#WinningWednesday: The Challenge of Breaking into the Industry
Featured Image: Michelle Lin
Michelle Lin is a talented animation artist and designer with an interest in character design and visual development for animation. She pursued animation while she was in school at the University of Southern California and with hard work and a healthy dose of realistic expectations, Michelle is on the path of her dreams in Burbank, California!
Michelle Lin
Website | Portfolio | LinkedIn | Twitter
Breaking in is the difficult part
Competition in the industry is difficult for beginners and most studios prefer someone who can dive into a project with little training.
Michelle knew she had to continue building her skills despite having graduated from school. Improving her design and painting skills became a top priority and she took a year of classes as she freelanced to help develop those skills further.
Consequently, Michelle to work harder on what she was doing in order to build the best portfolio and an animation demo reel she could to showcase her work. Soon she had an impressive 2D animation reel she could use to complement her illustration portfolio.
“I gather a lot of reference images for my subject. I also looked at work from artists I admire for inspiration, and used it to challenge me to try new things.”
With the help of her demo reel and portfolio, Michelle landed an internship at LAIKA/House and stayed there for three months. While she was there, she learned more about the realistic expectations of artists in her field. It helped her find out what she needed to land a job as professional artist. A month after her internship ended, she landed her current studio job at Wild Canary Animation Company.
The best part about the experience so far has been that she has found a group of people who love animation, movies, and art as much as she does.
“I love the show I’m working on right now called Miles From Tomorrowland for Disney Junior. I don’t think I can say too much about it, but I know it’s going to be amazing!”
She’s found that her friends and coworkers are all the amazing artists in the industry, and uses them as her inspiration. Just by being around them she’s learned a lot about her skills and what she needs to do to continue to improve. And during her downtime, she people watches at coffee shops and sketches them on breaks.
Her illustrations and character designs are the result of her intense study of people and her animation heroes. You can see the level of detail and thought she put behind each piece in her portfolio.
Parting advice
“Starting out, I really had no idea what I was doing, so I was pretty much taking on anything that was coming my way.”
I love Michelle’s realism when I interviewed her. She said that because it’s so early in her career, she felt that no one will learn anything from her. However, over the last several months my designer interviews showed me that designers all feel that way in the beginning! Michelle is an inspiring example of an artist who has the dedication to continue pursuing her dream despite the heavy competition out there. I admire her for sticking to it!
Furthermore, don’t worry about not knowing exactly what you will do once you leave school. Many designers have the same problem as you do. You may need to do some odd jobs to pay the bills, but work on improving yourself and you’ll figure it out soon enough.
The majority of designers figured out what they love to do when they hit the real world, and there are still thousands of designers that need to hear that they aren’t alone in feeling like their work is getting them anywhere. Michelle’s best advice to them:
Michelle knew what she liked to do and knew what types of jobs she should pursue more. And along the way, she learned the power of “No” and how to turn down the projects that didn’t interest her too.
She isn’t an instant success story.
However, she has landed a job in her field after several sleepless nights and dedicated hard work. Her time and perseverance has been rewarded, and she’s pretty happy so far with her successes.
Stay realistic about the industry and what you can do, and you’ll be able to break into the industry as long as you’re ready to work for it!
