Woozworld update!

It's already been 2 months since I've started my job at Woozworld! Time has just flown by, it's crazy. I still love it as much, and more so now than ever. We moved into our new offices last week, to accomodate our rapidly growing team, and the place is great. We're super close to Jean-Talon market, which makes for an awesome neighbourhood, and the studio is sooo much bigger than the previous one. Also, I have a window seat which is pretty sweet!

And most importantly, I've become pretty comfortable with Flash, which really helps the creativity flow. Once you've wrapped your head around the technical stuff, it's actually a lot more enjoyable and simple to go ahead and draw. I started off doing garments only for the first few weeks, which turned out to be a good thing. Outfits are probably the hardest thing to do because the process and file structure is somewhat more complex than for other elements. So I think it's good I got that mastered first.

I was very excited to move on to furnitures and environments afterwards though! Now I'm drawing anything from clothes to chairs to cites and secret grottoes! Best job eveeeeer! :)

I figured I'd show some of the earlier stuff I worked on before we moved, when I was still doing mostly  garments. Everything down here has already been released in the game, and I checked with my boss to make sure I was allowed to show stuff online! Please note that the character isn't one of my own designs but simply our template puppet which we use to draw all of our clothes. All images below are property of Woozworld Inc., and you can see them in game at http://www.woozworld.com/.

In case you're wondering, we always draw the rotations as well. So we end up with 8 drawings for each outfit, which allows the 2D characters to move around in every direction.

Enjoy!

(I assume someone from Woozworld is probably watching again so hi! :))

The Klein Shine

Hey guys!

So as I mentioned in my previous post from (yikes!) a month ago, I had been working on a graphic design contract for someone very special. While representing Ubisoft at the C2MTL event in Montreal this past June, I met Mr. Harry Klein, who likes to present himself as "The Best Shoe Shiner in the World". Needless to say, I haven't seen very many shoe shiners in my life, and so Mr. Klein's stand and his presence at such a high-class event as C2MTL surprised and intrigued me. 

We shared a few conversations, and I soon realized Harry wasn't only a great shoe shiner, but he was also a very opinionated and passionate businessman, who was always wiling to go the extra mile to give his clients the best possible experience. From his official uniform to the classy custom-made leather chairs he designed himself, he spared no details when it came to marketing his services. The only thing he was truly missing was a logo, and the unified branding that goes with it.

Long story short, he asked if I would be willing to create a new visual identity for The Klein Shine. Branding has become over the past 2 years a bit of an on-going personal interest for me, and so I was very happy to be able to try my hand at it once more.

Mr. Klein had a very specific idea what he wanted, and so he requested that the image of a cherry be used as part of the new logo. As he works frequently in large corporate events amongst other businessmen, his presence has frequently been described as "the cherry on top of the cake", as it always adds a little extra touch of unexpected classiness wherever he goes. We both liked the idea, and so I started working.

Above is the option he picked from my initial submission.

I then made some modifications to come up with this final version of the logo.

The business cards, in both French and English.

New stationary paper (I also made a French version).

The final printed cards, which were printed via Moo.com who did an AMAZING job. I highly recommend their site for anyone who wants great quality business cards. The picture doesn't do the printing any justice at all, trust me.

All in all, I'm very happy with the results. I don't pretend to have much experience in graphic design, and all I know is entirely self-thought. But I like to think I managed to capture the essence of Mr. Klein's unique service with this new branding.

Cultural Crossroads 2011-2012

Hey guys!

I haven't posted a lot lately, as I've been very busy with my new illustration job, as well as a little graphic design contract which should be finished over the weekend. I also started doing Bikram yoga (or hot yoga), which is really filling up my weeks.

Some good news though, my graduation film from Concordia University, Remembering How to Smile, which I made back in 2010, is now available online via RCI Vision's website, as part of their Cultural Crossroads 2011-2012 project. They contacted me many weeks ago to get a copy of my film, and it was just released online today. I'm grateful to Radio-Canada for promoting my film through their online channel, as it's stopped touring festivals a long time ago, and hasn't had a very active life since.

Remembering How to Smile is a short film entirely crafted by hand, using stop-motion. All the characters, sets and props are miniatures, most of it handmade, with a few exceptions that were bought at the dollar store and such. You can view the film by clicking on the link below :

Watch Remembering How to Smile on RCIVision.ca

Clyde Henry Productions

In 2010 I had the amazing opportunity of working with an awesome group of artists on a short film called Higglety Pigglety Pop!, which was co-produced by the National Film Board and Warner Home Video.

Higglety was directed by Chris and Maciek, the talented creators of the Academy Award nominated Madame Tutli-Putli. It was an incredible honor to be able to work with them and their equally amazing team of puppeteers, set builders,  animators and VFX artists. At the time I had started as an intern and was later hired as a miniature prop and set builder, my first real job in the filmmaking industry.

