#These are part of my portfolio I did for class this year. I'm not totally satisfied with all of them but I'm overall happy with what I made

[asfodeltide]

Self-portraits

[luvdsc]

hi ms cat if you dont mind me asking, were you active in college? like did you do a lot of activities, clubs, and were you active in organizations? i read somewhere that you had this amazing job now with a really good pay and i was wondering whether being active in college had a part in that! (and if you have any tips on getting that huge accomplishment in the future!)

i'm only in my 3rd (going to 4th) sem in college but i'm stressing out about my CV for my future (for work most likely) because i've only had like 1 project in the whole 3 semesters and it left me seriously burnt out and not wanting to take on other projects because of how toxic the environment (and people) is at my college

i'm sorry for the massive word dump and for springing this on you! it'd be a huge help if you could answer but if you can't/don't want to, it's totally fine too!! please don't feel pressured and please have a lovely day :>

hey, lovebug !! 💓 I was in the art club, robotics, accounting association, and I did a year long volunteering fellowship 💕 I went to major specific career fairs hosted by my university and spoke to various companies I was interested in interning in, and the applications were due that night and I basiclaly rushed to send them all in. I went through all the interview processes, weighed my options for each one I was accepted for, chose my internship, and I was given a job offer by the end of my internship, which I accepted! I think the clubs / extracurriculars played a minor role in boosting my resume when they were accepting people for internship interviews, but they didn’t ask about them much, aside from some conversational art questions but that was more based on the fact that I also minored in art, rather than the fact that I was in a club for it. The best way to get a job would be to get experience !!!! Do summer internships or fellowships / internships during the school year, and those grab the attention of recruiters. The next step would be to do well in the interview, which means prepping yourself and remember to be personable and friendly and show that you’re a fun reliable person they would want on their team ✨

tbh I’m not sure how the whole interview goes for a full time job since I only went through the internship interview process, but I imagine there’s more technical questions and personality questions and they will ask about your project if you list it in your LinkedIn or resume. It’s okay if you’ve only done one project so far, lovebug !!!! I’m sorry to hear that you’re in such a toxic environment - your mental health and health overall are more important than bolstering your resume. Please don’t overwork yourself, take a semester off and focus on yourself if that’s what you need to do, honey bee ):

Project wise, you can list projects you’ve done in your classes, like you don’t have to put a large scale project, it can be a small project that you’re proud of and can talk about in thorough detail if someone asks about it. For instance, in one class I did, I budgeted and presented a plan for Kaiser to implement regarding their medical school and how it’ll help bolster revenues and profits with graphs and charts and future values and everything, and I included that project in my portfolio. I think you really would only need maybe 2 - 3 projects listed in your resume so you can have something to talk about? So you still have time, lovebug, and I’m assuming you have to do projects in class anyway, so feel free to choose any of those to add ! 🌸

I hope this helps, sweetpea !!! 🌷🌷 best of luck with your college endeavors, and I also hope you have good day, lovebug, and that school eases up for you ):

[tangerinegod]

Hello! I am sorry to bother you but I am a senior getting ready for college this year. I am in the US and I wanted to major in the same thing you did, do you have any possible tips for me? I still haven't even looked for colleges that would be best for animation majors so I figured if you were up to giving out any tips/saying any basic ideas if you wanted to/if you had the time to then maybe I'll have a better idea! I apologise for if I sound weird! I'm tried to word it correctly but I can't 😿

hi!! i’m totally down to share my experiences! someone else also had some questions so i’m going to put them all together in this post haha, hopefully this helps! it’ll get pretty long so apologies ahead of time but art school is a lot to think about so i wanna be as helpful as i can around it, its a lot of time and money. I’m gonna put it all under a read more cus it is really really long!

