502 - Abigail Whitnall

Abigail Whitnall is a prop designer working at Ritzy Animation. I found her through Ritzy Animation's instagram, in which they had an "artist takeover" where in this case Abigail took us through a day in the life of a prop designer working at Rtizy. I found it really interesting to see what she does in a day and the behind the scenes of a studio (albeit working remotely due to covid). As part of this, she also did a Q&A afterwards where I asked this question:

Abigail is a recent graudate from Bournemouth so I was quite curious how she got her job, plus I find it interesting hearing about other people's experiences. Here is a link to her portfolio which she talks about: 

https://www.whalbi.co.uk/prop-design 

It's really useful to me to see other people's portfolios for both the standard of work required as well as what people are putting in them and how they are laying them out.

In addition to this, I found this question and this tip very useful:

My takeaways:

• Make a great portfolio - really dedicate time to making it the best it can be and work on projects outside of uni to help enhance it. Currently I don't think my work is that great but I think I should still make a temporary one as a base to then improve from.
• Networking is something that terrifies me and I am horrendous at anything social, therefore finding out that she got the job from just applying online (rather than how most people get it from knowing other people or being reccommended it) settles some of my anxieties
• Designers are constantly revising their works - the first version isn't the final one
• The 80/20 rule is something I should apply to my own work as I love the effect it gives 
• I should try out prop design