Session 2 Gestures

Here are my favorite pages of gestures that I drew last night. My roommate suggested using www.cosplay.com as a place to get some cool poses. I'm glad she did, cause the one's I got are awesome!

Session 2 Q&A

The Q&A for week 2 has just ended and I feel even more excited about drawing gestures. Even though we weren't told anything that I didn't already know, looking at my mentor's sketches has inspired me to start my own. I did a few on Monday during motion studies class, but they were boring. The teacher isn't a very dynamic person so his gestures didn't have very good sihlouettes. I plan on going to an open model session on Saturday to get some drawing done. Hopefully I'll have a dynamic model...

In other news, I have started animating my current motion studies project. We are supposed to focus on screen space and showing depth inside of the given format. I've decided to animate a race between a ball and a box. That will give me a great chance to work on simple character animation as well as teaching myself how to animate camera motion. My roommate thinks the assignment is pointless since we aren't allowed to use actual characters. I agree for the most part, but I am using this as a chance to, as I said, learn how to animate 2d camera motion. It's going alright so far, after two and a half hours I've almost completed the first shot. I just have to animate the ball's tail and finish animating the box.

Getting back to AM related stuff, I will do some more gestures this evening and will post my favorites here...

Meeting my mentor

I had my first Q&A session with my mentor today. He seems like a really cool guy and I can't wait to hear his critiques.

The meeting was supposed to start at 6:30 PDT which is 9:30 here. I decided to log on 30 minutes early and it's a good thing I did. Everyone was already in the room and chatting. The bad thing about coming late was my name was at the top of the list of people in the room. Steve said he was going to start meeting with each of us and I was picked first. He asked me to tell everyone about myself and I was at a loss for words. That and my pc camera was acting up. Everything was green and I was just a dark shape. I made a mental note to get a new pc cam this weekend.

The Q&A went well aside from that. It was great to meet my fellow classmates and learn a bit about them. Everyone was still very enthusiastic. None of us can wait until our first assignment. In fact, I started an animation with Stu after motion studies class. Once it's done I'll be sure to post it here. I'll continue to work on it after I find some reference pictures for 3d design class. Speaking of which, I'd better do that now!

My first Q&A

I had my first AM live Q&A this morning. It was great! Sure there was lag, but what do you expect when over 100 people are in the same area at once. In fact I'm sure it could have been much worse than it was. Despite the lag the Q&A was great. It was so cool to chat with Bobby and Carlos! Everyone was overflowing with enthusiasm. As soon as Bobby and Carlos entered the video chat room they were assaulted by the excited cries of 100+ students. It was so funny! They reminded me of actors/musicians who are surrounded by their top fans, although I'm pretty sure they were much nicer than any actor or musician would be. It was so wonderful to have so many eager animators in one place! I can't wait for tomorrow's Q&A with my mentor!

After my SCAD classes I decided to play around with Stu for a bit. I figured I might as well try my hand at an emotion pose activity since we'll have to do those for class anyhow. He's supposed to show attitude. I think it's successful since people were able to recognize the emotion immediately, but I know there's a way to make it even better.

The journey begins...

Today I was finally able to log in to AnimationMentor! I created my profile, downloaded Stu and a preparation packet, and watched a bunch of videos. I just found out a few moments ago that the global orientation is at 9:30 pm PDT. That sucks since that means it'll be 12:30 am for me and I have a 9 am class tomorrow. Oh well, AnimationMentor is well worth being tired in 3d design class. I can't wait for the orientation to start, I hope I can quickly overcome my shyness!

Anyway, I've been so busy watching videos that I haven't gotten a chance to play around with Stu. I'm sure I'll get around to it before I go to bed though, lol. I'll have a look at the preparation packet too.

Oh yeah, I have a speech due tomorrow and I haven't even rehearsed yet! I better get started, the orientation time will be here before I know it!

My Mentor

I just got an e-mail from AM announcing who my mentor will be...Steve Cady! He's worked on The Chronicles of Narnia, The Ring 2, Scooby Doo 2, and Eight Crazy Nights. I've been looking forward to the Chronicles of Narnia and now I have more of a reason to see it, lol. I hope Steve doesn't use clips of his work on The Ring 2 as refrence material...I am terrified of Samara.

First Day of Class

Today was the first day of class at SCAD. Luckly for myself I only have one class on Mon. and Wed. so I was able to go out and get some supplies. I've been assigned my first project for Motion Studies class. We have to make some kind of weird animation by painting/marking or scratching on a strip of black or clear 16mm film. It seems a bit challenging since it must be non-objective...I'm not very good at the whole "abstract art" thing. So far I plan on making some kind of short story about a dot or a line, depending on the soundtrack I use.

In AM news, I have read my orientation guide and watched the orientation video. I can't wait to find out who my mentor is!

I need to find out what time class starts though. My roommate said that if class starts at 6 then it'll be at 9 here. I hope that's not the case because if it's true then I won't be able to attend the Classical Animation Society this year. Oh well, perhaps I can go to CAS after the lectures are over.

Up and Running

My Animation Mentor blog is now up and running. Class starts next Monday and I can't wait. I doubt I'll have many posts from now until then since I am in the process of moving back to SCAD for my sophmore year.