I'd like to introduce myself, by sharing my background, goals, and general thoughts.
Hey everyone ! I thought I would share a bit of my personal reasons for being here, where I come from, where I'm at, where I'd like to be, etc... Maybe some of you have had similar experiences, similar questions, doubts, goals and so on. Please share you thoughts, opinions or personal experiences as well, let's grow together For those who were not here during the first call, hi, I'm Pierre, I'm French, I have a 3D character animation background, with a bachelor in game animation from a Belgian school (Haute Ecole Albert Jacquard in Namur). But life and opportunities made it so that my first (and so far, only) job in animation was not in games. (not counting the 3 months internship I did for the end of my studies, in a small indie games studio). I worked for 4 years in a small, slowly growing studio in Brussels, as the first and only animator, and most of the time, rigger as well, until I was laid off in 2024. I worked on projects that were at first, not very thrilling. Mostly for European institutions, satellites programs, airports, etc... I animated lowpoly planes and satellites on these projects for 2 years, then we started our first character animation project in the shape of a short movie for kids. And after that, character/storytelling animations projects started, slowly. I had to help on some 2D projects as well, despite having no experience or skills in that field. A small explanation video for a French institution (ANCV) on After Effect. And on a tv series, on ToonBoom Harmony. For both, I had no 2D skills, no previous experience using either software. And then comes the lay off, because there were no ongoing projects, we were waiting for the funding, but with no money I was paid for basically doing nothing, because there was nothing to do. The last months in the studio were a bit weird and mentally exhausting because of small tensions on the latest project, and I was getting a bit bored of basically going to work to do almost nothing interesting, so these first few months of unemployement were a bit of a breath of fresh air.