Top 12 Storyboard Artist Skills to Put on Your Resume
Crafting an impressive resume as a storyboard artist requires showcasing a unique blend of technical skills and creative flair. Highlighting the top skills in your resume can set you apart from the competition, demonstrating your ability to transform scripts into visual masterpieces.
Storyboard Artist Skills
- Storyboarding
- Illustration
- Photoshop
- Adobe Illustrator
- Animation Principles
- Cinematography
- Character Design
- Ds Max
- After Effects
- Visual Storytelling
- Maya
- SketchUp
1. Storyboarding
Storyboarding is the process of creating a series of drawings that outline the visual sequence of events, scenes, or animations in a film, TV show, advertisement, or other multimedia projects. A storyboard artist visualizes the script, breaking down the narrative into panels to convey the story's flow, camera angles, motion, and timing, serving as a visual guide for production teams.
Why It's Important
Storyboarding is important because it provides a visual roadmap for storytelling, allowing a storyboard artist to plan, visualize, and communicate the sequence of events, camera angles, and transitions, ensuring a cohesive and compelling narrative.
How to Improve Storyboarding Skills
Improving storyboarding involves enhancing your ability to visually narrate a story, focusing on composition, pacing, and clarity. Here are concise tips along with external resources for deepening your storyboard artistry:
Study Story Structures: Understanding the basics of storytelling helps in creating compelling narratives. The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell is a great start.
Practice Drawing: Improve your drawing skills to quickly communicate ideas. Drawing from life and using references helps. Drawspace offers tutorials.
Understand Cinematography: Knowledge of camera angles, shots, and movements enhances visual storytelling. The Five C's of Cinematography is a key resource.
Analyze Existing Storyboards: Study storyboards from your favorite films or animations. Websites like The Director's Series provide insights into filmmakers' techniques.
Feedback and Collaboration: Regularly share your work with peers or mentors for constructive criticism. Platforms like ArtStation allow for portfolio sharing and feedback.
Storyboard Software Proficiency: Familiarize yourself with digital tools like Adobe Photoshop, Storyboard Pro, or Blender for storyboarding. Storyboard That is a good tool for beginners to practice.
Continuous Learning: Stay updated with new techniques and technologies in storyboarding and animation. Schoolism offers courses taught by industry professionals.
Narrative Clarity: Ensure your storyboards are clear and understandable, even without dialogue. Practice by converting scenes from books or comics into storyboards.
In summary, improving as a storyboard artist is a continuous process of learning, practicing, analyzing, and seeking feedback.
How to Display Storyboarding Skills on Your Resume
2. Illustration
Illustration, in the context of a storyboard artist, refers to the creation of visual imagery that outlines and conveys the narrative, scene sequence, or action plan for a film, animation, or other visual storytelling project.
Why It's Important
Illustration is crucial for a storyboard artist as it visually communicates ideas, narratives, and emotions, providing a clear, impactful blueprint for storytelling and guiding the production process in film, animation, and advertising.
How to Improve Illustration Skills
Improving illustration, especially for a storyboard artist, involves honing your skills in storytelling, composition, and drawing. Here are concise tips and resources:
Practice Storytelling: Your illustrations should convey a narrative. Focus on expressing emotions, actions, and dynamics relevant to the story. Pixar in a Box on Khan Academy offers insights into effective storytelling.
Master Composition: Learn how to guide the viewer’s eye across your illustrations. Composition principles like the rule of thirds, leading lines, and framing can enhance your storyboards. Composition and Framing provides a good overview.
Enhance Drawing Skills: Constant practice is key. Work on anatomy, perspective, and dynamic poses. Proko offers tutorials that cover these fundamentals in depth.
Understand Cinematography: Storyboards are closely related to film language. Understanding shot types, camera angles, and movement is crucial. No Film School has resources and articles that delve into cinematography techniques.
