I really suck at cel shading. The fact that I colored this while listening to tonights fantastic Transformers Q&A session probably didn't help, lol. I was a bit disappointed that they didn't show any cool behind the scenes videos though. Who else can tell I was tired of this picture by the time I got to doing the background? XD

Lack of Funds

I really need a source of income. I wanted apply to BlueSky's animator position but I can't afford to do so. When I move I need to have a contract/position that will last for more than a couple of months or be in an area where I can get to different studios without having to spend a bunch of money. I can barely afford to move once, since literally all of my money will be spent getting to whatever state the job is in and reserving an apartment. One of my friends said I should have at least $5k saved up to successfully move to Cali or New York, I don't even have half of that. Right now I'd have to go hungry for however many weeks it takes for me to get my first pay check since I wouldn't have any money for food or anything else.

I obviously need to find a source of income, so I wont have to continue to miss potential job opportunities. I've been on guru.com for a year now and haven't been able to get any projects. I was selected for one job but the employer never followed through and the project expired. I'll continue to bid on jobs there throughout the rest of this year. If I am unable to get accepted for an internship or apprenticeship this summer I'll come home and get a normal (>_<) summer job. I wanted to take summer classes at SCAD to push my graduation date up sooner, but having money is more important. Whats the point of graduating early if I still don't have enough money to move anywhere?

Anyway, once I get a source of income I'll be straight. I don't have a problem with saving money, lol. It's actually quite the opposite! I enjoy hoarding money away in the bank and refusing to spend it on things that I don't absolutely need. The reason why I have so little money is because I don't have a job. All the money I have now is the result of saving birthday, Christmas, and graduation presents for over five years. XD

Unfortunate

Unfortunately, things have ground to a halt as far as working on short and reel goes. Every day this week has been/ will be taken up by family issues. Helping my stepfather load my sister's college stuff into his truck, taking my sister to work, transporting my grandparents around, driving my sister to the airport since my aunt hasn't left yet to drive her to college, helping my other aunt with computer issues, and more grandparent transportation. >_< I hope these set backs don't cost me a job opportunity. I know Disney was hiring at Siggraph but their CreativeHeads call for animators was posted way back in July. I hope they're still looking for animators since I REALLY want to start out there. Working with Glen Keane, Jason Ryan, Andreas Deja, Nik Raneri and all the other Disney masters is invaluable! Simply inbetweening for them will seriously boost my 2d skills.

It's not the end of the world though. If I've missed my chance, I'll just apply for their internship or apprenticeship program. Hopefully I'll be able to get in through there.

Fantastic!

We asked for it and we got it! We're having a Transformers Q&A on the AM alumni site next week!!!!!!!! I can't wait! I actually have questions this time, lol. I usually sit on the sidelines and listen/watch but this time I can participate. =D

Shot from my Short

Hey guys. I finally finished a shot from my short to use for my demo reel. Please feel free to critique it as I'm sending it to the big studios in a couple of weeks. Thanks a bunch!

Dragon Sketch

I drew this during one of my 10 min rest breaks while working on my short. I really like it and would like to color it sometime. I wanted to jump right into Photoshop or Painter as soon as it was done and had a hard time returning to Maya, lol.

Tweaking!

I just wanted to say I LOVE being anal about details. Whether its in a shot or in a drawing, adding details is just plain fun. There is a catch though. Adding details usually takes quite a bit of time and the fun is sucked out of it if you don't have the proper amount of time to get it right. Luckily, I have nothing but time right now. I'm going through and preparing a couple of shots for my demo reel. I got some awesome feedback from Bobby Beck at one of the AM events at Siggraph and am working on applying his suggested changes to my counseling shot and to some shots from my short. I'm being so anal that I have ten whole pages of nit-picky details to adjust for the two shots from my short, lol. I'm loving every moment of it though since I'm really trying to get into one of my dream studios this year.

