An Evening with Ray Olsen

by Dylan Harrelson

For the June MAPA meeting Raymond Olsen from Substation K stopped by to highlight his experiences in the local KC animation scene. Olsen’s work has spanned from Major League Baseball, Sonic restaurants, Argosy casinos, and Hallmark just to name a few.

Olsen began his career after graduating from the University of Central Missouri, formerly known as CMSU with a degree specializing in screen-printing. He continued his education with a training class in Tennessee that taught him the fundamentals of Maya, after which Olsen landed a job working with FOX4, his first break in the animation scene. Moving forward, Olsen continued his career working for Real Media, DXD (Dimensions X Design), and finally Substation K.

As Ray told of his experiences working in the industry, he made it apparent that jumping into the animation scene can be much easier than in the past. With online training, tutorials and resources readily available online for free or for very affordable rates.

Ray provided many different resources for animators primarily online and free:

http://www.greyscalegorilla.com/
- Cinema4D training and tutorials

http://www.creativecow.net/
- Various trainings, tutorials, resources for multiple programs

http://www.creativeheads.net/
- Online job search tool for creative media professionals

http://www.cgsociety.org/
- Various trainings, tutorials, resources for multiple programs

http://www.crishdesign.com/
- Ray’s personal recommendation for After Effects training.

To see examples of Ray Olsen’s work you can visit http://www.substationk.com/ or http://www.raymondolsen.com/.