Sorry this is probably super late since it's so close to school and I don't even know if it's ok to post it here but does anyone still need housing? 

I'm Cat, to be BFA4 in Character Animation. My old roommate isn't coming back to school and her replacement backed out so a bit desperate here.

 

Here's some info on the apartment: 

+ It's in Woodglen, right across the street from school (so walking distance)

+ 2 bedroom 1 bathroom

+ access to gym and swimming pool

+ rent is $595, utilities fluctuate from $25 - 30 bucks, wi-fi internet is $15

+ 2 bfa4 character animation roommates ;D

 

Yea so if you're interested and female(please please be female D:) please reply or message me :D

Sorry about AAU. I checked up and they no longer have their classes with Pixar soooo >_>

Another option instead of going to a backup animation school is going to one that will give you a really strong foundation year and then transferring over. I know that CalArts doesn't really have a foundation year and because of that I always felt a bit lost in the basics of drawing. Most schools require a foundation freshman year anyway so you'd have to go through with it regardless. 

This post was edited by Cat Tuong Bui at January 2, 2012 8:40:07 PM PST

It sucks you aren't able to do live nude figure drawing due to your location. That's the best way to learn D: BUT Calarts doesn't care if you have clothed or nude so you could always draw your friends and family members :D I had trouble because my parents are strict so for half of my drawings it was often based on clothed gesture drawings of my friends and classmate. My friend was in Shanghai and was unable to go to any nude figure drawing so she just drew her friends and did long poses of her brother (doing his hw, watching tv, falling asleep.. in that order). NOW onwards to the art. I always say this but I feel it is something that every student applying to an art school should know if they do figure drawings. Most art schools look at these 3 things first head hands feet. Why? because everyone does circle hands feet and heads. Even in gestures they would like to see hints of features... especially hair. you don't have to do alot. Three lines placed right can represent hair, nose and a mouth and that could be all you need. Feet and hands are often very expressive and most students get so hung up about the shape of the body that they forget about the hands and the feet. you don't have to be detailed or rendered but the suggestion of a hand motion and feet position. If you look at some nice gesture drawings some people just use some lines to show fingers and a curvy line to show the arch of feet and that'll be enough. The hint of something goes along way. If anything if you do it right it means a lot more than drawing everything. I don't think sketchiness is a problem but your lines are very short. Drawing in lengthy strokes shows a lot more confidence and gives a better sense of rhythm and form. Also if you give weights to your line, like thin and thick strokes, also give a look of weight. For proportion help I just tried to check how many heads everything is really quick. I also used to draw a line down the middle that would help me grasp the negative and positive space and spacing and placing of everything. Hopefully this helps :D

They don't care at all about your grades. They just wanna see you graduated high school >_> Take the easiest classes you got at school if you wanna go here ;D though if you are smart you could take ap/ib classes or community college classes because those actual transfer and MEAN something. They mean you don't have to take annoying academic classes during calarts and instead can concentrate on actually learning art. I wish like crazy that i had more aps then apush to cushion my academic credits. Instead every semester i have to take 2/3 academic class that are dull as heck. They aren't too difficult but just a major waste of time most of the time. 

This post was edited by Cat Tuong Bui at January 2, 2012 7:12:18 PM PST

I think... most of the time the portfolio is made up of figure drawings. I feel the interior environment/exterior landscape thing may be for people who have trouble getting access to nude figure drawing but.. for my year we didn't really do any interior/exterior environment images. Maybe one or two still lifes to show our technical skill but the rest was gesture drawings, a couple longer drawings and a sketchbook of everything(observed environments, cafe drawings, character designs etc.) and some a reel/short. Though I know a lot of people who didn't do the latter. 

This post was edited by Cat Tuong Bui at January 2, 2012 7:04:49 PM PST