I still don't feel good enough for Pixar yet, but I'm going to apply anyway. I'm really hoping to get into Disney since they'd started up their 2d department again. I love 2d animation and would jump at a chance to work under Glen Keane, Nik Ranieri, Andreas Deja, Jason Ryan or any of the other Disney masters. Simply watching them draw over their shoulder would be massively informative. Plus 2d Disney animation is what got me into this field anyway. I figure I can work there for a while to improve my 2d and 3d skills, then I can move on to PDI/DreamWorks and finally to Pixar. I also wouldn't mind spending a few years at James Baxter Animation Studios either. I'd have to go there after Disney though since he only works in 2d and right now my 2d animation isn't good enough to get me in. XD

Graduation Pictures

Man, I got back to the hotel much later than I expected. Here are some of the pictures that were taken at the graduation and rooftop beach reception courtesy of my mother.





The reception was held at the super cool W hotel. I've never been to a hotel like the W and enjoyed every moment of it. I love contemporary furniture and the W was nothing but that. Every aspect of the hotel was beautiful and very stylish. I hope to some day have a house that looks like the interior of the W. Their rooftop beach area was really cool as well. I loved their hanging basket chairs and "bent up" umbrellas.

Yesterday I went to the Birds of a Feather meeting and met even more people there and afterwards. I dont think I'm allowed to talk about the new features on the AM site but I can say they're all amazing! After the recruiter's panel the founders raffeled away cool stuff. Signed copies of the Art of Ratatouillie, Shrek, Surfs Up, and Meet the Robinsons, Pixar t shirts and hats, Transformers t shirts and hats, a Cars iPod Nano cover, and a Remy action figure. I didn't win anything though. My number was 7026 and they called 7016 and 7036. XD I got to meet two recruiters so that made up for it. I met Robin Linn from Sony and Kim Mackey from Dreamworks. I was very pleasantly surprised that she remembered me and was glad to meet me in person, lol. Shawn Kelly remembered me too.

I had a nice time at Siggraph even though all I did was go to a few AM events. It was really fun to meet my classmates and legendary animators from some of the top studios. I look forward to attending the next Siggraph so I can hang out with my friends again. =D

Graduation/Siggraph

Hey guys,

The AM graduation was awesome! It was really nice to meet my classmates in person. I think I did alright as far as talking to people goes, despite my shyness lol. I met the founders, Bobby, Shawn and Carlos as well as my class two mentor Doug Dooley. At the finale Spike (AM's mascot) ran out and knocked a huge beach ball into the crowd. All of the graduates then grabbed their beach balls and had an awesome beach ball bashing party, lol. I'd like to send a huge congrats to the grads who won awards at the program. Congrats to Mario Pochat and John Slowsky for winning the Walk with the Most Personality award, Peter Devlin and Ryan Sluman for Best Dialogue Acting, Heath Pagram and Patricia Ross for Most EntertainingVideo Reference, Jace Bandalin and Arne Kaupang for Best Personality in a Live Q&A, Justin Weg and Eric Luhta for Forum Ninja, Jay Epperheart and Taylor Mahony for Most Supportive Student, Elaine Wu and Kate Forrest for Most Improved Student, Kira Lehtomaki, and Kenny Music for Best Silent Acting, and last but not least Jure Prek and Peter Devlin for the Mentor Choice Award! Congrats guys!

Yesterday I met the famous Jason Schleifer on the way to dinner. I'm still extremely thankful for his help with finding someone to rig my short film character and was sure to let him know. Before leaving Jason gave me his super cool PDI/Dreamworks business card. =D I went to the AM Birds of a Feather meeting and met recruiters Kim Mackey and Robin Linn. Bobby, Shawn and Carlos gave away cool Pixar, Cars, Ratatoullie, Transformers, Meet the Robinsons, Shrek, and Surfs Up stuff. I didn't win anything though. XD

I've gotta go. I'm being fussed at to hurry up and get dressed, lol. There's much more to come later!

