ADL 10 Assignments | Shea's Blog

Community Connection

I decided to contact Scott Flanders, also known online as Shapecarver, an artist who’s work spans from character and creature design to game development to teaching vast audiences online. He’s most well known for his creature design where he often works on monstrous characters, many times bringing elements of horror into his art. I especially enjoy his style which works primarily with strong silhouettes and bold values. He says that “Silhouettes are an important part of my character development process. They are a very useful tool for evaluating and unifying the visual relationships amongst a broad character roster… if a concept appears to be working at this scale, then I start to get excited.” I’ve actually learned a lot from this statement, and I’ve occasionally implemented it into my own art. For example, here’s something I did a little under two years ago.

I reached out to Mr. Flanders via email and even though he’s been extremely busy, he was kind enough to respond. I first learned of Mr. Flanders from his teaching on YouTube and I’ve followed him ever since. Mr. Flanders was my first choice because I’ve admired his work for years as it’s been a large point of inspiration in both my artistic endeavors as well as my consideration of possible future careers. I’ve previously thought that I’d like to be artist once I’m older, but I’d always just said I’d rather be an architect, which, wasn’t false. I’d always seen the art industry as one that’s much too difficult to succeed in. That is, until recently when artists like Scott Flanders inspired me. While I do acknowledge that it will be difficult, I’m currently committed to achieving my goal of working as some form of artist. If you would like more information on Scott Flanders, go to his Patreon where you can see his in-depth description of himself and his own story.

Before the answers to the questions, here are a few links to some of his work:

Portfolio

Instagram

Online Character/Creature Design Course

YouTub e

He has not yet responded with the answers to the questions as he has recently been extremely busy. I don’t blame him for prioritizing his own family and career. I believe he’s starting a new business called Little Bang Inc. which, from what little I know, can definitely be both time consuming and stressful.

Sources:

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/oyLYW

https://scottflanders.artstation.com/Portfolio

https://www.instagram.com/shapecarver

https://www.proko.com/course/character-design-monster-lab/overviewOnline Character/Creature Design Course

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQEKrHGypQLEdCV0SuTGvfg/featuredYouTube

https://www.patreon.com/shapecarver

How might your digital footprint affect your future opportunities? Give at least two examples.

– Your digital footprint can both negatively and positively affect your future opportunities. For example, if when your name is searched, negative things show up like videos of you drinking while under the required age or a picture of you vandalizing someone’s property, employers won’t want you associated with their company’s name. While those are the downsides, if you have a good track record of volunteering and doing things that a company would want to be associated with, you’re more likely to get a job.

Describe at least three strategies that you can use to keep your digital footprint appropriate and safe.

– The first and most obvious one is to just not do anything unprofessional. While this is probably the safest one, to live a life only ever doing what will get you jobs and a good reputation would be extremely boring. If your life is just spent trying to please the industry, your whole life would be bland and uninteresting. But that’s just my opinion, people can do whatever they want with their lives as long as it doesn’t hurt anybody else.

– The second strategy is to keep your personal life away from social media. If you stick to posting professional things, you’re a whole lot less likely to have a negative digital footprint. The only thing here is that if you do something unprofessional, and someone else films it, it could still end up on the internet attached to your name.

– The third and final strategy is to use a username and or profile that isn’t the same as your real name. As long as unprofessional behavior isn’t traced back to you, it’s doing relatively no harm in the sense of it impacting people’s public perception of you. This isn’t to say that you should go around breaking the law and putting it online just because your possible employers won’t see it, there’s still the fact that it’s illegal. Even if it’s not illegal and it’s just something unprofessional, if someone gets ahold of you username, it wouldn’t be good.

What information did you learn that you would pass on to other students? How would you go about telling them?

– I think that it would be important to know that everything you do online is tracked and recorded, no matter how careful you think you are, there’s always a risk. I believe that it’s also important that you think about how you want to approach creating your digital footprint. Whether you want to ignore the fact that it’s there, keep it in mind every waking moment of your life or anything in between is up to you. I think it’s always best to tell it as it is, no need for sugarcoating; the impact of you’re footprint is and always will be big not to mention the fact that as the online world expands, your footprint will grow with it.