if I can just slow down. It's feet that really bother me. Maybe it's because I'm not to used to drawing them...

Anyways..tear em up! :)
-Anthony

[Hett15]

Hey nice stuff Sula. The profile looks good. I don't really have time to write much (at work right now) Sorry I haven't gotten anything posted yet. After the forums went down my wife decided to rearrange our apartment and that meant moving my whole desk and computer stuff to a different room then once I finally found the time to do that she decides she wants to paint the walls! The woman is driving me nuts. (but I love her anyways) So for awhile, the only internet I will have is at work. I'll get something posted when I can. For the mean time I have been studying some model sheets from X-Men Evolution characters by Steve Gordon www.stevenegordon.com Fun stuff to draw. Its the style I prefer to draw in (well...attempt to draw in).

[AnarchyAo2]

I went outside yesterday and drew some sketches, I didn't get much done, I spend most of the day walking around looking for things to draw. I found this one spot that I'd like to draw, but when I tried I got attacked by a dog thing. It resembled more a hampster. It was so small, that it couldn't bite me, it just snagged my jeans a couple of times. I'll probably go to this old rusty playground today and draw there. Its really creepy, like no one has been there 30 years. And the grass is dead all around it.

So, I'm going to try to post those later today. I didn't post yesterday because I only had a few sketches done, and I forgot my ruler so all the lines were distorted. Not to mention the fierce hampster-dog.

[geoffd]

Sula - you live near my old stomping grounds. I had some friends that lived in your neck of the woods. I used to live in Bridgewater, hung out in Somerville, Bound Brook, Manville (ugh...).

Anyway, the reason I am posting here is to let you guys know that if you have ANY questions about sarasota at all, ask me, i'll be more than happy to help. :D I'll let you all know what's down here, etc. and what to expect. I know how hard it is to move some place and not know anything about the area. No, i am not going to ringling I have made a different choice in my life and am walking a different path in art (thanks to Jason Manley's advice), so any school questions I can't help with (besides location). anything else, fire away.

thanks

[carpal]

Capt. Harlock- I remember quite a while ago you were looking for a job in Sarasota. did you ever find anything worthwhile? I will be starting as a freshman in the fall and plan on working at least freshman year. Is it tough to find a job down there? I had a hell of a time this summer trying to find something in Minnesota.

I am going to really need some income to pull this whole thing off.

I am also looking for an apartment around school, I can't really afford the dorm with meal plan. (4,000 bucks for 9 months of food?! I spent about 900 last school year) Anyway, I will live in the dorm for first semester and hopefully find something better for spring and move in over christmas break.

Any tips on the apartment search?

thanks for any help you may have.

[geoffd]

i did get a job finally. i work at an investment strategy place doing their weekly publications, desktop publishing stuff basically. pays really well and can help fund my art supplies and stuff.

anyway, work here is slim. ringling students mostly work at places like Publix, Albertsons, the library, Michael's arts and crafts. be sure to check out this website, Student Central (http://www.studentcentral.com/), they have job listings and stuff for the ringling students posted there; things ranging from part-time gigs, to freelance work to one time event stuff. work downtown and do portraits of people, that seems to bring in some extra cash. honestly, with the school work load you'll be pushing it if you try and work over 20 hours a week. apartments up near the school aren't that cheap so you'll need a roommate.

check here (http://www.apartments.com/search/oasis.dll?page=Results&resultpos=13&area3=Y&subarea3=Y&allsizes=1&allbaths=1&mode=6144&status=12&state=fl&rgn4=17&prvpg=7&type_listing=1&srt1=0.02&srt2=0.67&srt3=0.64&Rent_Minimum=0&Rent_Maximum=9999) to see some apartments. cheapest ones run around $650 for a one bedroom. basically anything south of university pkwy would be good, i can't recall any apartments right next to the school and living a little farther away is OK cause the buses run right up there (the 17 I think is the one you'd take). let me know if there is anything else you may need. i'll check back here later to see what's up.

thanks

[sula_nebouxi]

That's awesome Capt Harlock! Isn't Old Bridge the most boring place you've ever been to? It's like nothing but houses for 10 miles. Eh...can't complain too much since it is pretty quiet(except from the shotgun blasts and ATV's in the nearby woods every now and then). I used to live in NYC before I came to New Jersey. Let me tell ya...it was a welcome change to not hear buses coming down the street and shaking the apartment building.

I'd actually like to know the same things PZ wants to know too. $32k a year is one helluva lot of money and paying back loans is gonna be a bitch. If I can't work somewhere in the school, I'll need to look either in Sarasota or maybe even the airport nearby (it's only 2 miles away) baggage handler w00t! Which brings me to another concern of mine...can I get anywhere without a car? Isn't the school in a semi-urban area? I probably won't be bringing a car down there so...I'd like to know if there's places nearby where I can get food(restaurants/supermarkets/etc...)I don't know if I could eat food from the dining halls all semester long. If there's a movie theater within walking distance, I'm set. (Ack...forget about the theaters...just checked Mapquest and the nearest one is like 2 miles away). Heh I guess I just answered my own question...looks like I'll have to hitch my rides.

Thanks Capt Harlock :)

[geoffd]

i got one word for you... BUSES!!! they run like every 30 minutes or every hour (i think it's hourly). anyway that movie theater you mentioned sula, it's awesome!! i forget how many screens they have but it's stadium seating and comfortable as hell. there is also a killer pizza joint right next door. speaking of food, the chinese here is great and the pizza shops are good to, nice jersey/new york style at the place near the theater and there is another one further down 41. the guy that owns that place is actually from hoboken, nj.

as far as getting around, you can bike or walk or, like i said, ride the bus. downtown has a lot of little artsy shops, there was this one i went into that had a rembrandt print for sale (nice) and a HUGE N.C. Wyeth print for sale as well. some pubs and stuff if you are of age. also there are some pretty awesome looking buildings downtown, good for drawing!! i forget how far the school is from the beach, but make it a point to go check out siesta beach. the BEST sand, sugar white and soooo soft!

honestly, worry about the loans after school. i'd just focus on getting by semster to semster first. the average retail gig here pays like $7-$9 depending on where it is and what experience you got. don't expect to work a 40 hour week and get done all your school work. i'd stick with maybe 20, 25 at the most and do something on the side to supplement. this is an artsy community with a LOT of rich tourists here during the winter months. rich old ladys love paintings!! seriously, go to st. armands circle and see about setting up a place to do portraits of people, the snow birds would get a kick out of it, a nice personal souvenier to bring home.

can't think of anything else at the moment. hope this helps.

[AnarchyAo2]

I'm not really going to worry about the debt until I'm out of college. I'm going to the college I like, regardless of expenses. Plus, I think my dad has to pay 1/2 of my college fees....bwhahaha. :devil1:

[Andoo45]

Hello all. I've decided that I WANT to go to Ringling. I am going to be a senior in Highschool this year, and won't have an oppourtunity to take an art class except for advertising Design. I as of yet don't have anything near a portfolio consisting of lifedrawings as I don't have access to live nude models. :D I plan on going to the local college here for my freshman year and taking basics like math and english and as many damn art classes as possible! I want to build a good portfolio for my transfer to sophmore year. I have a few questions for the people who are going to ringling. What classes do you suggest that I take next year at my local univ. so as to keep up with the CORE curriculum and Liberal Arts Classes? I'm thinking Definately Figure Drawing, Drawing, Color Theory, Painting, History, English, Math etc... I also have some questions regarding the housing, and what I can avoid by not coming in Freshman year. I heard that the Freshman dorms were basically one room 10x12ft squares. So the bathrooms and laundry and kitchens are all public? I basically just want to know about transfers since there's almost nothing on http://www.rsad.edu about them. I don't want to go to the local univ. for a year and then have go to ringling for another 4. :btu: That's about all the questions I have as of now. Thank you all for any help or replys!

[sula_nebouxi]

That helped a lot Capt Harlock, I was actually thinking of driving down there heh. I think my biggest concern is food, I love to eat, I especially love pizza...mmm...I could eat it all day :D :( Glad to hear the stuff down there is good.

That is true about working during the semester. I doubt anybody would have any spare time especially the Computer Animation people(i.e. me) Although it would be nice to have some spare cash. And as far as painting people...heh just look at the painting of the girl I posted..gah...I seriously need more practice painting. I do know that I will have at least $5000 paid for each year(federal pell grants) so...that leaves me with $27k a year to pay. Hmm...I wonder if I can get Florida financial aid. Do I have to be a resident of Florida for 6 months to be eligible or was it a year? Cause if it was 6 months, I might be able to swing it if i had an apartment down there. Course...I don't know if it will be worth it.

Heya Andoo, I've heard that Ringling is notorious for not transferring that many credits. Mainly the CORE curriculum stuff. I think they'll transfer the liberal arts without too much problems. I would call to check though. But I would definetly take as many liberal arts courses as I can and maybe a few studio art courses so you could work on your drawing skills. You're not alone on this though. I'm going to be a junior at college next year heh, and I'm pretty sure, if I'm lucky, I'll transfer in as a sophomore at the very most. I'm gonna have to realize that I may be admitted as a freshman and have to go through 4 years again.

On Housing, if you're transferring in you don't have to live in the freshman dorms. Believe me from what I've heard about them, you don't wanna live there. It's full of out of high school kids who want to party all night long, you'll never get a good night's sleep. There's lots of dorms to choose from, and some are better than others. Here's some stuff taken from the Ringling live journal community:

Appleton, Idelson, and Harmon are the freshmen dorms and they're all identical. 15x16ft, no carpeting, tile floor, big gaps under the doors so whenever anyone walks by talking, you can hear them loud as day. On the plus side, they're double-sized rooms, so with strategic storage planning, you and your roommate should have plenty of room. You could live in Keating, they have single rooms, carpets, and individual thermostats. Horror story time! If you live in Appleton, one kid said that if you wanted the temperature changed, the entire hall had to agree on it and one kid who lived in Harmon reported that they will randomly shut off the hot water to the building(no idea why). Not good when it's 45 degrees fahrenheit outside. Oh, and in Idelson you can't control the temperature but it does stay at 72 degrees all the time. Then there's the Cove and the Bayou apartments. I think you can get into the Bayou if you're transferring in. Groups of four students there share a living room, dining area, and kitchen and two bathrooms and each student has a private bedroom. It's supposedly for upperclassmen only but I think you can get in if you tell the housing office that you feel that you're more mature...and you want to get away from all the crazy freshmen. The Cove is really far away from the main campus so it's quite a walk. But supposedly it has the nicest rooms and you and your roommate have private bathrooms. In the other halls, the bathrooms are public but are shared by very few people(like 2 to a shower) Plus you have janitors come by and clean up every day. So, it's not so bad living in the halls. Lastly there's the Quads, don't get your hopes up here. It's usually fully reserved by the upperclassmen pretty quickly. Why, I have no idea. I dunno if I forgot any dorms...but that's kind of a general idea. They all have their ups and downs.

[Andoo45]

that was what I was looking for in reference to the dorms. Thank you Sula VERY much :D Can you link me to the livejournal community? I think that would help me a lot to see what the actual students have to say about it.

[sula_nebouxi]

Andoo, here's the link:

http://www.livejournal.com/community/rsad/

There's some good stuff here. You can even post there if you need a question answered by a Ringling student. Usually someone will answer pretty quickly, they seem like nice people. Sadly the posts only go back to like January of this year.

[AnarchyAo2]

Does Andoo= Andrew?

[Andoo45]

hehe you found me out :D
Thanks again Sula!

[AnarchyAo2]

Hey guys. I did a self-portrait today. It took around an hour, maybe two, I really didn't keep track of the time. Also, before I post the picture, I'd sort of like to give myself an introduction because, I never have before. I'm 17 years old, I'm going to be a senior next year. I'd been drawing seriously (Or drawing non-anime art) for about a year and a half (I guess).

Sorry about the size, I tried making it smaller but it was way to blurry. Even at the size it is now, its still very blurry and you can't see many of the details. I'm going to talk to my sister tonight and see if I can hook-up her scanner so you guys can see my pictures in better quality. You guys should be able to critique the line art, atleast. So here it is, hope you like :)
http://img16.photobucket.com/albums/v48/AnarchyAo2/SP3.jpg

[sula_nebouxi]

Heya Anarchy, nice self portrait. The proportions look good. The only thing I would suggest is darkening the shadowed areas. If this was done in a bright room try picking out the darkest relative shade and exaggerate it so it becomes fairly dark. It gives the drawing a much better sense of depth when you have contrasts between light and dark. I also noticed that the way you shaded the face won't really give it a 3dimensional feel. There's more to it than hatching. If you look up some of fredflickstone's tutorials on here at least one of them has a section on how to shade correctly. You have to shade along the forms in order to keep something looking solid. Here's what I mean, check out image 5 and 6:

http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=14045

For the face you kinda have to follow the bumps and curves as they go up and down. Here's a good example of shading for the face:

http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=14735

It looks pretty good so far, but try those things I mentioned on this self portrait(unless you want to do another) It'll make it look much better, I think.

-Anthony

[AnarchyAo2]

Yeah. I also noticed a lot of things I did wrong when I posted the picture. Like the chin is too big, and one of the eyebrow's was too long. I think that shading is too flat. I tried to get the shades exact. I was in a dimly lit room (the blinds were shut too so i couldn't get any direct light in the room). I should probably add more details too. I'm reading one of loomis's books (www.saveloomis.org), and hopeful he will give me more insight on what my problems are. I'll darken the values tomorrow when I can get some direct sunlight, and I'll post a newer version later.

[Hett15]

Well it has been a bad week. It started off well. I took my wife to Orlando for a quick 2 day rest and relaxation at a resort. Then we came back on a high feeling to our apartment complex only to find that my jeep wrangler had been broken into and my cd player was stolen. They cut the plastic window all the way through the soft canvas part so that my door is entirely ruined. Then once inside they pried off my center console lock box and stole the detachable face to the cd player. With that they were able to tear off my dash board where the AC and CD player was and they pulled the cd player right out. They even knew to take out the dome light fuse that is a security measure to short circuit the cd player if it is stolen. Then I guess just for fun they cut open my seats, tore the lock off the glove box, and stabbed a hole through the soft top above the driver's seat. Estimated damage is around $2000 or more. Of course I have a $500 deductable!



So the cop that came refused to get out of his squad car because it was slightly drizzling (I didn't have an umbrella and I was fine) he didn't even look at my jeep, (or the car next to mine that had also been broken into) he just asked what was damaged and how much I thought it cost. (My in-laws called the police deptartment later and chewed out his supervisor :) )



Then the same night my wife came home from the grocery store and saw two guys in the parking lot that she says she sees a lot. She brought up half of the groceries and went back down a little while later. The two guys were on both sides of her car with clip boards and they were bent over looking in her car windows. She startled them when she walked up behind them unnoticed and asked "Can I help you?" They mumbled something and strutted back to a waiting car and drove away. (Ladies and Gentlemen we have suspects!)



I was very pissed off at this point and it brewed all night at work. Then I came home and told my wife we are moving. She happily and very quickly agreed. The next morning we only searched for an hour on the other side of town (much nicer side) and we signed a lease for a nice 2B/2B Duplex. We thought we were in the clear, but we bought some bokes and packing supplies on the way home. My wife carried the first load in from the car and I was only about 10 yards behind her. One of the guys (very thugged out gold teeth and chains and reaks of pot) that lives below us saw her coming and came outside and was not only hitting on her in a very sleazy way,but then he started telling her what he wanted to do with her. He had know idea I was coming up right behind him. I heard every word he said. He actually had the nerve to tell my wife that he knows when she gets home at night and when she goes to the gym or to work in the afternoon. I dropped everything I had and got up in his face to tell him never to talk to her again and to leave her alone. Well I scared the $#!* out of him and he ran back into his apartment.



Later that night while I was at work my wife got home earlier then usual and the same guy and some other thugs told her again that she was home early from work and that they know her schedule. She ran to our apartment and called the cops. They sent out a lady cop that was ready to bust skulls. All she could do though was issue him a warning (next incident is a restrainging order and an eviction) Our property manager is on notice now that becaused we filed police reports about this stuff if anything happens to us or our belongings in the next 2 weeks before we are able to move out they will be held entirely responsible for not providing a safe living space.



So not only has this ruined my momentum of drawing I had going, but I have to deal with insurance people, car repair people, and the cops until we move. And most importantly I have to adjust my schedule to make sure my wife is never alone between her car and our apartment. Hopefully everything will calm down soon, but it is really starting to get scary around here. I am only really worried about some sort of retaliation or crazy attempt by the stalker guys on my wife.

So I will not be online for awhile until I make sure my wife is safe and we are out of this area. See you all in a few weeks. Keep up the drawing.


p.s. what is the official dead line for admissions to the CA at Ringling for fall 2005? I heard it is in September this year.?? :huh:

[Velo]

Holy Cow Hett! I'm really sorry to hear about all that. Wow, that's ALOT of stuff to happen in a few day's time. It's good you are moving to a better area.

I haven't posted yet in this part two thread, but since I wanted to respond to Hett I guess I should also introduce myself. I am considering Ringling for 2005 as an illustration major. Are there any of you guys Illustration? I applied last year (late) and was accepted, but decided to take the time to do some more study on my own and maybe collect more scholarship money. I have alot of art credits from community college and am planning (hoping?) to transfer in as a sophomore if I go, skipping the core year. I'm not sure how helpful I can be, but I'll try to answer questions if I can, having applied once already. Though people actually attending the school probably have more to say! One note I have.. when dealing with admissions councilors I would really reccommend you try to talk with Amy Fischer.

[Hett15]

Alrighty then, it is a new week and I am ready to draw! Now that most of my crap is taken care of I have found time to draw. I'll post something as soon as I get home from work. [edit: http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=26102 ](by the way the move went well. I am all set up across town in a new duplex...crime free!)
:dance: :bars: :jump1: :clapping2


So what I would like to know is what are the basis of the subjects used for the essay we are supposed to write. Does anyone have an example of one that was done by someone who has been accepted? I am starting to get my portfolio together, I have some good references, I have really good Highschool grades (4.15 weighted, 3.65 unwieghted) and I did well in college. I just don't have any idea about what I am going to write about. Is it supposed to show how passionate and dedicated you are to art? Is it just supposed to get their attention? Is it supposed to be creative or detailed? A little help someone!

[sula_nebouxi]

Damn Hett... I'm really sorry to hear that...I'm glad you and your wife made it to your new place ok. Where did you live? (makes mental note never to visit this place)

The deadline for computer animation is jan 15 2005. I think they make it pretty clear that this is the absolute latest date you can send in the portfolio. As for the essay, you're asked to write about 1 of 4 things:

1. The creation of art is the result of many influences. Who or what has most influenced your work? In what way?
2. Discuss your goals as an artist or designer. How will attending Ringling School of Art and Design help you achieve your goals?
3. Discuss a local, national or international issue that is important to you. How would you address it in a work of art?
4. Describe an important experience that has shaped you as a person and as an artist.

Although I have no idea exactly what they look for in an essay, I'm pretty sure that what they look for is your ability to write cohesively. I also think that Ringling wants you to be going to art school for the right reasons(ie got something to say to the world, try and change the world, etc...I doubt they would look for someone who said "I'm in this for the money and to learn a trade." They definetly want to see passion and a love for the art. They also want to see commitment. Personally I'd love to see an example of an essay of a person who got in(hint hint Velo hehe ;))

Hett, with that GPA and those drawings, I think you stand a good chance of getting in. The bar has been raised ladies and gentlemen, time to step up our game (Curses...foiled again! ;)). I'd love to see some of your observational work if you have any. They must be fantastic if you can draw those from the imagination. I'd love to be able to do that...but! I'm not quite at that level yet. Drawing what's in front of me is one thing, drawing something I made up in my head is totally different.

I made some more drawings in the past few days, some ok some could definetly stand some improvement. I'll get some posted in a few days as soon as I get pics taken of them.

Oh! I just got an easel and painted part of a landscape. I had to leave after like 40 min, it was getting way too hot and the bugs were accosting me :(. I had ants attacking one of my easel legs (I think I crushed their anthill), spiders jumping and going kamikaze on my canvas full of paint, spiders...spiders everywhere!! (makes another mental note to bring assloads of bugspray and repellant next time.)

[Velo]

I'll see if I can dig up my essay, I think I printed an extra copy somewhere.. If you guys are interested, the portfolio I sent is still online, too: www.velondra.com/images/wip/portfolio
I sent a CD, with basically just that. No fancy presentation - just folders. I think some stuff was renamed and organized a little better, though. (I hope!) Old stuff is kinda embarressing.. :chicken:

[sula_nebouxi]

Thanks Velo :)

I remember seeing some of your portfolio back in the first Ringling thread. That 6 hour cross contour still amazes me. I can't really do contours too well (guess I'm too impatient heh). And that Raphael copy looks almost dead on. The renderings of the different materials...just wow...especially the fur.

Your 2 hour figure drawings gave me an idea. We have long poses to do in my figure drawing class right now. Lately I've been trying to render everything in the scene. I need to focus on just the figure. Or even part of the figure (I know I can spend at least an hour on the face alone)

There's nothing to be embarrassed about Velo, it's all great stuff. :)

[furryspork]

Hi everyone!

Wow! There's already a Ringling 2005 hopefuls thread? (I haven't been here in awhile) I haven't had time to read this whole thread yet, so I just kinda glanced at a few of the posts, and there's something I want to clear up about what I said in the original Ringling thread.

First of all, thanks for compiling all of that info, Sula. I'm sure it was a lot of work! I'm even too lazy to go back through there and find exactly what I said in there about dorms, but I think I said some stuff that was kinda misleading. When I talked about my experience in Keating, I didn't mean to imply that Keating is the "party dorm." In fact, I know some people who are CA majors and serious students who lived there the year before me and loved it. In any given year, one dorm may be noisier or more annoying than another, depending on how many annoying people were assigned to it. Keating may be a little noisier just because of the proximity of your room to everyone else's (10x10 room on a very narrow hallway with only a closet door between your room and the person's room you share the closet with) and also because of the concrete walls and hardwood floors which amplify sound, but I think the other freshman halls probably have just as much potential to be loud given the right group of people living in them.

As far as the ghost thing goes, I lived in Harmon in Precollege, and nothing weird happened there. In Keating, someone said they could hear someone laughing behind the wall of the sealed-off room next to the stairwell at night. That was pretty creepy. Somebody said that some guys had seen "Mary" in the hallway a couple years ago on the boys floor, and the school hired an exorcist to come in and get rid of her...don't know if that's true or not.

It's really nice to see so many people who are serious about wanting to go to Ringling this early before the admissions deadline. Maybe I could be of help somehow, since I've just completed my first year as a CA major at Ringling. I'll see if I can find some stuff that I submitted for admissions to give you guys an example. I don't think I was one of the best applicants in terms of portfolio, though. I think my grades helped me out a lot. Some of my more recent work is on my website at http://www.rsad.edu/~ccarnes. I think my first post in my gallery, the one from September 2002, contains 3 of my best pieces from my admissions portfolio. Some of the stuff from the March 2003 post were in there, too, but most of it wasn't complete before the deadline unfortunately.

Anyway, good luck to all of you, and let me know if you have any questions that I might be able to answer. I'll try to come back and read the rest of this post when I have some more time.

[sula_nebouxi]

Furryspork, heh yeah it took a while. A few hours actually...reading through and noting whatever I thought was relevant. Thanks for clearing up the part about Keating. I'll have to go back and edit some points in the first post.