i wanna start off with the fact that I had the privilege of attending school in a financially stable environment, my parents were/are really supportive so w merit scholarship i only came out with around 20-30k in debt and i also had housing support my entire time in school. they were ok with me focusing on academics so i didn’t hold a retail job unless i was out of school like summer/winter break. Ofc though i regularly take commissions/do merch/cons to try and pay for all bills that arent rent cus i did want to be financially independent where it was possible. I also did try and work during the semester but everytime i did my body would deff start to breakdown from the fact that i didnt wanna compromise schoolwork with jobs.. so just read ahead know this experience is from a student who was able to attend focusing only on school work for most of the time!

the biggest thing is knowing art school is not required to become a professional in either freelancing or industry! there are a huuuge amount of online tools and classes these days that provide the exact same education and for cheaper too. i think it depends on what experience you prefer/can handle/want but it’s definitely possible to make art/animation art your living without higher education. the thing that college will for sure give you though is the ability to meet deadlines, work even when you dont want to, and connections with peers+teachers. i think the connections part is invaluable because you’re basically coming out with a network of people you already know and who know you! 

also its good to know if you want to attend/can handle art school! it’s a lot of time and energy and students get burned out really fast. the best piece of advice i got before going was ‘if you draw every single day, even if its for only like 5-10 minutes or a doodle for a whole year you should be fine’ consistency is super key because you’re attending school to draw, and you’ll have to create work for stuff you aren’t excited for at some point or another. burnout is extremely real and the only reason i didn’t experience it was probably because i got super into drawing naruto fanart again inbetween sophomore and junior year! it helped give me something to draw seperated from school which is the only thing i was drawing for since i had entered rip. a heads up id also consider myself a workaholic so i fit in ok with the ‘art school’ environment but it is suuper unhealthy. if you are fantastic at managing your schedule then it’s definitely possible to take care of yourself! freshman year i got 8 hours a sleep a night and only pulled all nighters for some second semester finals at the end. sophomore year + up though i ended up prioritizing hw over sleep and like for sure, definitely shortened my life span. there’s another q down below where i’ll go more into detail but ya, be careful w ur work balance!

another tip especially for animation is knowing for a fact what type of animation you’re looking to go into, and what the school is offering. I didn’t think i’d get into art school at the time so i only applied to two places + decided if i didnt get into either id attend community to get credits out of the way while building portfolio. honestly? i did not do a lot of research LOL but like i did end up having the chance to tour and stuff! just know that each school will have a very different curriculum. The main differences are schools that prioritize 3D (cg animation, cg modeling, ect) and 2D/traditional (hand drawn, ‘oldschool’, digital or traditional based) this is a huge difference so make sure you do research for it! in most cases a 2D/traditional program will also offer 3D since it’s at the forefront of the industry animation wise rn. My school taught 2D but like hand drawn on physical paper 2D, frame by frame. while it was a good experience it’s super outdated because digital tools make it way faster + easier! i’d recommend looking for a program that is digital 2D over traditional 2D. 

if after your senior year covid is still affecting campuses in the US to keep them shut down i’d recommend attending a community college to get credits and then transferring into school. one of the negatives is paying money for gened classes when ur not there for them; if you can get them out of the way sooner and cheaper there is absolutely no negative + you could graduate earlier or use the extra time for better work or to work a job! 

these are all the general tips i think i’d give on like a broad basis of attending or not to think about? let me know if u have more q’s! someone asked q’s im answering below that go more into personal experiences + work culture so heres those:

- how many hours a week do u spend studying, in class, otherwise making art? like how much of ur life does it consume?

I was basically working on art.... 24/7! since i wasnt working a job at the same time i crammed as many credits as possible into my schedule so on avg i did 18 credit semesters (around 6 classes) art classes go for 6 hours and non art go for 3, so i’d spent around 30-35 hours in class a week! hw wise it varied on the class but combined it would be around 35-50 hours a week... im guessing? on average studio classes would have 8-10 hours of hw, maybe 5 for a light week, and gened classes 5 hours w them all combined. or this was probably how things were before junior year? junior+senior year i had thesis + everything else ontop.. i’d spend around 30-40 hours on thesis a week with other classes ontop of that bc my film was super long cus im a dummy! 

