Project Felix enables you to create photo-realistic composites with 2D images and 3D assets like materials, models and lights to produce high-quality images without cumbersome and time-consuming steps.

Do you know of any more?

If you are creating a project for a client and they love it, but they just want it from a different angle, it would take much longer to draw in Illustrator or Photoshop. In 3D, you can easily rotate the object or the camera.

Access to 3D tools can help you think outside of the box when creating designs. You can discover new ways to complete a project and the process can be fun. You'll be able to work on new projects that your skills didn't give you access to before. Additionally, if you're feeling uninspired by 2D, you can see if 3D sparks the flame.

Learning 3D allows you to add services to your repertoire and puts you ahead of designers who just use 2D. You can also look for jobs in more industries such as motion graphics, game design and broadcasting.

3D can be more expensive than 2D. Freelancers can land projects that require more skill and pay more.

3D is the future. As things continue to change, you will only be left behind if you continue to stay in the 2D world.

Learning 3D can be a gateway into another industry. You can venture into motion design, 3D printing, video games, VR/AR, special effects and more. Once you have your introduction, you'll be more prepared to undertake projects in more complex mediums.

Different entities have spent years on developing strategies to get New Orleans to be a successful city that doesn’t just rely on one industry. The major industries have been tourism, food and oil & gas. In an effort to attract more young professionals and better jobs, there has been expansion into healthcare, arts & entertainment, ed tech and more. While digital media has been highlighted by Prosperity NOLA and other plans, I’ve noticed that software development is the niche that is always getting pushed to the forefront of this category.
I’ve been doing animation presentations for several years and workshops for the past two years. Last year, I took it into overdrive and that resulted in going up to north Louisiana to do a Saturday workshop for the anime club at Louisiana Delta Community College, my first stint as an adjunct professor this Spring 2017 and getting to do a presentation and workshop at the NOLA Mini Maker Faire. After doing a two-day workshop with KID smART where they helped us craft better lesson plans, I had an epiphany moment during a discussion where I really questioned whether it would be worth it to try and make animation a big thing in New Orleans. Mostly, from thinking if it was even possible.

The reason I started pursuing animation education was because animation is awesome and people should be introduced to it, but also because no one was really concentrating on it when I first start speaking in 2013. I thought it would be cool to try to pursue in New Orleans, but as you can see; I’m having my doubts.

- BlkWmnAnimator

Artists are typically known to be care-free, eccentric individuals that live in a dream world. People think they may dye their hair pink, throw caution to the wind and struggle as they pursue their passion. While that may be true for a good portion of creative types, I am not one of those people. Before I found animation I was on my way to becoming an electrical engineer. It was the closest thing I found, at the time, that would mix my love for art and math...until I found 3D animation. I feel like I’m equal parts creative and analytical. Being analytical can be helpful in many ways.

Analytical people are masters at visualizing theories and planning for the future. We’re proponents of delayed gratification and are a very curious bunch. But after all of the planning and conjuring...there’s just more planning and conjuring. My analytical brain keeps my creativity held captive sometimes. I'm the type of person to read a million articles about a topic and not do anything. That’s what analytical people do (or don’t do). We think and think and think and think about doing something, but never take the steps to actually do it!

When it comes to learning various artistic methods, I’m hindered by my analytical mind a lot of times. If I can do a step-by-step tutorial on how to learn a new skill or program, I have it down! But if I’m supposed to “explore” and “figure things out,” I’m lost. It’s a weakness I’m working on. If I could just get a step-by-step guide on how to be a free thinker. Lol.

This hindered me even when I was younger. I can remember having this lanky clown in my head doing this funny dance, but could never translate it onto paper. This struggle has me wondering how Leonardo da Vinci and others like him did it. Years ago people would be an engineer, mathematician, artist, poet all at once. Nowadays we put ourselves into these boxes where artists don’t like math or science and scientists or engineers don’t see the point in art (not always).