Oh, I checked out that portfolio of yours...and damn! If that wasn't one of the best there, I seriously don't know what *is* good. The watercolor painting with the guy and the cigar is fantastic. I hate watercolors...damn thing always leaks into some other color...Hmm I really gotta find out who got the presidential scholarship for computer animation. His/her work had to be absolutely phenomenal.

About Keating...those are really freakin small rooms. My bedroom is 11x10ft so...I have an idea of what it's like. Heh and it sounds like Keating is *the* building for paranormal activity. What makes Keating so great? It seems quite a few people like it. Is it just because everyone has a private room? Oh, how big are the rooms in the other dorms? I know the ones in Harmon,Appleton and Idelson are 15x16. I'm thinking they have to be around the same size.

Heh sorry for being so inquisitive but...how's the cafeteria food? Should I pack some Pepto-Bismol or the stomach pump? :)

Thanks for showing your work furry and for offering your help(it's much appreciated...I think I have a fairly good idea of the standard that Ringling wants now. Jeez...only 6 months to go now till the deadline...where does the time go? I'll post another life drawing dump within a few days. I just got finished with my painting and figure drawing class(hoping for an A or a B+ at least in both, but who isn't? ;)) I've got maybe 3 figure drawings I'm kinda proud of and 1 painting I like. Hmm...now that class is over I gotta find something to draw for a few hours a day heh.

[furryspork]

Hey sula_nebouxi,

What makes Keating so great? Well...some people really like the hardwood floors and the old-fashioned sort of look of the rooms. Most rooms look like rooms in a house more than dorm rooms, although my room looked like a janitor's closet with a lovely view of a wall, an airconditioning unit, and the dryer vent. My window was also a lot smaller than the other Keating rooms, and with the view I had, I was greatful for that. If anyone here somehow ends up with lower level Keating #19, ask for a better room! I'm almost 6 feet tall, and I think the ceiling in the majority of that room was about 7ft. because the hall airconditioning unit was housed in my ceiling. It was a really claustrophobic experience for me, not to mention the noise from that air conditioner, and the temp. it kept my room all the time. Which reminds me, those individual thermostats are a joke. I didn't know of anyone in Keating who had a thermostat that actually worked. Your room was whatever temp. the hall was, and at one end of the hall that was really hot, and at the other end, really cold. One of the better things about Keating was having access to the Keating building after hours. On the first floor of that building, there's a huge meeting space where you can have pizza parties or watch movies on the big TV/VCR that's in front of the registrar's office. The other dorms don't have that. This past year no one really used that space much, which I didn't understand since some of the upperclassmen said they had used it a lot while they were in Keating.

Another advantage would be that a whole lot of freshman classes are held in the Keating building, so you could just go upstairs to your room during breaks instead of having to walk across campus to get something.

Room sizes: I never saw 2 identical rooms in the Cove, I'm sure the majority of them are the same size, but every Cove room I personally saw was a different size and orientation from next, so I'm not really sure there. They're probably comparable in size to other freshman rooms. Bayou Village rooms have 10x10 private bedrooms plus a big closet off of each room. The living areas in the Bayou are huge, I have no idea exactly, but they're really big. Quad rooms vary a lot in size. As an incoming freshman, you would probably either get a double room which is really big, or a single room which I think is about 10x10, maybe a little bigger. The rooms in the Quad that are reserved for freshman transfer students are 2bed 2bath triples, which means that 3 people share the kitchen and living room, which are small, but really nice, and 2 people share the big bedroom and bathroom, while 1 person gets the small room and small bath to his/herself.

The cafeteria food is decent. I'm sort of a vegitarian (by sort of I mean that I eat fish and occasionally chicken, but no other kinds of meat) so I didn't care much for the selection as there were many days where the only meat-less option was a salad or a vegi burger, both of which I got very tired of very quickly. They serve mostly "American" food like hamburgers and pizza and pork chops and the kind of stuff that American families supposedly like to eat (I'm a big fan of ethnic food myself, so I was a little disappointed with the selection.) I'd say it's better than the typical college cafeteria, since they do actually make an effort to give us something edible. The sandwiches you can have made during lunch can be really good. Not many people got sick from that food, so I don't suppose you'll be needing the stomach pump. :)

Wow! That ended up being a really long post. I better get back to work. :)

[Velo]

Wow, I sound like a dork in my admissions essay. I bet other people have much longer, better ones. But, I figured since I know what I want so I should just give them the point up front and not meander around trying to say what they want to hear, because if they can't give me what I want it's not where I want to be.

For as long as I can remember, I've had an inclination for the arts and an interest in fantasy. I have had many opportunities to "test the water" in various artistic fields, such as ceramics, metal sculpture, silk painting, technical theater, and performance theater, while looking for an endeavor I could be most passionate about and pursue as a career. When I discovered the field of concept design, I knew that this could be a fantastic way to meld my naturally pragmatic approach with my love of creation and fantasy and turn both into a career that I could really enjoy. Doing pre-production designing of characters, creatures, environments - whole worlds! - is fascinating to me. Since then, I have found that, in the entertainment design industry, you need not only original, creative ideas, but also an advanced understanding of traditional drawing skills and a mastery of technique in many mediums.

RSAD's strong emphasis on life drawing and technique is exactly what I am looking for. Although Ringling doesn't offer a major specifically in concept design, I want to have a broad skill base. I am also looking forward to an environment which will be challenging and help me stretch the boundaries of both my technical knowledge and creative potential. The seminars and presentations by working artists in different fields will be a fantastic resource for making connections and learning how professionals operate. Through hard work and instruction, I hope to develop and hone my skills so that I can aesthetically depict my own ideas, and those of coworkers or clients for various illustration and concept design projects.


Soo.. dont laugh too hard.

[sula_nebouxi]

Thanks furry, that was really helpful :)

I think the rooms won't be too bad...I've lived in one that's about the same size for like 9 years. Hopefully I can get a single...I don't wanna make my roomie go deaf with my snoring problem(people say I'm incredibly loud :() I'm not worried about noise too much either. Aside from my own ear splitting snoring, I'm pretty used to having a loud stuff going on around me at night. Once I'm down, I'm out cold.

Keating actually sounds like a ok place to dorm even with Mary around heh. I definetly don't want to stay in the lower levels though...I get kinda claustrophobic in cramped spaces too. Having the CORE classes in the same building is a definite plus. I'll probably have to go through them if I get in.

About food...If that's all they have to serve I think I would get tired of it pretty quick too. I like hamburgers and pork chops and all but I don't think I could eat that kind of stuff more than twice a month. I'll probably eat if I can anyways so...I shouldn't worry too much. And if worse comes to worse if there's an Asian food market around I can cook for myself(if the dorm has a kitchen) My dad used to own a restaurant and cook there so I learned to cook from him. I'm so used to having Chinese style cuisine every night I think I might have withdrawal if I don't have it every now and then ;).

Velo, thanks for posting your essay for the world to see hehe :) I think you're right that they want to see something direct to the point and nothing very wishy washy. I'm surprised that Ringling doesn't really frown on commercial aspirations like some other art schools do. It's a good thing, for me at least. I'd like to have a job instead of living on government grants heh(no offense to all the fine arts people :)). Hmm...I might as well write that essay now so I can focus my time on other stuff. Heh should I post that too when I'm done so I can get a critique? ;) I've got an idea about what to write and I don't want to forget it.

And don't worry about sounding like a dork Velo :)...if it makes you feel any better I'm gonna write about how I'm gonna spread love and joy and happiness around the world! Well...not exactly but something like that.

Oh, here's one of the last drawings I did for figure drawing class. It was 24x36in and done with compressed charcoal. The time I think was an hour and a half. I think I made quite a bit of improvement since the start of class. It's one of my better ones but I still have to fix some parts. Like the feet and the shoulders(something seems off). Oh and if you're wondering the marks to the right of the body were erasure marks. I screwed up the proportions in the beginning. The marks under the body was my half assed way of drawing drapery heh(not intentional, I spent all my time on the figure. Anyways...tear it up!

http://www.eden.rutgers.edu/~atso/Craptastic%20Art/nicole-reclining.jpg

[sula_nebouxi]

Must keep thread alive!

Sorry I haven't posted anything new in a while. I've been on vacation for a week in San Diego for the comic con. Woohoo! I met Ron Lemen and Jeff Watts there. I still want one of those Watts Atelier bowling shirts they were wearing :^^:

Anyways today I decided to do a self portrait since I haven't done anything much lately. This was the first time I've ever used white charcoal in anything and I was pretty surprised how much of a difference it makes in a drawing on toned paper. I kinda lost track of how much time I spent on this but I think it was around 2 hrs. Yeah...I'm slow and I tried not to do any kind of smudging at all. I know some things are a bit off like the values(gotta push those a bit more). Used a mechanical pencil and white charcoal for this drawing.

http://www.eden.rutgers.edu/~atso/Craptastic%20Art/self-portrait-7-29small.jpg

Anyways...thats it for now...I gotta remember to pick up my work from figure drawing class...hope it wasn't tossed out :upset:

[sula_nebouxi]

Yay! So, I finally picked up my work from figure drawing after class ended like 3 weeks ago. Some of it I think was ok...the rest had some glaring mistakes. Anyways...the first was done with vine charcoal on Rives BFK, the rest were compressed charcoal on Rives BFK. (In case you're wondering, Rives BFK is this really thick paper that grips charcoal fairly well and is strong enough to erase on and rub a chammy cloth on. It can even take sumi and india ink. Good stuff but it's like $2 a sheet. Also included was my final project for my painting class. I decided to do a plein air landscape. It's a small little pond near my house with a bunch of trees surrounding it, the perfect place for a landscape. It was painted in the style of Bob Ross heh:}. I had to improvise though...I don't have a big 3 inch brush. The big white splotch in the middle is the flash from my camera.

http://www.eden.rutgers.edu/~atso/Craptastic%20Art/rives1.jpg
http://www.eden.rutgers.edu/~atso/Craptastic%20Art/rives2.jpg
http://www.eden.rutgers.edu/~atso/Craptastic%20Art/rives3.jpg
http://www.eden.rutgers.edu/~atso/Craptastic%20Art/rives4.jpg
http://www.eden.rutgers.edu/~atso/Craptastic%20Art/landscape.jpg

Some notes: The first pic I think I did the best on even though she doesn't have a face:bashful: And those lines across the chest, well...those are ribs(yes, she was extremely thin)This was also the first time I used vine charcoal. It's nice and precise but I think I prefer compressed because I can get really dark with that. The 2nd pic was where I experimented on how far I could push the values and I basically tried to render as much as I could in the time allowed. The 3rd pic was done with the model behind a sheet of plastic. I think the excercise was to concentrate on values more than the figure itself. The 4th one also started out behind plastic but was later removed, so that's why it looks a little off.

That's about all the stuff worth posting from my classes. Oh yeah...now that I look at that last self portrait I did, I think it looks a wee bit creepy for some reason...meh...at least it was good practice.

[sula_nebouxi]

We can't let this thread die! There hasn't been a post here in over a month. We gotta get into Ringling!

Has anybody even started work on their portfolios yet? That jan. 15 deadline seems to creeping closer so quickly...We've only got 4 months! oh crap crap crap...*worry* Now's the time to shift it into overdrive but...I swore to myself that I had to get at least a 3.0 GPA before I submit my transcripts. That means extra study time for classes and less time for drawings...oooooh *stress*. And I have a job to worry about too :(

But...I gotta think positive! No one ever got anything done by being pessimistic all the time right? So...I will do the best that I can, I will draw leveryday, I will better myself and I will get into Ringling! err...correction: *We* will get into Ringling :)

[jerkobs]

hey youse guys, ill help keep this thread alive, im also going to apply 2005, but i just realized it about 2 weeks ago. im planning a trip to sarasota after those hurricanes decide to leave, i live in california so i have to fly. these ringling threads have really been helpful, ive learned alot about getting in just hovering over that old ringling thread. what im still confused about mainly is the other parts of the admittance portfolio (besides still life and life drawings) i want to apply to the computer animation department, so do i have to do some 3-D stuff? or can i lean on my drawings and paintings? i dont have any formal training, i just kinda draw what i like. i actually had to start from scratch last week on the figure drawing cuz i used to find it kind of boring, but the more i do it the more i enjoy it. ill post some stuff later today and youse guys can critique it and tell me how good i did, and vica-versa. hope to see some of ya in the spring or fall or whatever, i suck at seasons.

[sula_nebouxi]

Cool jerkobs...that's what I'm shooting for too. For the Comp. Animation course you don't have to submit 3d stuff but you can if you want. You just have to keep it at a minimum. Anything that's not done from life is considered 'extra'. I.E. collages, sculpture and what not. Actually I think I remember reading somewhere that Ringling encourages you to include something you've done in your spare time that interests you. Although I could be wrong. My memory is the *worst*.

Just make sure to include lots of life studies in your portfolio, Ringling loves that. Hmm... although I do remember seeing someone's portfolio from the old Ringling thread that was full of fine art with a few still lifes and self portraits and he got into the computer animation program. So...I guess there's an exception to every rule. Here's the portfolio I'm talking about, it's s3614's:

http://myhome.naver.com/s3614/

Oh I almost forgot to mention...ugh there goes a few more brain cells...I'm planning on attending the National Portfolio day at Pratt in NYC on Nov something(there go the rest of my brain cells)... Just wondering if anyone here is planning on heading over there too? Ooooh boy...I just realized I gotta bring lots of good stuff there...Oh crap...now I gotta push myself even more...2 months to put together something decent to show...GAAH this thing is gonna give me an anuerysm.

[jerkobs]

alright heres some stuff, im not sure if im going to put them in the portfolio, im kinda just warming up figuring out what im gonna do EXACTLY, i figure i have a few months. also, sula, ive seen s3614's port in the old ringling thread, i was actually amazed at how much creativity he put in it, i got the impression that the admittance portfolio was supposed to be plain ol' basics. so i think i might throw in one or two of my fun stuff (then again maybe i wont to be on the safe side).

by the way i think those who went or are going to ringling should hook us up with some pointers on our portfolios if you read this.

a first attempt at real life nude, sorry the nudes i used were from just basically naked lady sites
http://img15.exs.cx/img15/6228/fig1.jpg

10 minute sketch
http://img15.exs.cx/img15/3777/fig2.jpg

30 minute sketch
http://img15.exs.cx/img15/8615/fig3.jpg

unfinished portrait of my little brother
http://img15.exs.cx/img15/6247/port3.jpg

be nice....or not

[sula_nebouxi]

Hey jerkobs, you did pretty well on these drawings...it tells me you've got a good eye and it seems like you have an understanding of what line weight is and where to put it. But you just gotta remember, when submitting the portfolio, don't send straight up copies of photos whatever you do. It's not a good idea at all.

Anyways...on the 1st drawing some of the shadows look kinda like blocks of dark shapes like on the neck and arm. The neck also looks a wee bit too long and the arm seems to get really thin where it disappears. Other than that it looks anatomically correct.

The sketches are good too, I like the blended shading in the second one, it gives a nice round effect. I can't really comment on the baby portrait since I don't know too much about baby proportions but it does look like it's off to a good start.

I'd love to see what you can do with an object or person in front of you though. That's the real test of skill.

I'm looking into getting a drawing cast and plopping myself down and *really* drawing it. I'm itching to try out a few techniques used in the ateliers for cast drawings. Although I'm not sure if I can survive drawing the same thing for 10 hrs straight...Oh well...I'm still gonna give it a shot.

[jerkobs]

thanks sula, youre totally right about the shading in the first one, and the proportions too, (that chick did have a long neck though).
thanks for the c & c, ill remember them for the next set of drawings i do. also, i confess i didnt read your whole post until after i posted the drawings, i didnt know youre not supposed to draw from photographs, ive never taken a life drawing class, or any art class for that matter, other than the HORRIBLE ones in HS, so im gonna have to go find some naked ladies to pose for me (sweet!). although, its not that much different from drawing a photograph right? anyways thanks again for the c&c. im gonna do some still life objects today (not photo), youse guys can critique those too.

[jejuhorse]

Hey guyz~:)
i'm also going to be applying for fall of 2005 for Ringling
Right now i'm 18 and a senior at a high school and live in Michigan...:)
for me art wasn't a great deal for me until my junior year
never knew it was going to happen this way never had a art class
I visited Korea last summer vacation studied art like crzy up there
i never felt bored while i was studying though.i also started getting ready for my portfolios and just transfered to another school and they had a class that was just mainly for college portfolios...but couldn't take that class cause i never had an art class before:(
Well i'm gonna try to join in a art club so that might help:)
i'll try to put up some of my drawing later on
And Sula thank you very much for making this thread i think this is going to give me lots of help:)
And Wish you all good luck:)

[jerkobs]

hey jeju, im in the same boat as you. hopefully this thread wont die, good luck with your portfolio, one thing for SURE is that they want plenty of life drawings.

[sula_nebouxi]

Hey Jeju and welcome aboard! :) Are you trying for the computer animation program? Cause if you are, I've got enough competition as it is :) Heh...just kidding man, do your best and I hope we all get in. I'm glad you find the thread helpful. I actually told someone about this thread and the last Ringling thread and she was surprised that any artist trying to get into an art school would help others compete against him. It wouldn't exactly be any fun if I didn't know anyone going in now would it? :P But seriously I think it's because AgentJ and I just want to help others while improving ourselves.

Oh yeah...I haven't really drawn that much for a while...except a self portrait that I did a few days ago. I still gotta fix that...It feels like I have less and less time to draw now :( I've given up playing games for the time being but it just seems like something else needs to be done. I signed up for a figure drawing class so I could at least get a few drawings in a week but sadly it only occurs once a week. And for some reason the class almost seems like a step back for me since we have to learn contours and gestures again...and it's a 300 level course! I also signed up for another course called Drawing which I promptly dropped since the course didn't actually involve drawing. No sense paying for a course entitled "Drawing" that doesn't really help improve my drawing skills.

Oh and jerkobs before I forget to mention. Drawing from photos and real life is very different sad to say. In photos everything is flattened on the picture plane for you which makes it easier to draw since you do not have to deal with 3 dimensional objects(or a moving model for that matter) and you also don't have perspective to deal with. Also, light entering a camera behaves differently than light that hits the eye(losing shadows, gaining them etc...). Sometimes a trained eye can spot things that a camera can miss.

Now...off to do my figure drawing homework...20 really friggin quick gestures and 20 countours. Oy...I'm gonna need more pads if this keeps up...

[jerkobs]

well, i tried drawing from real life today, and youre right sula it is different...its not necessarily harder, when it comes to drawing the figure.... but things do look alot different, especially the shadows. i can see how they would notice a photo from a life drawing. i would post it, but i was drawing my aunt take a nap and she woke up after 3 or 4 minutes of drawing, didnt even have time to put her face in, haha. i looked at all the junior colleges around me, and even colleges NOT so near me but all the figure drawing classes are full or have already started. also, i have a question, if anybody thinks they can awnser: when ringling (or any school for that matter) asks for figure drawing, does the figure have to be nude, or can i just draw anybody i see who will sit still long enough? cuz i have a few friends whom i could probably get to agree to pose for me, but if its not necessary, id rather draw whomever (wearing whatever), i want. anyways, sula id like to see that self portrait. and is anybody planning to go to the next conceptart.org workshop ion San Fran?

[sula_nebouxi]

Clothed figures are OK. Just keep in mind that it will be slightly harder to draw since you have to render shadows and curls within the clothing and you also have to figure out where the body is underneath all that so you can get proportions right. Drapery just involves so much detail...but good luck there...

Oh and here's the self portrait:
http://www.eden.rutgers.edu/~atso/Craptastic%20Art/SP-confused-9-11.jpg

And about the workshop...I wish I could go but I'm not sure if I could find the time :( I'd love to though...even if I'd be wayyyyy outta my league there.

I had to make this short since I have to go to class...show us your portraits when you finish them jerkobs :)

[sula_nebouxi]

A little update for anyone who's actually still reading this thread...I think there's maybe 2 or 3 out there ;)

Just want to mention this for those who don't really keep track of the goings on in the Ringling Livejornal community. I heard this one person say that the number of people accepted into the freshman CA program has almost *doubled* This means that come 2005, about 80 applicants will have their dreams come true. This is unconfirmed though as it comes from a student. I'd like to hear if this is true from an admissions officer though so I don't think we should all get our hopes up.

Oh and if any of you want to see Eric Drobile's entrance portfolio go here: http://www.drobile.com/deearts/college_portfolio.htm For those who don't know, Eric is a 2nd year CA at Ringling and he(and a few others) created the Mall Monkeys web comic. So I guess you could say he's kinda famous around those parts... That is all...

[Hett15]

Hey Sula I'm still lurking around too. I haven't had any time to post what I've been working on, but I am still putting my portfolio together. Anyways I can confirm (from a Ringling teacher) that the number of students that will be admitted has increased, but I didn't know it was to 80. The teacher in the CA program that I know told me it was up to 60. I'll post some stuff whenever I can. Keep on drawing!

[sula_nebouxi]

Ok, shameless bump ;)

Here's something interesting for all you CA hopefuls...a sneak peak at your possible competition. Warning for those on 56k, they are big files.

http://webspace.ringling.edu/~egavin/pc2004site/index.html

These are the kids from the 2004 precollege program and you can see what they did in the CA workshop. Now, it looks like a few went the extra mile when it came to their projects. This, in turn, gets them brownie points when decision time comes around(Ed Gavin, the CA director watches closely to what the students do). Makes me wonder if what they say is true...you know, about precollege kids almost always getting an admission letter. It seems to depend on how hard they work in that precollege program...

I'll tell ya now, some have very good animations considering they have no training in animation. Looks like we're gonna have to step it up another notch to compete with them. For us it's all riding on that portfolio, that is unless we can find a way to suck up to Ed Gavin ;) Good luck all...I'm gonna go find some Bargue drawings to copy...I hear that's a great way to train the eye.

[jerkobs]

hey, i couldnt really see those examples, they were taking a while to load. but its all 3-d stuff right? are we supposed to turn in 3-d stuff now for our porfolio? cuz i was just gonna turn in all life drawings: undraped figure, draped figure, hands, feet, objects, scenery, motion studies. oh and about the deadline, i know its january 15, but whats the FIRST day you can apply? january 1st? cuz the catalogue i got, said that it matters when you apply.

[jejuhorse]

jerkobs..as what i have see from the information about applying early and stuff...is that it won't matter how early you apply...
just for CA though if you are going for different major i think how early you apply will matter...
oh and i'm working on one of my portfolio for still life almost done:)
i'll try to post later on...
just want you guyz to know that my digital camera...kinda sux...so it might not come out so well

[jerkobs]

sweet, thanks, im applying for CA. lookin forward to seein your stuff. oh and i found this semi old conceptart.org thread through google. i havent read it all but check it out it might have some helpful info.

http://www.conceptart.org/forums/archive/index.php/t-11419.html

[sula_nebouxi]

Hey jerkobs...you don't *have* to send in 3d work but you can if you want. I just wanted to show those videos so people could see what kinda stuff they were doing in the precollege program. And yeah those vids are huge with some around 50 megs. Curse them for using quicktime...Oh and I looked through that thread, it seemed to be mostly about how Ringling seemed to be about the money then they went on and tried to refute that one guy who said most of the programs have no real portfolio review.

And like jejuhorse said it won't matter if you send off the portfolio tomorrow or on jan 15th. Oh, and I can't wait to see that still life, jeju ;)

I'm thinking of doing a landscape once the leaves here turn color...just hope they don't turn all brown and fall off or something...blegh.