- is it hard going to art school n realising that altho u were probably quite talented… so is everyone else? Like. all of a sudden. ur not special and everyone seems as good as u, you know? More generally, how do u deal with comparison?

kinda?? i think instead of the idea of like you vs others it feels more of like a competition at first to be the best. this varies hugely on school culture though; my animation year was really friendly with each other and get along extremely well, so my answer to this is v different than some others who attended different schools. i think that the idea of ‘comparison’ only lasts a portion of the first year because at some point you realize that it’s not a who’s better as much as its a ‘these are my coworkers’ type thing? like healthy competition 100% because we’re all working to improve but i think most of us learned pretty early on that viewing each other as peers going into the same workforce helped a lot. also at some point everyone develops their own style/starts to develop their artistic preferences so there isn’t a way to compare whos 'better’ anymore? i dont think there ever is tbh because style is appealing based off of an individuals preferences. If anything realizing everyone else is also amazing makes you wanna work harder ig? or thats how i felt! it’s inspiring to be surrounded by so many people who create such amazing work. 

- is there a lot of workaholic culture? all nighter culture?

100000% there can be a workaholic and all nighter culture. i know people who avoided it and thats honestly fantastic because i fall super easily into that pit. sometimes i’ll pull all nighters on a personal project just because i really want to finish it... i am definitely considered a workaholic all the way through and its not healthy rip... i’d estimate at the worst i was pulling 2-3 all nighters a week and only 4-5 hours of sleep on the nights i didn’t? that was only for one year tho, after that i was like yeah ok this is really bad for my health in the long run LOL so i tried to cut it down to one all nighter a week and around 5-6 hours of sleep the rest of the week! by senior year my decision to cram in full semesters paid off and i was able to consistently get around 7 hours of sleep a night + no all nighters minus finals since my schedule was lighter despite thesis 😭 while there is that culture i don’t think people view it as like a badge of honor or something to be proud of anymore which is good, we mostly view it as a flaw of the art school system and something that needs to be fixed!!

- are you glad u did it? how did u know it was what u wanted?

i am glad i did it! i’m definitely in a limbo right now of if it was worth both my time, money, and my parents money rip but i think with what i got out of it i definitely wouldn’t be as far skill wise or knowledge wise when it comes to the art industry. i would say it was only worth it for be because i had so much support going in though so i was able to focus so much on improving. if i had only been able to put in part of the effort and not make full use of the resources provided i would honestly have a different answer.. 

i knew it was what i wanted when i realized i really couldn’t see myself pursuing a different profession happily! despite all the bumps and stuff im fully in love with drawing still and feel honored that it’s a field that can provide a living. my second profession choice was to go into culinary school? and third option i think going was into music cus i was also a band kid hehe.  

- how do u cope with ur hobby becoming ur job? how do u deal with art going from something u do for fun to something u do on command constantly?

i think seperating work art from personal art is important! in my case im doubling naruto into being personal work so i have something to fall back onto that isn’t work related. its been a hyperfixation for 12+ years? so drawing it at this point is just like personal art imo. some people have hobbies outside of art and only draw for their job! i think after attending classes for so long the idea of hobby turning into job feels extremely natural? also i enjoy doing it so thats a huge plus! 

sorry this is SO long but i hope i answered your guys’ questions! if you have more just lmk!

[lol-jackles]

I just read your post about finances and investment properties and found it very interesting! I'm wondering, if you don't mind, what advice would you have for an 18 year old college student (me!) with little to no knowledge of finances, loans, real estate, etc, and only about 4k in savings. Any smart moves I should be making with my money now that will help me later in life? Tips on setting up a passive income? Thank you so so so much!

1. Study to get a practical degree.  That means no communication or gender studies degree.   Even my hippie friends are forbidding their children from pursuing liberal arts degrees.  An art professor I have business with straight up tell his students they should not get an art degree but study business instead because if they are serious about being a professional artist then they will be entrepreneurs and need to know financial management.  So while you're in school take a course on investing or money management or accounting or economics or all of them.

