Verdiana Pagnano – On cycling, concept and character development

So once graduated from university I started freelancing (until 2020) and went on exploring some areas of the creative industry such as designing children books, cycling apparel, music videos and more.

Working as a freelancer allowed me to understand and confirm that my style was way better suited to animation and illustration, so the main reason I decided to join the one-year MA Animation Production course at AUB was to finally improve some of my missing knowledge, to make a stronger portfolio in visual development, character design, and prop design.

Over the course of the year, I faced many challenges, but my lack of knowledge in both storytelling and character exploration was my main focus. I really wanted to include those two aspects in my final project and create a solid portfolio to eventually share after the end of the course.

During the first two units, I explored as much as I could, including character and prop design, concept art, and background, which led me to produce a rich body of work to help me decide on my final project. My main goal for the final unit was to work on a feature film story.

My previous experience as a freelancer helped me to set an important rule: every 10 days ask for feedback from friends or on LinkedIn to connections made previously in the creative industry, to understand better where to improve or focus in each project and area to cover.

While I was at AUB, I temporarily stopped my freelance career to focus on the course, but I worked very hard on structuring a future plan on how to achieve some career goals after the end of the academic year. As a self-employed artist, I already had a network of clients and people from the creative industry built over the years, so, as I wanted not only to get better at making and maintaining connections, but also to improve some skills to achieve a stronger portfolio, I decided that every 10 days I would reach out on LinkedIn and share some work in progress, to get as much feedback as possible.

I have always had a huge passion for cycling and have often included it within my work for university – in fact, my three-minute Animation graduate film from 2018 was entirely focused on my passion for the sport. I’ve acknowledged that cycling and bicycles have not been represented that often in animation so it was a good opportunity for me to explore the subject during the MA once again, but more from a character and concept development perspective, rather than actual animation.

As I wanted to explore more of such areas, I found it very useful to join a few online courses from Schoolism, which helped me gain more confidence before approaching the final unit. These included gesture drawing, an introduction to visual development, and characters for animated film.

Also, to get out of my comfort zone more, and push some boundaries, I decided to attend a life drawing session, where I was able to push my usage of digital brushes and body representation even more. Instead of using traditional drawing tools such as paper, charcoal or other mediums, I’ve opted for a digital approach by using Procreate on my iPad. It definitely helped me to explore some areas of character development.

My overall experience at AUB was amazing: starting from having achieved the majority of the goals I set for myself, I also met very talented artists who inspired me daily to try new creative approaches and to experiment as much as possible with drawing techniques and styles. It was extremely important for me to have a few years of experience as a freelancer in London, because it allowed me to get a first approach on the world out there, plus, most importantly, the work environment.

The advice I would give to new students who want to join MA Animation Production at AUB in the future would be to think about their current skills and identify aspects of their work that might need an improvement. Writing a list of goals definitely helped me to get through the year and approach every unit with more enthusiasm and dedication.