Anyways...here's some quick drawings I did in class. The proportions are horrible though...*sheds a tear cause we don't have poses longer than 20min* :nohope:
http://www.eden.rutgers.edu/~atso/Craptastic%20Art/quickie1.jpg
http://www.eden.rutgers.edu/~atso/Craptastic%20Art/quickie2.jpg

The drawing opposite the charcoal drawings were part of the assignment which was to get a quick gesture in. I think it was about a 2-3 minute pose in the first charcoal gesture and 10min in the second. I think the whole point was spontaneity in composition although I have no idea if that's true. My professor just said to do another drawing next to the first...I think I'm gonna put her on the spot next class, cause I need some advice to get a more accurate rendering(my prof doesn't want fully rendered drawings, hence the 20min time limit)

On a side note, I've been exploring the possibility of not getting into Ringling(which I hope doesn't happen). I've been thinking over what I should do if it does happen. I won't give up on my cg dream that's for sure. But I'm thinking of finishing off my time here at Rutgers, and get a degree so that my time here wasn't completely wasted. Then after that I may attend the Watts Atelier so I can be as best as I can be in drawing(not to mention that I've always dreamed of being able to create a great drawing with my own two hands) If not that atelier then certainly one somewhere near me. And during that time I'll practice on some 3d work. Then I was planning on trying for Gnomon or VFS. I think I'll be spending more time than I would at Ringling but at least it would cost a little less. That's my contingency plan and I hope I never have to follow it.

Later all.

[jerkobs]

sula- yeah we all have to face the fact that we might not get in. if i dont get in to ringling thats probably it for me too, ill go to watts and gnomon, and then try to get a job. also since art has always been my real passion and animation secondary, i might change my major (but unlikely). all the best jobs in my opinion have their fair share of concept design and animation. anyways, i know that not everbody who applies can get in, but hopefully theyll recognize that we want it more.

btw- those charc's arent bad, i cant draw for shit with charcoal

[carpal]

just a comment from someone who is here right now, and posted in the first ringling thread a little bit.

Please don't worry about not getting in. Seriously. You guys have a good shot at it but this IS NOT the end of the world. If you have your sights set so high that you think this is the best thing that could happen, there is a good chance you will be a bit disappointed once you get here. There are a million ways to go about getting a career in Computer animation and as long as you are even a little bit passionate it will happen. Enjoy the process. Oh, and start working harder. because you aren't working hard enough, none of us are.

go go go and goodluck if you have any questions feel free to PM me whatever...

[jerkobs]

pz - im not worried about getting in, if i do, cool, if i dont, bummer. i mainly just think it would be rad to goof off for another 4 years AND get a great art education. plus ive looked into a few art colleges and ringling is in the top 3. anyways, just sayin im sure its not perfect, but i think its what you make it.

[sula_nebouxi]

Yep PZ...I used to think like that. I kinda fell in love with Ringling after seeing what they were capable of. This school was able to put out a lot of good animators consistently, so I thought they had to be doing something right. But now, it's much less of a worry for me. I don't think I'll feel crushed if I don't get in, but I would feel pretty disappointed. But, all it means is I'll have to follow a slightly harder path to get where I want.

And yeah, I don't think I'm working hard enough either :/. Time constraints suck. Sometimes I wish I had taken a semester off from Rutgers so I could go to Watts or something but, I guess I'll have to settle for my once-a-week figure drawing class and whatever spare time I have.

[Ray of the Dead]

hey guys, didnt know there was a sequal to my favorite thread. I am, for the majority, in the same boat as you guys, eagerly working on much portfolio stuff for application in 2005. where i differ is that i'm going to graduate college in december for animation from another school and plan on going to Ringling for Illustration. I see you guys have a great grasp on what they like to see as far as application portfolio and such so I'd just like to get your take on something. Do you guys, if you have any, plan on including life paintings and such into your portfolio or do you feel this might be a little different for an illustration major?

Also if you guys had any questions about college life as an animator, although i'm not from Ringling, Art Institute of Philadelphia (dont hold it against me), i'd love to help out as much as i can because i've been through what you guys will be going through, and I'd like to help out as much as this thread has helped me. Thanks guys, good luck with application.

~horror

[sula_nebouxi]

Heya horror, glad you could join in on the fun ;)

Don't worry too much about being different, persoanally I think it's what they look for ;). About the life paintings, they're a good idea since painting from life is much harder than just drawing it(at least I think so). Showing that you have a working knowledge in color theory is a plus too. And if you really want to impress, I think a painting of an original illustration might be really cool.

For any of Ringling's programs, they require observational work whether they are drawings or paintings. Since you're applying to the illustration program, it might be a good idea to include something that pertains to illustration. Maybe include a few original creations along with your portfolio. And as always, no anime/manga type characters. That's where you can really shine, you get the chance to show off your creative side.

Just remember a few things, Ringling wants at least half your portfolio to be life studies, the rest is up to you. Also, you have to somehow set yourself apart from everyone else. You have to show them that you're somehow special. Good luck on getting in. Oh, and if it's not too much trouble, could you post some of your work?

Thanks :)
-Anthony

[edit]Oh yeah I almost forgot, I started on a self portrait a few hours ago, and while I still have a few things I need to fix, I think it's one of the better self portraits that I've done. I was surprised too since it's actually fairly accurate. I decided to do a straight on frontal view since I haven't done one in forever. Trying to keep with the 'emotion' kinda theme from the last self portrait I chose a glazed over look. I was going for that really tired, I can't take this anymore look heh ;) Anyways here it is. It took about 2 or 2.5 hours:

http://www.eden.rutgers.edu/~atso/Craptastic%20Art/self-portrait-10-1.jpg

[Ray of the Dead]

heres a few examples of everything, from personal stuff to life drawing and painting. i pulled these out of my graduation portfolio, not how i plan on showing Ringling but easiest way to show you guys.

some gestures.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v222/rpetty611/raygestures.jpg

some longer poses
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v222/rpetty611/ray3mins.jpg

some even longer poses
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v222/rpetty611/ray10mins.jpg

a comp of some sketchbook pages
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v222/rpetty611/rpsketchbook.jpg

a still life in acrylic
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v222/rpetty611/lemaonacryl.gif

a portrait of a friend of mine in oil
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v222/rpetty611/ambersportrait.gif

and a self portrait in oil
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v222/rpetty611/rayspoil2.jpg

i'd love to know what you guys thing, crits and suggestions encouraged.
thanx

[sula_nebouxi]

Hey horror, the gestures look pretty good. They've got a lot of life and they convey weight very well. I know you're not sending these off to Ringling but I think it would be a good idea to include much longer drawings in your portfolio. Something that took at the very least 2 hours. They should look finished.

The concept designs are pretty cool. I'm not at that point yet where I can create something coherent outta my mind without it looking cartoony;). You pulled it off and they look great.

The paintings are nice too. Although, in the still life, I think there are places where the shadows can be darkened. Pushing the shadow values will really help make the lemon look 3 dimensional. One place in particular is right under the lemon. Unless there's a lot of lights around that's where the shadow should be darkest. Right now it kinda looks like it's not really sitting on a table.

As for the portraits *breathes in* here we go... I like the hair in both. You did a good job in suggesting that there was hair there and not get caught up in rendering every strand. Compositionally, they both look good too. In the first portrait, she looks like she's looking off into the distance with kind of a smirk and it looks like she knows something I don't. I think you can push the shadows here too. They look a bit flat right now since there's a lack of a large value range(it needs bright whites and dark darks). I'd suggest getting a desk lamp or something and have it close to the face when you do another portrait. It gives some great shadows to work from. Another suggestion, add some highlights. A dab of white here and there where the light is reflecting the strongest will add to the form. With the self portrait, I can see that you tried using some complementary colors to create shadows. While that can be a good idea sometimes, the values of the colors have to match those in real life(if you're going for realism). And lastly, the facial features. They look accurate, the eyes may be a *smidgen* skewed in the self portrait. Placement looks right though.

Good job though, I'd like to see more of your stuff :)

[agentJ]

Brilliant thread Sula ^_^ And best of luck to you and everyone here!

I in the end did not go because my heart lied elsewhere and I started to discover study abroad and other things (; But in the end, its all what you put in, that what you get out

HOWEVER! I do think Ringling provides one of the best educations for CG animation so anyone REMOTELY interested in it should apply!

Best of luck to all of you! and IM me if you guys wanna talk :D or email :d

[sula_nebouxi]

Heya J, I was wondering when you might drop by ;) Heh, I should be thanking you for giving me the inspiration for starting up this thread. I loved reading the last Ringling thread, wondering if you guys were gonna get in or not. And then when most of you did, man it was a great moment. So much drama there heh. And it's great to see fellow artists band together and help each other out. The art field can quickly turn into a pissing match but I'm glad that there are people out there that are willing to help others :)

Current progress: In a mad rush to fill up my sketchbook for the National portfolio day and hoping I create a few gems for the portfolio. So far, I haven't had as much time to draw in it as I would like because of midterms and all. I've been copying some of Andrew Loomis's stuff and doing another SP(which I posted over in the October SP thread). I'm having doubts about doing a landscape although I'd like to do one just cause the Fall colors here are looking beautiful. I'm not sure if Ringling wants to see that since landscapes can end up looking bland if you don't have enough experience and they don't really leave much room for creativity. Although, they can show observational skills...ARGH stress!

I'm also wondering if I should submit some stuff from my drawing classes so I can get credit for them...I don't think I will since most of it sucks, I mean it really sucks compared to what I'm doing now. It'll degrade the overall portoflio so...that's outta the question. Looks like I'll be starting all over again. Oh well...I would have had to start over anyways since I don't have enough art classes. And even though I'm taking a figure drawing class right now, there's no way I'm submitting any of that to Ringling, since none of it looks finished or even proportinally accurate(my professor says it is even though it's clear as day). And because Mason Gross's philosophy of what good art is is so much different than Ringling's. Somehow my professor thinks that by copying a few Michelangelo's and Leonardo's will automatically give me a better understanding of anatomy...More stress!

That's enough ranting for now, I'll have some more in a week or so ;) Keep working everyone!

[jejuhorse]

Hey guyz these are couple of stuff i've done while i was in korea laster summer:) hope u all like it
top on is a corner of my room
and bottom one is done with water color
http://album26.damoim.net/data/2004/1017/412997_1098023447.JPG
http://album26.damoim.net/data/2004/1017/412997_1098023496.JPG
the one that i finished in school recently i couldn't take a picture yet
but i'll try to get it quick

[sula_nebouxi]

Heya jejuhorse :)

First off I like the watercolor painting. I never did have the patience for working with it heh. It always bleeds into whatever's next to it. Is that gouache? I haven't seen many watercolors with colors that bold unless it was gouache. The drawing of the room needs a little work. The shading is ok but the perspective is off. Be careful with it. Examine the angles more. You have to remember that parallel lines head off into the same vanishing point(kinda sounds wrong when I say it though it's true). Right now it kinda looks like you're drawing a room that's 20ft tall where you're standing and shrinking on the other end. A simple thing you can do is get an easel or something to lean your pad against so that it stands straight up. Then use your pencil to match the angles of the object and bring it over to your pad. It's the simplest way to help with perspective. Take your time and make it as exact as possible.

I know you said you did these a while ago so I apologize if you know all this already :) Keep on drawing!

I've made a few more drawings over the weekend, some studies and random sketches. Here's an SP I posted in the October SP thread.
http://www.eden.rutgers.edu/~atso/Craptastic%20Art/self-portrait-10-15.jpg
Till next time all...

[jejuhorse]

the thing about the drawing of the room is that
it wasn't a observational drawing because i was in korea at that time
so i had to use my imaginary and that's why i choose that angle
but i totally agree with you.
i'm think of doing another drawing of a workshop this time it will actually be by observation :)

[sula_nebouxi]

Ahh.. I see then. Just be sure that when you want to do a more creative piece, you want to make sure the audience knows it's supposed to be non realistic and not a...misrepresentation of reality. I can't wait to see the observational stuff :)

[Hett15]

Well hello all, long time no post. Let me just update you with my latest news. As of Friday the 22 of October I have turned in my portfolio, application material , and my essay. I took a trip down to Ringling to meet with some advisors and tour the campus. Let me just tell you it looked awesome. I really felt good about the interview and the advisor said I had a lot going for me in terms of my situation (being older = more serious about it), grades, test scores, and personality. One interesting fact that I didn't know was that you can continously submit material for your portfolio up until the due date in January. It just gets added in to your file. So.. wish me luck and I hope you all get in too so we can be one big happy freshmen class together.

[Hett15]

as best that I can describe...

Well driving in to the north side of Sarasota I was told that Ringling is in the ghetto. Obviously the people who have told me this have never been to Tallahassee. Sure it is not in the richest part of the city, but it is by no means what I would call the bad side of town. The road it is on has all kinds of cafe's and art related stores and small galleries. ( I think I saw a "gentlemen's" bar along the way, but I wasn't really sure) anyways When I got to the campus I found it to be everything I imagined it would be (because I have had it described to me before) it was a beautiful Sarasotian day. It is a relatively small campus (compared to Florida State University where I have been the last 5 years) almost like a large highschool. I walked around for awhile with my wife before my meeting, just to kill time and in the 30 minutes we were there we met 3 students and a fine arts teacher. All of them were very friendly and told us how great it is there and how mch they love it. Then I went to meet with the Associate Dean of Admissions. We walked into the Keating Building where we were going ot meet her and saw the student displayed artwork in the lobby. There were very impressive pieces on display. My favorite of course were the two TV's they had showing student animation projects. In the information room we met a few people and got the new Ringling Curriculum Book. It is awesome. I read through the whole thing while we were waiting and got really excited about the descriptions of the animation courses.

We got to meet the Associate Dean (who was very nice) and she took us on a tour of the campus. We started out just walking around the main areas, past the basketball court (which is a cool thing to have in the middle of an art school), the dorms, and some classes. After a quick stop into the photography building, we went straight to the new computer animation building. In one word...AMAZING! They have some of the best equipment I have ever seen in a computer lab. It is all the best of the best and it looks so slick too. I could definately see myself working until 3am in there (good thing I bought a Ringling hooded sweatshirt from the bookstore!). We walked into a room where there were a lot of people watching some rough animation films and I was told that this was one of the Senior Critiques where the teachers help the students solve problems and create better films. Then we went to go see the 2D animation desks they recently acquired from Disney's former 2D animation department. So we headed over to the Jotrous 2 building where we found what was to me the most exciting thing about the whole trip. A building with every inch of the walls covered in character designs and drawings of people, creatures, and all kinds of other things. Then we saw the rows of animation desks. They were very impressive. Some students were in there working on some stuff and there was a sylvester and tweety cartoon running on a tv at the back of the room. It is hard to describe, but imagine a long class room with animation desks encircling th walls edge to edge. It was just really neat to see. That concluded our tour, but we then went back to look over my portfolio.

So after the tour I sat down with the Associate Dean and we talked about why I wanted to go there and a little bit about me and my situation. Then I showed her my portfolio. Now I can't be certain, because she told me she doesn't have any say in the admittance to the Computer Animation Program, but...she did like my work and said it was the kind of stuff that the selection board usually looks for. I filled it heavily with life drawings and observational stuff. I included a few other extras and 2 master copies, but the majority was figures, hands, feet, and animals. I also included a CD of all the pictures. I was a little worried because most of my figures were female, due to my limited access to people willing to take their clothes off for me. I had a few drawings from a drawing 1 class and a couple more from a figure drawing workshop I went to. But the majority were just from carrying around a stack of computer paper on a clipboard. My own hands were covered extensively and a trip to the local zoo was also very helpful. I reccommend drawing animals at the zoo. It's fun, different, and cheap. The Assoc. Dean told me she was very glad I didn't have any anime or giant robots and that kind of stuff. My wife suggested that I show her the originals because I had them in a portfolio in the car. I believe this helped because the Assoc. Dean was able to see the works in their original size and format. Some pieces were poster board sized, but were shown just as big as the rest of my stuff in my portfolio I turned in. (oh and my wife was able to run right out to the car and come back very quickly because parking doesn't seem to be any trouble at all). I concluded my interview by talking about my academic accomplishments, test scores, and GPA's from high school and college. Overall I felt like it all went well. I was very excited to be there and I really like the whole environment.

Reccomendations for others planning on going:

Bring a well formatted portfolio.
Also bring original works if possible, you can keep them in the car until it is time to show them.
DRAW FROM LIFE DRAW FROM LIFE DRAW FROM LIFE
leave your anime and comic book character drawings at home.
Draw from life, but also include a little extra flavor (color, collage, landscape, original characters) But keep this very limited. A page at most for anything other then life drawing.
Dress nce. Be yourself, but don't look like a homeless highschool student.
During your interview talk about anything you have done that can relate to your desired major and anything you have done that you are academically proud of (GPA, Test Scores, Honor Roll, Dean's List [the good one ]posistions you've held, clubs, organizations, etc.. it is your chance to shine and they aren't going to pull it out of you. You have to show them.)

[sula_nebouxi]

Woohoo! You go Hett! I'd love to see the portfolio you sent in. It sounds like you made quite an impression. Oh, and the point about being able to send in new work along the way is pretty awesome. Although I'm still probably gonna send in all my stuff in january or near it. I may head down to Ringling in January(for their portfolio day) but I'm still debating whether or not I should. It might be fun to check out the campus personally. I have to visit the Bronx zoo sometime too. That sounds like a great idea, one I can't believe I didn't think of at all. I think a trip to the Natural History museum is in order too.

Ringling sounds like an awesome place. The legends are true! And about the ghetto...pshh, the school I go to now, Rutgers, is next to a *real* ghetto complete with 8 month pregnant hookers and bums lining the streets. This place will probably be paradise compared to the area around my school. One question though, did you schedule an appointment with the Dean or did you just walk in? Seems she did quite a bit if you just asked for a tour heh. I knew they liked observational life drawing but from what you said, they seem *very* adamant about having it fill a huge chunk of the portfolio. Hmm...I'm getting lots of different opinions on what they look for exactly. I'm definetly putting in mostly life drawings in my portfolio and I may paint something. As of right now I'm drawing stuff in my sketchbook hoping for a gem I can include in the portfolio. Right now there's one that I *may* include, which is the self portrait I showed a few posts before. Although I'm holding off on making it definite.

Thanks for the tips Hett and best of luck to you and of course to the rest of us! Oh yeah one last note. It's official, I got this straight from a Ringling senior. The number of people being admitted into the computer animation program has been *increased* to 60-80 students. I think this is because they are expanding the campus and they need more people to give them money. Woohoo! great news for us heh ;) Anyways that's it for now. Keep us updated Hett :)

[kgb]

Hello everyone, I'm applying for Computer Animation as well, with illustration if I don't get in for CA. I'll be visiting this thread now to keep in touch with you all. I'll post my portfolio as soon as I get it collected and done. I'll probably turn everything in after Thanksgiving holidays. Good luck to all of you guys, hopefully we all be in CA fall of 2005.

[sula_nebouxi]

Awesome, welcome aboard kgb! Yes, may we all get in and um...do stuff together heh :) On a side note, my sketchbook seems to much thicker than before despite the fact that I tore out like 20 pages...It's a conspiracy to keep me from filling this damn thing!! GAAH! *gets the tinfoil hat*

[jejuhorse]

Hello~!!:)
i just started writing my essay for Ringling lol
just wondering how you guys are doing these days
i started another art work using oil pastel...have to do this cause it's during my art class:)it's not going that bad though
i'll probably finish it my next friday cause you know we have only 45 min of class that's y i don't like about art classes i have to wait another day and another day...and so on...when i start go get excited and like get into it
the damn bell rings.... :upset:
well...It feels like this thread is kinda quite...
we should talk more often i guess
well everyone good luck:)

[Ray of the Dead]

very true, we should talk a little more, i myself am guilty of not posting enough, especially some of my recent work, but i'm in my final quarter at AIPH and i have to assemble a demo reel in 4 weeks so i have an exucuse. :P
anyways, i was wondering, how many of you guys plan on going to the Workshop in SanFranciso and if so would anyone be interested in sharing a room, it'd be nice to talk about Ringling and other interests while we're not learning. anyone interested let me know, i have a credit card and all to book the hotel room, so let me know if your interested.

[sula_nebouxi]

Yeah...we really need to talk more...and I need to post more too(since I started this thread...). I've just been swamped with schoolwork and I even haven't had much time to draw in my sketchbook let alone work on my portfolio. There's only one more week till my portfolio day at Pratt...I wonder how they'll feel about seeing nothing but studies in my sketchbook :[ It's mostly filled with anatomy and Loomis studies too...Hopefully I'll have all the time in the world in December. My finals should be done fairly early and I should have the rest of the month to draw like a crazed madman.

About the San Francisco workshop, I probably won't be able to go...too much money :( But I would have loved to go just to see all those amazing artists at work. Why couldn't they have one on the east coast? I'd definetly be able to do that...

Anyways...if anyone wants to message me on AIM, go right ahead. tony67182 heh yeah I know...it shows a real lack of creativity, I just mashed the keyboard and that's what I came out with. It actually used to be eroticonvi but I changed it since people started thinking I was a porn bot :nohope:

Well...best of luck to all...time to get back to stressing about everything in my life.

[sula_nebouxi]

Yay! I'm done with my essay! That's one thing out of the way :P Since Velo showed us her essay a looooong time ago, I figured I might as well too. This is by no means a guideline on what to include so that being said...if any of you guys want to read it...here it is: (warning: beware of sappiness)

Ever since I was a young boy growing up in the sprawling metropolis of New York City, I have always had a love for drawing. As far as I can remember my best memories were of myself just drawing and like many other kids, watching cartoons. I loved cartoons and all sorts of animation almost as much as drawing. I can still remember the first time I was ever awe-inspired. I was but a young tyke, only 8 years old. It was a hot summer day in 1993 as I stood outside the door hearing the violent snarls, growls and roars behind them. All the while, I was anxious of what was beyond those sterile, white doors. The time came and the bustling crowd leaked out of the room. It was our turn. My brother and I walked inside and we waited, and waited and waited for what seemed like an eternity. Finally, after several lifetimes, the lights began to dim. What came after was the most unforgettable experience of my life. “I want Tasers on full charge” said the man with a thick Australian accent. From the first line to the last, I sat glued to the silver screen shocked, amazed, inspired, and awed at the magic before me. It was the first time I had watched Jurassic Park and it certainly was not the last. To this day, over 11 years later, I still have that love for creating art and watching animation. In the recent years I heard about the specialized field of 3d computer animation. As soon as I heard about it, something clicked inside of me. This could be it. This could be the thing I wanted to do with my life. To me, it seemed like a dream career. Being able to combine my love for animation and creating art all while earning a living is like a match made in heaven. Not to mention that it would all be done on the computer. My inner computer geek cried with joy. I want to be able to do what the animators of yesteryear did. I want to bring a smile to someone's face just like they gave me. That's what drove me to pursue a career in animation. Putting a little joy in a person's day gives me a feeling like none other.

A famous man once said, “I am interested in entertaining people, in bringing pleasure, particularly laughter, to others, rather than being concerned with 'expressing' myself with obscure creative impressions”. It's a quote I live by and believe in with all my heart. Who said it? Why, none other than Walter Elias Disney. I believe that Ringling will help me achieve this goal. I firmly believe that the basis of all art, including animation, is grounded in traditional life drawing. Ringling is the perfect choice for me because I know that Ringling also stresses this belief. Add to that the CORE curriculum, concept development, the traditional animation, and of course the computer animation courses, we have the basics of what we need to become a successful animator. I once read that anyone can move an object, but not everyone can animate, and once in a lifetime we get someone who makes an animation come alive, who gives it the illusion of life so to say. I believe with a lot of passion, perseverance, hard work, and a little guidance from Ringling I can achieve my dream, I might become that animator.