Feedback and Iterate: Share your work with peers and professionals to get constructive feedback. Iterating based on critique is vital for improvement. Join forums like ConceptArt.org for community feedback.
Study Existing Storyboards: Analyze storyboards from films and animations you admire. The Art of Storyboard offers a deep dive into various storyboard examples and techniques.
By focusing on these areas and consistently practicing, you can significantly improve your illustration skills as a storyboard artist.
How to Display Illustration Skills on Your Resume
3. Photoshop
Photoshop is a versatile digital imaging software used by storyboard artists for creating, editing, and enhancing visual elements and frames for storytelling and conceptual visualization.
Why It's Important
Photoshop is essential for storyboard artists because it offers powerful tools for creating, editing, and enhancing visual storytelling elements, enabling precise control over composition, color, and texture to effectively convey narrative intent and mood.
How to Improve Photoshop Skills
To enhance Photoshop for storyboard artists, consider customizing and streamlining your workflow with these steps:
Custom Brushes: Create or download custom brushes tailored to storyboard art for quicker sketching and more consistent visuals. Adobe Brush Guide.
Layer Organization: Utilize Layer Groups and color coding to keep your work organized, making it easier to edit different elements. Layer Management.
Storyboard Templates: Design or acquire storyboard templates to standardize your panels and maintain consistency across projects. Creating Templates.
Shortcuts & Actions: Learn and customize keyboard shortcuts for frequently used tools/actions; create Actions for repetitive tasks to save time. Keyboard Shortcuts and Creating Actions.
Animation Timeline: Experiment with Photoshop's animation timeline for simple animatics or to add motion to your storyboards, enhancing the storytelling. Animation and Timeline.
Use of Libraries: Organize and share assets like character models, backgrounds, and props with Adobe Libraries for consistency and efficiency. Adobe Libraries.
Feedback Integration: Utilize Cloud Documents and Adobe Creative Cloud for easy sharing and receiving feedback directly on your project. Creative Cloud for Collaboration.
Continuous Learning: Stay updated with new Photoshop features and storyboard-specific tutorials to continuously improve your workflow. Adobe Tutorials.
By implementing these steps, storyboard artists can significantly improve their efficiency and quality of work in Photoshop.
How to Display Photoshop Skills on Your Resume
4. Adobe Illustrator
Adobe Illustrator is a vector graphics software used by storyboard artists to create scalable illustrations and designs for storyboarding, allowing precise control over lines and shapes to visually outline scenes and sequences.
Why It's Important
Adobe Illustrator is crucial for storyboard artists because it provides powerful vector drawing tools, enabling the creation of scalable, precise, and clean artwork essential for visualizing and communicating story ideas effectively.
How to Improve Adobe Illustrator Skills
Improving your Adobe Illustrator skills as a storyboard artist involves mastering tools and techniques that enhance your ability to visualize stories effectively. Here are concise tips:
Learn Vector Basics: Understand how to manipulate vector paths and shapes for clean, scalable illustrations. Adobe's guide is a great starting point.
Master the Pen Tool: It's crucial for creating precise and dynamic shapes. Practice regularly. This tutorial helps demystify the Pen Tool.
Utilize Layers and Artboards: Organize your work for efficiency. Use layers for different elements and artboards for variations of scenes. Check this out for more on artboards.
Incorporate Custom Brushes: They can add texture and depth, making your storyboards more engaging. Learn to create and manage them here.
Experiment with the Perspective Grid: It aids in creating accurate 3D spaces and can bring dynamic viewpoints to your storyboards. Adobe's perspective drawing tutorial can guide you.
Keyboard Shortcuts: Speed up your workflow significantly. Memorize the most used Illustrator shortcuts. Adobe's list can be a useful reference.
Use Storyboarding Templates: Start with pre-designed templates to streamline your process. Customize as needed. Adobe Stock often has templates available.
Continuous Learning: Finally, the digital art and illustration landscape is always evolving. Stay updated with new features and techniques through platforms like Adobe's tutorials and Behance, where professionals share their work and workflows.
