Quick Evolution in my CG Job in Tokyo

Hahaa... from the title, it means I'm now working in a 3rd company now. I guess a lot of people might think "what is wrong with you, Kent? It's not even close to a year yet, and you have started a 3rd job?". Well, you could say that, but there's always insight story that never been told. Anyway, the true story will only be told at the good timing. At this moment, lets just keep it as it is, or rather as it looks like. hahaa...



Well, first job was supposed to be a year, but ended up with early termination. Actually legally it was 6 months contract on legal paper. One year was based on verbal.

Second job was supposed to last me till October this year, but early termination was upon me again due to some reason. The reason that given to me was that I wasn't competent as compared to another colleague of mine, which by the way, there were only 2 hired CG artists in the office, including me. The reasons which were conveyed to me seemed unfair to me, but I didn't fight for it. I was calm and I guess i'm mature enough to discuss with them with my own opinion, and even apologised for my so-called incompetence.

Well, what is over is over. I'm still glad to work there before and learned something new. And I really learned a lot from my colleague. He's really a good CG artist. Very pro indeed. Compare to him who has 4-5 years of CG experience, I admit defeat.
Well, I think I'm not gonna further discuss this on this blog, since it's already over and I'm now happy with my new job. To me, without getting out a cave, you never know there might be better new cave. Hope this new cave could last me some time. hahaaa... Praying Hard! =D

Anyway, it's really an eye opener and great experience for going to several interviews in Japan. I have tonnes of experience in interviews when I was working in Singapore. None of them ever worried me before, but this time, it's totally different situation due to the japanese environment and atmosphere, i was totally almost worry to death. (sorry, over-exagerrated, haha...) XD

I was so worried about my conversation problem. Though I improved little bit ever since I first came here, I think I wasn't ready for the speedy conversation of the Japanese. Most of the time they were so fast until I couldn't possibly have 1 second to process the previous or next line that they said. In other words, they spoke 3 sentences in 1.5 seconds, and by the time I finished understanding the first 2 sentences, I missed the next, or vice versa. hahaa...

Well, that was what I was worrying about. So I prepared myself by learning more official japanese words or vocabulary few days before the interviews commence. And they did really help much during the interviews. At least when I heard the key words that I've learned, I understand more quickly and process other sentences faster. hahaaa... Though, I still didn't quite understand most part of their conversation, but I was still able to understand their questions and answered them with my lousiest broken japanese, including with some obvious hand-action gestures. muahahaha.... XD

It was really an experience. Something new that I explored my own, with my own strength.
I applied for few job agencies before I looked up my own. But obviously none of them could help much, so I decided to do it on my own by sending resume and demoreel manually to their company postbox. It was my first experience to write japanese resume, and their format here is a bit different from what I've known back in our own countries. They have a standard type of way to write resume, and you could easily buy the template in any of the stationary stores or convenient stores. Since I don't have a printer (and I also couldn't afford one), I write my own with pen. And I heard from my friends that writing resume manually by pen shows more sincerity in their working culture. And from the handwritings, they could somehow roughly justify your personality or some kind. hahaa.. I was surprised when I heard that. Really can justify? The only personality that I can tell from the handwriting is that whether or not the person is lazy or sleepy head when he's writing the words. hahaa...

Well, long story short, thank God, I finally found this job, whose the boss is kind enough to give me the chance to try it out although he knows there might be little communication problems during work. And my current boss is a fun person though he's around 40s or near 50s. He himself is an artist if not mistaken. He's a kind and good person. Very well respected and approachable by everyone in the office. When comes to animations acting, he looks energetic especially when he explained to me what he wanted. And he's clear what he wants, that's the boss that I respect.

This company consists of 20 over cg artists. Totally japanese environment. No more english speaking this time. Seriously japanese commando training now. hahaha...
Current company working on few different projects. Mainly TV anime currently. There were other commercials or opening sequences were done by them in the past too. Depending on projects subbed by other big companies, they use different 3D platforms, namely Maya, Max & XSI. But for sure, this company doesn't use Mo-Cap. hahahaa... coz the boss like key-framed animations, and when we talked about pixar animations during the first interview with him, he was excited telling me that there's a line saying "No Motion Capture is used" during the ending credits. haha.. He's fun person indeed. =)

I'm currently assigned to work on a piece of 3D opening theme sequence for Votoms. Not sure if any of you guys still remember this old anime in the past. haha.. I guess the major company is working on the 3D version and gonna release on DVD on Oct this year. I guess they outsourced to our company to do certain part of the animation, which is now I'm working on the opening song sequence.



It's been a week now since my first day in this company. So far I worked almost 11 hours a day.
Almost everyone knocked off after 10pm. I wonder if their homes are so near that they don't have to worry about traveling. haha.. but for me, I need to leave little early (though still late) since I need to travel 1 hour back home. It's tiring.



I started work from 10am, and most of the time knocked off around 9pm or 10pm, depending how fast I finished my work. There's no limit of frames or seconds for me to animate per day, but seems like I'm expected to animate as much as I could each day. The opening sequence is around 1 minute in total. I guess I might need to finish all animations within the next 1-2 weeks time. Well, despite the long hours with little stress, I think I still enjoy animating the characters. So far I've been animating 2 humans (1 guy 1 girl) and 2 fighting robots namely AT-Scope Dog (the green robot from the picture above). More fighting scenes to come next week. hahaa.. It's gonna be fun, but I guess might feel a bit stress also. hahaaa... anyway, I will try to balance it out and keep my heart relax. Lately my body is getting weak. I think it's time to be health-conscious.

Ok guys, thanks for reading my boring story again. hahaa... Thanks to those who concerned about me. Just to let you know, I'm fine now. No matter what happens to me, I won't give up easily.
And I also want to apologise to some of you that I didn't tell you guys about my situation earlier. May be I felt that I didn't want to invite more questions when I was busy preparing and looking for new job, though I know I would receive kind concerns from you guys. May be I just wanted to concentrate without thinking much other things. I knew I would find a way. And I'm glad I did. hahaa...
Well, nothing is impossible. If you have the will, God will place you a way.
Have faith! p(^-^)q
Have a nice weekend! \(^0^)/

p/s: I'm gonna watch Ratatouille 2nd time with my friends tomorrow (sunday). Woohoo...

~End~