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I am always attracted to emotionally impactful animation and imagery, and I think this is also the direction I currently want to explore. In my past works, I also made many attempts. I always started from personal experiences when telling stories, such as my childhood, my dogs, and my understanding of dreams. Through the emotions expressed in these stories, I hoped to emotionally affect audiences who may have similar experiences, or even those who do not.

I have always been searching for the most suitable ways to express these emotions. I tried using calm and narrative language to tell documentary-style childhood stories, and I also tried expressing emotions only through music and visuals. Next, I want to step out of this framework and no longer limit myself to telling personal experiences, but instead better integrate thoughts and emotions into richer stories.

Perhaps this way of thinking began with Pixar’s animated film “SOUL”, which I like very much. Pixar’s animated films always bring people very deep emotional resonance. Although they contain many fantastical narrative elements, the most moving parts are often the simplest moments and the most ordinary feelings that everyone experiences in daily life. These emotions are infinitely amplified through animation and conveyed into the hearts of the audience.

I really like how animation can transform emotions and feelings that are difficult to describe into concrete visuals, rhythm and sound. Even if every person interprets the story differently, audiences can still feel the atmosphere and emotions that the work wants to convey. I think this process of transforming abstract emotions into perceivable experiences is extremely interesting, and it also makes me want to continue exploring the possibilities of animation as a medium for emotional expression.

Over the past two years of studying animation, I have gradually completed some works and also done many additional exercises. However, they were usually very fragmented, so recently I have been trying to organise my portfolio from the past two years. In order to make the portfolio clearer and more targeted, I made a simple classification of my existing works.

One part consists of stories built around characters. These works usually contain more detailed character design sheets and turnarounds. While organising them, I also noticed that I am better at stylised cartoon characters and animal character design.

Another part of my animation works contains characters that are more tightly bound to the stories themselves. I usually prefer using more simplified and line-based designs to tell these stories.

I discovered that I use different visual languages in different kinds of projects. For more character-driven works, I pay more attention to the character design itself; while for stories that focus more on emotion and atmosphere, I tend to use simplified and line-based visuals, allowing the audience to focus more on emotion and storytelling rhythm. How to balance these two approaches and integrate them into a more complete work may be what I should do next.

During the process of organising my portfolio, I always felt that there was still room for improvement, so I communicated with an industry professional, Julie, and received many suggestions regarding portfolio structure and future direction. Although I currently lean more clearly towards character design and storyboarding, she also showed me the recruitment requirements of many animation studios and companies. Through this, I realised that even pre-production focused positions often require some 3D production abilities, such as modelling, rigging, or creating simple 3D showreels.

In comparison, my current portfolio still focuses more on 2D and pre-production content, lacking more complete 3D projects. This also made me rethink how to further improve and complete my technical abilities and portfolio structure while still maintaining the storytelling and character design direction that interests me more.

Through these conversations, I began to realise that a portfolio is not only about showing “what I like to do”, but also about considering “what I am capable of doing”, and how to present my abilities and direction to the industry more clearly.

I have always been very interested in the subject of “dreams”. Dreams are a phenomenon that is very worth exploring: within dreams, logic is dismantled, and time and space become disordered; they display people’s deepest subconsciousness and emotions in a raw and unhidden way, forming a very sharp contrast with the ordered, regular and rational reality.

“How to Feed a Dream” was my first attempt at artistically exploring dreams. I tried to present this short film without dialogue, not using language to tell the story, but instead using visuals, music, actions and narrative methods to express emotions. This was undoubtedly also a challenge for me. How could I tell the story clearly without using any language to explain it? I constantly tried to communicate with others, finding the unclear points in the story and gradually adjusting my animatic.

Controlling the rhythm of storytelling and emotional transitions was extremely important. The emotional progression of the story follows a curve of low → high → lowest → highest, corresponding to the protagonist’s daily nightmares → beginning to have beautiful dreams after picking up the small creature → the creature being consumed by nightmares → the two facing the nightmares together, with the protagonist reconciling with herself. Clear turning points and rhythm are the prerequisite for telling a story well.

In addition, because there was no dialogue, many details and settings in the story were difficult to express clearly. For example, I tried using black fog to represent bad dreams, and white light particles to represent beautiful dreams, but simply extracting these elements could not make what I wanted to express clearer. After adjustments, not only did I add scenes of the creature absorbing dreams in reality during the process of nightmares transforming into beautiful dreams, but I also focused more on adjusting the creature’s emotions: from calmness to exhaustion → and then feeling relieved because of the protagonist’s happiness.\

Besides visuals, music was also a very important part. This was my first time trying to communicate with a composer in order to build the music of the story. At first, I divided it into four parts according to the emotional progression of the story: ordinary daily life, beautiful dreams, the creature mutating (becoming sick), and the final emotional release. After my initial communication with the composer, I gained new inspiration during conversations with Rory, which was adding a specific melody to the nightmares. This not only made the audience understand the emotional progression of the story more clearly, but also better unified the musical storytelling of the whole film.

I think this was a very difficult but extremely interesting experience. I faced many problems, but continuously tried to revise and improve the work through communication with others. I began to understand that animation is not only about making the audience understand the story, but also about making the audience feel emotions. I hope I can continue improving in this area.

After completing my research on industry directions and exploring the roles of character design and storyboarding, I have gained a clearer understanding of what I value most in animation: the balance between narrative-driven and character-driven storytelling. I enjoy working with both approaches and feel capable of building stories that grow organically from character motivations while also ensuring narrative flow. My preference for stylised, hand-drawn 2D frame-by-frame animation further shapes how I think about performance, emotion, and visual clarity.

