What do you do when your career plateaus? You have to push yourself up to the next level.

Building a career is like climbing a mountain. There are numerous obstacles ahead, and no guarantees that you’re on the right path. But what happens when you reach the peak and discover…there’s so much more you want to do? This mountain just isn’t taking you high enough. Maybe you need to take on a bigger challenge, a taller mountain, and add even more tools to your belt. To escape this metaphor, maybe you need to add another dimension to your work.

Nocky Dinh left her home in Vietnam to pursue a career in Motion Design in the United States. She faced countless obstacles and challenges to achieving her goals, but kept grinding until she built herself a solid foundation and a killer 2D portfolio. But it wasn’t enough. She had steady enough work and a decent paycheck, but this wasn’t the career she’d flown around the world to build. Looking deep within, she decided that the missing link was an expanded skillset. 

2D artists sometimes struggle to add 3D into their lexicon. While many of the same techniques apply to both styles, there are a number of new programs to learn, new hassles to overcome, and new muscles to build. It can be an intimidating proposition, especially if you’ve already spent so much time honing your 2D abilities. But for Nocky, it was the catalyst to the next chapter in her career. 

Nocky has an amazing story and tons of great advice to this community, so check your Z-Axis and grab a spherical snack: We’re hopping into the 3rd Dimension with Nocky Dinh.

Pushing Past Your Limits with Nocky Dinh

Show Notes

Artist

Nocky Dinh 
Justin Fay
Sekani Solomon 
Cory Loftis
David Aja
Steve Savalle

Studios

Jaya Productions
Digital Kitchen
Buck
Studio Ghibli 

Work

Nocky’s Demo Reel
Sekani Solomon 2020 Reel 
Frida
Hawkeye Title Sequence
Arcane
Zootopia

Resources

Discord
Slack 
After Effects
Twitter
Demo Reel Dash
Blender
Instagram
Cinema 4D

Transcript

EJ

What happens when you hit the cap at your job or in your career? How do you move past it, face the fear of the unknown and ultimately take control of your career? Nocky Dinh is a very talented, freelance 2D 3D motion graphics designer and animator who had to face those tough questions and come out the other end. A transformed artists.

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00;01;23;04 - 00;01;47;01

EJ

In this podcast, Ryan Summers chats with Nocky about how she moved from Vietnam to the U.S. to get her start in motion design, but also talk about how she invested in herself to be able to stand out from the crowd and the importance of pinpointing what exactly is limiting you and pushing past it. But before we begin, let's go ahead and hear from one of our amazing School of Motion alumni.

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00;03;12;26 - 00;03;18;07

Ryan

So today we have Nocky Dinh on the show today, Nocky. Thank you so much for coming on.

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00;03;18;26 - 00;03;20;03

Nocky

Thank you for having me.

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00;03;20;14 - 00;03;42;02

Ryan

Yeah. I can't remember where it was that I saw your work recently. It might have even been we might have been on a Discord server or and Slack somewhere, but I saw you pop up and I happened to look at some of your new work, and I, I couldn't believe that there's this artist doing this amazing 3D work that a couple of years ago, I ran into your work and you didn't have any or barely, barely any 3D.

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00;03;42;11 - 00;03;57;00

Ryan

I'm really interested to just talk about how you came to this position in your career, but also just to figure out how you started how did you get into motion design? So I guess maybe that's the best place to start Nocky. How did you get into motion design in the first place?

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00;03;57;00 - 00;04;28;19

Nocky

So I actually went to school for filmmaking in Seattle, and I had taken maybe one or two after effect classes at the time. But during my year and being like a film school, they were kind of focusing more on things like invisible effects for movies. So for example, like VFX stuff like if you shoot against the window and the outsides like blown out and then so they teach you to like shoot another plate with proper exposure for the outside and then how to cut that in an after effects later.

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00;04;28;24 - 00;04;48;28

Nocky

Mm hmm. So I didn't actually do a lot of animating in after effects, but when I graduated, I only had like two months to find a full time jobs because I'm an international student and I need a work visa. So I need to find somebody who would like it's also sponsoring my work visa, which can be pretty expensive.

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00;04;49;05 - 00;05;18;13

Nocky

Yeah. And a lot of my classmates at the time were kind of promoting themselves as, you know, cinematographer, gaffer, producer, and some would also market themselves Ed. But I don't really see anybody who put motion graphics on their resume. And I was like, I think the only way I can get hired and stand out because all of my classmates are pretty talented themselves, too, is to put motion graphics on my resume.

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00;05;18;13 - 00;05;59;26

Nocky

So I market myself like an editor with like emphasis in motion graphics because I think that would give me a lot more chance to be hired. And I wasn't that great. Actually, at the time. I know very basic facts. I don't even know what Easy's is, so but luckily Justin Fey who was my first boss, he was exactly looking for somebody to do exactly that, like helping him with editing, but also he was trying to build like a motion graphic person in the house for him because he always outsourcing these for other freelancer and he want to have somebody who can you know, be there all the time for him.