I tell people that I know how to take the stairs, but I don’t know how to jump off of cliffs. Nevertheless, I’m taking a purposeful step to becoming more free not only in my art, but in life. I don’t want my analysis to be my prison. I want to base jump all over the art world and learn as much as I can and not need someone to tell me what the answer is. I want to find it. I see the benefit of exploration and look forward to the journey.

Here are some tips for the analytical folks that are trying to fly free:

• Strive for perfection, but don’t be beholden to it
  • I work on pushing through trying to “make it perfect” and concentrate more on producing and getting my work out there
• Be proactive
  • You have the power to get better at being a free-thinker. You can always work on becoming your best self.
• Stop rationalizing, justifying and explaining
  • Just do it. I know it’s hard, but do (not try).
• Get out of your thoughts
  • Empty your mind and stop keeping yourself from doing things by going through the 537 reasons it won’t work
• When learning new disciplines, techniques or programs
  • Make it relevant
    • When trying to learn something new, place rules on your exploration to make it less intimidating. Instead of just going full on into exploring, try to create something specific. Ex. If I want to learn how to use a certain program, I could try to create an apple instead of randomly clicking on things.
      
  • Create small projects
    • If you have little wins over and over again, you become more confident in your newfound freedom
  • Practice makes perfect (we know analytical people love perfection)
    • Carve out some time each day or each week to work on your new craft
      
      
  • Look for activities online, but don’t follow the step by step guidelines
    
    
    • Try to figure it out

Join me on this journey of freedom and discovery!!

- BlkWmnAnimator

Sources:

• http://davidjoragui.com/career/the-positive-and-negative-attributes-of-calculated-analytical-thinkers/
• http://www.ipersonic.com/type/AT.html
• https://umdcareers.wordpress.com/2013/03/12/analytical-as-a-strength/
• http://www.doane.edu/facstaff/resources/cetl-home/31812
• http://www.lifehack.org/articles/productivity/how-to-stop-being-an-over-thinker.html
• https://elearningindustry.com/11-tips-engage-inspire-adult-learners

I want to talk about increasing diversity in animation and share what I feel my role is and the topics surrounding that.

Representation

• I want to make sure that kids have the opportunity to see someone that looks like them doing the things they want to do. I can inspire kids, no matter what they look like to go into animation, but I want to make sure that little girls and minority kids get to see themselves represented.

Increasing the Diversity in the Diversity

• Sometimes, not all the time, the minorities and women in the animation industry have the same interests as the majority. I want to make the animation industry like other industries where you don't think of one type of person when you think of someone in animation. I want to reach that kid that's not a raving fan of Star Wars; that girl that has never watched anime; or that boy who doesn't want to work at a plant when he gets older.
  

Tell Your Own Story

• Some kids who are inspired by anime or a popular show are creating the same stories in the same styles. Sometimes minorities and girls are drawing only what they see, which is white or male characters. It takes them a while to realize that they are not putting themselves in their own stories. I want to encourage kids to put themselves in the stories so that there is more representation of people from various backgrounds.

Fresh Communities

• There are senior centers all over the country that are looking for activities for senior citizens. I feel like it would be a great idea to figure out how to make animation more palatable so that I could teach a class at a senior center and it not be intimidating to learn.
• Additionally, there's usually a lower age limit that I put on my workshops and classes because it's easier to keep the attention of a certain level of kids, but I think it would be great to figure out how to lower that limit and teach 4 and 5 years animation in a way they can understand!

Providing a Lower Barrier to Entry

• Something that I'm doing now is learning a program called Blender. It is an open-source, free program that anyone can download on their computer. Even though you still need a computer/laptop to download it on, I think with Blender, I can provide an option to students who want to learn animation but can't afford to buy Autodesk Maya, Cinema 4D or some other 3D program. I want to be able to give people of all socioeconomic statuses a chance to have their voice be heard.

Animation Can Be Lucrative

• I want to educate communities about how animation can be a lucrative career. A lot of times people associate animation and other art-related fields with the "starving artist" trope and discourage their children from choosing it as a career. I want to let folks know that there are many options for success between being a professional athlete and being a doctor or a lawyer.