PS I'm trying to find that exact quote that I put in at the end. The one with the whole illusion of life thing. I can't seem to find it but I know I read it somewhere. It might be in the Illusion of Life(went through over 100 pgs without seeing it) or the Animator's Survival Kit but I can't be sure.

[onigod]

Hi everyone, first time poster here. I've read many of the comments here and I'm sorry for going completely off track, but I need some help deciding schools.

First off, I'm currently a senior in high school, living in the DC area. I want to go into 3D animation as a major and have been applying/searching various schools.

So far, I've applied to Savannah College of Art & Design as well as Pratt Institute. I've been accepted to SCAD, and am awaiting portfolio review for a possible scholarship. I got my Pratt application in as my early action app, but won't get word from them until after my interview in December.

Now, paranoia has finally caught up with me as now that I've been accepted, I'm not sure if SCAD or Pratt are the schools I want to go to. I researched before-hand, but maybe not enough. Pratt certaintly is New York (and I'm sorry I'm going off-tangent with other schools in a Ringling thread), and New York is a better location for me (friends, family, jobs), however I hear mixed feeling about it; Savannah as well.

Now I've been google-searching various forums and people are saying Ringling offers one of the best animation programs. I honestly don't know - I'll probably end up filling out one more application for Ringling -- it'll be easier having completed my statement of purpose, portfolio (just have to take slides again), etc. The only problem with Ringling is it is pretty far away from home (yeah, I sound like a sissy here now), but it's the same reason I don't want to go to school on the West Coast - I want to be far from home, but not too far. Course who knows, right?

So anyways, my question to anyone willing to answer it is: Which school is really the best in terms of:

- 3D animation department
- Foundation studies
- Professors
- Resources
- Campus life, etc.

Between Pratt, SCAD, Ringling -- even other schools (that I've looked at as well): Parsons, SVA, etc.

Thank you very much :)

P.S. I know this is wierd posting in a Ringling thread - but I guess I want to see why all of you are choosing Ringling over other schools?

(Also, this is all in theory; so far I've only been accepted to SCAD and should probably wait until I hear a decision from Pratt, but still the question haunts my mind)

[sula_nebouxi]

The reason I chose to shoot for Ringling was because of the student work. Over the past year, I've seen quite a few reels posted on CGtalk.com which are IMO just plain awesome. I've seen very little student work from other schools and from what little I've seen it just seems to me like other schools lack the story element. An animator is a bunch of different things, they're a storyteller, an actor, an artist, a director, etc...Ringling offers most of that(minus the acting/directing stuff) and they believe in the traditional aspects of all art. They're also a bit more focused on the commercial aspect of art especially in the comp animation department. I was kinda surprised at this since many art schools kinda let you do what you want. Ringling can help make you a success.

I've heard from a few people that Ringling has one of the best career services departments around and are pleasant to deal with. They will fight tooth and nail to get you an internship or job. Ringling's comp animation department is also their selling point. That's what they are known for so that department gets a helluva lot more funding than the other departments. Ringling is starting to get a reputation for turning out incredible animators and the industry may start to look favorably on their graduates(if they actually look at school exerience). Finally I want to go to Ringling because of the people there. It's the perfect place to make connections, since success in this industry is based on who you know and not so much as what you know. Networking with some of the best upcoming animators is good idea for your future.

The reason I didn't choose SCAD or SVA or any of the others was I just decided that they weren't for me.
SCAD- very dangerous neighborhood. I've heard stories of several SCAD students being murdered due to poor security and whatnot. The locals don't seem to be very friendly towards SCAD students, or so I hear.
SVA- too artsy fartsy for my liking. Student portfolio isn't that impressive, but it may change. Reels lack story elements and seem to be more fine arts based.
Pratt- haven't seen any student work from here at all so I'm wary of that. Not completely sure of the quality of education.
Parsons- also haven't seen any work from here.

I understand where you're coming from. About being away from family and all that because there's a certain someone in my life that I'd want to stay near to. It's gonna be one hell of a decision to make...

Anyways, there's my opinions, I hope I didn't scare you off from your other picks:^^;: I just decided that Ringling was where I wanted to go because it was right for me. It had what I was looking for in a school.

[onigod]

Hey, thanks for the comments - no you didn't scare me off.

I know about SCAD's crime-scene, but then again, crime will be anywhere you go; it just happens that its become part of a bad reputation tag for SCAD.

About the student reels, though, I see where you're coming from that Ringling has shown the best reels (I'd have to agree with you - they're some of the best I've seen too), but all those things that animators do: story-telling, acting, directing, all in all come down to the individual. Maybe it just so happens those skilled talented individuals who's reels were shown happened to attend Ringling and not other schools. Maybe if they had gone to those schools there would be pretty much the same reels? I don't know, I'm not arguing one way or the other, just trying to keep an open mind. From what I've been hearing around and from what I've seen, Ringling does seem to have a really strong animation department, which is a plus. They do seem to have other majors too that are appealing (in that little chance I suddenly decide to switch majors - ALWAYS possible, you never know).

So yeah, I've decided I'll apply to Ringling just to see if I get in, and maybe to vary my options. It'll be a hell of a lot easier - I have the essay part done already, my teacher's recommendations have all been written, my portfolio all ready (I just have to retake slides, which won't be that hard).

Anyways, thanks for the comments - and if anyone else has comments to add, please do so. I look forward to reading them.

P.S.

One more thing I forgot to add concerning jobs. One appealing thing about Pratt I like is the fact that it is Manhattan in a sense, and is a direct home to numerous advertising agencies, jobs, internships, etc. But I do not doubt that Ringling has a really good job-hunting system too; I've read up on it briefly. SCAD seems ok.. I think - they didn't really list much.

[Hett15]

Hey guys how's it going?
Onigod Ringling is one of the top 5 schools in North America if not the world for computer animation/Traditional animation. I would say that it is the best school out side of NY and CA for anyone who wants to have anything to do with animation. I chose it mainly based on the quality of work, reputation, and location to where I live (Florida). The Sarasota community is very nice and the weather is awesome. The work that gets pumped out of Ringling is great, but you are right that it is largely due to the amount of work the students put into it. You can become a great animator from the resources you will find on the internet if you have the dedication, time, money, and work ethic, but Ringling is structured to give you this discipline. Ringling also emphasises that you must be able to draw before you can animate. That is why the fundamental art training you will get is some of the best you will find anywhere. The electives that apply to animation are also great. There is character modeling, illustration, storyboarding, and many other specialized classes. You also noticed that they have other very strong art curriculums and you are right. The Illustration and other courses are top notch as well. If you are not accepted to the Computer Animation Program, but you get accepted tothe school, you are given the choice to do any of the other curriculums. You will be shelling out a huge chunk of cash to go there (or to any art school) and you will have valuable hands on information from high quality professors and fellow students. Ringling has been gaining a lot more attention after having won a lot of awards for student films from Rhythm&Hue Inc. and many others. With the large shift to CG animation Ringling has established itself as a up to date high tech animator assembly line. It creates high quality aimators ready for the job market. I want to go there becasue I want to work with the best future animators and become one of the best.

Good luck deciding. If you go to Ringling you'll already have friends from this forum (if we get in...hoping :^^;: )

[dadamafia]

SOME THINGS I SAY MIGHT SOUND RETARDED BECAUSE I NEVER WENT OVER IT AND EDITED.


Ringling has been my number one choice for an art school to attend ever since i started considering to go. I am salivating over an opportunity to go there. i visited the school once andf loved it. of course there are people there who idle but just dont associate with them. i have many things working against me so i have no room for wasting timee if i get in.

i am relatively new to art and i find that if i keep working hard then my potential will show. the self portrait in my thread is the first painting i ever did .i am from the caribbean and no one takes art serious where i live. up until i moved to america i planned on doing law or accounting. my high school was a top institution in my island.i applied to a community college and i recieved an honors scholarship. when i started, i realized that 10 years from now i dont want to do accounts or law, i want to do something im passionate about. just to prove how of a noob to art i was, i never even seen a van gogh or could distinguish between a leonardo or a michelangelo. i knew nothing. but i wanted to learn so i set out to do so. its awful here, its hard to focus on art with so much shit going on around, but i force myself to. the program i am in has so many requirements of us to do weekly and its hard to find time for art. if i transfer to an art school i want to start as a sophomore even though i did 2 years already because i feel there is so much to learn. i have been working for my portfolio and i have an idea of whats gonna be in it.

in total, i will have 25-30 slides, HOPEFULLY. i have done everything i posssibly can do with the time i have. i am still discovering the artist in me. most of the drawing i am considering for portfolio arent in my sketchbook thread. i am hoping on some form of scholarship to attend there. i know the chances are slim but i am praying. if i dont get any, i will just take loans. i wish i could get into the minds of these people to know exactly what they want. but for now... i pray

[onigod]

Thanks for the comments guys. First off, mucho luck to the both of you.

I am growing more excited about Ringling actually the more I think about and continue to search schools. I'll definetely give it a shot and apply in the next week or so probably; December 3rd I have my portfolio interview with Pratt in Washington DC, and then all the schools are going to be there December 4th, so I'll have a chance to visit each one again, especially Ringling and compare/contrast. What I'll probably end up doing is going back and visiting Pratt and Savannah again, and hopefully visiting Ringling (since I haven't been THERE yet). So, yeah - keeping an open mind is always good. And even if I don't decide to go to Ringling (although it really looks more promising every minute I look at it), it's always good to apply and see if I can get in - just for the hell of it even.

Oh - and going over the course catalog, there was one really great thing that caught my eye. Many of you probably noticed, but there's a Presidential Scholarship that's given to the strongest student applicants (one for each major) - its valued up to the full cost of tuition (very nice). Course the chances of getting the scholarship are very slim and incredulous, but who knows.

So thanks everyone and keep posting any comments - in the end it'll amount to whichever school I can get a higher scholarship for, unless they're pretty even all around, then it's back to hesitant decisions.

;)

[sula_nebouxi]

Hey everyone. I just got back from the national portfolio day here at Pratt in NYC. Oh...my...god...it was a friggin madhouse. I was an hour early and the place was packed. There had to be over a thousand kids waiting in line to be let into the gym where all the reps were. So I sat there for an hour chatting with the people next to me...heh turns out they wanted to check out Ringling too.

Anyways, when 12 o'clock rolled around, the line started moving and everyone flooded the gym. Seems everyone wanted to check out RISD, that place had several lines that spanned the entire length of the gym(over 200ft). Me, I made a beeline to the Ringling table(first one there w00t). They had an alumnus and an admissions officer there. So...I showed them my work, which was for the most part unfinished. I explained to the admissions officer that they were done with tight time constraints(about 25-30 min. max). She flipped through my sketchbook which was filled with SP's and studies.

What did she say? Well...I'm glad I didn't get one of those scathing reviews I've heard about(whew...I'm thankful for that). I actually got a nice review. She said that I have really strong drawing abilities and that will help me a lot when it comes down to the portfolio review. I had a good sense of composition, proportion and just general accuracy. She said she'd be interested to see what I can do with much more time. That was the only critique she had, I needed to polish my drawings up more. Heh even with my 3 hour self portrait didn't seem finished :( Looks like I'll need to spend at least twice as long now. Ringling really loves to see those academically finished drawings. Make sure they look like they're done!

So, afterwards(after picking up Ringling's kewl new 2005 catalog) I went over to the SVA table to see their opinion on my stuff. I know they're more artsy-fartsy than Ringling and they might be able to offer some other insight past technical abilities. Heh there must have been over 100 kids waiting in about 10 lines. SVA had plenty of tables out. I noticed when I got to the table, they wrote comments about the people they interviewed. I guess it's pretty handy when it comes down to the review. But it was still kinda unsettling to know they were scrutinizing everything. So...the rep from SVA basically said the same thing, that I had strong drawing skills. She did add something new though. She wanted to see more creativity in my drawings because so far, they all look like studies(which they were by the way...). I needed to incorporate more of a background and involve the entire sheet of paper. In the case of the SP's, she would have liked to see portraits from different angles(like having the mirror on the floor and drawing yourself from that viewpoint).

I didn't visit the other schools since I never heard of most of them(Emily Carr and Corcoran anyone?). I would have stopped by the RISD tables but those were just insanely long. I kinda had to leave anyway since it was insanely hot in there, I couldn't take it anymore.

So...portfolio day has come and gone. Time to get to work on the real thing. Thus, endeth my adventure at Pratt...

[onigod]

Good times. I'm going to Portfolio Day at Corcoran December 4th. I got my portfolio interview with my Pratt counselor December 3rd. Hopefully all will go well.

[EccoXile]

*lurks about then decides to jump in*

Hey all, hs senior hoping to be in ringling this time next year. :P Where did all that time go? Just thought I should drop in and say hi, see what people are saying about the place. And now I want to go there more than anything. I already got my portfolio accepted by them (but I want scholarships, so I have to send one with my application for that...by the way, how are you people sending them your portfolios? Prints, slides, cds?) so I have high hopes of getting in.

And is everyone here going for CA? Well, I shouldn't be surprised, just want to see if there is anyone going for illustration there too.

And one last thing since I can think of nothing else, about the time spent on portfolio pieces. I know that the first post says 6 hours atleast. Agghh...I don't know if I can pull that off. I work too fast. Few of my obersavtional drawings are over an hour even. I have one painting I'm working on that will be over 6 hours, but everything else is just a one shot deal. So should I just work tirelessly to get more long pieces done soon, or just throw in some of my more finished quickies? (if I can find any...)

[sula_nebouxi]

Good luck with the interviews onigod, hope all goes well. :)

Hey EccoXile, I'm thinking of either sending in a cd with some pictures or just plain photos. And yeah...seems most of us are trying for comp animation(it's what Ringling is famous for). But I think there might be one or two reading that are planning on illustration too. I hear it's got a pretty good illustration department.

Yep, I know I said 6 hours but it depends on how much you get done in that amount of time. I know I work slow, since I do meticulous measuring, so I'll definetly need at least 6 hours before I call something done. If you can do the same amount of work in say 2 hours, then that will be good enough. It just has to look like you spent a good amount of time tweaking everything till it looks perfect. I think quick stuff is fine so long as you have the stuff they want to see which is strong, accurate, finished figure drawings, clothed or unclothed. I get the feeling that that should be a major part of the portfolio, everything else is supplemental. So basically...finish those drawings! Spend a little extra time to make them look better. All these things will show when it comes down to the review. Hope that helped...and good luck.

[dadamafia]

since everybody has been posting stuff i guess i can too. these are a couple figure drawings i did on friday. these are the first i did in months. each are in the range of 15-20 minutes. hopefully next week ill get to the session in time to catch everything but this time the driver didnt remember where it was.w/e.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v229/dadamafia/figure2.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v229/dadamafia/figure1.jpg

[sula_nebouxi]

Hey dada, those drawings aren't that bad, but they need some work. You have a nice range of values in the first one. It gives it a sense of volume. There are a few problems with proportion however, the limbs seem a little bit short or maybe the head is a little too big. There are also a few foreshortening problems. In the first drawing, the right leg seems to be stuck to the side of the butt and the left leg in the second drawing looks a bit too small.

I would encourage you to draw longer poses. Measure more using proportions of their body. Size one part up and compare it to another. Compare the sizes and distances from as many verticle and horizontal points as you can. You'll get a much more accurate drawing. Work on accuracy before worrying about shading. I think you can pull this off if you slow down and draw something for about 4 hours. Really scrutinize your subject.

[EccoXile]

thanks for the info sula, muchly appreciated. I'll be doing much drawing now then, once i get some homework out of my way. Just so long as it looks finished, I can deal with that. And clothed figures are fine too? *plots* I wish I would have jumped on this sooner, but I'll deal.

and dada, thats a great start, especially for the time you had. But what sula said, measure angles and proportions first. And when you shade, go in different directions, along contours. That first one especially, your pencil is doing a lot of going in the same direction. Good contrast on it though.

*would add art if had something proper scanned in*

[dadamafia]

thanks for the comments sula and ecco. i will take everything into consideration the next time i do figure drawing.
@sula- thanks for the crit, may be of potential use some time. i dont know of anywhere to find a whole bunch of 40+ minute pose besides from in art school. there was only one 40 minute pose and thats when i arrived and i came up with those 2 drawings from it. if i had that kinda time then i could take my time and do everything better. next time ill try to be early.

[onigod]

2 hours, 15-20 minutes - wow, you all work pretty fast. I don't know, personally if I'm not doing like sketches, I spent hours and hours on end on my works trying to perfect them. I would say a good piece takes me about a week - like something I would do as a good piece into my portfolio; even 2 weeks maybe - spending a few hours a day working on it (depending on other homework, activities, etc.)

This weekend I did span a total of 15 hours at the out-of-school art class I goto. Saturday I spent 4 hours volunteering with these 4-7 year olds, making sculptures and collages with them. From 10:30 am till like 1 pm. Then I spent 1pm to 5pm drawing/painting without any food all day; went to Subway for like 15 minutes, then I came back and worked until 8:30. Then Sunday I had 6 more hours of class in a row. I don't know - maybe I'm just crazy or too dedicated. I could spend the night at that small studio though; I love being there. Next week I'm going to do the same, but I'll probably limit myself later to like... 4 hours of volunteering Saturday with the little kids and 6 hours class on Sunday maybe. I don't know.

But yeah, I'm sending in my application to Ringling either this week, but most likely next week because of Thanksgiving and all. I called this one guy up who goes to Savannah to get some inside scoop on the school - he tells me its pretty good; tells me some roommate of his was going for a computer animation major, did some cool shit - I don't know. I think so far I'm looking more into Savannah and Ringling over Pratt - a friend of mine came back who goes to Pratt and she told me she wasn't really liking it there (but then again, everyone's different, so who really knows).

I'll try to get some of my works up soon. After I get another batch of slides done. Oh ya - to answer the question posed earlier - with SCAD and Ringling I'm sending slides; with Pratt Institute I have my interview December 3rd.

Good times everyone.

[Psychostorm]

Wow, I'm glad that I found this website, and thread for that matter. I too am applying for the 2005 Fall semester at Ringling. Reading the thread from the beginning has been great. I've gotten all kinds of useful information about the school, and particularly, the admissions portfolio process. I hope that everyone here who does apply to Ringling gets in, and has the chance to make their dreams a reality. Good luck to all!

-C a.d.

PS: The semester is ending in a few weeks, and hopefully then, since I'll have the time, I can post some pics of my works for crits and comments.

[sula_nebouxi]

dadamafia, if worse comes to worse you can always get a friend or relative to pose for you. Or if you really have to, maybe post up a flyer at the art school saying you need a model for a private session. They usually get paid like $10-15 per hour.

onigod, 3 words, you are hardcore. I wish I had the time for that...Maybe during winter break I'll have more time to work.

psychostorm, welcome to the thread! Enjoy your stay and good luck to you too. Just wondering, which major are you shooting for? Well, anyways, I'd love to see some of your stuff. I'll try and crit them as best I can.

oh yeah...here's an SP I posted over in the nov. self portrait thread...I may submit this one if I can fix it up a little.
http://www.eden.rutgers.edu/~atso/Craptastic%20Art/self-portrait-11-18.jpg

[Psychostorm]

psychostorm, welcome to the thread! Enjoy your stay and good luck to you too. Just wondering, which major are you shooting for? Well, anyways, I'd love to see some of your stuff. I'll try and crit them as best I can.

Thanks for the welcoming. As for a major? That's where I've run into some conflict. I'm kind of torn between Illustration and Graphic Design. I can definently see myself as an Illustrator because I've been doing it since I can remember (i.e. chracter designs, vehicle designs). On the other hand, I'm really interested in Graphic Design because of the technical side of it. Right now it's a toss up. The more and more I think about it though, I believe I'm going to end up applying for the Illustration program.

-C a.d.

[Red_Rook]

ima be applying there, thought i might say hi. Ill post up my application portfolio when im kinda further then i am right now. :)

edit: o and illustration major btw

[dadamafia]

dadamafia, if worse comes to worse you can always get a friend or relative to pose for you. Or if you really have to, maybe post up a flyer at the art school saying you need a model for a private session. They usually get paid like $10-15 per hour.

onigod, 3 words, you are hardcore. I wish I had the time for that...Maybe during winter break I'll have more time to work.

psychostorm, welcome to the thread! Enjoy your stay and good luck to you too. Just wondering, which major are you shooting for? Well, anyways, I'd love to see some of your stuff. I'll try and crit them as best I can.

oh yeah...here's an SP I posted over in the nov. self portrait thread...I may submit this one if I can fix it up a little.
http://www.eden.rutgers.edu/~atso/Craptastic%20Art/self-portrait-11-18.jpg
good job dude, looking good.
what pencil are you using, i think you can work on the tonal range a bit more (ex. get darkest dark and lights and so forth). also on the jaw you should figure out that lil zigzag looking shading part. it seems little but it makes a diff. OR if im wrong jus ignore me for my sake.
good job.

[sula_nebouxi]

Welcome aboard Red_Rook, my we're getting lots of new people in this thread aren't we?

Thanks for the crit dada, I'm using 2b graphite and white charcoal. It's true, I need to work on my range of values especially on the area around my left eye, under my chin and next to the nose. That zigzag shading thing was a half assed attempt at stubble that failed miserably. I think I'll just blend that area over and have it imply that there's some kind of hair there. I have trouble with hair in general. Too many times I end up kinda generalizing and guessing what the hair looks like. Another thing I need to fix is that little wrinkle above my eyebrow...it looks weird. I'll try and finish this thing when I have the time...maybe after thanksgiving.

Have a good holiday everyone :)

[Red_Rook]

thanks man, about your pic, you may wanna be more carefull about the back of your head melting into the background. Its a good idea to have a transition ofcourse but your head should still contrast a bit. Also watch your mass shadow, its all darkend in practicly all the same value, you can define your forms more if ya push this a bit further, but ya said that yourself :) Try it especially along the dark contour along the left side of your face, and under your chin, itl help to turn the form more. Note there might also be a reflective light that lights up your chin a bit, but now im speculating i have no idea, but unless you in a pitch black empty romm ther could well be a bit, even if you just arrange it for the next one it may help define your facial structure more. :) Hope that helped.

Disclaimer: i have no idea what im really talking about :P

[sula_nebouxi]

Heh thanks for the advice Red-Rook. Lately I think I've been trying to hard to copy what's in front of me instead of concentrating on making the drawing read well. What I did for the drawing was sit in a dark room at night with a lamp above my head. I liked that set up, gave some nice shadows to work with. But the contrasts between light and dark didn't really suggest form too well. About the background, yeah I really gotta stop doing that fading-to-black thing. I guess I was half-hoping it would help shift the focus to the front of the face and give a little contrast between the background and neck so as to define the form.

Ok, enough excuses, I promise I'll fix the problems and post the finished product :)

[jayneko]

Hey guys. :)

Just though I'd drop in, since I'm going to apply to Ringling for 2005. I'm really nervous about it...

I recently finished an associate in COmputer animation and on Video Game design in Montreal, Canada. I'm back home in Colombia..but I want to go back to North America to get a BFA degree. Ringling has always seemed great to me, and I'm happy I'm finally able to apply. Sadly, on the stupid flight home I lost two of my sketchbooks and some of my finished work from Canada, so I'm going to make a portfolio from scratch. >:E Darn luggage people!