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00;06;00;10 - 00;06;09;02

Nocky

And he reached out to the school and the school emailed me and they emailed him back and then I worked for him for like six years.

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00;06;09;15 - 00;06;23;11

Ryan

Oh, my gosh, for six years. That had to be an amazing, amazing relationship to build up. Like, how did that affect who you've become today? That's I feel like that's so rare to hear now that people are actually staying at the same place for that long. What was that experience like?

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00;06;23;23 - 00;06;52;18

Nocky

Yeah, well, part of it also because of the work visa that I stayed as well, but it was really I think I was very lucky to find him or he found me in a way because not only that, he sponsor me, but he knew that my after effects skill at the time was quite basic. But he was like willing to can I invest in that in a way, like when when it's slow doing work.

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00;06;52;18 - 00;07;26;03

Nocky

Like he's not he didn't make me do like busy work or anything. He would, he was OK with me just like watching tutorials and follow Twitter during work hours and stuff. So I would say that I learn all of that to fix stuff on the job. That's amazing. Yeah. And then and then it's so funny because then school motion start to happen and then and there was a after effects class that came out and I convinced him to like buy that class for me and he did.

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00;07;26;10 - 00;07;28;29

Nocky

And yeah. And I learned a lot from that.

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00;07;29;20 - 00;07;39;18

Ryan

That's awesome. Do you remember, do you remember when we actually first started talking to each other? I know it was when I was at Digital Kitchen very early on. I was trying to help our Seattle office.

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00;07;39;29 - 00;07;40;11

Nocky

And.

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00;07;40;20 - 00;07;57;29

Ryan

Expand. And I know I ran and I think I ran into you on Twitter or somewhere and checked out your work. And I loved like the mix of work that you had and the range of of styles you had. And immediately I was like, wow, this is somebody our, our studio could really benefit from. But I don't remember when that was.

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00;07;58;26 - 00;08;17;14

Nocky

I don't either. But yes, I definitely I saw I just started to get on Twitter and I only followed like motion graphics people on Twitter. And then I saw your tweet and I was like putting my name in there and see if that works. So, yeah, very cool.

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00;08;18;08 - 00;08;39;25

Ryan

If it's OK, could I could I rewind a little bit because you said something there that I think there's probably a lot of people in the audience right now listening that are probably in a similar situation. But can you talk a little bit about how you said you're an international student? And obviously there's there's so many challenges with that in terms of getting to the school that you want to go to and the pressure of trying to find the job as soon as possible and having to have someone sponsored.

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00;08;40;10 - 00;08;55;11

Ryan

How did you make the journey? Like where were you living where did you come from to be able to make it to Seattle? And what was that like? Like, how did you how did you convince yourself to get to get to the States? And what you talking about with the what that felt like, what the pressure felt like?

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00;08;55;11 - 00;08;59;08

Ryan

Because I think there's there's a lot of people listening that have a similar kind of background right now.

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00;08;59;09 - 00;09;26;21

Nocky

Yeah. So I'm from Vietnam and I think my parents just like just really wants to send us here because us us and my sister and I as an because they think that we'll get better educations here. And I originally have always wanted to be in the film industry and what's best to go to the U.S. for, although i didn't get to any school in L.A.

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00;09;26;23 - 00;09;44;13

Nocky

So it's like I at the school in Seattle. Yeah. And so it was mostly their decisions and less of what I was thinking. I was so young, i don't even know what what's that? Yeah. To, like, make like, like, intentionally missions to move. Yeah. So, yeah.

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00;09;45;01 - 00;10;01;20

Ryan

It's so interesting because I think there's a lot of people that run into that where it's it's the beginning of a path is laid out for them. And then there's so many different ways you can go. And like you said, you were so smart to kind of recognize that you needed to kind of almost market yourself in a way that was different from everyone else around you.

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00;10;01;20 - 00;10;15;22

Ryan

I think that was a really incredible instinct because I think a lot of people do the opposite. They see what everyone else is doing, then they copy that. I mean, we talked to so many people who are putting together demo reels and websites and they they just look for reference. They're just like, Show me, show me a demo of someone who got hired.

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00;10;16;10 - 00;10;34;11

Ryan

But the idea that you actually went the opposite direction to kind of identify what makes you different or makes you unique, I think that's why even when I when I ran into you when I did, that's why your work resonated with me so much. So. So you're working for someone for six years. What happens after that? Where do you did you start thinking about going freelance?

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00;10;34;11 - 00;10;39;17

Ryan

Do you think that you needed to go to a different place to learn something more? What what spurred on the next step in your career?

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00;10;39;18 - 00;11;03;13

Nocky

So I was working there for six year and I goes from, you know, motion graphics and then starting to 3D path, and then I just start feeling like I'm the only one in the company who knows motion graphics, right? And, you know, like we kind of work for other company too, like through my original company, but even then, the other companies do.