Family and Environment

• I went to the CAC’s Conversation on Comics, Graphic Novels, and Inclusivity and a group of us had the chance to speak with LeSean Thomas, director of Boondocks - Season 1 and 2, about what is keeping black people from entering the industry. He mentioned two things: family and environment.
• A lot of people who don’t have the encouragement of their family to go down a certain career path are not going to do it. There are very few that would push through and do it anyway. Part of this discouragement is from what I mentioned earlier in thinking that animation cannot be lucrative. Parents want to make sure their children are successful adults and can take care of themselves.
• Additionally, sometimes your environment is not conducive to being introduced to animation. Generally, people don’t grow up with an animator as your next door neighbor, so there's just not that exposure. So, there can be that lack of information or it can be that you're an outcast or shunned because you are different. This can result in straying away from certain interests to alleviate bullying.

Diversity Through the Indie Industry

• With platforms like YouTube, Vimeo, Instagram and Snapchat, there are people making a way for themselves without having to get the support of big film and TV studios (or record labels). There are many celebrities who made their start on social media. Through using the indie route, we can flood the market with stories from many different types of people.

Animation as Therapy

• Kids can express themselves about the situations they are living in and what they're going through on a daily basis. Whether it's PTSD from living in a dangerous area, depression, bullying or even having great parents despite your environment, we can give that power to kids to tell their own stories.

Remove the Limitations of Animation

• I don't just have a goal to teach kids animation. I would very much like to teach adults animation as well. I think through exposing more people to animation, the limitations that society has put on animation (being just for kids) can be removed and it can be seen as a medium for all. One of the first introductions of animation, Gerty the Dinosaur, was targeted at adults. Disney and Pixar purposely write their stories so that everyone in the family can enjoy. Animation is not just for kids.

Like Lonzo Ball said, "We push the culture forward, don’t let the culture push us." I believe there are many ways to increase diversity in animation and I want to do my part to make that happen.

In that I’m sort of a different breed of animation professional, I have to navigate through a lot of stuff that is pretty ridiculous when trying to grow as a young professional. I’m always applying to leadership programs and different young professional ventures and getting denied over and over again. I do realize that it’s partially because I live in Louisiana where connections are more important than accomplishments or degrees most times.

I feel like when I’m applying to programs or talking to people, there’s this air of “she’s in animation; what could she possibly offer.” Luckily, I’ve learned how to be more strategic lately (lately being last year). I purposely told someone I knew that I was applying to a leadership development program for one of the young professional groups here because she was a project manager for the program. Guess what...I made it in!! And then for another NOLA young professional ambassador program, I emailed someone I met in the the leadership development program because she works at the organization putting on the program. I made it into that, and during the first session, I was talking to her and she told me, “I fought for you!” I’m very appreciative of that, but I’m thinking, I’m pretty accomplished, why did she have to fight for me? I looked at the bios of some of my cohort members and I didn’t get it.

But it’s like people think, oh she just draws all day. Forget that she has worked internationally, held offices in community organizations, helped start non-profits on the side, and more. There are so many things stacked up against me when I walk into any type of networking room, whether it’s in my industry or not. I look much younger than I am, I’m black, and I’m a woman. This means I have to come up with strategies to get people to want to actually engage with me and talk to me. To be honest, I can list all of the awesome accomplishments in a quick “let’s go around the room” intro and still get crickets.

Something that I hate doing, but I’ve come to terms with is telling people that I worked on Family Guy and The Cleveland Show. I mean, it was so long ago now, it’s barely relevant, but it transforms a half-listener into a fully engaged conversational partner in seconds. I’ve literally seen people’s whole body language change towards me after mentioning that.

Something that was upsetting recently was that for the ambassador program, they asked us to submit our bios, so of course I put the TV shows I worked on in there. Again, strategy. I go to read the bio sheet they gave to the cohort members and someone removed the list of shows and replaced it with “many shows.” Who DOES that? If someone is giving you their bio, out of all of the things you would remove, do you think a person wants you to remove the fact that they worked on famous television shows? You removed my bread and butter from someone randomly coming up to me and saying, “hey, I saw you worked on Batman. How was that?”