2. Have an emergency fund that covers 3 to 6 months of living expenses: rent, food, and utlity.  Other people say it's 3 to 6 months of your salary.   I have 13 months emergency fund that my financial planner is trying to wean me off of because that much sitting in the bank is not growing money (Oprah used to paranoidly keep $50 million in savings that she called her bag lady fund in case her career implodes).  As a college student I'm assuming your expenses are already paid for - housing, meal plan, etc, that said, you should have at least $1,000 in your emergency fund so you're off to a very good start with your $4,000.  

3. Track your spending by using a spreadsheet or anything on paper. Have all your expenses in it: food, rent, utility, phone contracts, utility, Netflix, Prime, etc.  Also have an area for income and all it’s sources (savings, job, stipends from your parents) and a total.  This starts to give you an idea of your income vs expenditures.  Use this to aid you in living beneath your means by living off of beans and rice that you buy in bulk and prepre meals yourself.  Avoid spending money on alcohol if you can, brew your own coffee.  

4. If possible, NO student loans.  Apply for scholarships, grants, fellowships.  

5. Get a part time paying job, whether during school or a summer internship.  From having an earned income you can open a Roth IRA account because though you may not have much money at your age, but what you do have is TIME.  Invest now for your retirement and it accumulates far faster when you start early than when you start later.  Read this New York Times “Roth IRAs for teenagers” article.  

"A person who contributes the maximum to a Roth IRA beginning at age 19 will have accumulated $330,000 more than one who begins contributing at age 25, by the time each person is 67."

See that?  A 19 years old will have six more figures by the time he retires than the other guy who did the same thing 6 years later.  

You can open an IRA account with your bank, though they are more about saving your money than growing your moneny.  You can go with a brokerage  companies like Charles Schwab,  Fidelity, and Vanguard. 

If you want to just put money in it and forget about it then use a Target Date Fund, you pick when you want to retire and it will re-allocate itself to become more conservative the closer you get to retirement.  Charles Schwab is probably the easist, here is there their target date funds.  You'll most likely want to use the SWYNX fund since you're so far away from retirement.  It's a pretty good way to get started if you're still learning or don't care to learn and just want to save for retirement.

If you want to be more hands-on, they have other mutual funds and you should consider building a portfolio out of low-cost index funds and exchange-traded fund (ETFs), this approach makes it easier to ensure adequate diversification in your portfolio and lower your investing risks and helps minimize the fees you’ll pay. 

I usually don’t advice reddit for advices but here is a good beginner’s guide to IRA.

Reminder, it must be "earned income" in order to open a Roth IRA account, though that hasn't stopped a friend from opening a Roth IRA for his granddaughter who is four years old, naturally the problem is how to create her "earned income" status, and asked me if my former collegues would hire her as a model.  I can't fault him, it's best to open a Roth IRA AS SOON AS POSSIBLE because not only is it the best retirement plan now, but  it could get pulled at any time by the government.

To summerize:

Find a good job that pays well.

Cut down expenses, live within your means.

Destroy high interest debt as much as possible, ideally to have no bad debt

Invest and max out in tax efficiency retirement accounts, put rest into taxable accounts

Time, maintain #2 and #4 for decades

Retire with $1.5 to $3 million dollars to live the rest of your years in a comfortable middle class style

Noticed that I didn’t say that you retire wealthy even though you will have anywhere from $1.5 million to $3 million dollars.  That’s because those millions need to last you 20 to 30 years after you retire.  This is why I’ve said bonds, stocks, and indexes are for maintaining your wealth, it’s not a quick rich scheme.  Sure some people strike it rich with stocks but those are exceptions not the norm, like how lottery winners are rare.

Part II of Buildng your wealth: Real Estate.  For beginners like yourself I suggest this book “ How to Find, Buy, and Rent Houses for Wealth” , it’s sound and detailed without overcomplicating things.  It assumes the readers are looking at buying rental properties the "normal" way and not as a full time gig.  Next find a local mentor that already owns property in the area you would like to own. Real estate investment requires local insight and if you move into commercial investment, things are still very much word-of-mouth and referral-based.  