Personally I love figure drawing and just..drawing what I see. Made some other stuff (which didn;t get lost!) on my website ( www.jayneko.com ). Just wondering if good old pencil and charcoal drawings would be good enough for the portfolio? Maybe some watercolors, which I can work with..but when it comes to oil panitngs or other mediums..they're evil. :E

So yeah.. Just wanted to see if someone minded going to my website to check out the little work I have there, jus to see if I have the stuff to get into Ringling...and maybe even reduce the course to 3 years! (20k a year..plus living expenses... scaryyy.)

So tomorrow... I go buy art supplies and draw like crazy. :)

Hrrm... 'nother questions! Does anyone know about University of Central Florida's animation program? Does it measure up?

[jayneko]

Hey guys!

Just thought of something... How hard is it to get into Ringling's CA program? I mean, after seeing all the stuff you guys have made, I have to amdit I'm pretty intimidated, as I'm not of the same level as you guys are. ^^; Does a beginner like me have ANY chance of getting in?

Not giving up though! Working hard on my portfolio, although I only have one month to go. x_x I wish I've known I was able to go some months earlier.

Anyhow, I kinda finished a portrait. I still want to work on it more but I thought I'd scan it to show you guys. Trying out charcoals this time. :)

http://www.jayneko.com/images/draw/cha_Carrie01.jpg

So, good luck to all! And in case someone wants to crit my work, www.jayneko.com . Be honest. I really really really need to improve! ^^;

[dadamafia]

hey watsup everybody. i have some stuff i been working on i wanted to post in here. the paintings arent finished and i did a lil sketch of one of my friends. hope yall like.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v229/dadamafia/COLLAGE.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v229/dadamafia/HOLYTEDDY.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v229/dadamafia/kingdavisCAcopy.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v229/dadamafia/panorama.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v229/dadamafia/jamgirl.jpg

all this stuff i post is in my sketchbook also but i post it in here anyways. peace out.

[jayneko]

Dude, sweet work. :)

I tihnk it's all pretty darn good. I love the way the sketch of your friend is shaded, and the knight rocks. I'm a beginner when it comes to this, so I really won't offer crits. ;) But I like the work! Keep it up! :D

[dadamafia]

thanks alot dude. i am still working on all of them so ill update a bit later.

[sohix]

Hello :bashful:

Just wondering if anyone knew whether or not Ringling transferred your GPA or if it starts over after the first semester, like some other schools do?

[Lokklyn]

Hello!~

First time poster here, and I just wanted to say that I'm hoping to get into Ringling's computer animation program. I'm a high school senior with decent-ish grades/SAT scores (as in like, 3.65/1370).

I'm a bit freaked out about my portfolio and my terrible time management skills, but hopefully I'll be able to meet deadlines for all my applications. I really like some of the work I'm seeing and hope to offer some constructive suggestions to people posting here. I do have plans to post stuff, myself, but I'll have to scrounge around for a digital camera and shoot pictures of my portfolio.

December 5th, I went to National Portfolio Day at Maryland. Ringling was my first stop. Unfortunately, there was only one reviewer, so the line moved excruciatingly slow. Mr. Bucky Wetherell is a pretty nice man (he's the assistant dean of admissions, and was the one who reviewed my stuff). He did have some good suggestions for me (ie add more contrast to a specific piece, include some of the more finished sketchbook pages in the portfolio, etc), although I don't think I haven't heard any of it before. I asked him if any particular format for the portfolio was preferred, and he said it didn't matter. I think the easiest thing for me will be to send in a CD full of .jpgs, rather than paying to get photos/slides developed.

I can't really remember what he said about my strengths (although I can't really remember what RISD or MICA, the other schools I went and got reviewed by, said about them-- probably because I wasn't as concerned with my strengths as my weaknesses). I do recall him saying that I have very good painting skills (which I don't really agree with), and that I have an "OK chance of getting in." I don't know if I should be happy or a little bothered that he used the terminology "OK." However, he did check off a box on a piece of paper that said "your portfolio fulfilled the portfolio requirement of the application process." Yay?

As an additional note, it also says that I still have to submit my portfolio to be considered for scholarship/Computer Animation department. I'm not exactly sure if this means I can still be rejected or not from the school, on the basis of my portfolio. I'm fairly certain it means I can still be rejected from Computer Animation, but will most likely be accepted into any other department.

For those who still have a National Portfolio Day upcoming near your area, I encourage you to attend.

http://npda.org/events.html

It is a good chance to see what specific schools are looking for in your portfolio. While I got my best advice from an illustration teacher from MICA, I still think Ringling's portfolio review was quite helpful.

I have some images in my Deviantart account (http://lokklyn.deviantart.com) but most of that will never make it to my portfolio. I think I only have two or three of my potential portfolio pieces uploaded.

http://natalie.darksapphire.net/images/glass.jpg

http://natalie.darksapphire.net/images/fruity.jpg

I really hope I don't have to include these, as they don't exactly represent my interests. They are class assignments from junior year when I was first learning how to oil paint-- really boring ones that I didn't put my spirit into. Hopefully I can complete more pieces that say something about myself. The above two are more of a representation of my technical skill in oil paint (and even then, I don't feel I'm satisfactory with oils). The asparagus could use more refinement.

Good luck, everyone! I'll watch this thread and try to give as much feedback as I can.

[dadamafia]

nice stuff. i looked at ur deviantart thingy also. do you have any figure drawings or portraits? i would like to see some of the images ur gonna put in your portfolio becuz based on these i think those should look really nice and give others an idea of who we will be getting in with. peace out

[jayneko]

Hey, nice stuff y'have there! :)

Darn. You guys make me worry I wont get accepted to CA. ;)

One thing every Ringling student has told me (in a rather harsh way) is NOT to send ANY anime. They seem to hate it there. :P I think you two have a pretty good chance based on your stuff here. :)

Alas, I'm not as good, but I hope I get to fill the requirements.. I do know they want gestures and real life observation drawing.

If anyone has the time... www.jayneko.com! ;) (http://www.jayneko.com/) It's not the stuff I'm gonna send but hey, it's still my work. :D

Best of luck! :D

[Lokklyn]

I've got a million portraits, and almost zero figure drawings. Somehow, figure drawing is one of my strongest abilities, and yet, I have no portfolio pieces of figure drawings. I rarely draw entire figures outside of my sketchbook because I don't pay to draw/paint nude models. I'm sneaking glances at my friends, sure, but I can't trick them into staying in the same pose for three hours.

so to respond, dadamafia, here are some really lame figure drawings lifted from my sketchbook.

http://natalie.darksapphire.net/images/sketches/sunbathe.jpg

http://natalie.darksapphire.net/images/sketches/boring.jpg

certainly not incredibly polished, but the second one is just a thumbnail sketch of a larger painting I started today. The first is based off a friend, but heavily tweaked at home with a wash of acrylics. One of the hands is off, but I never bothered fixing it since it's a page in my sketchbook.

Portraits - I only have so many of these because I model for myself.

Here are two from a self portrait box that is pending completion. The two below are in acrylics, used in rather different ways (thickly vs. watercolory)

http://natalie.darksapphire.net/images/boxface.jpg

http://natalie.darksapphire.net/images/boxface2.jpg

I have more, but I can't scan them because they're either too big or would kill the scanner. Will find digital camera later to play with.

[Lokklyn]

Hey, nice stuff y'have there! :)

Darn. You guys make me worry I wont get accepted to CA. ;)

One thing every Ringling student has told me (in a rather harsh way) is NOT to send ANY anime. They seem to hate it there. :P I think you two have a pretty good chance based on your stuff here. :)

Alas, I'm not as good, but I hope I get to fill the requirements.. I do know they want gestures and real life observation drawing.

If anyone has the time... www.jayneko.com! ;) (http://www.jayneko.com/) It's not the stuff I'm gonna send but hey, it's still my work. :D

Best of luck! :D

After visiting your site, I want to give you an honest opinion, without too much sugarcoating. I feel that your levels are spectacular (although I have no idea what kind of work goes into making them. Do you have to create all the 3D things from scratch?), but that your actual drawing and observational skills could use work. How often do you sketch? How often is it from life? Right now, you really need to focus on getting the structure of the human face right. I think Ringling will place very heavy emphasis on basic drawing skills.

However, your demo reel, I feel, is very impressive. Your lip-syncing skills are good, though I think your levels are the highlight of the demo reel. Make sure they see it.

And yes, you are right about the anime. Most art colleges do not want to see it, and will rip you to shreds for it. Instead, they focus almost entirely on the fundamentals (the principals of art and design, like line, form, shape, value, harmony, balance, etc).

I don't know how much weight your current 3D animation skills will hold against your actual drawing portfolio. You may want to contact Ringling's admissions department to find out.

[onigod]

Hey there everyone,
Well I went to the National Portfolio Day at Corcoran in DC last weekend also. Ringling obviously was the first school I went to and basically, they told me I have a really nice, well rounded portfolio, but unfortunately lack in life figure drawings. I have plenty still lives and portraits, as well as some more creative works, but yeah - the life drawings and gestures from observation is what I lack (although I had a few in my portfolio). What the counselor told me was I could probably easily get in if I were going for let's say graphic design. However, for animation he told me I needed to show that I have a concept of drawing, but not only that, drawing that shows sequences overtime, like in animation. He also asked me if I write stories, I said I wrote before, and that I write down ideas constantly, but that's another point to consider (especially for you animation majors) - getting some stories down. I'm joining this creative writing club afterschool, so maybe that will help, or otherwise give me inspiration.

But yeah, now I'm concentrating on those gesture drawings, so I'll do about a hundred a day like my art teacher did when she was attending art school in Russia. So maybe not a hundred per se, but basically a lot. Today in class for example, after my AP bio quiz, I started drawing people around the classroom, I did the same in virtually every class throughout the day and more at home (of my parents, siblings, grandmother, etc.)

I started thinking about what the counselor from Ringling told me about including some sort of animation sequence with life drawing or like a storyboard in my portfolio. So for my next art project in portfolio prep (not the out of school class), I decided on something like: life drawings of different people (with movement, balance, etc.) scattered about the page, and having them black silhouetted (almost like Matisse's nudes), with a giant still life in the background. So I'll have like a person maybe sitting in this giant cup of coffee, or falling down from a wine bottle. What do you guys think...? I'm thinking charcoal/pencil on yellow paper to give it that nice tone. Course the still life will be symbolic, something leading up to my concentration later in the year. Hmm... Well off I go then; goodnight everyone.

[jayneko]

To make a level..hrm. You have basically a Level Artist, and a Level Designer. At least this is how they work at UbiSoft, Montreal. ;)

Level Artists make all the 3D objects and textures, while the Designer puts the objects in place and creates the enviroment. (A lead would also decide how the triggers work and AI and stuffles). Lighting, too!

For those levels, I worked as both. The Sky texture and a few objects WERE taken from the basic Unreal Tournament level packs, and I do clarify that when I send my reel out. ;)

I'm starting to sketch much more now. I used to a lot before I went to college in Canada. There it was straight to the compies, and the few art classes we had I cherished..although I was too caught up animating stuff to look at my poor pencils. Im taking these weeks to practice lots before I work on portfolio stuff for Ringling. (Giving me two weeks to do those. Yuck. o.x;;;)

And like you said, I can;t pay for a model here to do a three hour still. ;) I do have some sketches of people moving around while I'm waiting for a bus or something but it's in a tiiiiny little sketchbook. ^^; Ill scan some of those though.

And from what I heard Ringling won't care if I did Nemo and animated Mickey. ;) If you have a solid grasp of anatomy and real life drawing you have a pretty good chance. ^^ I used to be good at that for a high school kid but..darn that anime! ;)

Im ranting now..So Ill stop. ;) One question though! The first pic you posted in your last pose before this one. How did you color it? o.o Me loves it.

[jayneko]

And your idea sounds great, Oni. I'd really like to see that! Get on working! ;)

[Lokklyn]

The first pic you posted in your last pose before this one. How did you color it? o.o Me loves it.

Hmm, I believe I started off with a pencil sketch of my friend during lunch on a sunny day. She was lying on the sidewalk because she likes to do stuff like that.

Sometime later I came upon the sketch again and either outlined it in a waterproof pen and treated it with an acrylic paint wash (basically using acrylic like watercolor; lots of water, less paint). Actually, I can't remember if I did the lineart before or after the paint.

[jayneko]

Looks really nice. :D

Here's some quick sketches I did today..

http://jayneko.com/images/draw/gest_stu04.jpg

http://jayneko.com/images/draw/gest_stu06.jpg

[Hett15]

Lokklyn your paintings look terrific. Lots of vibrant color, well defined shapes, and overall nice designs. Looking at your figure stuff (solely based on the few pieces here, you vary well may have others that are better) it looks like you could make your drawings/sketches a little bit tighter and at the same time make some a little looser. They seem to be floating in a skill level that doesn't show you can nail down the figure or that you can make enegized quick figure sketches. Based on your painting ability it looks like you definately have the talent to be able to do so. From the head Dean of Admissions at Ringling I was told that they like to see a lot of sketches from life. Very loose ones (like your figure sitting with his head down on his/her arms) and then some very detailed long poses that are as real to life as possible. In order to animate you need to be able to "know" the human body and be able to gesture it with relatively good proportions. I honestly think you have every thing Ringling will be looking for as far as talent goes, so I would suggest you really get some good figure drawing and gestures together. Your figure painting is great, but you need to show you can do that with a pencil too. On that note I would love to see more of your work so that you can tell me to shove it :) Once again you have some amazing work.

[Hett15]

Jayneko you are definately on the right track getting the body porportions together, but you need to refine your observational skills and focus on creating smoother lines. There are many anatomy drawing books that can help out a lot. I reccommend Christoper Hart's Human Anatomy Made Amzingly Easy (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0823024970/104-1341892-8119151?v=glance) . It will show you facial and body regions and how they correlate to each other. You will need some work on your legs too, they look like they are lacking volume or structure. Kind of jell-o like. Study faces and draw them everyday. One of the worst habits many of us get into is learning how to draw something the wrong way. Drawing things the wrong way throws off the rest of your figure. I am just as guilty as the next guy. You can never get enough observational drawing and seeing examples of how others do it the right way is very helpful. When your observing don't look at an eye and nose and think "well I need to draw an eye and a nose now." Think of them as shapes and lines and you are just following it they same way you would look at a still life. A great practice exercise is to turn a photo or painting upside down and the draw the figure. You will have to adjust because it is not the way your brain has been trained to look at it. Now the gesture quality is one of your strong points. You seem like you are developing a pretty good grasp on gestural poses and posistions. Keep it up. Try drawing every spare second you have for the next week and you will be amazed at how much you will improve. I want to see what you come up with.

[Hett15]

************************************************** **

OH AND EVERYONE REMEBER THAT THE DEADLINE FOR TURNING IN YOUR PORTFOLIO FOR THE RINGLING COMPUTER ANIMATION PROGRAM IS ...

***** JANUARY 15TH, 2005 *****

don"t be late or you don"t get in no matter what!

TURN IT IN EARLY FOR BEST RESULTS OR AT LEAST SEND IT IN A FEW DAYS BEFORE IN CASE IT GETS DELAYED OR SOMETHING BAD HAPPENS.

BEAT THE RUSH!!!
HUNDREDS OF PORTFOLIOS WILL BE SENT IN "JUST IN TIME"
DON'T BE ONE OF THEM! :nohope:

************************************************** **

[jayneko]

I'm hoping to send my stuff well before the 30th of December... But Im out of the USA, so I'll have to spend a pretyt penny on sending it so it gets there on the 2nd day. o_o

Here's another piece I finished. I like how it looks! I'm beginning to hate my scanner though.. Doesn't look as good on the screen as it does on paper... Darn RGB colors. ;)

http://jayneko.com/images/draw/pen_leftie2.jpg

Hope no one mind sme posting so much drawings. ;)

Think it's Ringling material? :)

[Hett15]

now that looks like Ringling material. Great Job. There are a few minor things such as the dark line near the last joint on the inside of the thumb, what is that? If it is the skin crease from the joint it is too dark. Your other creases (especially on the palm) look great. Nice values overall too. watch out for that wrist bone on the left side. It looks like you may have a dislocated bone :) I know as very well that scans can never capture the true look of what the drawing looks like on paper, but this is something for your portfolio I would think. Make more like this too. I had about 5 pages of just hands, 2 pages of feet, 1 page of eyes, noses, ears, 3 pages of animals and lots of pages of gestures and figure drawing. I also included a master copy of a Raphael drawing and a portrait drawing from a photo reference. I had some original ideas in there and a collage self portrait and a giant sized stamp self portrait. You can submit all hands and feet if you want, but just remember to show off the absolute best you can.

[Lokklyn]

Hett, thank you for your response! It's very true that those sketches really don't show my full potential for the figure. I'll have to find more opportunities to draw people more frequently because, even though I know I really understand the human form, I just haven't been able to show it in my recent works.

So it's okay to stick some good representative sketches in the portfolio? It seems that all of my figure drawings happen in there, when I'm at school.

[onigod]

Hmm.. Jan 15th, I know.. soon. Well, good news is I'm turning everything in but the portfolio this Friday. Just need to get some finishing touches done on my essay. The counselor at NPD on Saturday told me I could send the portfolio later, as long as its before the deadline of course. So with the piece I'm working on now and all my life drawings everyday, I should be ready to finalize and send out by Jan. 2nd. Good luck to the rest of you. Hope you all get the results you want.

[jejuhorse]

yo onigod how are u turning ur portfolios in?slides or CD?
cause my teacher called Ringling and asked them what they perfer
and they said slides so...i guess i'm turning mine in using slides
i'm sure there's gonna be lots of money to spend....but hope it will be worth it:)like me i'm gonna be probably turning around 8-10 art works...cause it's been only about 8-9months since i started art:) and don't get me wrong i love art:)
hopefully gonna turnout well
i started on another still life portfolio hope it will be done soon cause i'm mostly having around 30-40 min per day...i wish i drew more but i only get to draw that before school starts...i still don't have a car so i can't either stay after school...which it sucks...i always get cut off because when i'm into it the bell rings...these days that school bell just irritates me lol
well hope we all get accepted and hope seeing all of us at Ringling:)

[jayneko]

And to continue my...limb projects, I guess. I give you, my right foot.

http://jayneko.com/images/draw/pen_footsie.jpg

Now I need a foot rub. Holding my feet like that really hurt. :P I hope Ringling appreciates my pain. ;)

Please, comment! :) Good enuff?

Oh and Hett15, I tried drawing quick sketches of my brother's faces. :)

http://jayneko.com/d_ch08.html

(Linking it so it doesn't eat so much bandwith when people load this thread) x_x;;;

I like how it turned out. :D Dunno if Ringling would like that but... ;)

[Hett15]

Jyneko your appendages are looking great. That is the kind of stuff you should focus on. You are getting stronger in this area. I bet you won't even notice this , but the reason you drew your foot so well is becasue you normally don't really look at your feet on a daily basis so you had to take the time to see what lines make it up, where the values are, and how everything is in proportion to eachother. Now for the sketches of your brother's face, I will be honest that I don't think they are good enough. Judging by how well you are capturing what the hands and feet look like, I know you can do better than that. I know they are quick sketches, but refine them. Draw them quickly, but keep drawing them until you really see what you are drawing. Don't see a face, see a lump of fleshy stuff. Your mind has predetermined ways to draw an eye, a nose, an ear, etc. Don't fall into that trap (I do it all the time). Your brother might think you are wierd, but stare at him until you don't see him anymore and you only see what is in front of you. You did this with your feet and hands because they were so close to you you could really stare. Get closer to his face. Draw only a part of it, but draw it the best you can. A partial great looking drawing (ear eye nose, nose mouth cheek, etc) is way better than a finished bad drawing. I don't mean to sound rude, I just want to help as much as I can before the portfolio deadline and there isn't a lot of time.

[onigod]

yo onigod how are u turning ur portfolios in?slides or CD?
cause my teacher called Ringling and asked them what they perfer
and they said slides so...i guess i'm turning mine in using slides
i'm sure there's gonna be lots of money to spend....but hope it will be worth it:)like me i'm gonna be probably turning around 8-10 art works...cause it's been only about 8-9months since i started art:) and don't get me wrong i love art:)
hopefully gonna turnout well
i started on another still life portfolio hope it will be done soon cause i'm mostly having around 30-40 min per day...i wish i drew more but i only get to draw that before school starts...i still don't have a car so i can't either stay after school...which it sucks...i always get cut off because when i'm into it the bell rings...these days that school bell just irritates me lol
well hope we all get accepted and hope seeing all of us at Ringling:)

For my portfolio, I made slides and then put the slides in a slide protector sheet and stuck labeled tabs on each slide with name and title. Just a tip of advice also, with the slides and slide-taking, I got my art teacher at school to help me, but for the most part it takes practice to get them perfect. My first roll of slides were all crooked or off (showing a lot of the black background). Thing is you have to either even out the black edges (which is the harder way) or crop into your art piece when taking the picture (the easier way). It'll take practice (I only got the hang of it after about 4 or 5 times of taking full rolls of slides - not all at once, throughout weeks, and then a month after. Still, if you haven't taken slides before, you'll get the hang of it (like I did), but it'll take a few tries. You'll see it when you start to get that feel. It'll just be more comfortable over time and practice makes perfect, so yes - that's my little advice to you (and to anyone taking slides in general).

[sula_nebouxi]

Hey everyone, my my my...I go away for a few days and come back to see a whole new page of posts.

dada- really nice paintings. Realistic and artsy at the same time. Ringling will love that.
Lokklyn-You also have great paintings. You've got a nice sense of color and value and they have a nice impressionistic style to them. I think you have a great chance of getting in. That reminds me, I need to break out my crusty old oil paints and do some still lives. I need color in my portfolio :(
jayneko-heh we've talked on AIM so I think I've said all I can. Shading is good, accuracy with the figures need work. Don't give up!

About the format of my portfolio, I think I'm gonna do slides. The quality tends to be much better than plain old 35mm film or digicam pics. I might get it professionally done by this photo place. They did a nice job the last time so I think I'll use them again. Slide film is expensive to develop and I could never get the exposure right. Rather than getting like 10 rolls and shooting all of it, I'll just get it done by someone who knows what they're doing.

And, jayneko, I know you wanna see some of my new stuff so...here they are :).

Oh yeah! and I almost forgot to mention. I hope everyone got their letters of recommendation! This is the first time I've seen a school actually require them. I got them from one of my old figure drawing teachers and my current figure drawing teacher(who was nice enough to give me a B+ :P) My current figure drawing teacher also happens to be the Undergraduate director at this art school so I'm hoping that will carry some weight. Anyways...on to the drawings...

http://www.eden.rutgers.edu/~atso/Craptastic%20Art/For%20Tiffany's%20Eyes%20Only/12-11a.jpg
http://www.eden.rutgers.edu/~atso/Craptastic%20Art/For%20Tiffany's%20Eyes%20Only/12-11b.jpg
http://www.eden.rutgers.edu/~atso/Craptastic%20Art/For%20Tiffany's%20Eyes%20Only/12-11c.jpg
http://www.eden.rutgers.edu/~atso/Craptastic%20Art/For%20Tiffany's%20Eyes%20Only/12-11d.jpg
http://www.eden.rutgers.edu/~atso/Craptastic%20Art/For%20Tiffany's%20Eyes%20Only/12-11e.jpg
http://www.eden.rutgers.edu/~atso/Craptastic%20Art/For%20Tiffany's%20Eyes%20Only/12-11f.jpg

[jayneko]

Hey! Great stuff y'have there, Sula. :D

I was a bit worried about not having color but eh. I'll include some water colors...maybe... Oil pantings are hard to use for me. ;)

Bothered my brother to let me draw him s'more. Trying to sneak into a figure drawing class back at my old college but... :P

http://jayneko.com/images/draw/pen_ed.jpg

Yes. That's a poncho (ruana in Colombia) he's wearing, while watching tv. Why he was wearing it like that I've no idea. ;P

[Storyboard Dave]

http://jayneko.com/images/draw/pen_leftie2.jpg

Hope no one mind sme posting so much drawings. ;)

Think it's Ringling material? :)

WHOA! WHOA! I'm going to have to reign you in for a second here. Take another look at your thumb on this hand. How many joints are there in the thumb?? You're articulating the thumb to have three segments instead of the two like most people do- look at the length of your thumb too. My thumb held next to my hand barely reaches the middle of my first knuckle on my index finger! And watch out for that strat bump down by the wrist- it looks as though the wrist is broken.