I am extremely excited to say I am now reuniting with the Clyde Henry crew on their new short film Cochemare, again a mix of live-action and stop-motion, this time shot in stereoscopic 3D. I will be working with them part-time as a VFX compositor on Nuke when my freelance job at Woozworld allows it. It promises to be a very instructive and interesting project to work on, as I'll be expanding my knowledge of Nuke as well as learning to work in a stereo workflow.

If you'd like to know more about Clyde Henry's work, you can visit their website at www.clydehenry.com

First day at Woozworld!

Technically this was my second day at my new job, but I didn't have time to write last night so bear with me.

So first day at Woozworld was AWESOME! We're located on St-Laurent near Mont-Royal. The studio is fairly big I guess, with about 40-50 employees. (This is the awkward part were you can't remember anyone's name even though you were just introduced to them an hour before...but hey, I'll give myself a few weeks for that.)

I'm lucky to have my formation done by one of my friends from Concordia, Mike, which is super cool. I was also lucky to be able to jump right into production from day 1, which is really motivating. I'm already drawing clothes and hairstyles for some of Woozworld's characters, and sort of figuring out how to do things more efficiently as I go. I'm not super comfortable with Flash yet, but I've already learned a lot just in the past two days, so hopefully by the end of the month I'll be a pro (sort of)!

I'll be working from home for the rest of the week because my new office computer hasn't arrived yet. I'm already looking forward to starting work in my pj's tomorrow! I still can't believe I'm getting paid to draw cartoons. My 10 year-old self would be so excited right now (probably almost as much as my 23 year-old self)!

Here's a little snapshot from the Woozworld universe (none of it created by me). I'll be designing and illustrating a bunch of the clothes, accessories, furnitures, etc. available in the game (there are sooo many already, it's crazy!).

Also I figured I'd show the little clothing and hair design test I had done after my interview (after all, it won't ever be used in the game), which allowed them to evaluate whether or not I'd be good illustrator material or not. Looking back on it and having a learned a bit more on the job, there's a lot more I could have done with it, but hey, it still got me hired so I guess it was good enough!

If you want to learn more about Woozworld, check out their corporate site HERE.

Summer Craze

Hey guys!

So I've been a little inactive around here lately, but with good reasons (of course!). School ended for summer break about a month ago, and I've been suuuuper busy since. To tell you the truth, I can't quite believe it's only been a few weeks. It feels like I've crammed so much awesome stuff into the month of May it really feels like much longer.

So what awesome stuff you say?

Well I started off my break by putting together a simple yet pretty useful little portfolio website to showcase my work and support my many job applications for the summer.

fannyberthiaume.com

Thanks to the awesome people at Centre NAD, I was given the opportunity to participate in a really cool focus group at SAVA Transmedia, a young emerging gaming studio here in Montreal, playtesting one of their upcoming games and discussing it with members of their team.

I was also extremely lucky to land a part-time job with Ubisoft Montreal, hosting their exclusive Interactive Experience Container (basically a kickass 3D presentation to celebrate their 15th anniversary). The said Experience is being presented at several events throughout the summer, namely C2MTL, Chromatic, Mutek & Fantasia.

Not only was this a great experience altogether, allowing me to participate in some of the most exciting creative events in town, but it was also an amazing opportunity to create valuable contacts within the industry. I have met so many cool people, it's been a little dizzying. From these meetings a couple of potential projects may arise, so hopefully there'll be more news about that later on in the summer!

What else is new then? Well I am very excited to say that tomorrow I am starting a new job as a Flash Illustrator at Woozworld Inc.! Woozworld is a gaming/social online platform for tweens, and I will be designing a bunch of visual material for that. I am also proud to say I barely knew anything about Adobe Flash about 4 days before my interview, so it's been a good kick in the butt to finally get familiar with it.

Speaking of learning software, I also had a great opportunity to dust off my old After Effects knowledge with a nifty contract with Campagna Motors, who creates the T-Rex vehicles. I was hired to redesign their opening logo animation for the T-Rex brand, to be used on their instructional consumer videos. Below is the original T-Rex logo, which I did NOT design. I was only given the task to set it in a cool environment and animate it.

You can see the final result HERE.

So I am now getting ready to start a new job which promises to be super fun, gathering some more potential graphic design contracts, and working on securing a few more exciting opportunities for after this contract with Woozworld is done! Life has been so good to me for the past few weeks, hopefully the hard work will keep paying off!

Cheers!

Fanny

Love Is in the Air

Yesterday I had the honor and pleasure to attend the wedding of my friends Nadine and Simon. They're one of the cutest, most inspiring couples I know, and I wish them a ton of wonderful things in their new life together.

For the occasion a drew a little something which I got printed and framed. Love you guys!