Don’t let me get started on the struggles of networking at an animation event...goodness. I went to an event one time and I wasn’t sure who was there for the event because it was at a bar. I kind of figured out who the group possibly could be and I go over and linger. They literally moved several times from where I was and I had to follow them around. Apparently, a black woman couldn’t possibly be here for the animation event. I just ended up leaving. I attend virtual reality and other meetups and I end up standing somewhere alone unless I know someone there. It’s hard figuring out where you fit when wherever you go people make you feel like you don’t belong. I can only hope for the best and hope that I can figure out the ways of the world. Wish me luck!

After a few letters, I had procured some fans. Mostly, people I knew, but now I had an audience. This is one thing that helped me push through to the end of the project. There were people out there who were looking forward to seeing what the next hairstyle was and what I would do with it. It also helped to have a friend, Latrice, who posted every single letter on her Instagram and Twitter accounts. So, not only did I have personal connection fans, I had her followers watching too! If you’re working on a project, whatever it is, I would encourage you to “put it out there” so that you can gain some accountability partners. These people may not even know you’re using them as accountability partners, but when you can have someone ask, “hey, how are you coming along with that project you were working on?”, you can either make them proud with an update or be forced to look your failure to act in the face.

I was able to keep up the pace of producing my letters daily maybe until I hit the letter “M,” which I would consider to be impressive considering my workload. After a while, I decided that sleep was more important than strictly keeping up with my project. That meant the next letter would come out two days later or I would binge 2-4 letters on the weekend.

Then we got to the letter, “Q.” If you look at what I produced for the letter “Q,” you wouldn’t think it was that difficult to do, especially considering how some of my previous letters looked. But you also wouldn’t know from looking at it that my finished product was the 7th iteration/attempt at making “Q.” I spent the entire weekend on that letter. I pretty much wanted to quit after that, but luckily I have this thing where I’ll let myself down before I let other people down. The fans I had gained in the short period of time were what kept me going. However, when you get frustrated or burnt out, I would also suggest taking a little break. It took a couple days to get the gumption to work on the letter “R.”

By the end of my project, it definitely wasn’t daily, but by the middle of March and after completing one of my most complicated letters, “Z,” I was finished with the “Black Hair Project.” I felt both accomplished and relieved. I got a number of digital pat on the backs at the end from people on Facebook and Instagram. It was also big because it was the first BIG personal project that I’ve completed in several years. It’s so easy to meet a deadline at work because your paycheck is dependent on it, but once you’re on your own, any and everything can become an excuse to putting it off. I encourage anyone who is working on a project that has been thrown to the wayside; dust it off, be vocal about it and push through to the end. It will all be worth it on the other side.

If you want to see the completed "Black Hair Alphabet" project, you check it out here.

This speech was an overview of the 12 Principles of Animation. In that it was a 5-7 minute speech, I knew it was too much content, but giving this particular speech was more for personal evaluation than the evaluation of the club. I had just done a workshop for the Boy Scouts on these same principles and I realized that I spent too much time explaining them, so I wanted to see how quickly I could go over the principles. This will help me in future workshops.

Disney animators used the 12 principles of animation to create some of our favorite movies. Disney’s core animators, who worked on Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and other movies, were nicknamed the “Nine Old Men”. Two of those animators wrote a book, “The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation”, that introduced the 12 principles of animation to the world. I would like to let you look behind the curtain and tell you about these tenets.

• Charisma/Personality
• Heroes and villains
  • Hercules
  • Jafar
• Fascinating/attention grabbing
  • Witch-hunched over
  • Girl – small & cute
  • Bully – big and mean
    

So those are the 12 principles of animation. If you plan on watching an animated movie anytime soon, maybe you’ll notice a couple. Hopefully, I haven’t ruined movies for you forever like it is for people with film degrees.

This speech went over very well. In Toastmasters, you're given this sheet with tear-off strips that you can use to give people feedback. I got so many of those after this speech and it was all positive. It felt like when you're in elementary school and get the most Valentine's Day cards (when you could be selective, before the participation trophy era).