If you’re serious about real estate as a full time gig then find the real estate investors club (REIC) in your area, people get together and throw ideas around, just be mindful that they are also your competition when it comes to buying a piece of property.  

Until then you can listen to real estate podcast here to get a feel of the industry.

[diviinedogs]

❣️hoi, what was art school like? I'm planning to go myself (and my family is pretty passively aggressively turning me down), but I just want to know what skills do you learn? What is the experience? Thank u for your time! Ur blog and art are amazing btw

hI I think it really depends on the school but I can give like the idea of two of them since I went to another school for precollege to see if it was something I’d be interested in majoring in! C./C/A and I went to Ri/.ngli./.ng and my parents are actually letting me go back to school now so hopefully I’ll be back there in Fall c’: also thank you for liking my stuff!

this ask is gonna long because I know I’m gonna ramble so I’m gonna call the schools C and R so I don’t have to do the slashes all the time! C’s experience was a specific  1-2 month course so it’s nothing like actual college at R so feel free to skip down to it, I just thought it was important to add since it was my first experience at an art school

and after I talk about the schools I’ll say what stuff’s good to include in your portfolio, of course this is based on my experience but for the most part it helps in what you should try strengthening 

I did animation at C, which was 2D in the morning and 3D in the afternoon. I did precollege the summer before my senior year cuz it’s like the college experience before college so you do get the feel of how it is being on your own, and I wanted to see if I was good enough to pursue something art related. At this point, my parents were on the fence about the idea, so it would help them too. And C’s in California, so I had a bunch of relatives who could show me around and who I could stay with during the weekends

experience wise, the teachers and TAs I had were really nice, so in 2D it was stuff like learning Principles of Animation and the first thing we did was a flipbook animation I think? and then it went to looking at scenes from movies for inbetweens and character sheets and we all worked together reanimating a quick scene from a movie. In the end, we all chose a really short scene from an animated movie to study and reanimate for our final

while in 3D, it was just learning around Maya and doing animation exercises each day with it, eventually working your way up to a mini film (nothing’s completely rendered though! just models), other than that it was pretty much the same as 2D

so basically, I learned the basics and they were really helpful, but to be honest I felt a bit lost with how free it was, you basically had to learn everything on your own with the teachers just checking your work. I was really good at 3D but it... wasn’t fun for me lol so I decided that after this I’d want to stay in the 2D realm of things

now for R! My parents were worried about the starving artist myth and all that, so they would absolutely not let me do Illustration even though that’s what I really wanted, so I chose Game Design and I was like hey I’ll deal with it or like maybe I’ll like it. If not, I could always try convincing my parents to let me switch my major. 

the way things work at R is that all the majors are put into categories, so Computer Animation, Game Art, and Illustration are all the Media Arts majors. All Freshman take basically the same type of classes and things start breaking off around the second semester of freshman year. Eventually you like see no one outside your major lol

and lET ME TELL YOU........ R HAS A VERY HEAVY WORK LOAD, so you gotta be prepared for that. I think just about all art schools are like this, but R’s very strict on it.  Manage your time wisely, there’s a lot of times I’ve seen people pull all nighters just to finish all their assignments. I was really bad at managing my time too, so when I go back I need to be more strict on myself. It’s better to do things early and relax than relax until last minute and have anxiety hell. Not many of the teachers are about how much homework you have in other classes. Also, it’s good to not do things last minute because then you can relax earlier and scanners and place you go to take photos aren’t crowded.

and trust me, your teachers will know if you did something last minute, and they can tell whether effort was put into something or not. 