Tomorrow

The AnimationMentor graduation is tomorrow! =D Lol, with my luck (and lack of grace) I'll probably end up falling up the stairs to the stage to get my certificate. It's hard to believe I've finished AM and its also pretty disappointing. I wish I could be an AM student forever! I'm extremely thankful that I was able to go through their program. I owe everything I know to them and seriously feel like I'll be able to achieve my dream goal. I've still got a year and two quarters to go at SCAD though so I'll have to wait to see if I'm right or not.

In the meantime I've been hanging out in San Diego and working on my short. The weather here is really nice and the scenery is beautiful. I wasn't too thrilled about having to pay $26 to go to the zoo (the DC zoo is free) but I think it was worth it. I got to watch a very cool underwater show put on by the polar bears today. It's a shame I couldn't draw anything though. I went with my family and they didn't want to stand around while I took the time to draw things, lol. I enjoyed the trip anyway though. My mother and stepsisters wanted to go shopping yesterday and I ended up finding a really cool furniture store called Hold It Contemporary Home. I love contemporary furniture and am now really excited about when I move to Cali and get an apartment. Unfortunately I can't really see myself being able to afford that furniture though, especially after what I saw today. I checked out some nice condominiums and found out they were going for $200k. That's completely insane, thats how much my mother paid for our five bedroom house back home. Lol, I've pretty much accepted the fact that I'm going to have to live in a hole in the wall when I move out here.

One Shot at a Time

Hey guys,

As promised, here's an up to date look at one of the shots in my short. I just "finished" it a few minutes ago and am pretty happy with the animation so far. It's not a money shot so it doesn't have a bunch of complex actions or emotion. It's just the simple opening shot of Taylor laying in bed asleep. The next thing I'd like to do is set up the bed and pillows so they're affected by his weight. I'd also like to redo Taylor's hair so its animate-able. There's a part in the shot where his fingers go through his hair as he rolls over. I want to be able to animate his hair so it reacts to the fingers during his turn. I've seen a few shots where students have added movable hair to Bishop. I'll have to ask them how they did that.

As usual, all comments and crits are greatly appreciated! =D

Siggraph is Coming

It's hard to believe I leave for San Diego on Saturday. I don't feel excited about Siggraph at all. I guess it's because most of the events I've heard about don't interest me, and that only reason why I'm going is for the AM graduation. I used to say I was going for the job fair as well, but that's no longer true. I've been advised against submitting my reel since I haven't graduated from SCAD. I called the studios I would have submitted my work to and asked if it was too early to apply for their summer 2008 programs and they said yes. Even if it wasn't, I like to think I'll have new work for my demo reel by the time spring rolls around. AM is having two demo reel critique sections. I'm not excited about those either since whatever I show them wont be the reel I send out for internships anyway.

I'll bring a few copies of my summer 2007 reel anyway, because I know I'd wish I had them if I don't bring any lol. I guess I'll burn 3-5 copies. I don't want to waste DVDs since I'm not expecting to give them to anyone right now. I'll save the mass DVD burning for the spring. XD

Anyway, I'll go to some of the AM events and will more than likely try to spend the rest of my time in San Diego working on my short. We'll see how that goes though since my stepfather has decided to turn my one day long stay in Cali into a week long vacation. -_- As far as my short goes, I've failed to reach my goal of finishing the animation by Siggraph. Now I see that it doesn't matter too much since I was told not to apply for any jobs yet anyway, lol. I have been working on it though and have two new shots that I like so far. ^-^ I'll post my progress one of these days. My laptop's wireless card has decided to freeze my comp each time the internet goes down (which is @ least once every 5-7 min) so I cant get online with my work computer. In a way that's a good thing since I can't be distracted by msn messenger and checking my email every time I get a new one, lol.

