Welcome!

I decided to start this blog after listening to Jean Gillmore's Audio Interview on the CTN blog. I am an aspiring visual development artist who is especially inspired by the story a costume can tell. Claire Keane's work on Tangled was equally inspiring and it seems that with evolving production style of cg studios nowadays, the unique roles a costume designer can play are becoming more relevant in the process of visual development. Jean's own resume lists a role I had never seen before "Character Costume design/coordinator for CG" listing such tasks as research, design roughs, costume turnarounds and construction diagrams for modelers; fabric/materials call-outs for Look Development and Cloth Sim.

Mastery of a specialization like this is a great asset in my opinion. Someone who has a love of research and a deep interest in how to manipulate costume design elements to create an even stronger storytelling design moment for a character will only serve to level up the variety and appeal of the characters we see in the future. Of course, Jean also creates character designs and other visual development work which makes her all the more awesome but for a studio to assign such a specific role indicates a shift that I am very excited to see evolve. And so, this blog. I plan to use this blog to explore the roles a costume specialist can fulfill, to post inspirational work, portfolio ideas, costume design resources, tutorials and tips, interviews, as well as to document the process of my own portfolio development and discoveries along the way.

I hope you enjoy!


Some eye candy to start it all off:

Lorelay Bove - Tangled

Claire Keane - Tangled

Jean Gillmore - Mulan