In terms of character design, I believe my strengths lie in my ability to create a diverse range of characters and express different styles according to the story’s needs. The characters I have designed vary from anthropomorphic animals and fairytale-like children to mysterious shadow creatures and humorous mascot-type figures. Despite their stylistic differences, they share a consistent line quality and clear shape language, demonstrating my ability to maintain internal coherence across a variety of concepts. Many of my designs also emphasise personality readability—where a character’s expression, silhouette, and attitude communicate their temperament at first glance. This reflects my habit of treating narrative purpose as the foundation of character creation, ensuring that every design serves the emotional tone and thematic direction of the story.

In storyboarding, I focus heavily on aligning camera language with character behaviour and emotional intention. When working on stories told from a child’s or small creature’s point of view, I often use low-angle shots, strong perspective, and more dynamic scene transitions to capture their sense of scale and curiosity. For first-person emotional storytelling, I prefer steadier, more intimate framing that mirrors the character’s subjective experience. This approach helps me maintain consistency between story tone, character psychology, and visual structure, allowing viewers to connect more naturally with the narrative.

At the same time, I recognise several areas where I need further improvement: developing a more structured approach to shape language, refining character design sheets, strengthening my command of Storyboard Pro and other industry tools, improving composition and pacing, and studying staging and acting within camera movement more deeply. These skills are essential for working professionally in either character-focused or story-focused pipelines.

Looking ahead, I plan to continue building my portfolio through several concrete steps: participating in small collaborative animation projects, keeping track of job postings from domestic and international studios, producing regular short animation or composition exercises, and consistently creating character design sheets and narrative storyboards. Through ongoing practice and professional engagement, I hope to eventually join a studio that values expressive characters, strong storytelling, and stylised 2D animation—an environment where I can contribute meaningfully to the creation of immersive and emotionally resonant worlds.

As I explored different positions within the animation industry, I gradually realised that I am especially drawn to two interconnected roles: Character Design and Storyboarding. These positions respectively shape how characters are constructed and how stories are visually communicated, and both resonate strongly with my previous creative experience. They not only define the style and tone of a project, but also influence how audiences perceive emotion and narrative—making them key areas I hope to develop further in the future.

Character designers are responsible for establishing the visual language of characters, including shape language, proportions, expressions, costumes, and pose design. They also produce model sheets, expression sheets, and ensure that characters remain animatable and stylistically consistent across different scenes. Strong character design must balance visual appeal with narrative clarity. My interest in this role comes from my own experience designing characters across various projects. In my work, character designs always evolve in response to the story’s background, tone, and thematic intentions. For example, when creating a fairytale-like adventure, I prefer distinctive shapes and clean, bright lines and colours to emphasise a sense of playfulness. In contrast, for first-person emotional narratives, I shift toward softer, rounder lines and lower colour contrast, allowing the character to blend harmoniously into the overall emotional atmosphere.

Storyboard artists transform scripts into visual storytelling, shaping composition, pacing, camera movement, character acting, and the overall flow of scenes. This role requires a strong understanding of cinematic language, timing, emotion, and spatial relationships, as well as the ability to draw quickly and clearly. I am drawn to storyboarding because it determines the rhythm and emotional trajectory of a story from its earliest stage, directly influencing how the audience understands and connects with the characters. When constructing storyboards, I focus on aligning visual decisions with a character’s personality and emotional state. Beyond clear storytelling, I adapt the camera language to suit the protagonist’s traits. For instance, when working with stories featuring children or small animals, I often use low-angle shots, strong perspective, and more dynamic scene transitions. In contrast, for first-person emotional narratives, I adopt steadier, more intimate shot choices that stay close to the character’s viewpoint.

In my industry research, I consulted ScreenSkills’ professional descriptions of both roles and watched talks from See No Evil to understand how these positions operate within real production pipelines. Reviewing studio showreels and job listings also helped me identify essential skills, such as proficiency in Photoshop or Storyboard Pro, visual clarity, and strong communication abilities.

Overall, studying these two roles has confirmed my interest and potential in both character expression and visual storytelling. Moving forward, I aim to continue practising character design, composition, gesture, and shot pacing, gradually building the skills required to contribute to story-driven creative teams.

For my future career path, I am currently most interested in working within the animation industry in China. This is partly because I am more familiar with the cultural background and market environment there, and partly because I have already conducted considerable research on the structure and development of Chinese animation. Although opportunities overseas are also appealing, China remains my clearest and most realistic direction at this stage.

Two companies I particularly admire are NetEase and HMCH (寒木春华).

Regarding NetEase, I previously took part in their Video Director test and successfully passed. The task required analysing a promotional PV, designing and drawing a storyboard based on it, and constructing the written narrative to present the character’s story. I genuinely enjoyed this process, especially the analysis of character motivation and personality.

I am strongly drawn to diverse character types and to the challenge of expressing emotional nuances visually. After researching NetEase’s past projects, I found myself attracted to their wide range of character designs and their willingness to explore multiple visual styles. Because of this, I have been keeping an eye on their ongoing job opportunities and recruitment updates.

HMCH attracts me in a different way. After watching The Legend of Hei 2, I was deeply impressed by the studio’s meticulous production quality, the warmth and clarity of its storytelling, and the immersive worldbuilding. The characters feel alive—each with distinct traits and emotional depth—which creates the sense of a living, breathing world. Learning more about their production process made me aware of how demanding and labour-intensive this kind of animation work can be, yet it is also exactly the type of high-quality, character-driven storytelling I aspire to be part of. I hope that one day I will have the opportunity to contribute to such a richly constructed world.

Overall, my current career interest lies in animation environments that prioritise strong narrative, expressive characters, and cohesive worldbuilding. Moving forward, I aim to continue developing my skills and industry understanding, and gradually work toward opportunities in the companies and creative spaces that inspire me the most.

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