I know some of you guys are ready to hear me talk about all the crazy things I ate like pig intestines and live octopus. Well, if you ever hear me say that, either my body has been taken over by aliens or I bumped my head really hard. I have a hard enough time trying to eat more vegetables, although my adult taste buds are helping out tremendously. I will, however, tell you how my food experiences in South Korea were different, deceiving and shocking.
 
First off, for any of you who don’t know, Koreans use thin metal chopsticks instead of the wooden ones you may be used to. The history behind this was that a royal family many years ago used silver chopsticks to detect poison. The silver would change colors when it came in contact with the poison. Today, they’re made out of steel. Another difference is that a metal spoon accompanies every place setting. This makes things interesting when you’re trying to eat pork cutlets. You’re either trying to use two chopsticks which makes you feel like you’re cutting with toothpicks, or you’re trying to use the strength of Zeus to use a lone spoon to cut into a fried hunk of meat. Luckily, I never put anyone’s eye out when first trying to master this skill. When eating at restaurants, you remove your shoes and sit on the floor. This is no problem for practically everyone, but me. My legs are what I like to call, anti-flexible. So me crossing my legs results in me looking like an origami project. I just sat straight-legged my entire time there making sure my feet didn’t hit anyone on the other side. These differences weren’t too bad, but my deceiving experiences made for a fascinating time.
 
After a few months, I had figured out that usually, when they start bringing out fruit and/or coffee, that signifies the end of the meal. So, we’re at a restaurant for a teacher’s retreat and they had already brought out four to five courses of food and we were looking for any end in sight. They finally start bringing out some grapes and I’m thinking, “Thank you, Jesus!” It’s almost over!” Only for them to start bringing out fish several minutes later. We just wanted to yell, “Stop bringing us food!”
 
Then there was the multiple times I went into the school cafeteria and was excited to see what I thought was chicken, but had my dreams shattered when I realized it was tofu. It’s really hard to justify throwing away three pieces of tofu when you’re living in a country that was in starvation when ruled by Japan 60 years earlier, but you figure out how to do things.
 
My last deceitful experience is from a dish called 부추생채, which is a Korean chive. If you saw it on your plate, you might think it was blades of grass. And when I ate it, it tasted like it too. It was like I could still taste the dirt as if they had clipped it from the ground right before they put it on my plate. Mmm mmm dirt. That’s what you call fresh!
 
Freshness reminds me of one of my shocking experiences. Something you wouldn’t think would be a shock was my first experience with apple juice in Korea. In America, if I go to a restaurant for breakfast, I’m an apple juice kind of gal, so I was looking to continue this trend in my new country. I’m on the way to school one morning and stop at the friendly, neighborhood Family Mart. I make my purchase, open the bottle, and take a swig. I don’t think I even finished the rest. And the reason is sad. Not boohoo sad, more…oh, bless your heart sad. It was too real! It tasted like they took an apple, put a faucet to it and bottled it. I’m so used to the artificial stuff that I just couldn’t do it. Which was for the best. I’d rather not drink apple juice for two years than get used to theirs and not be able to drink it for the rest of my life.
 
Another shocking experience was a travesty. A staple in Korean cuisine is what’s known as kimchi. There are multiple different kinds, but the most popular is made of cabbage. Kimchi is fermented cabbage with red pepper paste and other spices. I just call it spoiled cabbage. As you can tell by my pet name for it, I don’t like it. When I went out to dinner on vacation, I knew this already. We were sitting at the table and the waitress was being really nice and encouraging us to eat the different foods. At one point, she stopped by and suggested we eat the kimchi. People had already eaten some, but I guess it didn’t look like it. Before you know it, this lady is somehow stuffing kimchi in my mouth! Oh my goodness! Why’d you pick me?! Of all people! It was horrible! And I had to chew and swallow it because it would have obviously been rude to spit it in her face. No amounts of Coca-Cola can get rid of that taste. I told everyone at the table, “Let’s mess up this other stuff before she tries to feed me something else!”
 