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00;11;03;13 - 00;11;23;14

Nocky

I'm like the only motion graphic person. So I just felt like, I felt like I had a cap somehow with the company. We were getting like the same type of work and I was kind of bored with the type of work that we were doing. And it's so hard to kind of convince your company to get different kind of work.

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00;11;24;07 - 00;11;38;08

Nocky

So I decided to freelance and I told my husband, I said, Maybe I should try this for a year or two, and if it doesn't work out, try and find a full time job. But so far it's been great. So still freelancing.

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00;11;39;04 - 00;11;57;11

Ryan

That's amazing. So how, how, how scary was that to go from something where at least it's it's consistent and there's a certain amount of security working in a place, but I think you echo the sentiments of a lot of people. We hear that come to School of Motion that they can't figure out exactly why they're hitting that cap.

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00;11;57;11 - 00;12;16;28

Ryan

I think that's such a great word, a cap or a ceiling and they don't even know exactly how to move past it. But you identified pretty early on like you felt like you just need to be around people doing the work you wanted to do was that was that scary or was that exciting? Was that intimidating or was it kind of like inspiring to figure out like, OK, I need to make a big push?

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00;12;17;06 - 00;12;19;11

Ryan

What what what was your mindset at that? Point?

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00;12;19;13 - 00;12;40;15

Nocky

Yeah, it was definitely very, very scary. And we also decided to move to New York. It's kind of like a bucket list thing before we set it down. So so that kind of like give me a big push. And then I also know that there's quite a lot of work in New York at the time. So I was like, I could get work one way or another there.

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00;12;40;15 - 00;13;01;00

Nocky

It just a matter of finding, can I get the work that I wanted to work on? Mm hmm. Yeah. And I spent a few months working on my demo, and I got a really good response online from the demo. Really? So. So that really gave me a boost in thinking like this is probably the right way to go.

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00;13;01;16 - 00;13;11;14

Ryan

That's awesome. So you make that decision. Where did you what was the first place you landed that once you you decided that you're going to kind of move on? Where where did you where did you go to is.

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00;13;11;14 - 00;13;39;18

Nocky

Mostly still at the first few months? Because I actually was still working on my demo reel after I already quit my job. So the first few months was still with like people I've known from when I was full time. And like they heard that I went freelance, so they snatched me up. So so I was working with a lot with that and then just some shops here and there around kind of like all over the place really.

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00;13;39;18 - 00;14;05;09

Nocky

And that's when I realizing like, oh, I don't really need to be in New York in a way. I mean, I love being New York, but yeah, I was like, I I mean, it started to so it's so funny because I stopped moving to New York because I felt like maybe I have to be in the office and my goal has always been being able to work from anywhere and not having to tie down to physical locations.

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00;14;05;22 - 00;14;25;18

Nocky

And then COVID started and every every company start, you know, doing remote work and or company that who used to don't like the idea of remote working they want people to go in house and work at their office are now open to remote work. And so I moved back to Seattle because I love Seattle.

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00;14;25;20 - 00;14;43;16

Ryan

That's amazing. I mean, it's so so amazing that time I think we're at right now in motion design because there there were so many things people wanted to be able to do work from home work as a designer book, their own time work on only the things they wanted to work with, work with teams that would make them better.

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00;14;43;22 - 00;14;58;20

Ryan

And I think so many people were held back just because of the geographic requirements. And we've all heard it like you have to move to L.A. or New York to get work, which you did. I did the same thing. I moved to L.A. to try to like level up and be around the people doing the work and I feel like all of that has changed.

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00;14;58;20 - 00;15;19;07

Ryan

And I don't know if it's ever going to go back to the old ways, to be totally honest. But I think that takes me to just in terms of your work, you're to me, I always I look to your website, anybody listen to this, you're probably going to want to go to knock dinkum because I want to talk about so much of your work but I'm even just looking at like your illustration page.

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00;15;19;15 - 00;15;43;10

Ryan

And I feel like when I ran into a lot of your work, had this this vibe to it, but then I go to your work page now and especially your demo reel. And there is so much really incredible 3D across a really wide range of applications of 3D. I want to get to that question now that like how did you go from the artists that I knew a handful of years ago to now?

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00;15;43;13 - 00;16;01;26

Ryan

I mean, you have full on. Yeah, I have to say the opening shot for your demo, the opening sequence with the character landing and all of the kind of claw simulation and, and the really beautiful type animation just pronouncing here name is I think it's one of the best demo reel openings I've seen in the last four or five years.

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00;16;02;04 - 00;16;22;29

Ryan

And I watch a lot of demo reels between the class that I've made and doing open office hours and helping hire for all kinds of places. Openings for demo reels never stand out. They're almost always one of the least interesting parts of a demo. Yours is like a declaration. It's like an explosion. Like immediately I get a sense of who you are.

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00;16;22;29 - 00;16;35;28

Ryan

Like, if you're going to be fun to work with I get a sense of what you can do, what you're excited about doing, the type of work you hope I can help you do. Talk to me a little bit because I think that, again, there's so many people who are at the stage, or maybe they're decent at design.

