Today we’d like to introduce you to Ryan Talbot.
Ryan, please kick things off for us by telling us about yourself and your journey so far.
If I had to trace back my current work to its origin, I would start with Freddy Wong’s O.G. Youtube shorts. Just like every other middle school boy at the time, I was fascinated by the low budget action scenes & VFX tricks that Freddy & Brandon uploaded every week. After each short, they would also upload a behind the scenes video that revealed how they pulled off the video. Thinking that I could be Youtube famous too, I started my own channel and made my own action/comedy sketches. My channel didn’t blow up, but I learned a lot about every aspect of filmmaking during those years. That’s when I was introduced to a little program called After Effects. I started with Freddy’s Muzzle Flash tutorial and quickly discovered the vast library of (free) After Effects training on Youtube. Fast forward a few summers of me sitting in my room practicing and watching videos, and by my senior year of high school, I was ready to start putting my skills to real use. I collaborated with a dance teacher on campus, Andrea Taylor, to create a projection mapping performance based around the theme of the Cheshire Cat. I spent about three months on and off to get it done, between homework & extracurricular activities. It was the biggest and most difficult project I had ever worked on to that point. But it paid off because we got written up in the local paper and when I uploaded the performance to Youtube it gained a lot of traction (109K views today). That’s also when I learned that I could make money doing motion graphics. Although I did the work pro bono, I was handed an $800 check on the day of the show by Mrs. Taylor (for a high school kid not bad!). The rest is history. I went to college for one year, then dropped out because I was getting job offers from professional dancers around the world. For a while, I worked at a local agency doing Nickelodeon VFX, but left & landed a sweet gig doing in house motion graphics for Western Digital, who remains one of my biggest clients today.
Can you give our readers some background on your art?
Today, I primarily create 3D artwork with Cinema4D & Octane Render. I think I gravitated towards those tools because I’m passionate about visual storytelling. I take a lot of inspiration from others, looking at what my favorite artists are doing and thinking “I wish I could do that too.” I don’t have a deep message behind my artwork yet. I’m just having fun, learning & creating the type of artwork that I want to see more of. I actually enjoy when people come up with their own stories behind my visuals. Everybody interprets what they see a little differently.
In your view, what is the biggest issue artists have to deal with?
For me, it’s balancing a healthy personal life & career, while still finding time to keep learning new things and pursuing passion projects. It’s easy to get overwhelmed with client work and leave passion projects on the back burner. Especially when one is paying the bills, and the other one isn’t. It’s the Reel vs. Meal dilemma. But if you think about it, a better Reel leads to a better Meal in the long run. Let’s say you save up for a year, then take three months off work to pursue a dream project. You won’t see that return on investment immediately, and in the meantime, your friends & family might judge you. Your old-timey aunts & uncles will assume you’re going nowhere if you aren’t making money right this very second. They can’t help it, it goes against the beliefs they were raised on & they don’t want to see you homeless. No one’s holding you accountable for this dream project but yourself either. So yes, it’s super scary. But on the other side, it will lead to bigger and better-paid work. Maybe not right away. You might have to repeat the process five times to finally get it right. But eventually, you’ll get there.
What’s the best way for someone to check out your work and provide support?
If you wanna check out my work, I’m mostly on Instagram & Youtube. On Instagram, I post all of my still artwork & clips of animation, and on Youtube, I create full on tutorials of my process.
https://www.instagram.com/digital_melon_/?hl=en
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVHvgxgwWCQUt04azgSonGQ?view_as=subscriber
You can support my work by simply sharing it with others, watching my videos, or of course, employing me!
Contact Info:
- Website: www.ryantalbot.com
- Email: ryantalbotmedia@gmail.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/digital_melon_/?hl=en
- Other: https://www.youtube.com/user/VFXftw
Image Credit:
Nicholas Trollmann
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