My final shocker was the first time I had wasabi. My animation team went to a restaurant and my director was encouraging me to try it. Hey, why not! I’d tried so many other things. So I put some on my chopsticks or on my sushi; I can’t remember and go for what I know. The only way to describe eating wasabi for me is LIVING DEATH! I just wanted it to be over. Not many people who know what dying feels like are here to tell the story, but I’m pretty sure that was close. I have never touched the stuff after that.
 
Despite all of these interesting episodes, my Korean food experience ended up being pretty good. I found some staples that I enjoyed and found some things that I avoid at all costs. If you have any questions on what you SHOULD eat, just let me know. I’m an open menu.

This speech is about how staying up all night is not something she does very often because it has consequences.

I had a good amount of interesting experiences when I lived in South Korea and I wanted to tell you guys about one of my infamous stories. As many of you know, I lived in South Korea for two years. Since the country is so small, a 3 to 4-hour bus ride can take you anywhere. So one weekend, I went to the city of Daejeon to hang out with my fraternity brothers. One lived in Daejeon and the other, my friend, Louis, lived in Busan, which was about an hour away. I lived in Gwangju, which was about a 4-hour bus ride.
 
We had a good time, went out to a few bars, danced and played pool. It’s getting close to 4am so Louis says that instead of heading out and finding somewhere to stay, he thinks we should just keep hanging out and around 6am or so, we can just head home. I agreed. I can always fall asleep on the bus and then take a nap when I get home.

 After hanging out for a bit, we get to the bus station and I’m so tired that I’m just trying to concentrate on not missing my bus and having to buy another ticket, so I don’t do my usual “go to the restroom before a long journey” routine. My eyelids stay open long enough to get on my bus. As soon as I’m in my seat, I’m out. Down for the count. Catching the ultimate Z’s. We’re rolling along and I wake up panicked. I kid you not; I have never had to pee, in my entire life, as much as I had to pee in this very moment. It’s customary that on these bus rides, the driver stops at the halfway point for a break. Being that this was a four-hour journey, we would stop at the 2-hour mark. So when I wake up, I look at the time and it’s been 45 minutes!! I couldn’t even wait it out. So I had to use whatever brain capacity I had left over from not trying to pee myself to try and figure out what I was going to do.

I thought about the "peeing into the water bottle" solution, but many things were stacked up against me. One, the water bottle I had was full. Two, the windows on the bus didn't open. Three, even if the windows on the bus DID open, I would definitely have peed myself after watching an entire bottle of water being emptied out of a window. So, after much deliberation, plan A is out.

Plan B, is to walk up to the front and negotiate with the driver. This was not as easy as it seemed. In that this is the most I've ever had to pee ever in life, if I were to stand up, immediately, the waterfalls would start flowing. I had to calm myself (and my bladder) down enough to be able to stand up and walk to the front of the bus.

Luckily, nearly every Korean on the bus is sleep, so I calm myself down and make my way to the front. Just what the bus driver wanted to see, a foreigner. So, I tell the driver, in my limited Korean, "화장실", which means "bathroom" in Korean. I repeat this one or two more times. Do you know what he asks me next? "남자, 여자?" He asks me if I am a man or a woman. What the heck does that matter?!!! In that it MAY have been wintertime and I could have possibly been wearing a pea coat, my obvious bosom would not have been visible. I answer that I am a woman.

In that I know he's probably aggravated that I'm trying to stop when we're a quarter of the way through our journey, I start gesturing towards the side of the highway. I wanted him to know that I was willing to pee on the side of the road. After some more hand gesture negotiating, he nods his head, OK. So, I sit there and wait for him to stop. In my head, I'm thinking, "that was a good spot. (pause) That was a good spot too," When is he going to stop?! He's passing up prime real estate. Using whatever metric he thought was best to determine a good location, he finally stops.

I rush off the bus and stand as close to the bus as possible, just in case some nosy Koreans want a peep show. Luckily, he stopped right next to a vent, so I pop a squat, do my business and rush back on the bus. I bow and say, "감사합니다", which mean "thank you."

I go back to my seat, without Korean eyes staring at me because none of them had waken up and went back to my nap. Thank you Mr. Korean bus driver. You saved me from embarrassment.