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00;16;35;28 - 00;16;51;25

Ryan

They've used AfterEffects for years, but 3D is scary. They know they want to do it, but they have no idea how to start. I literally feel like I just didn't see your work for a couple of years. Then came back and you're like this fully transformed artist. What? What spurred you to do that and how did you get this good?

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00;16;51;29 - 00;16;55;06

Ryan

Seemingly to me from the outside so fast.

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00;16;55;23 - 00;17;08;28

Nocky

Yeah, well, personally, I don't think I was that fast. I think I was because I was doing a lot kind of behind the scenes work that I don't post or I post it and then I deleted it. So.

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00;17;09;06 - 00;17;10;14

Speaker 1

No, do you really do?

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00;17;11;05 - 00;17;12;00

Ryan

Oh, no. Yeah.

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00;17;13;18 - 00;17;44;05

Nocky

Because especially when I start freelancing, I kind of want to clean up my Instagram feed and such. So I delete work that I don't thing up to my standard anymore or. Yeah, it wasn't that good. And I think it's also because I just recently start freelance. I start freelancing maybe three years ago, and that's when I really start putting a lot of work online, really putting myself out there and doing a lot of personal projects and put my work up there.

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00;17;44;05 - 00;18;23;08

Nocky

So it feels like it feels like all of a suddenly I was doing a lot, but and especially when I freelance so I had a lot of time to really focusing on my own projects. So write that. So that's why it seems like all of a sudden I was doing a lot of the intro on that was quite funny because when I was working on my demo, really, I realizing that that year a lot of my work project from when I was full time was just either just OK or it was the work that I no longer wants to be associating with or want to work on in any more.

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00;18;23;25 - 00;18;50;04

Nocky

So I ended up having maybe like 15 or 30 seconds worth of stuff to show right and so I decided to just spend a few months and just working on a lot of personal project and to like a little bit like five second stuff kind of fill up my demo reel and also showing like what kind of work I like to get, which is more kind of a stylized 3D.

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00;18;50;15 - 00;18;50;24

Ryan

Right.

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00;18;52;03 - 00;19;15;21

Nocky

And so the intro was something to like I can't just do a simple intro. I need to do something almost like a personal project, like a moving one, so that not only that, it also showcasing my skill, but also kind of fill up the, the spot that I need and so that kind of came about. So I'm glad to hear it was very well-received.

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00;19;16;06 - 00;19;42;25

Ryan

I mean, I don't say this very often. I think I've only said this maybe about off the top I had I can think of Second Solomon in terms of his opening to his drum roll. That's probably like 12, 13 seconds. There's very few other ones I can think of where to be honest, if I was looking for someone and I played the first 8 seconds, you know, just the opening, your character coming down says your name says demo real shows your logo off I would probably this isn't being hyperbolic.

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00;19;42;25 - 00;20;00;15

Ryan

I would probably stop and reach out to you after the first 8 seconds and I wouldn't need to watch the rest of the real. If I'm looking for somebody who does character work, who has a really good sense for design, knows how to move a camera, knows how to composite, can animate not just a character moving, but also creating some type of emotion in the movement.

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00;20;01;04 - 00;20;28;16

Ryan

All my questions have already been answered in the first 8 seconds, right? That's really, really rare. But that's exactly what you want from a demo reel. I mean, I still I'm going to watch it, but immediately like, oh my gosh, I think I found the person I need to hire. Let me go and write out the email and at least, like, get the conversation started with him and then I'm going to come back and watch the rest of the demo that says so much to you for how much time you've put into how much time you've invested in yourself, which I think is honestly something people want to do.

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00;20;28;16 - 00;20;53;10

Ryan

But it's really rare in the end that you said you spent months working on five second projects, and it sounds like you're also really, really hard on yourself. Are you scary? You have the capability to put a critical eye to your work and you don't mind killing your darlings at all because it sounds like you've had a lot of work and you got it down to 15 seconds, but this reel is almost 50, 47 seconds long.

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00;20;53;25 - 00;21;15;10

Ryan

I've never seen I don't think I've seen a reel that has from what I can tell, it feels like 70, 70% personal projects, maybe 30% like client work that feels this solid like this feels like someone who to me, when I look at it, who has the capability to eventually become like a creative director with their own vision but also knows how to execute everything.

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00;21;15;24 - 00;21;17;17

Ryan

I guess I'm just saying I really, really like your demo.

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00;21;18;00 - 00;21;39;01

Nocky

Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. When I was grad, that's probably the second time I really made, but the first memory I made was when I graduate from school. And it's so funny because we had sort of a showing for at one of the I can't remember but is in Seattle. And then they inviting people in the industry to come and walk around and see everybody's work.

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00;21;39;24 - 00;22;02;29

Nocky

And I worked really hard on the demo reel with the music and the sound design and then on that day, it turns out that you can only show the visual and there was no music to it. Yeah. And I remember watching my demo really just, just my visual only. And I remember like, oh my God, this is so slow or this is like the pacing was not right because it was matched to the music.