Now for classes, I’ll talk about just freshman year since that’s probably what’s most helpful to you right now and since I was made to drop out by my parents I’ll probably be repeating like the second semester of that rip.... anywAY

so, R starts you with foundation, so figures classes, 2D design, drawing (this one’s perspective! so important but rip everyone forgets everything after that semester so I should probably start studying perspective again)

the figure classes at R are sO GOOD............ you improve a lot with those, a few weeks into it I was thinking about the figures I had in my portfolio and was just like...... fuck these are so shitty how the hell did the school accept me.... of course the experience depends on the teacher, but I loved my figure drawing teacher he was really cool and good. He did demos at some point every class to where we would all just hover over his shoulder and watch him draw while he explained what he was doing. You i

2D design I hated because like...... abstract... it’s supposed to help you work with compositions and such but I really don’t understand abstract and execute it properly so that was a really difficult class for me 

drawing class is just doing still life and perspective exercises, you don’t really get to the fun part till second semester, I forget the other exercises but I remember that towards the end there was one where you designed a car (like a fun spin on it like.... I think mine was a firefly styled car? yeAH)

other classes were Film & Narrative (so studying films, it was cool) and Writing Studio, which is just like a writing class, they don’t really apply to skills/experience in art so I’ll skip over those

second semester, you still have Figure Drawing, but there’s more of a focus on stuff and you get to draw animals too (sadly no, no real animals come into the classroom. You work off of projections and then there’s a field trip to a big cat sanctuary)

drawing II gets fun because you finally get to use photoshop for your still life and assignments, the assignments get more fun like the Tro/./.ja./n Ho//rs/e assignment. Like you could either do the actual one or draw a similar scenario, I’m totally blanking out on what I did but one of the examples was like a giant wooden mouse with cheese and in the back were cats watching the actual mice. Anyway, it had even more of a focus on compositions and colors. 

Another assignment was designing a character’s room. It could be any character, but you couldn’t have anything that gave away their name. People had to be able to guess who the room belonged to just by looking at it. Sounds hard, but fun. If the character you chose had like a specific style from the concept art of where they’re from you’re free to use that too! I did Kida from Atlantis and one of my friends did Greg Universe’s room, so she got to imitate SU’s background style which was cool to see!

3/D desi/gn was............. super difficult to me, I almost failed that class >w>;;;; because it was woodshop type stuff and polymer clay depending on what you wanted. However, every assignment you did would lead up to the grunt assignment, which was like, you had three designs of things that would be possible grunt level monsters, and you essentially pitch a game idea to the class and they pick the best. SO again, modeling especially with actual clay is hard for me but it was a great experience when it came to designing and stuff. There’s more but I don’t want to get into all the assignments

3/.D design differs based on what major you’re in, and you only get it if you’re doing one of the Media Arts majors, but I’m pretty sure for the most part they’re the same?

if you major in Game Art or Animation, then you also take traditional animation, which was really fun but tbh...... I only knew how to do animation because of me being at precollege at C and then like learning stuff on my own, you were really left alone a lot, which is the same for some of the other classes. They’ll help you if you ask, but if you don’t then you can’t really get helpful feedback. Again, it depends on the teacher. The one I had was really nice and I frequently went to her for help.

so despite how some assignments/classes were hard for me, I really loved R and I’m excited at my parents giving me the option to go back, I just need to do a portfolio again >w>;;;; R’s a really good school with a lot of great resources. All of my issues came from problems with people (not teachers just other students) there and I’m not gonna get into those cuz personal lol

OKAY SO for portfolio tips

still life

figURES

ANIMALS, it makes you have a better understanding of anatomy and stuff

try to have a mix of media in there, like I mainly do digital but still have some traditional stuff to show that you know how to use those

I would keep figures realistic and not stylized so they can see that you have an understanding of them

depends on the school I think, but R strictly says in their guidelines to not do fantasy stuff like unicorns and dragons

NO FAN ART.......  you can have it but you need to be really, really vague? if that makes sense, like people shouldn’t be able to tell it’s fan art

have what you’re applying for in your portfolio, so like depending on what you want I’d add concept art stylized stuff or character designs 

you gotta have your best work in there, like some people like having okay/bad work to show how much they improved but that’s a bad idea, if you don’t think something’s good don’t put it in for colleges to see 

[blueumbriel]

ah, hey Blue :') I need some help, and I was thinking that you could probably offer it? I'm 16 years old and a junior in high school, and I'm starting to look at colleges and stuff. I'm seriously stressing out because I really want to go to an art college, but my parents are insanely strict and I don't think they'll let me travel out of the US, let alone out of Cali. I really want to go to VanArts, like you, or maybe even SAIC? but I'm extremely worried that no art college will except me.

