Self Publication

With only six months left at SAE, self-promotion is starting to become a considerably more important element within each project. There are always common ways to promote myself as an up and coming artist such as Art Station and The Rookies however, in order to reach a wider audience creating beauty shots and rendered videos is not enough and with that I will look to producing a playable game that will provide an interactive demonstration of not only my skills as an Animator but also my understanding of the pipeline and software used.

Itch.io(L,Corcoran,2021) is a website for users to host, sell and download indie games. The service hosts over 400,000 games and items as of August 2021. Itch.io has helped many indie developers become successful and it's no surprise with 28.5million active users in January 2022 as well as receiving referrals from employment websites such as indeed.com (P,Forster / R,Kahan, 20004). With its competitors gamejolt.com (D,DeCarmine, 2004) and igg-games.com (2006) receiving 8.5 million and 20 million respectively.

Itch.io geographic targeting

Itch.io will allow people to download and play my game but how will that bleed over to self-advertising. For that I rely on YouTube (C,Hurley / S,Chen / J,Karim, 2005). With the YouTube success of the previous SAE project 'The Manor' receiving 143 downloads via itch.io and 110 viewers through YouTube content creators. Although these numbers aren't extremely high the potential for growth is there.

Itch.io monthly traffic

In an attempt to further advertise myself as an animator I need to continue to assert and sell myself on varying social media platforms, including both more social-based platforms like Instagram and more professional-based platforms like LinkedIn.

Using Instagram to show off my artwork in a wider space outside of The Rookies and Art station. Instagram is fast becoming a major advertising platform for small businesses, this will correlate nicely to generally showcasing my works.

LinkedIn being a more professional-orientated platform will allow me to not only showcase my work but build a network of professional contacts.

This week I won a competition with the prize being a portfolio review from JL Mussi, a hard-surface professional and educator. His feedback on my current portfolio allows me the information I need to raise the professionalism of my portfolio and sell myself and my skills on platforms such as Artstation, Devian Art, and the newly updated platform Area.

over a 30 minute discussion JL Mussi left me with several major points to work on with my portfolio.

1. Remove the garbage, While Previous works and WIP's are a great way to show my progression they are better kept on a personal platform suck as a WIX or Google site like my learning journal for the sake of selling myself and seeking employment only my best renders and works should be shown.

"better to have 4-5 great show pieces only than to have 4-5 great pieces buried in a sea of garbage"- JL

2. Image backgrounds, The process of creating portfolio pieces doesn't end when the render is complete rather images should be rendered with an alpha mask brought into photo shop and have a background added that both highlights rather than hides the silhouette and provides no shadowing.

"choose a background colour that suits the piece if the model is dark use a light grey if the model is light use a darker background, steer clear of gradients they work well for characters but not for Hard-surface... You want nothing to distract the viewer from the model" -JL

3. A portfolio is a portfolio. Only completely finished works should go in my portfolio if its animations it needs to be a rendered shot, audio goes a long way especially with creature animation to give a sense of scale and force. complete show reels only and again be sure to use a background that is simple enough to set a scene but not distract form the hero piece.

"Artstation and other portfolio platforms are great ways to showcase your work and get build contacts, you will never receive feedback on whips through these platforms save those for Shotgun, Syncsketch or send them directly to contacts" -JL

APA

G. (2013, October 2). Marketing Yourself As An Animator Artist. HULIQ.

http://www.huliq.com/1/84691/marketing-yourself-animator-artist

Vasjukov, E. (2020, November 11). Strategy for CG-Portfolio: Do’s and Dont’s. 80lvl.Com.

https://80.lv/articles/strategy-for-cg-portfolio-do-s-and-dont-s/

https://www.artstation.com/jlmussi

https://www.similarweb.com/website/itch.io/#competitors