My apologies since this should be in the Critique section of CA, but seeing as how this might go into your portfolio, I'd better nab you now.

[jayneko]

Hey Dave! Thanks for the comments. :)

True about the joints! ^^; The top one was just a wrinkle I saw.. Maybe I made it too hard.

As for the lenght of the thumb... Try making that pose..Now kinda bend the palm inwards? That's how I was holding my hand. ...It was a bit painful, buuut that's how I drew it. ^^;

http://jayneko.com/hand.jpg

Something like that. XD Maybe I could make it more clear shading the inside of the palm a lill darker.. Needs better shading definetly. ^^

-Edit-

Weeeell, just to avoid confusion (and so people don't think my poor thumb is deformed) I was asked to shoot these pictures. ;)

http://jayneko.com/hand1.jpg
http://jayneko.com/hand2.jpg
http://jayneko.com/hand3.jpg

Again, sorry for the spam. XD I have to admit it IS a confusing pose. ^^;

[Storyboard Dave]

Thanks for the photo clarifications!

Your thumb wrinkle (or the dark line you threw in) definitely made it look as though you had three segments. You'll definitely have to darken the palm area where your index finger meets because right now, it's reading as a flat palmed hand. Your photos obviously show that the index finger is in a forced perspective but the drawing gives no indication. Even the three adjacent fingers you've drawn are a little flat so add some more depth there to help the illusion. See how much your pinky nail and base of your index finger is in shadow on the photo? Translate that to your illustration and I think it'll help.

Again, I really hope you get into Ringling and just wanted to help you along.

Good luck!

[jayneko]

Thanks Dave. :) I'll do that. And thanks for the crits, I really appreciate them. :D Keep 'em coming! ;)

Gonna start working on gestures soon... Any tips on how to make good ones?

[dadamafia]

hey wassup ppl. i did a new painting recently (actually yesterday) and i wanted to show yall what i had so far. its in my sketchbbok also but i post in here cuz i wanna hear from all of you since we all wanna get in the same skool.http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v229/dadamafia/selfportrait2.jpg

[Storyboard Dave]

Thanks Dave. :) I'll do that. And thanks for the crits, I really appreciate them. :D Keep 'em coming! ;)

Gonna start working on gestures soon... Any tips on how to make good ones?

The most important things I tell my class to do with ANY gesture is to get the spine moving first and then figure out where the two shoulder points (end of the clavicles) and hip pointers go. It's literally three lines that you can lay down immediately that will set the tone for the rest of the figure. If you can get these three down in a dynamic fashion, the figure should flow easily. To loosen up try doing very quick FULL body sketches of people you see on the street- capture the essence of their movement in less than :30 seconds if at all possible.

Another exercise to loosen up is to draw from the shoulder. Lock the arm up and just extend it to the drawing pad (I'll assume you have the pad on an easel). Minimal elbow & wrist movement on your part and your hand is just to hold the charcoal or pencil. This forces you to draw in bigger swashes. Once you get these bold gestures down, you can go back in and noodle out the finer details with your wrist & hand movements. Make sense? As long as you keep doing it, you'll get better.

And let's take this conversation over to the Critiques section. No need to hog up the Ringling thread in case anyone needs serious info about the school here.

[jejuhorse]

sup ppl!lol
today i was kinda bored so i drew my hand
a reference picture of a bird from google search
hope u guyz like it^^
http://album26.damoim.net/data/2004/1213/412997_1102911624.JPG
http://album26.damoim.net/data/2004/1213/412997_1102911703.JPG
i don't have a good quality digital camera so it's kind of blurry:(

[Hett15]

[QUOTE=sula_nebouxi]Anyways...on to the drawings...

http://www.eden.rutgers.edu/~atso/Craptastic%20Art/For%20Tiffany's%20Eyes%20Only/12-11a.jpg
http://www.eden.rutgers.edu/~atso/Craptastic%20Art/For%20Tiffany's%20Eyes%20Only/12-11c.jpg
http://www.eden.rutgers.edu/~atso/Craptastic%20Art/For%20Tiffany's%20Eyes%20Only/12-11d.jpg
http://www.eden.rutgers.edu/~atso/Craptastic%20Art/For%20Tiffany's%20Eyes%20Only/12-11e.jpg


Hey Sula, I'm at work right now so I have to make this quick. I really like 1, 3,4, & 5 but the other two are weak. I would reccomend taking 2&6 out of your portfoilo. They bring down the rest. The others look fantastic though and I would definately keep those.

'Til next time

[dadamafia]

here are some progress shots on some paintings i have been working on.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v229/dadamafia/COLLAGEFIN.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v229/dadamafia/TEDDYFIN.jpg

[sula_nebouxi]

Hey everyone...it's great to see this thread is alive and kickin :)

dadamafia- great work on those paintings, they're looking great! Nice texture work, especially on the Bible, it really looks like paper.
jejuhorse-i like the hands, especially the way you showed those ridges and veins on the back of your hand.
hett- thanks for the advice, I wasn't sure what to include from there. I'm trying to mix in some shorter poses with some longer ones. Those were my short ones, all done in about 20-30 min. I liked #3 and 4 but I wasn't sure about including any others. I want to wait until I get as many drawings done as I can before deciding what to send in so i can pick the best of the best. (and it keeps me from saying to myself "just one more drawing to fill in the requirement")

One month to go everyone...we're in the home stretch.

[jejuhorse]

hello!hehe
how u all doing these days?
i finally took a picture of one of my portfolio that i finished about 2 months ago:)hope u all like it and critz are always welcome hehehe
i'm sure i have to work more on the contrast though
http://album26.damoim.net/data/2004/1215/412997_1103075300.JPG
and after this week it's winter break!:)
i'll be drawing lots of self portraits i guess

[jayneko]

Well, after a blown motherboard, processor, power source, and cable modem..Im back! (Damn thunderstorms!)

Just sent my application to Ringling along with my essay. n.n Everything should be getting there soon cept my portfolio, which I plan to finish before the 25th of Dec. So far I have 6 thingies I think are Ringling worthy, and I'll post them here after I fix them up a little. I'm gonna do a self portrait, then about 5 or 6 ages of gestures. o_O ....Anyone else stressing out as well? ;)

jejuhorse - Hey, nice work! What'd ya use to make that one? Pencils? I likes. :D And yeah, a little more contrast would rock..but I'm not the one to speak of such. ;P I need to work on that as well. o-o Good stuff though!

[jejuhorse]

thanx jayneko:)
i'm going to be sending my portfolios in after the winter break...because i don't know how to take slides so i'm having my teacher to help me out...
so i'm probably gonna be very very busy and hope that everything will get there before jan 14th....sux to have a winter break when this is the most important month for me...:(
well i hope everything will work out smoothly and hope that we can all get accept to Ringling and get close to our dream career~~!!!hehehe

oh and one more thing about those slides, if i take a picture of those using a slide film and after i'm done i have to somewhat develop it right?how long does it take to do that?cause i'll probably take those pictures around jan 4th or 5th and having to develop it which it will also takes time, i'll probably be sending those portfolios around the 10th right? so i'm worried that i might be late....hope it will never happen though
so back to my question how long does it take to get those portfolios slides developed?
btw i'm not sure how the slide process is like...cause i never used slides before :\

[jayneko]

I asked here. Two days. But I would expect it to be faster in the States. ;) Just go ask your friendly photo..place.

And as soon as you have it ready go to FedEx and send it using second day delivery or something! o.O If there's anything faster than that, use it! Nationally it should be ok. :) I'm aiming to send it around the 27th of Dec, since Im in South America. x.x

Im gonna have a friend do it for me. o.o He has a pretty good camera.. I just hope they turn out alright. Havent found any studio that does that here. :/

Would sending slides AND photographs be a good idea?

[Andoo45]

Man, my life has been a mess. Luckily my grades are good as a result of it. I've been calling Ringling and I now have my plans all set up. I'm not going to try to transfer in CA as a sophmore. (I had schemes... money saving schemes damn you...) So I'm going to go in this year and I am joining all you other 2005 hopefuls. Sadly I am somewhat ill prepared but I have no school untill Jan. 5 and I have no job or obligations. So it's 100% portfolio building time! I am going to do strictly reference from life drawing. I talked to Eric the Admissions counselor and he said that only 60 of about 300 applicants get into the CA program. So I'm scared. Anyway, I'm going to frequent this board and eat sleep and dream drawing. This is my little warmup that I did today before I start some SP's. Think I'm ringling Material? 45mins pencil. http://img155.exs.cx/img155/7922/myfoot9io.jpg(yes, I know that I have an ugly foot, but this is the prettier of the two and I don't have much to choose from. :p) Anyway, I'm going to be drawing lots and posting lots and wasting no time doing anything else. I MUST get into RSAD this year. Otherwise I donno what I'm going to do. Thanks all, and Critiques and future Critiques are VERY welcome.

[jayneko]

Darn. o_o Ringling needs to get bigger classrooms. ;)

Well, today I went to a aerobics class and some ladies were nice nuff to let me draw 'em! Just quick sketches...my attempt at gestures, once more. Along with part three of my body part theme..mouths!

I think I'll do some eyes..and then try my luck at a self portrait. x_x

So here they are! Each gesture sketch took less than 5 minutes (they can't stay still, darnit! ;P ) Mouths took me about an hour.

http://www.jayneko.com/images/draw/pen_mouths.jpg
http://www.jayneko.com/images/draw/pen_gym03.jpg

And for the sake of not posting all of the pictures here... link time!

http://www.jayneko.com/d_ch12.html
The other two gestures I liked best are there. :)

Comments and crits welcome!

Andoo45 - I like the foot! I'd like to see the whole thing. Just discovered how interesting feet are to draw. :D

Really hope all of us get in though. Who knows...maybe they'll only be 60 applicants this time and everyone'll get a chair! ;p ...Right. ;)

[Andoo45]

hehe, if only it were that easy. I wish. :D Hopefully all the people on this thread get in at least. :D I didn't finish the foot because it was freezing off. >:| it's so cold in my room. Also the light outside kept changing and throwing me off. And if anyone is wondering, the SPs went south after about 4 of them. So I just started drawing random objects in my room. More tomorrow. :D Nice mouths jayneko. The only thing is that the part at the ends where the two lips come together (the corners of the mouth if you will...) seem too thick. Like, those would be some REALLY thick lips. The rendering on them looks good though.

[jayneko]

Hey again guys. ^_^

Since Im planning on having my stuff ready for the 25th, I've taken my favorite pieces and put them together in a small gallery. If you all have the time, visit it and tell me what is good to go for Ringling in your opinion, and what needs fixing? :) I'm making more drawing over the weekend, but I wanna have an idea of what I should get ready to take pictures of to send out.

So, here's the link!
http://jayneko.com/ringaling.html

Thanks to everyone for their help and comments and crits! :D I owe y'guys big time! ;)

[dadamafia]

cool stuff dude. i like that piece with the bananas and stuff. ithink they are nice but i have two problems. the lines are two heavy, as in there are now variations between them and the entire drawings look outlined. the other problem is that there seems to be alot of lines which were not thought out. for example, there is a drawing on there with two faces on the page, and in this you could have used your lines to give a better example of the pattern of the hair, or othere things but instead you just scribbled random lines in it. Or when you are oing gestures of your brother as the ninja your lines dont seem to be in harmony (whatever that means). before you place a line think about it quickly in your head what it would look like on the paper. well, thats all i have to say and if you work on those things then i think overall you would enjoy your work more. you can ignore me if you disagree. peace out.

[sula_nebouxi]

Hey everyone,
jeju- that's a really nice still life. But yeah...it could use a little more contrast in the focus. It seems a little washed out.
andoo-good job on the foot, especially with the shadow shapes. It really helped describe the form. Like around the toe joints. Nice one.
jayneko-heh, I think I've said all I could in our AIM conversations. Oh wait...one thing, that watercolor with the figure. Ringling might look down on that. The face is just way too anime-like. The still like with the chair and cabinet-thingie lacks detail. While I can see that you put a lot of time into rendering little things like the individual strands on the cabinet, the room just looks empty. You did do a good job with shadows and hair however. Hair is the one thing I have loads of trouble with.

Anyways...I've got a few more things done for the portfolio. Currently I have about 4 pieces that I'm absolutely gonna submit into Ringling. I fixed up that last self portrait from a while ago so that it reads a little better. Yeah I know it took me a while but I'd say the result was better than I expected. Anyways here's some stuff I've been working on for a while. They're not all meant for the portfolio. Actually some of it was drawn because I needed something to show at portfolio day.

http://www.eden.rutgers.edu/~atso/Craptastic%20Art/eye-studies.jpg
http://www.eden.rutgers.edu/~atso/Craptastic%20Art/hand-studies.jpg
http://www.eden.rutgers.edu/~atso/Craptastic%20Art/random-stills.jpg
http://www.eden.rutgers.edu/~atso/Craptastic%20Art/more-randomness.jpg

and the coup de grace:
http://www.eden.rutgers.edu/~atso/Craptastic%20Art/self-portrait-11-18fixed.jpg

Heh I gave myself clothing since I was tired of being naked. I'm debating whether or not to include the hand studies in the portfolio. I don't want to include too many quick sketches and studies. I'm thinking 10 long, 5 short at least. Until next time all.

[Hett15]

With drawings luike these Sula I might be sharing an animation table with you at Ringling. See ya.

[jayneko]

Great stuff guys. :D I'm proud of y'all. ;)

Every small crit I had has been said so.... ;) All I cna do is congratulate. Keep it up!

So ix-nay on the anime-like chick. I swear I did it unconsiously. XP So you guys think the rest are ok for Ringling? Gonna work on them all tonight to make the nicer and cleaner and clearer... Just dunno which ones to take out. x_x Want to make another SP. I look...weird. But maybe that's how it's supposed to be. ;)

[Andoo45]

The temptation to play videogames for 3 weeks is immense... But, I have been drawing. And I have two possible pieces that I like so far, not to mention a few gestures that I'm going to post after I've accumulated several that I like. These are the two Self Portraits I've done. The first one I like less and less every time I see it. It's a traditional straight forward and somewhat boring SP. http://img151.exs.cx/img151/3122/spregular4qm.jpg
The second one is definately stylized and I think it's pretty cool. It's a rough draft though as I want to do the final in ink. http://img151.exs.cx/img151/6449/spcontrasts5fb.jpg Critique and comments are greatly appreciated. I'm wondering whether RSAD is looking for pieces that are artistic (fig. B) or technical ability (fig. A) I plan on using other pieces that show that I can render shadows, so the SP wouldn't have to be the one that does it. Alright, well back to the drawing board as they say. :D

P.S. I doctored the second one in Photoshop to show a little more what the final is going to look like. I didn't want to abuse my 4B penil more than I had to. ;P
P.P.S. I think that if you guys like the first one more I'll re-do it so that it looks nicer.... it's just doesn't look like me as much as it should and the expression is boring.

[jayneko]

Hey Andoo. :D Nice stuff. Personally, I think the second one is awsome. Not sure if Ringaling is looking for technique or creativity...but it's definetly neat. :) I would sent both, definetly, although spend more time on the first one. :) The tip of the nose looks a bit flat..maybe highlight it a little more? o.o Seems pretty good to me though.

I pretty much decided on what to send... Last night I had this idea, though...

http://www.jayneko.com/images/draw/ske_walk.jpg

I dunno if I should include this or not. XD ...Could be a cover for the portfolio or something.. Hrm.

I also fixed some of the stuff I've posted here too (thanks to everyone who gave crits! :D ). Tomorrow I'm going to a cousin's to take the pictures. If anyone's curious...a friend told me to lay the pieces on the ground, preferable over a black cardboard, and two lamps with a slightly blueish light hitting it 45 degrees from each side. Hopefully they'll turn out alright. ^^; Didnt find any place that can do them themselves so.. My backup plan is a good digital cam and prints of my work in case the slides suck. o.x

[jayneko]

Well, first roll of slides was a total failure. ;P Nicely focused, but completely blasted. Hopefully I'll try it again this evening and see how it goes tomorrow. -_- If not I'm sending prints.

[sula_nebouxi]

Hey Hett, thanks for the kind words. I really do hope we all get in.
Andoo- the stylized one looks great, but the eye might be a little off. The first one is alright, it just has some measurement errors. Eyebrows and such. It looks a little washed out too, too many midtones.
Jayneko-not sure about the animation cycles. From what i've learned about animation, I think there needs to be more inbetweens, right now it seems to be missing at the very least one drawing inbetween each keyframe. If that were played at normal speed on 1's the whole action would take half a second. Even on 2's it would take just 1 second. (Sorry about the animation speak) It looks like the legs of the figure would flick back and forth in the extreme positions.

Anyways...about the presentation of the portfolio, I don't think I'm worried about it too much. From what I hear they just take everything out and lay in down in a big room. I doubt cover art would be considered at all. I'm just gonna send my slides/photos in a big manila envelope with my name on it. Nothing fancy.

Oh yeah, and portfolio count is now at 6. 9 more to go. I should be ok if I can do at least 1 a day. Curse you World of Warcraft! KAAAAAAHN!

[jayneko]

I was basically doing the key positions where there is contact and the medium poses between them...let the inbetweeners do that! ;)

Anyhoo.. The slides are done! o-x Bwha. You were right Sula, better to take them to a professional place. One questions though...one of them has a nasty fingerprint onnit... how do you clean slides?

I'm sending 13 (lucky number...?). All in a lill sheet to store them.. Might get a little...thin binder thing, since the sheet has tiny holes for the rings. Considering sending prints of the same stuff, though, since I already have them ready as well...would it be over kill?

The stuff I selected is here.. Ringling Stuff (http://jayneko.com/ringaling.html)

So we'll see how that goes. :D I really hope seeing you all there! All I have to do is figure out what order to put the slides in and go send them. XD

Now for a well deserved week of rest... Been stressing out about Rsad too much. ;)

....Who am I kidding, I'm going to keep drawing. -.- Might include one more slide or two. XD

[Andoo45]

I went to the zoo yesterday. I figured that I'd draw some animals from life too. I did a bunch of thumbnails and I'm going to use those to draw some finals (since I can't have an animal stay still for longer than 3 minutes... damn seals....) I may refer to some pics from the net or something for colors (if I do colors) and shades. The thumbnails are the main reference though. Is this bad? that I'm not drawing the final while staring into the empty eyes of a sheep? I'll post some of the finished pieces when I finish them. :D see you all later!

Jayneko- good job on the portfolio my friend, I hope that you get in (to computer animation right?).

Sula- so you're doing 15 pieces? I thought it was supposed to be 10 :nohope: Ah well I need to go look at the website again.

[jayneko]

Andoo-Thanks. :D Yup, aiming for CA as well. Show those animal drawings! :) And Sula's doing 15 because he's transfering credits, I beleive. If you're not, 10 is good enough. :) I'm sending 13...I dunno why. o_o

[Andoo45]

ok, this is the beginning of me doing final drafts on a lot of thumbnail sketches I did at deh zoo. This is a macaw. He was kinda angry that day and he kept screaming at me while I was standing there drawing him. :^^: It was sorta funny. Anyway this was about 2 hours worth of work; Straight drawing. Comments are appreciated.
Sula- I tried to use more contrasts in this piece since you commented on my SP saying it didn't have enough contrast. Hope this one fits the bill.
http://img67.exs.cx/img67/7302/macaw3uc.jpg
I'm going to edit this post with more pictures later on today.

PS: I plan on putting in a background of some kind. Any suggestions on that would be also appreciated since I didn't draw his environment from the zoo. But he was perched on a stick.

Update: Here's the final ink drawing on the Self Portrait I did earlier. I'm thinking of doing a watercolor wash for the background, something sort of like my avatar. Suggestions on how to do that are welcome.
http://img56.exs.cx/img56/6250/spbw9zj.jpg

Updated 12-31
Well I'm back with another drawing. I put a stick under the Macaw's feet as was dadamafia's suggestion. I have as of yet to put some kind of background on the Self Portrait, but I'm pretty positive that I'm going to do a watercolor wash, most likely tan.
This is another thumbnail turned final that I did while I was at the zoo and rendered today. It was about 3 hours worth of work. Comments and Critique are greatly appreciated. It's the Sealions in their tank. (a very nice tank btw with an underwater window. It's where I drew them.)
http://img51.exs.cx/img51/180/sealions4kg.jpg
More updates pending. most likely in this post as well. I plan on doing some still lifes with junk around my house. perhaps I'll have something more by the end of today.

[dadamafia]

i like them both. the bird kinda bothers me thoughbecaus eit looks like its floating in air. i think you could have gestured in a branch or something to give an idea of the space surrounding it. the ink drawing is cool also.

also you were talking earlier about the number of slides- never just add a couple drawing for fun because your portfolio is only as good as your worst drawing. its better to send in 10 good pieces as opposed to 15 average pieces.

[jejuhorse]

hey all!
hope u all are ready to send all your stuff for admission:)
but before i send in my application i have a question for u guyz
i just found out having to send a transcript<---i feel so dumb right now...
so any high school senior applying, did u all requested ur conselors to send transcript to RSAD right from school to RSAD or did u like got the transcript from them and sended it to RSAD yourself?
because if u did by reqesting a transcript right to RSAD from high school then i'm going to have to worry BIG TIME if my transcript will arrive on time or late...hope everything turns out well....geeze...i just feel so dumb.....

[jayneko]

Hey Jeju.

As far as I understood an admissions person at Ringling.. Transcripts from colleges have to be either sent by them directly, or given to you in a SEALED envelope so you can send them..but for some strange reason you cannot see what's in the evnelope.. I guess people don;t try to cheat on grades or something. Eh, bureocracy.

As far as high school grades go, I was told I could send them. So I went, asked for a copy, and sent it along with my portfolio. Mostly because if they sent it directly, it would've taken 2 months to get there. :P If you're in the US I don;t think it would arrive late as long as you send it 10 days ahead.

I doubt they'd pay much attention to who sends the grades..but don't take my word for it. Try calling the admissions office.

Phone: 1-800-255-7695 or 941-351-5100

So far they've been really nice and helpful in the admissions office. :) Besides, getting to know someone there always helps, so get names and don;t be afraid to ask questions. That's what they're there for. ;D

[dadamafia]

hey everyone watsup. happy new year to all. speaking of transcripts i need to call my old high scholl. anyways here is a drawing i have been workin on since yesterday. its a work in progress and i hope yall like.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v229/dadamafia/STILLLIFEPROGRESS.jpg

[dadamafia]

heres a somewhat finished piece
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v229/dadamafia/STILLLIFEFINITO.jpg

[Andoo45]

:x absolutely amazing rendering skills. Looks good! I don't see any major problems. Now I feel bad about posting my still life. :p Anyway, I'm starting to get nervous as the Portifolio deadline approaches. Here's my still life, about 4 or 5 hours of work; Colored Pencil
http://img88.exs.cx/img88/5562/stilllife6ai.jpg
Comments and Criticism are greatly appreciated.