By focusing on these areas, you can significantly enhance your proficiency in Adobe Illustrator, making your storyboard creation process more efficient and your output more compelling.
How to Display Adobe Illustrator Skills on Your Resume
5. Animation Principles
Animation principles are foundational guidelines that help storyboard artists and animators create more lifelike, engaging, and dynamic animations. They include concepts like timing and spacing, squash and stretch, anticipation, follow through and overlapping action, and exaggeration, among others. These principles enhance storytelling by making movements feel more natural and actions more expressive.
Why It's Important
Animation principles are crucial for a storyboard artist as they guide the creation of dynamic, expressive, and coherent visual narratives, ensuring effective communication of action, emotion, and story flow to both the animation team and the audience.
How to Improve Animation Principles Skills
Improving animation principles as a storyboard artist involves understanding and applying core concepts to enhance visual storytelling. Here are concise suggestions with resources for deeper exploration:
Squash and Stretch: Give characters and objects the illusion of weight and volume as they move. Practice by animating simple shapes. Animator Island - Squash and Stretch
Anticipation: Use this to prepare the audience for an action, making the scene more believable. Sketch sequences that build up to the main action. The 12 Basic Principles of Animation - Anticipation
Staging: Clearly present an idea or mood. Use composition, camera angles, and lighting to guide the viewer's focus. The Virtual Instructor - Staging
Straight Ahead Action and Pose to Pose: Blend these two methods for dynamic scenes. Start with key poses, then animate the in-betweens. Bloop Animation - Straight Ahead and Pose to Pose
Follow Through and Overlapping Action: Show the continuation of movement in parts of the body or objects to create realism. Practice with trailing elements like hair or clothing. AlanBeckerTutorials - Follow Through and Overlapping Action
Slow In and Slow Out: Vary the speed of an action to make it more natural. Begin by drawing more frames at the start and end of an action. Animator Island - Timing and Spacing in Animation
Arcs: Use arced motion paths for natural movement. Trace arcs with a light pencil to guide your animation frames. Draw with Jazza - Creating Fluid Motion with Arcs
Secondary Action: Add smaller actions to support the main action, enhancing realism and interest. Think about natural reactions or movements that complement the scene. Toon Boom Blog - Secondary Action
Timing: Adjust the timing of your scenes to control the pace and mood. Experiment with different frame rates and durations. Creative Bloq - Mastering Timing in Animation
Exaggeration: Amplify movements or expressions for comedic or dramatic effect. Push your sketches beyond real-life proportions thoughtfully. Sketchbook - Exaggeration in Animation
Solid Drawing: Understand 3D space, form, and anatomy to improve your drawing skills. Practice sketching from life and using reference images. Ctrl+Paint - Drawing Basics
Appeal: Create engaging and relatable characters with distinct personalities and styles. Research character design principles. Character Design References - Appeal
Incorporating these principles into your storyboard art will significantly enhance your storytelling capabilities. Practice regularly, and seek feedback to continue improving.
How to Display Animation Principles Skills on Your Resume
6. Cinematography
Cinematography is the art and technique of visual storytelling through camera movement, framing, lighting, and composition, guiding a storyboard artist in visualizing and planning each scene's look and feel in a film or video production.
Why It's Important
Cinematography is crucial for a storyboard artist as it translates the visual storytelling into images, guiding the composition, framing, and camera movement to effectively convey the mood, pace, and narrative flow of the story.
How to Improve Cinematography Skills
Improving cinematography, particularly from a storyboard artist's perspective, involves enhancing visual storytelling through composition, lighting, and camera movement. Here are concise tips:
Understand Storytelling: Grasp the narrative to convey emotions and themes visually. Storyboarding basics can guide you on how to align your visuals with the story.
Master Composition: Use the rule of thirds, leading lines, and framing to direct the viewer's attention. The composition techniques article offers insights into creating compelling shots.
