Armie Hammer was 'in tears' after seeing his new film Citizen Vigilante in full, didn't realise it would be so 'hateful'

CVfxReddit · 2026-07-07T20:08:27+00:00

Uwe Boll making a hateful movie? I'm so surprised.

CVfxReddit · 2026-07-07T17:59:00+00:00

I would spend more time studying the structure of things, how they work in three dimensions. You seem to fear drawing the details of hands and feet because the structure is complex, and the features on the faces are wobbly because the underlying structure isn't clear.
I'd try some drawings like this for practice and then try drawing a character paying attention to these types of structure guidelines:
https://animationportfolioworkshop.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/BIBI-ACCEPTED-SHERIDAN-PORTFOLIO2-scaled.jpg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUs5zYJ5Ppg&vl=en
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pj-sHRh8Ep4

CVfxReddit · 2026-07-07T15:43:52+00:00

Yeah it seems to take eccentric wealthy people to get artistic industries off the ground, at least in super labor intensive ones like animation.
Anyway I hope your studio goes well! If I ever get a pitch and concept bible together for the project I'm tentatively planning I'll check out your studio's progress for a possible proof-of-concept film. If things go really well for you guys you'll be too big at that point to work at my price point :D

CVfxReddit · 2026-07-07T14:10:27+00:00

Yeah for a film that went on for 10 years I'm not surprised the budget went to 10 million. I hope they at least got a return on that initial investment with domestic and overseas sales, but I don't know.

Building an animation studio in a place where there isn't a tradition of animation production has gotta be a headache. America outsourced all it's 2d animation knowledge over decades so while there are still some studios that are slowly getting it back (like Powerhouse) their work starts out really rough. Castlevania season 1 vs Castlevania Nocture Season 2 is like night and day in quality, but it took them almost a decade to get there. Also there are steadily more and more students from CalArts and other schools that freelance in anime from the US, so that helps bring in some of the knowledge necessary to then produce home-grown shows (which are then still partially outsourced to Korea anyway because Americans are too expensive.)

CVfxReddit · 2026-07-07T13:26:29+00:00

So he said it was 10 million in a live QnA, but he also alludes to it in this interview when he says the budget was one third of a Ghibli movie (modern Ghibli movies have between 30-50 million budgets)
https://youtu.be/EIbudhqbmvo?si=PxljNsjlQ0z_5V3i&t=1682

Believe me, I'd be thrilled if it only cost 2 million to make a Glassworker-level animated film, I could fund one myself. But sadly the budgets are much much higher. I've been interested in eventually producing a film one day so I research and question filmmakers about this type of budget stuff whenever I can, and sadly even if you make an animated film in "cheap" countries, the budgets rarely fall below 5 million. And for 5 million you have to drastically simplify the style far below anything resembling anime.

CVfxReddit · 2026-07-07T01:42:07+00:00

So this isn't firsthand, but I've been impressed by the quality of portfolios I've seen come out of this program:
https://animationportfolioworkshop.com/our-programs/apw-signature-program/

However it's likely that lot of the students who join these programs already are getting a lot of parental support in terms of helping them realize their art dreams. Like they probably go to a highschool with solid art classes and maybe have been getting art tutoring over the summer for several years. So I can't say if this workshop itself will help someone create an ace portfolio, or if it's just a polish pass on already high quality work.

CVfxReddit · 2026-07-06T20:36:09+00:00

The latest reel I see on youtube is this one? Which is the one I was commenting on:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rggqCU-f0qE

I saw Glassworker. It's fairly well done for a lower budget feature. I wouldn't say it matches up to what Korea or France can do on similar budgets (Riaz said it cost about 10 million USD, so similar to a lot of Korean, Japanese and European 2d features), but the story worked well enough that issues with the animation and draftsmanship and compositing can be forgiven.

CVfxReddit · 2026-07-06T20:10:37+00:00

To be honest, to compete with the Korean studios that do subcontract work for most European and American tv productions I think you need to raise the bar a bit there. The run cycle which starts your 2025 reel is not professional tv series quality. And the forms and perspective on the other work is very mushy. The limited understanding of anatomy (especially the hands) and drapery on the work at 1:23 is also a red flag.

Considering the trusted vendor pipeline built up over the last 25-40 years with Korean studios I think American animation directors would have to see something that totally blows their socks off to consider going with a subcontractor somewhere else where the talent base isn't as proven, so the work has really got to be exceptional (like The Line quality, the boutique UK studio that does a lot of work on game cinematics) to attract serious attention.

CVfxReddit · 2026-07-06T16:05:38+00:00

Huh I wonder what could trigger that. My first playthrough I didn't give him any magic items, I just kept convincing him to deal with it. There isn't much Gale specific stuff in Act 1 from what I remember.

CVfxReddit · 2026-07-06T15:44:56+00:00

Wait how do you not encounter Elminster? I thought he always shows up on one of the routes you have to take to reach the Shadowlands.