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00;22;02;29 - 00;22;18;25

Nocky

But yeah, without it was not it didn't catch anybody eyes, I would say. So that was something I remember a lot when I created my second demo really is that it's if it's if somebody watch it on mute, it still should look or inviting.

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00;22;20;10 - 00;22;40;19

Ryan

I feel like I don't want this to be an advertisement for Denver or dash class but I feel like you're seeing everything you're saying everything. I try to give advice over four weeks in like a 30 minute interview because it I'm literally sitting here while we're talking just watching your Denver on loop obviously the sounds down and that's one of the things that struck me is that the pacing is so so nice.

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00;22;40;19 - 00;22;59;21

Ryan

Like I never said anything for that long. There's lots of nice little like camera pushes the cuts match really well it's never boring you never stand one thing for that long. You bounce back and forth between different types of shots. Like I see a couple of 3D shots then there's some kind of VFX, there's these nice like split screens reissuing like a push in on something.

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00;22;59;26 - 00;23;26;03

Ryan

And there's something you did that I'm not even normally a big fan of where you show, like, kind of process, but you have that really cool shot with the kind of like the figure drawing kind of mannequin doll, and you show your you're just quick process to show what you did, but it's edited so well, the pacing, so well, and I've never watched it with the music on and I'm still like, it's rare that I will watch them row more than once, but I'm literally just watching it three or four times and kind of just in awe of not even just like the content, the work itself, but how you put it all together.

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00;23;26;14 - 00;23;42;01

Ryan

There's such a big thing about it. There's such a wide range, like, I love that there's a Santa Claus shot that's to the animation that you just feel the weight of him like dragging his feet through the snow. But it has everything right. Like this feels like I could trust you with animated type. I could trust you with art direction.

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00;23;42;01 - 00;23;57;26

Ryan

I know that you understand 2D and 3D like it. It's great. Is really good. I think it's definitely if you're listening to this and you haven't watched it, you definitely, definitely pause the podcast and watch it a couple of times because it's there's a lot of good lessons in here. So what are they still real do for you when you put this out?

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00;23;58;12 - 00;24;11;16

Ryan

How did you use this? It sounds like you're really aware of like your network and how to communicate to studios. You want to work with this. Did you use this as a calling card to introduce yourself to new shops or to to new connections? What you do with this once you finished it yeah.

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00;24;12;02 - 00;24;46;09

Nocky

I got a lot of emails immediately after I post it online. Unfortunately, I can only take one. So I end up having to turn down quite a lot of work then and at that demo. And the response that I get from everybody like on Instagram and such was like really nice, which kind of give me like a confidence boost and like let me know that, OK, I can be freelancing for a while and so far, every time I send my demo, I've been getting like response back.

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00;24;46;09 - 00;25;06;08

Nocky

So that's pretty good. I think unless they were looking for somebody who was doing like photo real stuff, then maybe they would say, My work don't show that much. But so far I feel like I get respond back when I email people. So it it's really nice. It makes freelancing less stressful for sure.

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00;25;06;19 - 00;25;21;23

Ryan

Yeah. What what I love about it is, you know, I think a lot of times people when you put it together real, you're kind of there's almost trying to find the right way to say this without being judgmental of that. There's almost a sense of desperation when you look at someone's demo because they're like, look, I can do everything.

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00;25;22;01 - 00;25;37;06

Ryan

Here's everything, here's a little bit of everything. And then you talk to someone six months later, a year later, they're like, Yeah, I'm still kind of just getting getting whatever work comes to me. I'm not getting the work I want to do. And that's when I always tell people, like, you have to go back your general and look at what the general saying.

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00;25;37;23 - 00;25;59;28

Ryan

What I love about this is like, I know immediately when I watch this the kind of work you want to do, right? I'm sure you can. You could do pretty much anything I could throw at you, right? But I get a sense of like, you know what? You probably don't want to do the photo real product shots. You want the the shots of the pieces that have some type of stylization or character or a mix of 2D and 3D where you can really flex your muscles.

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00;26;00;10 - 00;26;19;09

Ryan

I think that's really rare. I guess the big thing I'm thinking about this when I see it as very rare, rarely do I get a sense of the confidence kind of exuding from an artist when you watch a demo reel. And this is definitely one of them that I get the sense of somebody who knows what they want and they know what they can do, and they're not desperate to just be hired for anything for a day.

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00;26;19;09 - 00;26;25;24

Ryan

Right? They're saying, This is something I can do. You want me versus I want the work you can get me. That's like the highest compliment I think I can give.

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00;26;26;10 - 00;26;47;01

Nocky

You thank you. Yeah. I mean, I was a generalist for six years and I was doing whatever that was coming in to the company. So at this point, I was like I wanted to do more stylized stuff. So it's sort of an experiment in a way, too, because I wanted to see how this demo will work for me.

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00;26;47;08 - 00;26;59;13

Nocky

And getting the work that I want. But if it wasn't, I was ready to make a very, very general demo, really, you know? So I wasn't like yeah. And it just worked out, so. So that's good.