Update 1/4/05
I've been drawing some more from the zoo thumbnails I did. This be a Llama!
http://img124.exs.cx/img124/2952/llama9kx.jpg
Comments and Criticism Welcome

[jejuhorse]

nice drawings guys
looks good:)
i also finished my last portfolio this drawing is before i colored the background
but other than that it's all finished:)
oh jayneko yea i ask my conselor to give me a transcript that's sealed in an envelope so i can send it myself and she says that's not possible
but i went to the general office and what they said was that it is possible to send a sealed envelope with my transcript.Well i'm gonna believe the possitive side hehe i hope i would be able to do it.
So i requested the transcript today and the general office lady told me to pick it up the upcoming monday. Hope i'll be able to send it myself
Well here's my portfolio hope u all like it took me about 8-10hours
http://album26.damoim.net/data/2005/0105/412997_1104878705.JPG

[sula_nebouxi]

Hey everyone. Well...it's 10 days till the deadline. I've decided against slides, they take too much time and I think I will have to FedEx this thing by express mail by the time I'm done. I've done quite a few things over the past few days but most didn't turn out well. I have a still life that I did that I like and another that I'm still on the fence about. I was also thinking about sending in this drawing but I'm not so sure since it was a few months old but I still think it's fairly good. I think i got the roundness of the um...cheeks...
http://www.eden.rutgers.edu/~atso/Craptastic%20Art/nicole-reclining.jpg
Here's that still life I did which I liked(actually I think I still need to work on the glass):
http://www.eden.rutgers.edu/~atso/Craptastic%20Art/still.jpg
Here's a painting I did recently that I'm also not really sure about(sorry bout the flash):

http://www.eden.rutgers.edu/~atso/Craptastic%20Art/onions.jpg

I still need to get some more SP's done and I gotta get my friend to pose for me cause he owes me one ;). On top of that one of the teachers that I asked for a letter of recommendation hasn't contacted me in like 2 weeks. I'm wondering if she ever sent off that letter...gotta check with Ringling to see if they got it.

Anyways...great stuff guys!
dada, jeju- great still lives, I can tell you put in a lot of blood, sweat and tears into making them ;)
andoo- nice use of colors; something I have yet to figure out. The sketches are nice too, but I get the feeling that they like to see blended drawings. Having smooth transitions in the drawings gives them a finished look like in dada's still life(at least from what I can tell). Jeju, it might give your drawing a more polished look too. Oh yeah I'm sending around 15 pieces since I'm transferring credits.

Well...good luck all, here's to hoping that many portfolios sent in are ripe with anime and stick figures.

[Andoo45]

ok! I'll bust out my blending sticks and go to town on some of these baybees... thanks for the advice sula. What are the alternatives to sending in slides? I thought that was the only way, and I've never done slides, so if there's something else I could do instead I'd rather do that. Thanks for the help. I like your Still life too btw. Thanks for the help!

[jayneko]

Hey guys!

Andoo- You can send color photographs instead of slides. In case you DO want to try to take slides (it'll take a while to get it right x.x), it'll be better to have some studio take them. o.o S'what I did, took one day to get them. Brought them in at 8am and received them at 4pm. Not the cheapest of choices though.

Sula- Nice stuff! I really like the onions! I'm a sucker for oil paintings, but can't really use them that well. XP And is there an egg in the glass? ^^ The reflections and highlights are nice.

And I called yesterday to check on my stuff. They have a huge pile of mail from the holidays, and they said it would take them some days to go through it.. Maybe by friday they'll be done with it, so I'll try calling then. @_@ I'm missing the letter from my art teacher too. He sent it about 20 days ago..I hope it's somewhere in that pile.

Dada and Jeju- Wooow. No really. Wow. o.o Me likes them! One thing, though, jeju..not sure about it, but the bottle looks really transparent. The bottom seems to dissapear if I look at it at a glance. But maybe I'm just crazy. @.@

Well...good luck all, here's to hoping that many portfolios sent in are ripe with anime and stick figures.

Hehe, lets hope so! ;) Can't wait for it to be march. x_x

Say, are we all aiming for Computer Animation or do we have other hopefuls here? :)

[jejuhorse]

hey hey hey!
Tomorrow i'm going to be making slides for my portfolio at my school and my teacher is gonna help me out
BUT!!!weather says that tomorrow this place is expecting 10-12inch of snow....AHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!tomorrow is the most important day for me and if i have no school tomorrow....gosh....can't imagine...i just want these portfolios done and sent so i can relax alittle bit....and hope that it will be there by time

yea Sula i like your drawings even the paint...i wish i could paint in oil like you
i never tried it before hopefully i'll be able to try oil paint next semester:)

[dadamafia]

@sula, jejuhorse, andoo :really impressive stuff you got there. i like your still life jeju, i think the time you put in it has paid off. nice apinting sula, one day i might use oils.

i think i am gonna send in a cd. its so much easier. and ill probably just go to portfolio day with photgraphs. i cant bother with slides. peace out yall.

[sula_nebouxi]

Thanks everyone :)...I think I'm gonna include that painting in the portfolio since i need some color pieces in there. I might do another painting if I have time. I was planning on doing a landscape but iit was raining today and it's getting pretty cold(it was over 60 degrees a few days ago and 30 something now :(). Anyways, here's today's drawing. I guess you could call it part still life part self portrait.

http://www.eden.rutgers.edu/~atso/Craptastic%20Art/baseball-still.jpg

I really gotta work on the cap...it's really hard getting the texture right. I was hoping the grain of the paper could help describe it but I was wrong :( Oh well...I might do another self portrait tomorrow or work on this little idea I had for a drawing. Till next time all.

[dadamafia]

i dont think you need to work on the texture that much. it looks fine. only thing i see si that you need to give a better idea of the shape of the form by probably using a wider tonal range. example. i think its becuz of the pencil u use but the darkest darks you have dont really look very dark and it almost seems too close to like your medium darks. i dunno wat imtrying to say so just ignore my random bullcrap

[EccoXile]

Well...good luck all, here's to hoping that many portfolios sent in are ripe with anime and stick figures..

*joins in that hope* :P

Good luck to all you CA geeks :D great stuff I'm seeing here. Sula, that last pic is nicely rendered, but i have noticed you don't get very dark darks. Are you suing softer leads? It would really make your drawings stand out if you did.

Probably finish up my stuff by the end of the month. I really should start taking some pics of it. Going to be hard to narrow down to only a few pieces >O And i know that ringlign doenst have any specifics requirements, unliek some colleges. But I just feel so lacking if everything I have is figures. Maybe a still life in there. :/ Is this what everyones else is like? Poor nature, I never got to do any outdoor paintings.

Next report I should have something to show. getting a new pc soon so I can actually store pics.

[sula_nebouxi]

Thanks dada and Ecco...i darkened up the tones a bit with a 6B pencil. It helped a little bit but, it still has that trademark graphite sheen. The only way I can get darker is by using charcoal and it won't stick on top of graphite. Oh well...that's graphite for ya.

Oh and Ecco, don't worry about the lack of diversity in your portfolio. I've heard of someone who got in with just self-portraits. I'm mostly sending in life studies; figures, self portraits, portraits, still lives etc...nothing fancy, just straight up observational works. I'm trying to fit in something creative but it's gonna be tight.

Tonight-yet another still life, this time a corner of my living room.
Tomorrow-painting another still life and hoping my friend has time for a portrait.
After that-self-portraits
Then-If I have time, working on that idea I had, and wondering how in the hell I'm gonna render it.

[sula_nebouxi]

Most wonderful, I called up Ringling and guess what? One of my letters of recommendation still hasn't arrived. The teacher I asked never replied to my emails. They just stopped. So I gotta try and email her again and if worse comes to worse I gotta go back to the school and see if I can get a phone number. God I hope this gets there in time. I asked her to email the letter so it'll be quicker. Ugh...and for extra security I put a read receipt on the email so I'll know if it was opened and read. I'm not letting this all go down in flames because she forgot to email me back.

Sigh...

[Hett15]

Relax Sula, as long as you get some sort of letter of reccommendation from anyone that can vouch for your character, drive, and artistic ability you will be fine. Get an employer, co worker, a different teacher, guidance conselour, a friend's parent that is part of any sort of creative company (production, video, advertising, print, news, or whatever). Really anyone that is not related to you and can write a flattering and cohesive letter. Just have them go off about how great of a student/person you are and that you really have shown your determination as an artist. You could even write a rough draft and have one of these people look it over, revise it in their own words, sign it, send it and be availible in case Ringling wants to contact them. Best case scenario would to have a letter from a Ringling alumni that is a Pixar Animator now and who contributes large sums of money to Ringling annually. Seeing as how no one will be getting that letter you just have to make do with what you have, same as the rest of us. The letters are really just so they see someone else acknowledges that you are artistic and a good student. That's all really, unless you have someone pulling strings for you on the inside (like an alumnist, friend of the faculty, state senator or something.) Keep trying for the art teacher letter, but get a back up ready and send it in before the deadline next week. Good Luck.

[sula_nebouxi]

Thanks for the words of encouragement Hett. Heh, you know what's funny? The moment I saw your message I was checking my email and lo and behold who emails me? My teacher :P She says she'll get it out by Monday. Soooo...false alarm everyone, all is well. Now all that's left is that damn portfolio.

Oh my crap! I just remembered I still gotta get my SAT score out. Thankfully I can get that out within a few days with a rush order. Just called to confirm ;) Ahh...nothing like the feeling of last minute panic to make you feel alive.

[dadamafia]

i dont think they require SAT scores.

[sula_nebouxi]

I know, I just want to send it since I thought I got a fairly decent score on it and I thought it might help my chances. (btw...I got a 1210)

update: self portrait inspired by a fellow CA-er Steak-tron(who is godly). I hate my eyes...they never come out right. Oh and another note- this does not look like me.

http://www.eden.rutgers.edu/~atso/Craptastic%20Art/SP-1-7-04.jpg

[dadamafia]

the hair is wonderful but i dont particularly enjoy the shading pattern. it kinda makes u look like u have a beard. if thats whiteout it looks reaaly good. u should use it in a few drawings maybe, probablya still life with some glassware.

[sula_nebouxi]

Thanks Dada, I actually wasn't too crazy about the shading around the chin either. The shade I used was way too dark. I think it would have looked much better had it been lighter. Oh yeah and that is white out :) I wanted to try it out for a while now. Actually almost everything I used I had no experience drawing with. fyi, i used brush pens for the shading.

[dadamafia]

cool beans

[jejuhorse]

Yo Sula just wondering, by ur self portraits it's obvious that u are an asian right?lol
what nationality are ya?
btw i'm Korean:)

[sula_nebouxi]

Heh yes I am, I'm glad I got the ethnicity correct. I'm Chinese, born in America, New York City to be precise. I hate my eyes! They just don't give any depth to the area :/ my eyes don't recede inward like other ethnicities. It's almost flat near that area so drawings of my eyes are always flat...Anyways I just finished another SP. Remember that little idea I had? Well, here it is in action. I'm trying to put some creativity into my drawings so it'll set me apart, and I hope this does the job. Oh, by the way I think this is the closest I've gotten to my own likeness.

http://www.eden.rutgers.edu/~atso/Craptastic%20Art/SP-1-8-04.jpg

[dadamafia]

not bad at all buddy. looks good.

[Hett15]

Looks like you are falling to your death, but you don't look too concerned. :D
Really though I like it. This is one of those pieces in a portfolio that show you have potential because you understand basic prportions and anatomy. Would still like to see your stuff get darker (but scanning graphite screws up the image I know.) Maybe you could tweak it a little in photoshop or something. Adjust the levels. I like it though. Great work. [edit: I just saw that other drawing you did one page back on my browser. I love the hair. It's cool to see a different sort of style from you. Cool.]



On a side not:

ONLY ONE WEEK UNTIL THE DEADLINE FOLKS!!!!!!! Then the agony of waiting begins!

[sula_nebouxi]

Thanks guys :) Heh yeah...I'm not at the skill level where I can do expressions accurately. So I was stuck with just a neutral glazed over look. Kinda like "Oh, I gotta fall to my death again...sigh...alright" Actually you could also interpret it as "I have come to the sudden realization that I've been betrayed...I must seek revenge, after i hit the ground" Ahh the beauty of subtle emotions, it leaves so much room for interpretation.

And yeah Hett, I need to get darker although I tried to do that with the hair and really dark shadows. I was wearing a black shirt so I guess I need to darken that even more. Heh I have the word "fsck!" written on the front(yes...it's an homage to my geekiness). I decided to leave that off just in case someone at Ringling gets offended by these sorts of things :P Anyways...I think I'll go over the darker areas with a softer pencil especially the shirt.

Hopefully I'll be sending this off either wednesday or thursday, fedex overnight. Even though it just has to be postmarked by the 15th, I don't wanna take any chances. Then we shall begin the agonizing 2 month wait till we hear an answer. Heh I just talked to AgentJ and he said he didn't get a reply till may :/ hope it doesn't take that long for any of us. Till next time guys.

edit:oh and if any of this doesn't make sense, it's cause it's 1 am right now and I can't see straight.

[Hett15]

5 MORE DAYS!!!

Get those portfolio's in! :yayca:

[jejuhorse]

I got my portfolio and everything sent today!!!!
i'm soooo glad that i was able to get my transcript from my high school and send it myself:)
now for me just have to wait and see what will happen :teeth:
GOOD LUCK EVERYONE!! HOPE WE ALL MAKE IT!!

[jayneko]

Hrrrm. O.o After talking with some students at RSAD it seems they have it figured out usually on the first week of march. They might be slow contacting you to tell you, so a call never hurts...

...Too much. ;)

I'm freaking out. o_O

[dadamafia]

FINALLY i have finalized my 20 pieces for my portfolio and i got them photographed today. My friend has a Nikon D70 or something of the sort and it has 5+ megapixels and a removable lense. It was so nice i felt like stealing it. I finally got really really nice shots of my pics. Idecided to repost a couple i never thought i originally took them well. here they are:

still life
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v229/dadamafia/DRILLY.jpg

landscape thingy
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v229/dadamafia/landy.jpg

hope yall like.

[sula_nebouxi]

Good stuff Dada, love the power drill, good luck to you and to everyone here. I'm gonna have to take pics of my larger works with my digital camera, the smaller stuff I'll just scan. Gonna print it out on 8x10 photo paper. Sigh...I should get this all sent out either wednesday or thursday. Then...I can finally relax, somewhat.

and of course the obligatory update on my portfolio:
Here's one of my friends who was kind enough to pose for me while he played counter strike :p
http://www.eden.rutgers.edu/~atso/Craptastic%20Art/boris-portrait.jpg

and here's yet another self portrait:
http://www.eden.rutgers.edu/~atso/Craptastic%20Art/SP-1-11-05.jpg

Later all, don't worry too much. We have a pretty good chance I think(I hope). Technically we have about a 20% chance of getting in. That's not bad when you think about it. Considering that last year it was about 10%. Anyways, here's to hoping were all in that 20%.

[Andoo45]

Wow, Sula and dadamafia, looking really good. I'm liking the last two self portraits sula, much better composition than the ones with just your head in the middle of the page.

Just a quick question, can we send in Photographs? Some of the Assignments in my Advertising Design class were Photography. We shot B+W shots and then darkroom developed them. I was just wondering if these would count since they're not specifically drawings.

The website says: "These may include class assignments, drawings, paintings, crafts, sculpture, etc."

so I was a little uncertain. Anyway if anyone knows it would be really helpful.

[dadamafia]

yes u can send in photographs. i personally didnt becuz i thought it had nothing to really do with my major and they werent really shots that would blow anyones mind. most pics i did were at rallies and of celebrities up close becuz for some reason i always got a press pass by accident.

[jayneko]

If it shows you're creative, sure. They do want the majority to be life drawing 'n stuff, though. n_n

[sula_nebouxi]

thanks andoo :) and yeah photos are okay so long as most of your portfolio is life drawing, everything else is considered supplemental. Oh and I'm finally sending off the portfolio tomorrow. Yay! Only 2 months till we hear back! I'm sending in 15 piccies(yeah the bare minimum :/) printed on 8x10's. I'm gonna do everything at home so it won't be much of a problem.

Oh yes and my very last self portrait. I was planning to do this using 2 complementary colors but that proved to be a little hard. I did a test run with a printed out copy of my drawing and it didn't turn out too well. So rather than screw up my drawing I just decided to go back to my trusty old graphite pencils(they've never let me down). Oh yeah the bird and eyes(obviously) are referenced. Anyways here it is:

http://www.eden.rutgers.edu/~atso/Craptastic%20Art/SP-1-12-05a.jpg

[Andoo45]

ok, well everything that I've done is drawing from life, so I was thinking that I could put in two pictures. They show composition and the like. :bashful:
I have proof sheets I developed with my whole roll of film. I circled the ones that I like, but I would like your guys's (is that a word?) opinions on the two that I plan on using. Sorry it's big, but I wanted to show the detail from each pic. It's 1000x860 pixels but it shouldn't take to long to load (less than 200k)
http://img144.exs.cx/img144/8595/photosproofsheet0fs.jpg
Anyway, help me pick out two that I might want to use. Thanks!

[dadamafia]

I like A2, C2, C3

I sent off my portfolio also. it was 20 images on a cd consisting of:
-8 figure
-5 object studies (still life etc)
-2 landscape
-5 creative junk stuff things

i got these nice letters of recommendation from my Honors College director in the program im in at skool, my art teacher, and this other guy who is like known at all these ckool. i hope they like my stuff... in fact i hope they like all our stuff.
good luck to all. peace out

[jayneko]

Andoo - D2 is interesting. C1's fun. As is C3. Are they color or b/w? Some of them look kinda dark..

I sent three still lifes (1 pencil, 1 water color, 1 pastels), three portraits (all pencil), two gestures, and five studies (2feet, 2hands, and mouths, all pencils).

13 in all. Sounds lucky eh?

And Sula. Crazy stuff, and by that I mean great!! XD XD What type of bird is that? *Thought it was some kinda penguin...right?* :D

[sula_nebouxi]

Andoo, personally I like C3 and D1. Boy we're getting quite a varied response here heh.

Thanks jay, it's actally a blue footed booby also known as the sula nebouxi, wink wink nudge nudge...Lives around South and Central America's western shores and on the Galapagos Islands. It is the most awesomest bird on Earth....just because. Oh and if you guys are wondering, it's not trying to do aerobics, it's preforming its mating dance ;)

And since everyone's breaking down their portfolio, here's mine:
5 self portraits
1 portrait
4 figures
4 still lives
1 hand study
only 1 color piece, that painting of the onions. Honestly I didn't feel that comfortable working with colors since I don't think I have a firm enough grounding in color theory. So I stuck to my strong point which is graphite and charcoal drawings.

Later all.

[dadamafia]

while jayneko was talkin i realized i never commented on the bird, its not very definitive and it lacks in the same way as stated before..no tones. u can barely make it out except for the beak (check spelling). the drawing is so light. u need to work on values slowly and build them up. the piece is a nice idea but i think its light. the 2 before are better jsut becuz of the tonez in my opinion.

[Andoo45]

I'm thinking C3 and A2 or D1.
I have these in my portifolio
3 Figure
2 Portrait
3 Still Life
2 Photos

[jejuhorse]

I like D1 and B1
my portfolio is
2 self portrait (1pencil and 1 pastel)
3 still lifes (all pencil)
1 creative
2 landscape (1 paint and 1 pencil)
2 painting studies
1 ref. drawing(Shouldn't be sending a ref. drawing in but i really liked it so i decided to send it in. i'm sure they know it is from a ref. picture)

my birthday is getting close i think getting accepted to Ringling would be the best present for me:)hehe

[sula_nebouxi]

dada, i fixed up the drawing a little bit before I sent it off, I went over the really dark parts with a 5B pencil and some midtones with an HB.

Well...everything's done. Portfolio's sent off(which should arrive tomorrow before noon). Just have to check with Ringling tomorrow to see if it's all there. Now time for the waiting game. It's outta my hands now...hope I catch those reviewers on a good day :).

Anyways, good luck everyone, I know I've said it a million times but we can never have enough luck heh. Keep us all updated with whatever happens along the way guys! Until March everyone...peace...

[Andoo45]

I hope that I won't be judged harshly if I'm sending in a CD. I don't have the means of making slides and my printer is shot. I have very little time and I have a good scanner, so it all lines up for me sending it in a CD. I just hope that it doesn't effect my results or anything like that, I'm sure they'd rather not deal with CDs. It will be mailed though. :D Anyway I hope that we all get in and such. This thread has been very encouraging, and I've found tons of helpful advice here. It's just been nice to have this. It made me feel more confidant. I hope to see you guys at Ringling, we'll have to have a ConceptArt Computer Animation get-together. :D Now... any last minute suggestions for file sizes and formats for my CD? did anyone else send theirs in a CD and what did you use? Thanks again (gawd I'm going to be Last minute...). :zzz:

[jayneko]

I know about four people who've sent CDs so far, so no worries about being the only one. ^~ I have noticed if you burn at high speeds older cd drives wont read the cd later..so burn it around 12x or something. Not sure if this is true, as I'm not too savvy on hardware and how cds work, but I think it's safer to burn it slowly. o_O
Or Im just insane. :E

Use good quality cds too!

JPGs are good I guess... Anyone can read them... But, if you want high quality maybe targas or tiffs... not everyone can read them, but Im sure an art school will have ACDSee or something to read them. BMPs are eveeil. @__@ I wouldn't make them too heavy though. As long as it can fit the whole screen is good enough, no 3000 pixel by 3000 pixel monstrosities. ;)

....Hrrrrm. Make it both PC and Mac compatible. @_@ To be on the safe side, file names should be short. If you do things like my_first_portfolio_drawing.jpg silly macs will go nuts and explode. Pretty pieces of plastic everywhere....

So good luck to all of us! :D I'm pretty sure we have a good shot at it.

And to take a break from drawing my hands and feet... I give you mullet madness. :D
http://jayneko.com/images/snake.jpg

[Hett15]

When I went down there I turned in a CD along with a portfolio of pictures mounted on black in a binder. I asked if it was ok to include the CD and they told me that a lot of people send in only CD's due to financial or equipment circumstances. They said they review them just the same as anyone else. So don't worry about it. They do use PC's though in case you are wondering. So send them jpg file size 800x600 pixels is just about right I thought You can go a little bigger, but it always looks nicer if you have some black border going around it. (Of course make them large enough for people to see them) I would also suggest that you put a number in the name of each one so that if you view them as a slide show it will show them in the order that you want them to be presented. Otherwise it will show them alphabetically and they will most likely be in a different order then what you want.

This has been a good thread and I hope that we all report back on our results when we get them. Whether me, all of you, or all of us get in or not I'd be happy to have you guys as my wingmen anytime. :perv: (This is where Maverick says "Bullshit you can be mine." ) Ha ha ha a little Top Gun humor for the cheap seats. Great movie by the way.

Today is the last day to send stuff in if you want to overnight it by tomorrow. If it's not in by now ...what the hell were you thinking!

Do any of you get the reaction when you tell people you are trying to get into Ringling..."Like the circus? You want to be a clown or something?"

