Exciting Opportunity for Tyler

Tyler has successfully completed his third year in the animation program at Loyalist College and while not all of the marks are in, he's received well over 90% in the ones that are.  In addition to this, his professors have selected him to showcase his work in the Student Showcase section at  DIGIFEST in Toronto.  (Digifest is an international digital festival which takes place in Toronto)

A bit about the student showcase part from their website:

"Come see the best digital projects from across the province and abroad!

From May 8th to 10th, Digifest will be hosting the "Best of the Best" Student Showcase ....
 Come by this free event to see the incredible work being done by tomorrow's leading designers, artists, developers and innovators.

40 projects from 13 post-secondary institutions will be on display for 3 days only.  The Student Showcase will feature the best student works selected by their schools under the categories of Integrated Media, Social Innovation, Animation and Moving Image, Interaction and Gaming, Visual Art and Design and Beyond the Screen.  This unique exhibit brings together under one room the most exciting cross-disciplinary student work in Ontario, and you won't want to miss it!"
(Above excerpt copied from here:  http://www.torontodigifest.ca/2014/student-showcase/

~~ and ~~

"How does it work?

1)  Each participating school will select the top projects from the graduating class to be juried during Digifest.

.....

5)    Those exhibiting their work will have the unique opportunity to speak to festival attendees about their project.  A jury of industry professionals will choose the "best" project from each category, which will be presented with an award at a ceremony ....."
(Above excerpt copied from here: http://www.torontodigifest.ca/2014/student-showcase-participants/ )


Complete info about Digifest 2014 available from their website:  http://www.torontodigifest.ca/2014/

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Tyler's animation film

Here is Tyler's final animation film / cartoon.   (It's best viewed on Full Screen Mode)


Expedition:Mars from Tyler Wescott on Vimeo.

Tyler's Animation Project

In order for Tyler to complete second year at college, he needed to do an internship.  Three students from second year and a five from third year worked as a team to produce this 30 second animation for the Kingston, Ontario Police Force.  It was to have the look and feel of a video game.

Here is their finished product ---  (best viewed in full screen mode -- click on the "youtube" symbol in the lower right hand corner.  Once at youtube, click on the broken rectangle icon in the far right corner to bring it up to full screen)

Distracted Drivers

More cartoons by Tyler (Click on cartoon to enlarge strip)

More Cartoons (click to enlarge)

Here is one of his political cartoons and his attempts at using the computer to colour.

Cartoons, anyone? (click to enlarge)

I know many homeschoolers, who are unschoolers (which means they are homeschoolers that don't follow a 'boxed' curriculum). They are child-led, or they follow their children's interests and go from there. Although we are not unschoolers, we do have some unschooling tendencies.

One of these areas would be Tyler and his cartooning. A couple of years ago, he developed a deep interest in this. Each day, after his book work was complete, he'd stash himself away, in some corner of the house and cartoon. Completely on his own and of his own accord, he taught himself. No help from Mom or Dad, totally on his own (mom has trouble drawing a stick man. :\)

He had his work looked at by a couple of accomplished cartoonists and a professional commercial artist. They all commented positively on his work as each asked or commented something to the effect of "Art must be his favourite subject in school" or "He must get really good marks in Art" or "His Art Teacher must be pleased with these." They were even more shocked when they found out there was no teacher nor had there ever been. ;-)

They were able to offer encouragement to him along with a glimpse into the way the industry operates. They advised him to put together a portfolio and what steps he could take next in his pursuit.

At age 14, he approached a couple of our local newspapers. One of them ran his cartoons on their website.

A friend of ours, who ran the site for his son's bike club, also put some of Tyler's cartoons on that site (Thanks, Rick!)

He is hoping to pursue cartooning, in one form or another, as a career. He continues to read and work on improving his technique. He's been experimenting with drawing cartoons, scanning them into the computer and then using the computer to colour them. He's even tried his hand a a couple of political cartoons. He reads biographies of famous cartoonists and gains encouragement and knowledge from them.

He continues in this unschooling vein to become a cartoonist.

Who knows....one day....he may just be.

(These are just a few of his earlier ones --- he's done many different types but haven't been able to scan a lot of them in yet)