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00;26;59;15 - 00;27;11;02

Ryan

I love that. I wish more people would do that. I wish more people would. I like how you call an experiment because I, I think other people would call it a risk, be like, Oh man, I don't know if I can, I don't want to not get booked for a couple of months because my demo reel is so specific.

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00;27;11;02 - 00;27;42;15

Ryan

I think that's why people make, they say generalists, but the real really is general. It's kind of like a little taste of everything. But I think the fact that you've done so much self-motivated work with your personal projects that for me, I get excited when I see artists that do that because I'm like, Oh my gosh, I want that person to be in my team of staff whenever a new project comes in, because that means you have to have a voice, you have an idea there's something in your head that you want to try to express that I want to use that to try to pitch on jobs, because I know when I'm pitching, I'm

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00;27;42;15 - 00;28;01;17

Ryan

not going to get the same general kind of like idea the initial idea you always get when someone pitches. I think that makes me want to ask, how do you decide which personal projects to take on? Because I think that's something people struggle with as well. You know, like I look down the list and you have this awesome mix of like you have the Hawkeye title sequence, which I want to talk to you about.

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00;28;01;17 - 00;28;23;03

Ryan

But also then right next to that, you have this really awesome piece for Frida that, you know, like it looks at least in terms of like the quality of the animation, the rendering, the style, the design. It looks like a commercial project. But, you know, I'm assuming this is a personal project. How do you decide what to spend your time and like the word you said was invest, how do you decide what to invest in for yourself?

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00;28;23;12 - 00;28;51;19

Nocky

So a lot some of the project kind of started out as sort of just an exercise in. So Frida, for example, was just an exercise for me to learn UAV mapping and we talk more later. But I basically for that one, I was as I was thinking like, OK, I'm not really good at modeling, so what can I do to stand out as somebody who's still new at 3D?

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00;28;52;00 - 00;29;14;07

Nocky

And I know that I do I can paint and draw. So I decided to learn UAV mapping so that I can do a specific or customized texture and originally what just, you know, the doll itself. And then I have this weird thing. So I'm like, OK, if I'm going to spend time on this project, why don't I make it better?

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00;29;14;26 - 00;29;39;03

Nocky

And I kept thinking, Oh, wouldn't it be better if I add this and that that? And so it becomes like the whole thing, like a whole sequence of the Frida sequence. But in terms of like how do you choose some is just sort of based on what I wanted to learn at the time. And also I have a lot of unfinished personal projects still sitting in my computer.

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00;29;39;18 - 00;30;06;20

Nocky

And the funny thing is talking back about like the mirror, I think it's like a pivotal moment for me too, because I was brainstorming what I want to show that I can do in the demo reels. I was like, Oh, I can do this, that and something else. But then when I was editing my demo, I didn't see any of that with the work that I already did or with my work at work.

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00;30;07;22 - 00;30;28;07

Nocky

And I was like, Wow, I know I can do you know, movie mapping. I know I can do this fun thing. Like, why don't I see that in my demo here? And I think that is was because they're all unfinished and like I know in the back of my head that I can do these thing because I was doing it, but I just stop and never finish them.

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00;30;29;02 - 00;30;51;14

Nocky

And that kind of give me a sort of like a, a big like eureka moment where I think, OK, I really the only way to show that I can do these skills and that I can like things doing camera stuff. So that's when I focusing on OK, I just have to really finishing all this personal project that I never did.

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00;30;52;01 - 00;31;02;27

Nocky

And I do weed out like things I no longer interested in or it just doesn't give me joy anymore and just kind of focusing on the ones that I really had a passion for.

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00;31;03;07 - 00;31;24;26

Ryan

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think it shows I mean, it's so funny. I was flipping through your, your Twitter feed before we, we got on this call. And besides the fact that I feel like half the things that you've retweeted are also things that I've retweeted, like I think we share a similar affinity for a just like beautifully drawn and design things and very cartoony animation.

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00;31;24;26 - 00;31;43;25

Ryan

Like I see a lot of stuff about Arcane and Studio Ghibli and people testing out tools and blender. I guess between if I was looking at someone to hire, one of the things I do is I watch their demo, right? And we talked a lot about how much I love your show, but then the next thing I'd like to do is just to like look at what what you spend your time liking, right?

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00;31;43;25 - 00;32;05;14

Ryan

I look at people's Instagram and I don't even look at much as what they post, but I look at what they, what they like or they retweet or who they talk to. And I feel like that's another thing that's great for listeners to hear is that through everything you do, it definitely feels like there's this sense of like motivated curiosity like you have goals, you have a vision, but you're also looking to see what other people are doing and what you can take from that and what you can share.

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00;32;05;20 - 00;32;23;09

Ryan

How important is that to you in terms of just like staying hungry as an artist and staying kind of curious? Like, do you are you actively trying to maintain that because you've been working for a while now? Right. You're at the point where I think a lot of artists hit another wall where they either get bored or they get jaded or I don't know.