This thread has been fun to read and has kept my level of excitement about Ringling high. Thanks for getting it started up again Sula. Remember once any of us get in come back to conceptart.org and find a forum like this about Ringling and help those people that will be applying in the future. Think about how much more you know about the process of applying then you did before you started. You learned through the help of fellow students and people willing to take the time and reply to our questions. The art community is a small one in many ways. Always help it grow. ;)
I probably won't be back here until after I get my letter because I have a lot of things at work that I will be hard at work on and I need to spend as much time with my wife and family as I can before next summer because I won't see them for 2 months while my wife moves to Sarasota before me to start her teaching job and I stay at my work earning as much as I can before Ringling tuition tears a hole in my pocket. I'll try to check in if I am slow at work, but in the mean time keep those dreams alive,

your fellow clown

Greg "Hett15" Hettinger

[onigod]

Hey everyone - feels like its been a while since I've posted. Computer problems before - didn't work for a while, then I kind of forgot to log back on the thread. I got my works in for Ringling - I basically sent in my regular portfolio, only ordered a bit differently, and I included gesture drawings I worked on (I'll get them up soon enough).

Right now in portfolio prep we began on our concentration - I'm doing Russian life through symbolic still lifes and portraiture - working on a great piece right now, finishing it tomorrow so I'll try to get that up maybe.

But yeah, I hope all of you who applied get in. I actually got accepted to Pratt (found out first day winter break started - they called me up, but apparently I was sleeping in that first day and my dad told me the news - then I got the official letter). I'll see what happens with Ringling, but I guess if I don't get in I won't be bummed, because I got excited about Pratt (it IS New York) after all.

Oh yeah, I got a Ringling calendar in the mail a few days ago - everyone else get one too? Thought that was pretty cool of them.

Well, once again, best of luck to you guys.

[onigod]

By the way, Sula, I just gotta say man, that one portrait with the many hands brushing the hair, fixing the glasses - THAT idea's just great. Really surreal in nature - I love it man.

And I looked at everyone else's works - I really like what I'm seeing. I'll try and post pictures of my work if I get them back. They're scattered throughout home, school exhibit, my weekend class exhibit, etc.

[dadamafia]

good to hear you got into Pratt. I hear its a good skool. I am here dying for the day for me to find out if I got into Ringling. I know its a long process but Im very anxious. I hope they like my stuff alot. Im depending on it.

[sula_nebouxi]

Yeah...I had a blast making this thread and seeing how everything was going. It's been a pleasure talking to all of you and I hope I helped everyone in some way. I've been anxious about Ringling ever since reading that last Ringling thread. Hell I got so excited that I started this thing in May, 8 months before the CA deadline just so I could get it outta my system and hopefully start something just as ambitious and drama-filled as the last thread. I wonder how long till we see a 2006 hopeful thread heh. You can bet that I'll probably be poking around there. Anyways...Hett good luck with everything, and +1 for the Top Gun reference(I love that movie). I wish you and your family the best as well as everyone here.

It's been fun helping others. I was told once by an older woman in one of my figure drawing classes that the art field can be a very competitive field and sometimes it can even be cutthroat. Everyone is trying so hard to get into a school or get their work out that most will sometimes step over another to get somewhere. While I'm not really sure about that, I do know that there are many artists out there as well as people that want to be artists and they're all trying to get a piece of the pie. She told me that AgentJ and I were pretty suave in making this thread. I knew competition for those coveted CA spots were going to be tough and I still wanted to help others in their quest even though it might mean increasing the chance that I wouldn't be accepted. That's just the kind of person I am. In the end, it all worked out well. I learned something, and I'm betting that others did as well. We saw each other improve and we helped everyone. I think it's great that we pulled together like this.

and some closing comments:
onigod- thanks! I can't remember where I got the idea but I knew it was somewhere online...it's great that you got into Pratt! I think it's one of the better art schools in the nation. Good luck whereever you choose to go :) Oh and yeah i got a calendar too heh.
dada-I plan to call them up soon to see how long it might take to get a response. I'm guessing they won't start till sometime in February so I might call them up then. But until then, I've got school to worry about. Classes are gonna take up most of my time so hopefully that will take my mind off Ringling for a while(at least for a few days). You can bet that I'll be bugging Ringling once a week to see how far along they've gotten heh :D

Anyways...that's all for now. I'll try and keep everyone updated on my end.

Anthony Tso(General Tso if you'd like, I get it all the time) signing off...

[EccoXile]

>O i want a calandar.....

oh well, i wouldnt use it :P just stare at it.

great stuff here as usual, and once again much luck to everyone. :)

clicky! (http://lasrevinu.com/port/pages/1.htm)
I was finally inpired to put together the beginning of my portfolioly. I need to snag a camera though to get the rest of it, which is just a bunch of sp's and figures. if someone sees something is junk in what I have so far and should be burned or soemthing, let me know. It's hard when most of the stuff should be from life, with all my good fun stuff not from life. boo. I think I'll do half and half and tear it apart as seen fit. And hopefully, I'll be sending this all in before february.

What happened to all the not ca people? :?

[jayneko]

Hey guys! Greetings from Florida! XD

So yeah, I came up here to visit my borther and girlfriend, and I took the time to go to Sarasota and visit Ringling!

Good news is, the place is great; I have no idea what the person who said Ringling is in a bad neighborhood was thinking, it's great! Very nice, relaxing atmosphere. The computer labs are excellent, and they just got a shipment of drawing tables and stuff from Disney after they sadly closed their traditional animation dept. I talked briefly with one of the animation teachers, apparently from disney too, and wow. Just wow. The things they do there are amazing. :D

Bad news is, Im even more excited than before darnit. :P

I also talked with the Associate Dean of admissions.. She said I had a pretty good chance of going in by the looks of my portfolio, even though she wont review the CA stuff..but that means if I have a good chance, everyone on this thread has an even better chance! ;)

Sarasota is a nice city too. Didnt get to go downtown, but it's really nice to Ringling. The beach is not far away, and in general most of the staff and students there are really nice cool people. I was dumb enough not to take pictures (yes, I looked like a crazy disneyland tourist), but eh. :)

I was told who gets in and who doesn't is usually agreed upon around the first week of march or so. They would then send letters by fedex to every applicant to let them know what happened.

They have more neat stuff, lotsa student activities, anime groups, martial arts groups, Figure Drawing groups, D&D groups, an awsome placement service, lots of contacts for students.. Pretty sweet stuff! They're constructing a new building for student life and such in the middle of the campus scheduled for 2006, and it looks like it's going to be pretty nice too!

Well, now I'm ranting again. x_X Guess Im tired from the long ride up there and back down. Anyway, make sure to keep everyone posted on everyone's status eh? :) Good luck to everyone!

[dadamafia]

i should go visit ringling also. damnit im so excited i might as well go quench my thirst by visitin the place again.

[Andoo45]

Thank you Sula, this thread was very much appreciated, and helped a lot with the application process. Now we must all suffer for a month and a half before we all know. This thread may become occupied by the other majors now as EccoXile pointed out. All us CA people are done with our stuff. The other guys get untill June (march if they want scholarships). Speaking of which I need to fill out FAFSA for some scholarshipage... I nead a piece of uncle sam too.
That's awesome that you got to go to RSAD Jayneko. I'm like so jealous right now, and it makes me even more excited. I've completely raped http://www.rsad.edu and http://welcome.rsad.edu of all information possible.
Here's to the first week of march >:D

[dadamafia]

Well my program director and i called up admissions dean guy at ringling and i think the convo went well. basically he knows who i am and is looking out for me. that feels good to know. he said everything is clear and all they need is my high skool transcripts which hasnt arrived yet. hopefully i get some scholarship consideration, im county my lucky tapeworms on that.

[CatHicks]

Howdy guys!

I'm not sure if I've introduced myself but I’m Cat Hicks. I’m applying to RSAD as a CA major for fall 2005. I went to pre-college last summer and just fell in love with the school. Ringling is amazing. I learned so much at pre-college. Before I left I received Academic Excellence awards in CA, Illustration, 3D Design, 2D, Design and made Director’s List too. I can’t wait to get back down there.

Good luck to everyone else who’s applying! If anyone’s nervous and wants to just chat about Ringling feel free to IM or email me.

-Cat

[CatHicks]

On a side note, I just found out that Ringling is actually one of the most haunted campuses in the US. Not to dissuade anyone from going but...just a fair warning, if you believe in ghosts, stay the hell away from Keating, Appleton, Idelson and the Cove. Supposedly a woman named Mary committed suicide in Keating in one of the fire escapes(between the 2nd and third floors) back in the 1920's when Ringling was still a hotel. There's a bunch of stories of her around and it's quite well documented. I think there's supposed to be a TLC special on haunted college campuses airing soon(Ringling and Mary is one of the top 3 stories) Oh, and a student supposedly said her mirror spontaneously shattered, she was also housed in Keating.

Don't know too much about Idelson, but there is this one story of a student seeing a man standing behind him in the bathroom mirror, he was all alone. In Appleton, one of the RA's was all alone in the hall and she could hear high heeled shoes and she could smell perfume in the hallways. Thing is, it was before students moved in and the doors to the hall were all locked. The Cove used to be a nursing home before it became a dorm. I don't know about you but a haunted nursing home is a pretty damn scary thing to imagine.

Heh, I pretty much named all the residence halls. Supposedly there's more stories. I hope I didn't scare any hopefuls from applying...but not too worry I'm bringing my Proton Pack and my ghost traps! I ain't afraid of no ghosts! :D
Mary was excorised a few years ago. It's a long and crazy story. If anyone is interested in hearing you can IM me. Or if you get to Ringling get Kelly to tell it to you. He loves scaring people with that crap. Keating was the worst though. People got pushed in showers and paintbrushes would fly across the room. Mary once had a "crush" on a guy and would pace back in forth outside his room so much that she wore down the carpet. One year a student came who had the ability to see ghosts... it was something he lived with his whole life. He said that Mary's eyes had been plucked out and her mouth was sewn shut. She wears blue high heels.

There is no ghost in Appleton. I lived there for a month and nothing bothered me or any of my dormmates. Idelson is crazy though. You hear footsteps and junk. Photography majors have taken shots in there and strange faces have shown up in the developed pictures.

The ghosts in the Cove are nice. They lock your doors and turn off your water. The Cove used to be an old folks home way back in the day. Keating was a brothel.

[dadamafia]

u ppl are hilarious. im loving these stories.

[WayOfTheStrega]

Mary was excorised a few years ago. It's a long and crazy story. If anyone is interested in hearing you can IM me. Or if you get to Ringling get Kelly to tell it to you. He loves scaring people with that crap. Keating was the worst though. People got pushed in showers and paintbrushes would fly across the room. Mary once had a "crush" on a guy and would pace back in forth outside his room so much that she wore down the carpet. One year a student came who had the ability to see ghosts... it was something he lived with his whole life. He said that Mary's eyes had been plucked out and her mouth was sewn shut. She wears blue high heels.

There is no ghost in Appleton. I lived there for a month and nothing bothered me or any of my dormmates. Idelson is crazy though. You hear footsteps and junk. Photography majors have taken shots in there and strange faces have shown up in the developed pictures.

The ghosts in the Cove are nice. They lock your doors and turn off your water. The Cove used to be an old folks home way back in the day. Keating was a brothel.


Oh, coOl! I love ghosts! They don't scare me...okay, maybe a little. I guess you just have to have a sense of humor about it. You think that having a Witch (I'm a guy, so I guess "Pagan" would be a better word) on campus might scare people?

[CatHicks]

u ppl are hilarious. im loving these stories.

Hmmm.. nonbeliever, eh? You applying to RSAD? I'm gonna' laugh when "Mary" scares you out of Keating. :wink:

[CatHicks]

Oh, coOl! I love ghosts! They don't scare me...okay, maybe a little. I guess you just have to have a sense of humor about it. You think that having a Witch (I'm a guy, so I guess "Pagan" would be a better word) on campus might scare people?
Mary has scared lots of people into switching dorms. I haven't heard any stories about a student actually leaving Ringling because of ghosts.

[WayOfTheStrega]

Mary has scared lots of people into switching dorms. I haven't heard any stories about a student actually leaving Ringling because of ghosts.

I hope no one would leave because of that. That's quite a bit of money that they won't get back. 'Sides, going to Ringling is such a good opportunity for people. I hope I get accepted into Ringling. I'm definently looking forward to going to an Art School!

-X

[Andoo45]

oo ghosts... :D scary. I'm actually afraid of them though I've never had an experience with one. I too hope that I got in. Gwah... I need to like sleep till the end of Feb. or something.

[sula_nebouxi]

Good luck to you both Cat and Strega...;) Oh by the way...which program are you applying for?

Oh just wondering...did that exorcism work? I may want to look into the Bayou apartments in the meantime heh. Oh and one more little thing. I guess you could call it an update. My brother who lives down in florida decided to sell his house. Oh well...no more florida aid for me. Now I just gotta call and have my address changed and whatnot...

Well anyways, good to see some newcomers in here :) Until next time. *Goes back to reading Angels & Demons*

[CatHicks]

Thanks sula. =D

I'm applying for Computer Animation (CA). I won an Academic Excellence award in CA this summer at pre-college which pretty much gave me a foothold in the program for this fall. I hope to see you there!

I'm not sure if the excorism really worked or not but it would be fun to think it didn't. There have not been any real sightings since then. Or so I hear. At pre-college one of the RA's had a theory that she never went away but she had been weakened.

[sula_nebouxi]

Very cool Cat, I'm pretty sure you'll get in. I still think that precollege kids(that do well and get academic excellence awards ;) ) get priority when admissions time comes around. So, I wouldn't worry too much. And after seeing the ball and simple guy animations from your time at precollege, I'd say your chances are anywhere from damn good to assured. That is all.

[WayOfTheStrega]

Good luck to you both Cat and Strega...;) Oh by the way...which program are you applying for?

Thanks Sula. I'm applying for the Illustration program. Maybe I should take a few pictures of the pieces in my portfolio and show everyone. I'll get around to doing that soon. And good luck to everyone that has applied thus far!

-X

[dadamafia]

Hmmm.. nonbeliever, eh? You applying to RSAD? I'm gonna' laugh when "Mary" scares you out of Keating. :wink:

If mary's hot then i'll be the one scaring her out of keating when she comes in my room. she'll get what she been wanting :wink: .


@sula- did you get ur decision from ringling yet?

[CatHicks]

If mary's hot then i'll be the one scaring her out of keating when she comes in my room. she'll get what she been wanting :wink: .


@sula- did you get ur decision from ringling yet?

Hahaha! That is awesome. I'll be looking foward to meeting you.

And thanks sula! I'm sure you won't have a problem getting in either. That's for the comments on my pre-college animations. Haha! Those were fun. I made a few mistakes when rendering everything out so the timing on simple guy is a bit odd... there are problems with ball bounce too. Oh well.. still learning!

WayOfTheStrega, if you are applying for Illustration then you will have Don Brandas as one of your teachers sophmore or junior year. He's awesome! I was in his illustration class this summer. He's by far one of the coolest artists I've ever met. I bugged him daily for critiques. He's great! Good luck.

We should all keep each other updated here on if we get in or not. I hope I get to meet you guys.

[sula_nebouxi]

heh dada...i haven't got my letter yet. They won't be handing those out till at least march, for CA at least. Bleh...one more month. Meh...I've waited a year for this, another month isn't gonna hurt. I've heard of some people that have already been accepted for illustration and photography. Quick...I know.

cat, but of course ;) I still think they were pretty impressive considering there isn't much time to learn how to animate in those few weeks at precollege.

Strega, very cool. I'd love to see your portfolio :)

Anyways...Cheers.

[Hett15]

Hey everyone, long time no post. Well I just thought this would give me reason to post something. I wrote this today thinking I would post it later, but news just kept coming in. It's about my moving to Sarasota. ( Sorry it's so long i cut and psted most of it together through out the day. )

So I woke up this morning to the sound of the phone ringing, but warm and comfortable in my bed I wasn't about to go look for the phone that wasn't on its stand by the bed where it should be. My wife had already left for her internship and I was supposed to be at work in 45 minutes. I let it ring and ring until our answering machine picked up. I was expecting to hear my wife calling to remind me about something or just to give me a good morning I love you, but alas it was not her. Instead it was the director of human resources for the Sarasota County Schools. She was calling to tell my wife that she is "VERY INTERESTED" in her and would like to talk with her as soon as possible and mentioned that they conduct interviews all year, but they are specifically searching for someone like her right now to begin next year and that they can finance most relocation expenses (a.k.a. "we'll do anything to have you"). My wife is a hot commodity right now in Florida because they are looking for as many teachers as they can find with a new class size law, but she also is graduating with a Masters in special education and she has a 4.0 G.P.A. with tons of volunteer service and experience working with kids with dissabilities. She just loves doing it. (and she is HOT! )

The reason this is great news and how it applies to animation (for anyone who does not know my back story) is that this is one more step towards being able to go to the Ringling where I applied for the Computer Animation Program. If she gets a good job down there, our financial and stressful situation will be under control and we won't be scraping for nickels between the sofa cushions. (of course Ringling tuition will be a huge load of loans, but it'll be worth it)

[edited this afternoon:]

Wow I guess God just wanted to make things interesting...I just got back from a 3 hour production department meeting to talk about the future of our company and what roles we will all be expected to play and as it turns out I will be the only one whose job will be significantly altered. We spent an hour discussing what they have planned for me and the equipment I might be expected to be in charge of. Currently I am a AVID video editor working on an ongoing self contained project where I do everything in post production from capturing tape through burning and printing the DVD's. They are planning on buying an entirely new editing suite and they think that instead of hiring a new editor they want to train me and make me into the new editor, that way they can hire a college grad whom I'll have to train to take over the job I was doing . We are talking about a $100,000 purchase with me slated as the designated recipient of the new technology.... they asked me where do I see my self a year or two from now and do I think I will want to become the new editor (which should mean more $). I told them that (as I said when I was hired ) my wife is getting her masters and if she is offered a job that is better off financially for us then I will have to follow her, and that she has already been offered a couple of jobs here in town so unless something changes in the next few months it looks like I will still be here for awhile.

I did not lie, but ommission is close to it it might as well be lying and I don't like doing that to anyone that I have built a trustful relationship with. I like the people I work with and the job is pretty cool so far, I just don't know what is going on right now and there are so many factors that won't be resolved soon enough. (Ringling needs to hurry up on those applications!) I'll get back to you after I talk to my wife tonight. Boy will she be suprised at all this drama.

Ideally I want to go to Ringling and have my wife teach in Sarasota. Just because I might have a job offer here doesn't mean that if I had the choice I would take it. I want to go to Ringling more than anything (just so anyone out there who might be deciding my fate is aware ). Alrighty then I'll get back to you guys about this. STRESS is so stressful!

[edited again]

News just in:
My wife got the message on her cell (and called me) and she called the lady and talked to her and from what they talked about they are ready to hire her on the spot and nothing will stop them from getting her hired as soon as all the requirements for her degree are finalized in April. Sooooooooo it looks like we are moving to Sarasota worry free!!!!

Now I just have to get on those Ringling chaps about my portfoilo and application. Do you think groveling is going too far?

[edited yet again]

More news to report:

Well the Sarasota HR lady called back again to get some info on my wife and she was very astounded at my wife's credentials and said that she really stuck out from all the applications she has EVER seen. She called the education college to get her records and talk with some of her teachers and they all gave her incredible reccommendations (they all love her too). I know some of it is textbook recruiting fluff, but it still sounds wonderful to hear that about my wife. We did not tell her that I am trying to go to Ringling becasue we didn't want to put all of her cards on the table and give the real reason why we want to move there. then later after another conversation with the head of the HR department it looks like they want my wife to move there in May because there are some things she will have to do over the summer to be able to work there (training, orientation, etc..) They did however say that they would pay for a lot of the relocation costs (which I know is expensive). I on the other hand will not be moving until late July, because after wieghing my options I can make a lot more money staying on through July then I could moving down there and finding, starting, and quiting a job in 3 months. Looking at the Ringling tuition, I need all the help I can get. Loans will only go so far and I don't want to be in more debt then I can handle. Maybe with the money I make during those three months I can save it and use it to pay the interest payments while I am in school. (I already earned a BS in business, so I am not eligible for most scholarships or any grants) I will be applying to as many scholarships as I can though.

I have been asked to give my company 60 days notice if possible in the event that I know I am leaving so that they can search for, hire, and have me train a replacement editor and I think it is fair after the opportunity that they have given me that I do what I can to make it as smoothe a transition as possible. I was hired after sending in an email and then interned for 2 days with no prior professional experience. Some of it was based my my skill and some of it was just dumb luck of being in the right place at the right time. I did pay my dues though if any of you remember I worked 4-11pm 5 days a week just so I could get time on the editing equipment and worked at Sears 9am-3:30pm 6 days a week. I was finally moved into a full time position, and now they want to move me up another step in the editor hierarchy.

[dadamafia]

damn my eyes hurt from reading all of that.

[jejuhorse]

hey everyone!
i just got an email from Ringling
So did u all hear about Jeff Fowler?
class of 02 from Ringling is nominated for the 2005 Academy Award animated short film~
let's wish him the best luck and hopefully he will actually win the Academy Award :rendered:
it's on TV Feb 27th so don't miss it!!hehehe
damn and around that time we might even be able to hear what our results would be~!!
Jeff Fowler winning the award and us getting accepted to Ringling~
that would be AWESOME!!
oh, and did anyone apply for other art schools?
I didn't :) it's Ringling or Die!hehe
i got accepted to Iowa State University for Architecture(probably wrong spelling-oh well:)-)
And Eastern Michigan but i hope i don't go there
But Ringling is always the FIRST!^^

[EccoXile]

Looks like everything is going good for everyone so far. geez, people already getting accepted. i feel incredibly lazy rihgt now :P maybe ill do that essay tommorow and get my stuff in next week.

and ooo, ghostness :D *wanted a room in keating and wants it more now* :}

[jayneko]

Hey y'all. Just checking back here to see what you all've been up to. :D

Jeju - Yeah, pretty cool about Jeff in the Oscars. :D I want to see that short, and I really hope he gets the oscar! And I applied to UCF..but that's mostly a back up plan. x.x

Ecco- Oh? Who got accepted?! O.O Wooot! :D

Hett- Hey, great news! :D Tough decisions though.. But I'm sure it'll all turn alright. :D Keep us posted eh?

Well, I havent been doing much but...slacking. :P Kept drawing, less than in december with all the portfolio rush, but.. Also trying some 2D animation by myself. Might start a job in march which'll be good to save up for Ringling.

So that's my update! O-x

[EccoXile]

jay~ sulas last post :p i dont know about anyone from here.

oo, now i know that jeff thing. i saw the short for it :( they didnt show enough in that. i hope they will show more online soon. it looks good for whats there so far though.

[Andoo45]

It's the Illustration and Graphic Design and Photography majors who are already getting their acceptance letters back. Us poor CA people still have to wait till the end of this month. I believe letters go out at the beginning of march, but you can call or e-mail them and they'll tell you when they've decided on your portfolio.
On that same note... MAN I'm nervous. I'm applying to Digipen as my second school, and they've still got slots open, just have to send my portfolio. Anyway... I hope I get in. I want it so bad. The suspense is killing me!

[CatHicks]

Jeff has got that Oscar in the bag. Gopher Broke is so much better than all those other noms. Hett15, are you looking to apply to CA for fall 05? If so, I'm afraid you're too late. Maybe next year.