I have a website now!

You can find it at here  or at www.ericaanim.com!  I wanted to have ericamiles.com as my domain name, but it was already taken by a different Erica Miles who writes 'edgy, paranormal romance novels'.  I promise that it's not me...probably... :)  Anyways, check it out if you like!  It is also linked to this blog, so you can always find your way back!  Hurray!

Paper Adventures

For my USCAD graduation show way back in 2010 I did a sort of multiplane camera type piece consisting of different layers of a background separated slightly to give the illusion of depth.  Ever since then I've been playing around with different techniques to get a similar look.  The amazingly talented Brittney Lee has been a huge inspiration to me with her super cool paper sculpts so I decided to try some out myself!  I had never done anything like this before so I kind of made it up as I went along.

The first one was for the Saskatoon Exhibition's Showcase of the Arts last year.  Their theme class was 'Blast from the Past' so I decided to do a piece with a blast waaaay in the past.

I started out with a rough sketch

And then cut everything out of paper.  It was a lot of cutting...I used my trusty glue stick to put it all together.  I like how it turned out, but I would have liked to get a bit more depth into it.  I may still add some accents with paint. 

The next two I did for my friends for their birthdays!  They are both big Disney fans like myself so I decided to do a scene from the Little Mermaid and the Sword in the Stone.  Looking through my dvd's for scene's was pretty entertaining.  Especially seeing the individual frames of Ursula during Poor Unfortunate Souls. They were pretty fabulous.

I especially enjoyed this one.

They ended up having more depth than the Blast from the Past one and I really like how they turned out!

I gave her some lovely red nail polish with paint.

The second scene that I chose was the wizard's duel between Merlin and Madam Mim.   It's just a really wonderful scene.

I made sure to add the 'magic' accents afterwards.

This last one was a gift for my aunt for her 50th birthday.  We both really like dragons, because really, who doesn't?  

I did a rough sketch of a dragon hanging out with a giant '50' and looking pretty excited about eating some cake.

I made the '50' out of foam and the rest was cut out of paper.  I had a bit more room to work with in the frame I had, so I tried to push the levels of depth and make it as three dimensional as I could.

He's pretty pumped about that cake.

Framed!

My aunt really liked it but wasn't so thrilled that everyone would see that she was 50 when she hung it up on her wall... :)

Wire Sculptures!

So I have a ton of older stuff to post on here, because I've been really bad about posting things closer to when they actually happen... Anyway, some wire sculptures!  I took a wire sculpture workshop with the lovely Don Hefner last November where he taught us a bunch of cool techniques for creating awesome things out of wire.  We made grasshoppers, snakes, dragonflies, and a bunch of other things.

Grasshoppers and dragonflies and bears, oh my!

I gave the bear to my dad for Christmas and made my mom and sister something as well.

A reindeer.

And a Hip Hop Gangsta Penguin.

Warning: The following post may be slightly mushy and/or sappy

I am officially now an alumni of Animation Mentor!

The past two years have been crazy. I have to admit that after my less than positive experience at my previous animation school my view of the animation community was slightly jaded, and I wasn't even sure if I wanted to continue in animation.  Thankfully AM showed me just how amazing and supportive the animation community can be!  My mentors and classmates constantly inspired me with their work and helped to push my work farther than even I thought it could go.  The whole AM community was so welcoming and supportive and I felt like I was a part of a special family from the moment I had 'stepped' on campus. I've learned so much in my time at AM from the lectures and critiques and from my fellow students work as well. 
  
I honestly can't say enough about AM and how much the past 2 years have meant to me.  I have to say a HUGE thank you to Bobby, Shawn and Carlos for creating the school in the first place as well as everyone working to make AM the wonderful place that it is!  Also a GINORMOUS thank you to my 6 fabulous mentors, Scott Lemmer, Pete Paquette, Rich Fournier, Dimos Vrysellas, Peter Kelly and Greg Whittaker and my Maya Springboard instructor Jared Garcia!  Without these wonderful and talented fellows I would most certainly not be where I am today!


Also a VERY LARGE shout out and thank you to all of my classmates and peer buddies!  Y'all were super supportive and took the time to give me some incredibly helpful feedback.  You also produced some beautiful work which inspired me to continue to push my work.  I hope to keep in touch and work with all of y'all some day!


If anyone reading this post is interested in getting into character animation I would 100% recommend Animation Mentor.  The people are amazing, it's crazy fun (although it is a lot of work) and there's nothing like learning from mentors who are currently working in the industry! They're not even paying me, people!


To sum it all up, the last 2 years have been incredibly challenging and a lot of work, but they've also been 2 of the best years of my life.  AM has said that they're in the business of making dreams come true and I definitely feel like I'm one step closer to mine.


THANKS FOR EVERYTHING!


-Love, Erica