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00;32;23;09 - 00;32;33;01

Ryan

I see a lot of people, we're just like, Oh, nothing really impresses me anymore. The industry is kind of boring. Do you do you try to, like, keep yourself curious and keep yourself excited?

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00;32;33;04 - 00;32;58;25

Nocky

Yeah, yeah. All the time that the thing with motion graphic is sometimes it can be kind of like an echo chamber. Like everybody can start to look the same. So then you get bored just scrolling Instagram. But I love I find that if I look for inspiration sort of outside of just motion graphic and on the field, that's sort of either adjacent to it, for me, it would be the stop motion puppets I love.

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00;32;59;00 - 00;33;29;02

Nocky

I love them for like character design and texturing or sculpture. Like, those are two of my favorite place to kind of look for it. And then I'm also looking at other software too, like not just in cinema or after effects because I can of more result oriented and less of like what tools I'm using. So if I see that a software can do something that's really interesting, the things I've never done before, I would probably want to when I investigate that.

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00;33;29;15 - 00;33;31;08

Nocky

For example, right now, it would be blender for me.

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00;33;31;08 - 00;33;49;10

Ryan

So I know I keep an eye on seeing all these different posts that you have for things you can do with geometry nodes and kind of like stylized or non non photo real things. And that that immediately gets me so excited that like there's just tools out there that are more artist driven and I mean, I'm so in love with some of the things you said.

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00;33;49;10 - 00;34;08;19

Ryan

I've always struggled with how to say this, but I think you nailed the whole idea of a lot of people emotions that are very process obsessed like tools and techniques and plug ins, but they aren't necessarily, I guess, like results oriented. You know, like you said, they are the where it's like, oh, you have a vision in your head of what you want to get to.

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00;34;08;29 - 00;34;32;00

Ryan

You know, like I've seen you retweet things from like Corey Loftus, the creative director or the character designer on stuff like Zootopia and I can see you trying to get to that. And it doesn't matter what the tool is, it doesn't matter if it's you drawing something or modeling something or software, it feels like you're aiming towards something you want to get something out of your head versus just learning how a tool makes you faster or gives you new, new techniques, I guess.

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00;34;32;11 - 00;34;51;29

Ryan

I mean, we could talk forever about it, so we're super excited about like where the industry goes, but maybe this is a good time to ask the question, what's good for your career, right? Like you're obviously an amazing illustrator. You've really got 3D under your belt just through what we said, like this motivated personal project, kind of like experimentation.

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00;34;52;07 - 00;35;09;07

Ryan

You're working freelance, you've done some amazing jobs. We haven't talked about it yet, but that that Hawkeye title sequence, I think is just a great mix of all the things you can do. What's where do you see your career going going forward as an illustrator? Who can also do 3D? What what do you what do you want to do in the next like three or four years?

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00;35;09;07 - 00;35;31;02

Nocky

So recently because you brought the Hawkeye thing up, I recently get a lot more kind of film work doing title sequence and pitch and title cards and such, and which really makes me happy a lot because it brings back to like why I went to film school in the first place. So I definitely want to stay longer in this field.

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00;35;32;06 - 00;36;05;18

Nocky

But I but the Hawkeye was when it was really testing me, not just animation skills but also designing skills because we all have to pitch in and design all these frames. Which makes me was like, oh, I really wants to leveling up my designing skill because I think that's super important and hard. So I think that's going to be my goal is to do more of them work and be kind of more in the designing space and positions.

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00;36;05;19 - 00;36;06;15

Nocky

And so yeah.

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00;36;07;00 - 00;36;30;14

Ryan

I mean, just to say say some great things about your work and Hawkeye that that piece was great because I thought it was such a beautiful mix of an homage to the subject matter. You know, that comic book stylings of that the artist David Aha and Mike or AJ, I'm not sure exactly how to pronounce his name, but it felt so close to what I loved about a lot of the source material, but it also combined to do with 3D.

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00;36;30;22 - 00;36;48;17

Ryan

And then when I went to your site and saw that you worked, I was like, Oh, I wonder what you did. I thought it was so interesting, like you said, that you were responsible for designing, but then also animating, which is so rare and it seems like everybody on the team that designed also Greg Herman, Steve Svali, Zach, all those people also animated along with you.

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00;36;48;26 - 00;37;05;14

Ryan

And then I got to see the frames that you designed and animated and like it's almost the bucket list of my favorite shots. Like I don't remember what the dog's name is, but the dog holding holding the arrow was one of the ones, the shots that made me laugh. Just watching that the title sequence but the rest of them are like some of the boldest shots in terms of design.

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00;37;05;14 - 00;37;22;09

Ryan

Like there's a shot of Hawkeye about to shoot an arrow and that canted like Dutch angle of all the arrows hitting the black background. I love that shot in the sequence was so beautiful. And then I remember favorite characters in the show was the character Swordsman. And you just have this, like, super dynamic shot. That's again kind of like on an angle.

