Anthony Ward

Yesterday, Anthony Ward came in to talk to our course about his career in the industry and how he took the leap into becoming a freelancer. Anthony is a freelance digital artist, animator and digital tutor who began his career in a small company, and learnt 3D in his spare time. He spent around 15 years working in studios before deciding to finally go freelance and has done a range of jobs including modeling, animation, lead artist, and even wrote a few books on character development and modeling. Anthony gave some really useful advice regarding if you were to go freelance that the best thing would be to work within a studio first, here you can then gain the valuable experience of working in a team and understanding the pipeline. When going freelance people are more likely to trust you more if you have this prior knowledge and experience. Along with being a freelancer, Anthony also produces tutorials for 3D World magazine and Digital Tutors.

What was also interesting to hear, was that he woud suggest learning MEL scripting as it's a useful and invaluable tool to learn, because it can save you time and create shortcuts for yourself. It's something that I had in my mind before hand and I think I will now delve into it more, at least getting to grips with the basics. Having a wider knowledge will always be beneficial as even though you should be focused on a specific area, knowing how to rig for example, will not only benefit yourself but make you more attractive to employers.

After his talk, Anthony came round and spoke to people about their work and I got some good feedback from him on my animation. I would love to improve on the animations he commented on, but I will take this advice and implement it on my future works, otherwise I'll never put a piece to end. I know I have a lot of confidence issues when it comes to my animation, so it was nice to hear that he thought I was doing well and should just keep going.