Play with Lighting: Lighting sets the mood and emphasizes emotions. This lighting tutorial introduces techniques to elevate your visual storytelling.
Experiment with Angles and Perspectives: Different camera angles can significantly impact how a scene is perceived. Learn more through this guide on camera angles.
Consider Movement: How the camera moves within the scene can add dynamism or tension. Explore camera movement techniques for enhancing visual storytelling.
Collaborate and Communicate: Work closely with the director and cinematographer to ensure your storyboards reflect their vision and the script's demands. Communication is key to successful visual storytelling.
By focusing on these areas, a storyboard artist can significantly contribute to the cinematographic quality of a project, ensuring that the visual narrative complements and enhances the written script.
How to Display Cinematography Skills on Your Resume
7. Character Design
Character design, in the context of a storyboard artist, involves creating visual representations of characters in a story, defining their appearance, style, and personality traits to ensure they fit the narrative and are consistently portrayed throughout the storyboard.
Why It's Important
Character design is crucial for a storyboard artist as it establishes the visual identity, personality, and emotional depth of characters, ensuring they are memorable and relatable to the audience, thus driving the narrative's impact and engagement.
How to Improve Character Design Skills
Improving character design, especially for storyboard artists, involves a blend of creativity, technical skill, and storytelling. Here are concise tips with relevant external resources:
Understand the Story: Your character should visually embody their role and personality. The Silver Way by Stephen Silver offers insights into creating characters that fit their narratives.
Practice Anatomy: Good character design requires a strong understanding of human or animal anatomy, depending on your character. Proko offers comprehensive tutorials on anatomy for artists.
Explore Shapes and Silhouettes: Characters should be recognizable by their silhouette alone. Experiment with different shapes to convey personality. Tom Bancroft's Character Mentor is a great resource for learning about character shapes and silhouettes.
Play with Expressions: Facial expressions and body language are key to bringing characters to life. "Making Faces: Drawing Expressions For Comics And Cartoons" by 8fish Making Faces is an excellent guide.
Develop a Color Scheme: Colors convey emotions and hint at a character’s backstory. James Gurney’s Color and Light: A Guide for the Realist Painter provides in-depth understanding of using color effectively.
Keep a Sketchbook: Constantly sketch and doodle characters. This practice helps refine your style and generate ideas. The Sketchnote Handbook by Mike Rohde encourages visual thinking and doodling as a brainstorming tool.
Seek Feedback: Join communities like ConceptArt.org or DeviantArt to get constructive criticism and improve your work.
Study Other Artists: Analyze works by other artists and understand why their characters stand out. ArtStation is a great platform for inspiration and learning from professional artists.
Remember, character design is an iterative process. Keep refining your characters, and don’t be afraid to experiment.
How to Display Character Design Skills on Your Resume
8. Ds Max
Ds Max, commonly referred to as 3ds Max, is a professional 3D modeling, animation, and rendering software used by storyboard artists to create detailed pre-visualizations, 3D animations, and intricate environments for storytelling purposes.
Why It's Important
3ds Max is essential for a Storyboard Artist because it provides powerful 3D modeling, animation, and rendering tools that help in creating detailed pre-visualizations, enhancing storyboards with realistic environments, characters, and objects, thus enabling clearer communication of visual concepts and ideas.
How to Improve Ds Max Skills
Improving your skills in 3ds Max as a storyboard artist involves focusing on areas that enhance storytelling through 3D visualization. Here's a short and concise guide:
Master the Basics: Ensure you have a solid understanding of 3ds Max's interface, basic modeling, texturing, and lighting. Autodesk’s official tutorials are a great starting point.
Storyboarding Focus: Concentrate on learning tools and techniques that aid in pre-visualization and storytelling, such as camera animation and scene composition. The Gnomon Workshop provides industry-level insights.
Animation Principles: Understand the 12 principles of animation to enhance the dynamism of your scenes. Bloop Animation offers a concise summary.
