[Hawkswift]

Has/does anyone on the list gone there? Was it a good experience? What are the teachers like? I'm looking specifically into the 'Animation Art' program. Has anyone been through it?

Any help/advice would be apreciated, both about this specific school and art schools in general. Thanks.

[Flinthawk]

Well Hawk, I didn't attend the Art Institute of Seattle but I have visited them to check out their work. A group of classmates and I took a 'field trip' into the city to check out the senior galleries. We weren't very impressed...

The good was that I was impressed by the quality of a good bit of their 2D/Illustration work. Some was done in Painter, some in Photoshop but most others were done in traditional mediums. Saw some great sketch portfolios and finished drawings though nothing that completely blew me away like stuff I've seen on this board.
I think they focus a lot on traditional art there. There were also a couple of decent to good 2D animations there.

The bad was actually a lot of the 3D work. The 3D work was thoroughly unimpressive in my eyes since I'd seen classmates and myself do better work in the first semester of our schooling...and this was the best these guys were doing upon graduation? Hmmm. There were a couple impressive 3D models I must say but they never animated. Animations were full of pulling and stretching of vertices and very sloppy modeling. The animation of characters wasn't that great either. Textures were on the whole very bland...to the point of looking like they were just the Standard textures from 3DS Max. Most of the demos I saw said that the artist did such and such using 3DS Max, Lightwave and Photoshop (and maybe one other 3D package I think). What do you need all that for? Their time would have been better spent making something of decent quality than trying to learn every 3D package out there.

So, good was their traditional background, drawings, some paintings, etc....bad was their 3D abilities. My guess is that they just didn't spend much time on the 3D stuff. Choosing to go there would depend on what you want to do with your education. 2D Illustration, go for it unless you find the UW art program better (never seen them). 3D animation and game development, wouldn't be near the top of my list.

Personally, I went to Digipen's Institute of Technology over in Redmond about one or two blocks away from Microsoft and on Nintendo's campus. Here's what I can say about them:

The good was the 3D teaching. We learned a lot about how to go about creating animations in 3D from the storyboarding/planning/scheduling stage to the final splicing of our demo reels together. We learned a couple different techniques on how to model and animate and texture environments. We learned about cinematography and how it applies to our avi's, creative writing and we also did 2D animation as well. Our 2D animation was taught by one who has and still does occasionally work in the industry doing freelance storyboards and animation for Saturday morning cartoons and such (Sabrina, Land Before Time, Lionhearts to name a few that I remember) Most of our teachers have been in the games or animation industry at one point of another.

The bad was the lack of training in traditional art. I think it's mostly because we started from the beginning like you would in a high school art class and went from there so there was just not enough time to go over things in great detail. We did get weekly lectures from a great anatomy teacher though, ironically a teacher at the Seattle Institute, heh...name's Abbot if I remember correctly. In my two sittings at his lectures I learned a LOT. I hear he is now the regular art teacher for Digipen (not sure if he still teaches for the Institute) and that he's working them hard but getting results. We also never got much time to really learn Photoshop to the extent that would be optimal for taking any job requiring it's use. I also wanted to explore painting and other mediums but again, no time.

So final comparison was that Digipen had good 3D modeling and animation but the 2D drawing and Illustration wasn't given mcuh focus. All in all, Digipen focused on the things the Institute didn't focus on and vice-versa which is why I say it depends on what you're looking to do. For games development, I'd pick Digipen even looking at it from a neutral view...for solely 2D stuff you can find better. Even some game companies that came by to interview us for jobs and internships were laughing at how modest we were when asked our asking prices because we were quoting low compared to the Seattle grads. These companies laughed because they'd much sooner pay one of our students the Seattle asking price than pay the Seattle grad our asking price. Not all companies had this reaction but it was a common one. Oh, the other thing working for Digipen as far as getting a job in the games industry...we've got contacts galore.

Well, that's all I have to say. It will certainly seem like I've hyped Digipen over Seattle (though things weren't all roses there at Digipen) but that's only natural because I know a lot more about Digipen than I do the Institute so I've tried to be as objective as possible. Hope this helps you decide. If you want to check out Digipen go to www.digipen.edu

-Flinthawk

P.S. Interesting note - close to half our class has jobs in the industry, making anywhere from $30-50K, after only a year of school...including myself

[This message has been edited by Flinthawk (edited December 06, 2000).]

[This message has been edited by Flinthawk (edited December 06, 2000).]

[Skeezer]

Art Institute?

Henry Cogswell College!

Bachelors Degree, 2 and 2/3 years, professional staff that worked and work in the industry currently.

HCC has an advisory board made up of the likes of

Eric Chauvin-Matte artist for Contact, StarWars Special Edition, Hook, The Mask, StarTrek Voyager, Babylon 5, Vertical Limit

Ian McCaig-Concept artist for StarWars Phantom Menace, Illustrator.

Lynn Gura-Lead artist for Lucas Arts

Along with several others that I can't quite remember.

Dave Benton, 3d instructor, worked at Softimage in its beginning days, currently owns his own company.

Bob Abrams, 2d instructor, animated for Disney and Warner Bros, and worked in the advertising industry.

Just to offer a few examples.
Check out the web site www.henrycogswell.edu

-Skeez

[Blitz]

cough,cough,sucks,cough,cough

Cogswell is the way to go....Thats where I tought Skeezer everything he knows...or was it the other way around.

Blitz

[nova]

*cough cough sputter gasp cough sneeze wheeze cough sputter hack cough sneeze wipe*

amen skeezer, blitz..
sent in my application two days ago

a friend of my friend who i talk to on occasion checked out AIS and was convinced he would go there no matter what. but he said it was too expensive for what it had to offer or something like that.

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*nova
!

[This message has been edited by Nova (edited December 06, 2000).]

[Xcal]

Art Institute is very expensive, and for what? an associate's? My opinion has been that if you're going to go to the trouble of getting a degree, it might as well be a BA. They are much more respected than associates.

More money does not equal better training. In a field like digital art, it's still art. I think raditional art and animation skills are more important than hi-tech 3d software training. Why? because it takes people years of traning with the best education to be very good artists (sometimes even that doesn't work). But depending on your effort and committment, you can teach yourself 3d modelling and animation software within months.

That being said, if I was in the market for an education, I'd opt for a cheap but solid 4 year degree from UW or something, and spend time on your own with 3d. Those 10lb books really can help. Actually I might go back to UW to finish up my design degree.

[ForgottenDavey]

Hawkswift, I went there for two quarters, last fall and spring, but I had to drop it because it is so freakin expencive. I'll have to say if you can go there full time and not have to work at all, it's a good way to go. But there is really no way to work a lot of hours at a job and go to school there. There's just too much damn stuff to do.
Also I have a couple friends that still go there, and are about five quarters into it, and they really like it and they are both doing really good there. One of them already has a job with a small game company doing modeling. He does some wicked low poly shit.

I hope my rambling can help you out in your discision. Drop me a line if you want to know anything else.

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They call him the ForgottenDavey because; wait a minute, who are we talking about again? [email protected]

[Skeezer]

Man I had to dig to find this. Someone came to the Henry Cogswell College open house on Saturday, and listed sijun forums as their source for finding out about the college.

Who was it?

What did you think?

just curious...

-Skeez

[slice56]

has anyone heard of full sail? tell me if you have, i really need to know...thanks!