I don't have my own computer, so I can't make digital art. Everything I do is on paper, and I feel like that isn't nearly enough. I feel like it's required for me to submit everything digitally and that scares me. My parents won't let me get a job, so I don't have any of money of my own, and I just???? I'm so terrified??? How did you do it? I'm so scared. I don't want to go to college but at the same time, the idea of leaving California and living somewhere without my parents sounds heavenly. 2/3

I just don't know what to do. I don't know how to look up scholarships for schools. I don't know how to do anything. I'm extremely, EXTREMELY terrified. 3/3

Okay, deep breaths buddy. I am happy to help you out, so let me run through this with you in the best way I can. (I don’t know how SAIC works, but let me show of what I know about my school, Vanarts, in my own knowledge) :)

For one, it’s actually good that you have traditional art as your medium. Not everyone in the school are familiar with digital art, let alone animating, which is why the professors give us the run down on what to do during the first weeks (or 1-2 months maybe??) into the program.

And before you know it, you’re animating! 

Also, do note that the program 2D/3D Character Animation is about a year long, and can be very pricey, so loans/scholarships may help you greatly if you’re not that financially strong.

They like to help you out in any way they can. Heck, I didn’t even know how to use Toonboom Harmony until after a few weeks in the start of the course. One of the professors said this: “Not familiar with digital stuff, animating, or Toonboom, let alone drawing? That’s alright. You came here to learn that stuff.”

So don’t worry on the “don’t-know-how-to-Toonboom” or the “idk-how-to-anatomy” or the “I-don’t-have-an-art-style” part. They’ll handle that one. it just happens that I already have a strong style, a few of us in class do, and that’s okay. Not everyone is great in drawing and we understand that. This is an ART SCHOOL, it’s a place to learn HOW to do those things. No one comes in and goes, “hey I know how to do this and that already. This will be a breEZE---.” No. Not everyone is like that. 

So don’t worry too much on whether you’re good or not. :)

As for the portfolio, it doesn’t matter if you don’t have anything digitally. Show them of what you can do best, even if it’s really rough (I brought some rough sketches and they liked that). They like seeing how you work. But even though that’s the case, it’s totally advised that you should build up your portfolio. Keep on drawing and pick the things that you want to present.The staff there is actually quite nice, so don’t worry too much on pressure. You can also schedule a tour in VanArts, they’ll show you what the place looks like and what the students do during class hours. It’s really cool.

The side on how things went for me can be found HERE, seeing that I already talked about this with another user. 

It’s okay to feel nervous when doing things like these. Heck, I was even terrified about how things worked over here, seeing that I needed two more years before going into college. But even if we’re really scared, we need to explore. Explore on what schools you can apply in, and what scholarships/bursaries can be found.

Here’s a site that may help you in finding scholarships: LINK (it’s free)

The college gave me a small scholarship though, so idk about that. They tend to give out some to students when they’re applying.

As for the money part, that’s going to be a bit tricky, since you said that your parents aren’t letting you get a job. I don’t have a job myself, but I do commissions so that I can earn something. Idk, do something that can actually help you earn? ?? I’m not sure how to help you there, sorry ;;;;;;;;

But, you’re in your junior year, right? You still have a lot of time to do some exploring! Haha. If you’re having trouble though, you can also talk to your school guidance counsellor, or someone you can seek for help regarding colleges and bursaries. That’s what I did when I was in grade 11-12 here. I gathered as much info as I can, and attended Scholarship meetings that mostly talked about how to apply and stuff, so I got some idea on what to do. Don’t stop asking questions. It might save your life honestly.

You don’t have to exactly follow this advice, but just to give you some basis on what to do: explore and apply as much as you can. You have the time. Use that time.

Hope this helps!