Portfolio review for Academy Art Students

Sept. 27th 6pm - 830pm
Bradley Hall
Academy Art University
Event: Nick Stohlman and crew Portfolio Review

Chuck recently invited a group of us to speak with students about our experiences after finishing our schooling at the Art Academy. It was a great experience and I'm so happy that Chuck made this happen. The school listed us as:

Nick Stohlman (Sega Studios, SF) - yay video games!
Grant Alexander (Pixar Studios) - yay tv & movies!
Chris Carman (Multiverse) - yay comics & video games!
Albert Truong (Fluid/SGN) - yay tv and video games!

Aside from giving our school experiences, we also talked about our work experience - what the industry expects, what makes a good portfolio, and the many pluses and minuses it has to offer. We were also living proof that "YES... you can get a job just doodling all day."

I think one of the biggest points we tried to emphasize was portfolio requirements - the do's and dont's. Starting out is hard - one advice was to have a diverse portfolio to show that you can tackle any job out there. But if you really want that dream job, you would have to spend a lot of hard work to tailor your portfolio in that direction. Make sure to get feedback from other artists, particularly ones working in your industry.

Illustrating is great fun, and sometimes at work I take it for granted - the fact that someone is *paying* me to just doodle all day still boggles my mind.

Here's good ole Chuck introducing us all.

From left to right: Little Nicky, the big Bert-man, Chrissy Fields, and Grantsy.

Here I am with my little mouse for the laptop cuz i had a slide show. Rub Rub Rub!

Oh Noes! I did a little Palin and mumbled incoherently for a bit! I didn't expect to see so many students? Must've been at least a hundred of you guys. Thanks to Grant for helping out and asking questions for me to answer :)

Some students took A LOT of notes :o

Others perused through our portfolios we brought.

"hahahaha Chris, you're silly!"

By the end of it, we had a long Q&A and got a chance to look at portfolios. I was really impressed. A lot of them were VERY good - lots better than what I was doing during their time. 

Wowie Zowie! Again, it was great experience and loads of fun. Thanks to Chuck and Nick for putting this together. I hope the students found our little shinDig helpful for whatever artistic career direction they decide to go into.

photos by Megan Wolfe