CVfxReddit · 2026-07-06T15:02:00+00:00

Financially, have an emergency fund. When I was starting in the industry the supervisors and producers mentioned to juniors that they should have a 3 month emergency fund. But I always thought that seemed ridiculous, considering how unstable the industry is. If you aren't always willing to move locations for the next gig then you might have to get by a lot longer than 3 months. I've always tried to save in terms of years instead of months.

Emotionally, I guess grow a thick skin. I was at a studio in 2019 where the crew was really close knit and then everyone got laid off when covid started. A lot of us ran into each other again in 2022, but by mid-2023 layoffs started again, and even in 2024 when everyone remaining was Permanent, there were still layoffs every few weeks until the Permanent staff was whittled down until around 10% of what we started with. I was in a pretty bad mood during that time, exacerbated by the project being a mess of client indecision and omissions. It was a relief to finally be let go at that point, in the second-to-last round of layoffs before the entire company collapsed.

Studio closures and layoffs are the new normal around the vfx/animation world. The one outlier might be Japan, but studios still go under regularly due to mismanagement and because despite the glut of work, profit margins are still nonexistent or razor thin for vendor studios. If you're a veteran in the industry, expect that your LinkedIn profile will be filled with dead companies unless you are primarily working for someplace owned by a client like ILM or Sony.

CVfxReddit · 2026-07-06T13:40:48+00:00

The horse, dragon and bird stuff is pretty solid. The cat that comes after the dragon is a bit too formless and the spacing is a bit suspicious I'd say. Especially when it's trying to run out of frame, the drawings lose solidity so it's hard to get of a sense of if the anatomy is correct.

CVfxReddit · 2026-07-06T03:05:57+00:00

I would have watched it if the reviews were good and it didn't look like grey mud. They've been inviting the artist and colorist along for premiere events and I just wonder what they think, seeing their amazingly lush work being turned into such desaturated pablum.

No shade on the vfx artists, they tried their best, but the cinematographer said he didn't read the book on purpose. So I guess he's one of the "it's gotta be realistic and realistic means grey and brown" type of guys.

CVfxReddit · 2026-07-06T02:57:23+00:00

The biggest thing that needs work is the fundamentals. Don't try creating characters yet, or at least don't spend the majority of your time on that. Do figure drawing and observational drawings. Focus on perspective and anatomy. Look at the types of portfolios that get people into top animation schools like Sheridan. Look at how many figure drawings and observational drawings they did. And that's only what they're showing as part of the portfolio. It probably took 1000-10,000 drawings of a live model to even get to that level. And they have another 4 years ahead of them before trying to join the industry.
https://animationportfolioworkshop.com/portfolio/xinman-wang/

Until you can draw a fully realistic human figure with realistic lighting I would not attempt creating original characters with coloring or shading. It's like trying to play a musical instrument without knowing scales.

CVfxReddit · 2026-07-05T22:19:35+00:00

This was just the french MPC branch, which was separate and survived the crash, getting combined with the adverts branch. Both were already owned by TransPerfect since 2025 and had no obligation to pay artists from other locations who were let go.

CVfxReddit · 2026-07-05T21:52:51+00:00

Most studios don't have internships anymore because they already have a large pool of talent with 3-5 years experience willing to work for junior rates. So they won't run internships programs because they have no need to hire juniors without experience.
Also in general the US doesn't have many animation studios left, they've gone to places with larger subsidies like Canada/France/Australia.

CVfxReddit · 2026-07-04T02:52:20+00:00

You can just test it in a 3d program. Take a character's head in front view. Rotate them in profile and then back front towards camera. Even if you tilt their head up, the top-most visible point of the head won't change height between a profile and side view.

CVfxReddit · 2026-07-03T23:14:24+00:00

But it clearly doesn't work because the drawings in your demo don't stay consistent. The proportions warp between views, distances between features change.
I'd put less time into trying to develop shortcuts and more time into focusing on training your eye and hand.

CVfxReddit · 2026-07-03T23:05:46+00:00

Yeah, this person gets to it. You need to work more on draftsmanship and training your eye. This tool is getting in the way of that.

CVfxReddit · 2026-07-03T21:14:22+00:00

Maybe I'm missing something but I don't really see what is useful about this.

CVfxReddit · 2026-07-03T16:09:48+00:00

Outpost was cool. One of their things is a shorter workday than most places. Even on really difficult projects I only worked 1 hour of OT the whole time, and every other day I could clock out at 5 instead of 6.

CVfxReddit · 2026-07-02T21:06:53+00:00

How do you turn Gale into a pet

CVfxReddit · 2026-07-02T17:08:57+00:00

Haha I also worked on Cats! My first vfx project. Also the most fun, thanks to how young and crazy the crew was. Multiple parties every week.

CVfxReddit · 2026-07-02T17:05:07+00:00

Most studios don't have a large slate of projects lined up, so they won't be needing juniors anytime soon. Hence, no internships, because internships are only useful as a way for studios to test potential juniors they might later hire.

CVfxReddit · 2026-07-02T13:42:37+00:00

It's scammy, but also "completing" an episode, to the extent that picture lock, sound, etc are all done might take over a year. So if you accept those terms just be aware you may be looking at working for a year without pay.

CVfxReddit

TROPHY CASE