Rendering Techniques: Learn about rendering settings that affect the mood and style of your storyboard panels. The Chaos Group’s tutorials on V-Ray for 3ds Max can be particularly helpful.
Continual Learning: Stay updated with new features and techniques in 3ds Max by following forums and tutorial sites like CGSociety and CGTrader.
Practice Regularly: Apply what you learn in personal or small team projects to solidify your skills. Join challenges on platforms like ArtStation.
Feedback and Iterate: Share your work with communities like Polycount for constructive feedback, and use it to refine your work.
Focusing on these areas will enhance your proficiency in 3ds Max, making you a more effective storyboard artist in visualizing and telling stories.
How to Display Ds Max Skills on Your Resume
9. After Effects
After Effects is a digital visual effects and motion graphics software used for creating animation, visual effects, and complex motion graphics. For a storyboard artist, it offers tools to animate and enhance storyboards, bringing them to life with movement, transitions, and visual effects to convey the story's mood, pacing, and flow more effectively.
Why It's Important
After Effects is important for a Storyboard Artist because it allows for the creation of dynamic, animated storyboards, enhancing visual storytelling with motion, effects, and timing, thus providing a clearer, more engaging representation of the final product to clients and production teams.
How to Improve After Effects Skills
Improving your use of After Effects as a Storyboard Artist involves focusing on techniques and resources that enhance your ability to visualize stories dynamically. Here’s a concise guide:
Learn Keyframe Animation: Master the basics of movement and timing to bring your storyboards to life. Adobe’s own tutorials are a great place to start (Adobe After Effects Tutorials).
Use Scripts and Plugins: Enhance efficiency and add sophisticated effects without manual work. Explore resources like AE Scripts (AEScripts) for tools that suit storyboard artists.
Practice Storyboard-Specific Techniques: Focus on animation principles such as anticipation, staging, and timing. The Storyboard Blog offers insights tailored to storyboard artists (The Storyboard Blog).
Incorporate 3D Elements: Learn the basics of integrating 3D models and scenes to add depth. Greyscalegorilla provides tutorials for combining After Effects with Cinema 4D, useful for 3D storyboarding (Greyscalegorilla).
Stay Updated and Inspired: Follow After Effects communities and professionals for new techniques and inspiration. Websites like Motionographer showcase cutting-edge motion graphics and storyboarding work (Motionographer).
By focusing on these areas, you can significantly improve your proficiency in After Effects, making your storyboard presentations more dynamic and engaging.
How to Display After Effects Skills on Your Resume
10. Visual Storytelling
Visual storytelling for a storyboard artist involves creating sequential images to convey a story, idea, or script, effectively communicating narrative flow, emotion, and action, guiding the visual development of media productions like films, animations, or commercials.
Why It's Important
Visual storytelling is crucial for a Storyboard Artist because it efficiently communicates complex ideas, emotions, and narratives through images, enabling the artist to effectively convey the essence and flow of a story to directors, cinematographers, and the production team, ensuring a shared vision before actual production begins.
How to Improve Visual Storytelling Skills
Improving visual storytelling, especially for storyboard artists, involves enhancing how you communicate narratives visually. Here are concise strategies:
Study Composition and Framing: Understand the basics of composition and framing to guide the viewer's eye and emphasize key story elements. The Rule of Thirds and leading lines are fundamental concepts.
Learn Visual Narration: Study visual storytelling techniques from comics, movies, and animation. Analyze how scenes are constructed to convey emotion or tension. Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud is an excellent resource.
Practice Storyboarding: Regularly sketching storyboards for various narratives sharpens your skills. Use prompts or adapt scenes from books. StoryboardThat offers digital tools and templates.
Get Feedback: Share your work with peers or mentors for constructive criticism. Online communities like ArtStation or Behance are great for feedback.
Study Films and Animations: Pay attention to cinematography, lighting, and pacing in films. Websites like Every Frame a Painting offer insightful film analysis.