Overlap Video Tutorial

Hey guys. I just finished watching Jason Ryan's overlap video tutorial. I'm really looking forward to applying to his tutorial service. Everything is simple, clear, and easy to understand. The fact that he spends more time in the camera view than the graph editor is helpful too. It feels like he's animating almost exactly like he would in 2d, only he's rotating and translating controls instead of drawing. Jason really simplified the concept of overlap and gave a step by step walk through of four different overlap situations in just 12 minutes. I'm really glad I watched it since I know I'd probably have over complicated problems if I had to animate a wagging tail or a really cartoony stagger in 3d. Jason's video made me realise how much I tend to over think concepts and end up spending way more time on a shot than I should have to. I highly recommend everyone to check it out and subscribe to his newsletter.

Here's the video's url: http://www.screencast.com/users/JasonRyan/folders/freebies/media/e611cc3d-9759-47db-a1b5-bdec0b336276

You'll need the techsmith screen capture codec which can be downloaded here: http://www.techsmith.com/download/codecs.asp

Enjoy!

On a side note, I just finished reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows last night. Rowling is in my opinion, one of the best authors in the world. I have never felt for a character in a book as much as I did with the characters in Deathy Hallows. That alone is an achievement since my friends always talk about my supposed lack of empathy for anything. All of the people who wont read the books and are watching for the movie are really missing out. There's no way the Deathly Hallows film will be as gripping as the book, unless they make it at least six hours long lol.

Platinum Edition

AM just launched their platinum membership for the alumni site. It sounds really awesome since we'll have access to lectures, guest speakers, special Q&A sessions, and will be able to view each other's critiques. In fact there's a Ratatouille Q&A coming up soon. The thing is platinum membership costs $100 a year. Normally that wouldn't be a problem but I just found out that my bank account has under $1k. Seeing as how I don't have a job and thus no real source of income it's not easy to get my finances back up again. Lol, I've never even had $2k in my account and I've been saving my money since summer of 2003. XD

I hate to have to turn to my parents (again) and ask them for money, but it seems I don't really have a choice. Luckily my birthday is on Saturday so I can just ask for the platinum membership for my birthday. What could be better than AM platinum membership and the release of the last Harry Potter book for a 21st birthday? Sadly, I will be in Ocean City this weekend and there isn't a Borders anywhere near there. I'll have to wait until I get back to find out what happens to Harry and crew. Until then, I will ban myself from the internet and my friends who will have already gotten/read the book so I dont end up running into any spoilers.

Finished

After a total of about 14 hours I've finally come to a stopping point on my painting. I've learned a TON about digital painting and painting period. I eagerly await the next time I get a chance to paint again. Lol, in fact I think I just found a new hobby. I still want to be able to render fur much more believably so I think my next exercise should be a painting from life. I'll find a picture of a paw or something and try to paint that. I think I'll learn a lot about rendering fur and more about the flow of fur over the animal's body. As far as this picture goes, I think some parts are more successful than others. I really like how I rendered his tongue and feel like that's the best part of the image. I think the weakest part (aside from the lack of background) is the gold earrings. I still suck at rendering metal. That's enough of that though. On to bed and then to animating in the morning! =D

Up date

I worked on my picture some more. I like how its coming out so far. Hopefully I'll be able to finish it today so I can get back to animating. To be honest I'm getting tired of painting right now and I feel like my eyes have blisters on them, lol.

Learning

Hey guys,

I decided to take a break from animating today and once again tried to teach myself how to paint. I don't practice digital painting very often now that I know a little bit about animation. I used to color my drawings in photoshop all the time back in high school. I remember looking up tutorials on how to make rain, fire, smoke etc. Needless to say I don't remember anything about making those things. Anyway, I got a copy of Painter IX a while ago and decided to try to learn how to use it as well. I really like the sketch I did of Fetch and figured I might as well take a stab at painting it. After spending about 10 hours doing a lot of Painter research and trail and error, this is what I came up with. It obviously isn't finished and I hope to complete it tomorrow. I need to find a tutorial on painting scales and metal. Lol, I tried to paint his nose ring without the aid of a tutorial and its obvious that I need help.

