Start at the Start

Hey! My name is Owen Connolly, an animation student from the North East of England and you've just clicked on my blog, so well done! This is the dump for everything in my creative life, from illustration to animation, doodle to final final final product, it's hear to smear over the walls of my blog.

I'm only a fledgling creative all things considered, as I started my education in art and design a few years ago, with my first proper jump into the animation world only beginning 6 months ago! Though I may be new to the education side of things, my obsession, love, and study of animation has existed as long as I can remember, with childhood cartoons, video games, and films being the best, most memorable part of my young life.

What started as a keen hobby, has since evolved into more of a serious thing to pursue, taking those memories I have for this media I hold dear, and looking to recreate it and bring it to a new generation, and at the very least, be a hand in that process!

You might be able to work it out from the whole look of everything around here, but I want to mainly focus on everything that is bright, colourful, and with a chance of fluff. That's not to say I don't want to flex my muscles elsewhere, as I also have a huge love of high octane action, horror, and brutal imagery. Good to have some yin and yang right?

As for my practice, I mainly want to concentrate on 3D modelling, rigging, and animation therein. Though mentioning film, TV and gaming earlier, gaming was the largest influence on my childhood and my modern day tastes, and as such, would like to focus on an area of the industry that would best accompany that style of work flow. As such, I'm looking to focus on programs such as Cinema 4D, Zbrush, Maya, and Blender.

In my time at university (the next 3 years from now), I hope and aspire to create a huge number of independent animations, experiments and also look to increase my traditional 2D physical skills, using my fresh new drawing tablet! I've been having a ton of fun with it and it's been fantastic to find a style of drawing that motivates and invigorates me. Although I love 3D animation and look to focus on it, I can't deny that traditional and digital illustration is still a huge passion of mine, following artists the world over and getting more and more motivated to create work of their caliber.

So it's going to be a very bumpy but exciting roller coaster on the years ahead, and I look forward to looking back on this first post in the years to come and realize just how far I've come! While the thought of many long years ahead, not knowing what the future might hold, for some people may be scary, it couldn't be more of the opposite for me. I'm excited to see where my teachers, my peers, my new connections, and ultimately my own animation can take me in the years to come, and I'm excited for all readers of this blog to join that journey with me!

So.....let's go! :D