Understand Color and Light: Color and lighting can significantly affect the mood and focus of a scene. Color Theory Basics and Basics of Lighting in Film provide foundational knowledge.
Incorporating these strategies can markedly enhance your visual storytelling skills as a storyboard artist.
How to Display Visual Storytelling Skills on Your Resume
11. Maya
Maya is a powerful 3D computer graphics software used extensively by storyboard artists and animators for creating highly detailed and complex 3D animations, models, and visual effects.
Why It's Important
Maya is important for a storyboard artist because it offers powerful 3D modeling, animation, and rendering tools, enabling the creation of detailed and dynamic visual storyboards that effectively communicate the story's vision and flow to the production team.
How to Improve Maya Skills
Improving your Maya skills as a storyboard artist involves focusing on several key areas: mastering the basics, understanding camera mechanics, and incorporating storytelling techniques. Here’s a concise guide to elevate your Maya proficiency:
Master the Basics: Start with understanding the Maya interface, navigation, and basic modeling. Autodesk offers Maya Learning Resources that cover everything from beginner to advanced techniques.
Learn Camera Mechanics: Understanding camera movements, angles, and framing is crucial for storytelling. The Gnomon Workshop provides detailed tutorials on camera techniques in Maya that are beneficial for storyboard artists.
Incorporate Storytelling: Dive into incorporating storytelling elements using Maya. Pluralsight's course on Cinematic Storytelling in Maya can help storyboard artists enhance their narrative techniques.
Practice Regularly: Consistent practice is key. Take on small projects, recreate scenes, or follow along with tutorials to refine your skills and speed.
Join Communities: Engage with online forums and communities such as CGSociety (CGTalk Forums) or Reddit’s Maya community (r/Maya). Sharing work, receiving feedback, and seeing others' work can be incredibly insightful.
Stay Updated: Maya is continuously updated with new features and tools. Keep an eye on the Autodesk Blog (Maya Blog) for the latest updates and tips.
By focusing on these areas and leveraging the mentioned resources, you can significantly improve your Maya skills as a storyboard artist.
How to Display Maya Skills on Your Resume
12. SketchUp
SketchUp is a 3D modeling software used for various drawing applications, including architecture, interior design, and landscape architecture. For a storyboard artist, it can be a valuable tool for creating detailed scene layouts, visualizing camera angles, and planning complex sequences in a three-dimensional space, enhancing visual storytelling.
Why It's Important
SketchUp is important for a storyboard artist as it allows for the quick creation and visualization of 3D environments, helping in designing accurate and detailed scenes for storytelling with precise spatial awareness and perspective.
How to Improve SketchUp Skills
Improving SketchUp for a storyboard artist involves enhancing visualization, workflow efficiency, and asset management. Here are concise strategies:
Learn Shortcuts: Mastering SketchUp's keyboard shortcuts speeds up modeling and navigation. (Check the official list).
Use Extensions: Integrate storyboard-specific extensions from the Extension Warehouse to streamline tasks like camera animation and scene management.
Optimize Scenes: Utilize Scenes to set up different camera angles or storyboard frames efficiently. (SketchUp Help Center)
Incorporate 3D Warehouse: Access thousands of models from SketchUp's 3D Warehouse to quickly populate your scenes with relevant assets.
Practice Layer Management: Organize your models using layers (now called "Tags" in newer versions) for better visibility control. (SketchUp Help Center)
Explore Rendering Plugins: Enhance your storyboard visuals with rendering plugins like V-Ray for SketchUp (V-Ray for SketchUp) for more realistic lighting and textures.
Regularly Update Skills: Stay updated with new features and techniques by following SketchUp's official blog and YouTube channel.
By focusing on these areas, storyboard artists can significantly enhance their use of SketchUp, making it a more powerful tool for visual storytelling.
How to Display SketchUp Skills on Your Resume