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00;37;22;19 - 00;37;32;07

Ryan

What was that like? Did you know when you had to start designing those that if those shots got picked, that you would then animate them redesigning, knowing they had to be animated or did you find out after that?

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00;37;33;04 - 00;37;57;29

Nocky

So because the timeline was so quick, then we in order to finish it on time, we all have to kind of we are saying the shots and some of the shot shots. Steve Sabel, who is leading the second main on title sequence, he some of them, he's sort of already has a vision. And it's up to me to kind of clean it up and then also add whatever and then animate them.

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00;37;57;29 - 00;38;30;16

Nocky

So some of them like the dog lucky was his idea. And then the, the what's the arrow shooting down. He has a different sort of angle on it, like a different shot. But the same idea is just showing a lot of arrows. Just raining down on the ground is so funny because when I was working on that shot and I was trying to explaining what I was going to do, he Steve almost stopped me from creating the shot because it wasn't what he was thinking.

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00;38;30;16 - 00;38;45;04

Nocky

But then he stop himself and he said it to me. He's like, you know what? Why don't just do what you're thinking. I think I trust you. And then I show it to him and he loved it, so that's awesome. Yeah. He said he was glad that he didn't stop me from making that shot.

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00;38;45;24 - 00;39;02;24

Ryan

Steve Steve is one of the greatest human beings in all of ocean design. I love the fact that he trusts you to just go and see what it looks like and then finds out. That's one of the hardest things to do, is to just have the humility to be like, maybe I don't know what the best thing is, but when you have a team of people full of artists like you knocking here.

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00;39;03;09 - 00;39;22;26

Ryan

Yeah, well, I just want to say thank you so much. I think this is this is a great conversation for people to hear because what I love about you, besides obviously like your tastes and the things you are capable of and all the personal projects is just I've always been impressed with just the confidence from the way you speak to the way you show off your behind the scenes and you share things.

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00;39;23;09 - 00;39;41;27

Ryan

But just also hearing from all this that you knew there is something I wouldn't say wrong but something that you wanted and you just really invested and doubled down on yourself and you invested in your curiosity. You didn't just do whatever everybody else was doing you really pushed on the things you're interested in and obsessed with, and it's paid off in spades.

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00;39;41;27 - 00;39;58;26

Ryan

It sounds like in your career that you want to continue is align just with those things too, right? You're not wondering how to get to where you want to go. You kind of went out and did it. So I think for that, for anyone listening, this knock is a great example of how to take control of your career and figure out where you want to go.

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00;39;58;26 - 00;40;23;01

Ryan

But also just she's full of practical examples of how you can do it right. Investing in personal projects that are aligned to what you want to be and what you want to do and who you want to work with. So I guess besides that, I always ask people this knock you off people I'm very interested in. Is there anything like tools or techniques or artistry or projects that you you're super excited about now that you want to integrate into your your toolkit?

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00;40;23;01 - 00;40;30;27

Ryan

I know you talked a little bit about Blender, but is there something specifically you're playing with right now or excited to get some free time to touch and experiment with?

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00;40;31;11 - 00;41;01;24

Nocky

Yeah, so definitely Blender. The Grease Pencil has been really interesting to me and I, I was doing a pitch on this project and they wanted some sort of kind of blueprint, but in 3-D and 3D space and instead so I thought of greasepaint. I might actually spend like a day trying to learn how to navigating around Blender and, and incorporating that and I got through the pitch and I love it so much that I decided to kind of explore more.

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00;41;01;24 - 00;41;06;23

Nocky

And I really enjoy it. So I'm hoping to kind of incorporate that into my work. In the future.

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00;41;07;07 - 00;41;24;20

Ryan

I'm so excited you said that because I am I'm in the same boat I'm looking for like the right opportunity, the right project or the right kind of like personal idea to finally try to figure out that interface because it's it's so funny how if you've used 3D in the past, blender feels like learning a foreign like a completely separate language.

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00;41;24;26 - 00;41;43;22

Ryan

If you've never used 3D. I feel like people gravitate to it so quickly. So it has me excited about just finding some time to like rewire my brain to learn it. Well, thank you so much. I really appreciate just the time and I appreciate going through some of the projects and telling people your journey. In the meantime, definitely check out Knox's website.

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00;41;43;22 - 00;41;52;28

Ryan

We'll have it listed on on the blog at School of Motion. But until the next time we get to talk about your next project Nocky. Thank you so much. I really, really appreciate it.

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00;41;53;04 - 00;41;53;26

Nocky

Thank you.

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00;41;55;06 - 00;42;15;19

EJ

It is incredible to see the growth that Nocky Dinh has experienced over the past few years. And like Ryan mentioned, I really highly recommend you check out her website because not only does she show off all of her amazing work, but she's got a lot of great breakdowns and behind the scenes of her projects. So you can get to see a little bit of her creative process.

And I'm really interested to see her progress in blender grease pencils. Hard to ignore. It's a pretty exciting time to be a creative with so many new ways to create and so many pieces of software that will help you realize your vision until next time, keep on creating.

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