Being an Almost Graduate

I've been checking around the AM alumni site and looking at my classmate's demo reels and I've realized something. AM produces some seriously nice animators. I've seen a lot of really good work and its hard to believe most of the students were animating for the first time. I've watched my classmates grow and now get jobs/internships at Disney, Dreamworks, Blue Sky, Pixar, ILM, and Rhythm&Hues. I'm really glad to be a part of the AM community and to have had the chance to learn from some of the top animators from various studios. I wish the program was longer, as I still have so much to learn. I've watched people in my class grow from having never animated in their life to working at Disney and such, while I am still sitting here at home collecting rejection letters.

All I can do is tell myself these letters are a good thing since my parents want me to finish my time at SCAD. I don't think I'd feel bad if I got hired before I finished up there. Isn't the whole point in going to college is to learn and develop your skills so you can get a job? I'm going to a couple of events at Siggraph since my graduation from AM is being held there. I've never been there before but I've heard about how great it is. All I wanted to do was go to the animation theater and the job fair. Now I'm debating whether I should bother bringing my reel, since I still have five more quarters to take a SCAD. I'm still working on my short and am working on adding a few shots from it to my reel. We'll see if I'm fast enough to accomplish that by the end of the month.

I would really like to get an internship more so than a job right now because of the SCAD dilemma. That way I can get experience from a bunch of studios and continue to move towards finally being finished so I can apply for jobs for real. I think I should have taken summer classes to push my graduation date closer to the original time. I didn't find out about my acceptance and then rejection from R&H soon enough to apply for summer classes though. This time I'll try calling HR at all the studios I send a reel to when it gets close to registration time. Hopefully then I'll be able to find out whether or not I got in and then register for summer classes based on their answer.

Anyway, watching all of my peers get jobs where I hope to someday work makes me feel like a little kid trying to hang out with the big kids. AM gives us all this information about resumes, reels, interviews, contact info/connection with various studios and says "Now take this information and go get a job! =D". All of the AM grads shout "Yeah!!!!!" and they rush out to get hired at all these cool studios. I see myself trying to run out with them when a teacher grabs me by the shirt and says "Not so fast young lady! You've got to finish your schooling!". The teacher plops me down at a desk in an empty classroom and I sit there like -______- and =(. Then my classmates start streaming in excitedly telling the teacher where they've gotten a job. I get excited each time one of my classmates comes in with news of working at *insert dream studio here*, but a stern look from the omnipresent teacher forces me to sit back down at my desk.

Lol, maybe I could animate a scene like that. I have a really clear vision of how that would look in my head right now and I think it would be rather amusing. The only bad thing is the number of characters I'd have to use and the fact that I have to finish my short first, lol.

Fetch

I just finished Downfall by Jean Rabe and really wanted to try to draw one of the characters from the story. His name is Ilbreth aka Fetch and he's a kobold thief who is a part of Dhamon Grimwulf's party for most of the book. I tend to like the more creature/animal-like characters of fantasy stories more so than their human/elven/dwarven counterparts. Once I read a description of Fetch I was hooked on him for the rest of the book. Previously all of the descriptions I've read of kobolds presented them as being very lizard-like and I pictured then as being somewhat similar to a race in FFXII and FFTA called bangaa's.

Rabe decided to go another way and made kobolds much more appealing in my opinion. Fetch was described as having a rat like face and tail, bat ears to suggest his goblin ancestry, scale intermingled with his brown fur, small clawed hands and feet, and red beady eyes with small white horns above them. I instantly liked his design better and he quickly became my favorite character in the story. Sadly Rabe thought it would be best to kill him towards the second half of the book. =(

Zoo Sketches

I finally got around to going to the zoo on Friday. I wanted to get there once a week but things kept popping up and preventing me to do so. I hope I'll get to go again this week, as I had a lot of fun once I shook off the shyness of drawing in front of so many people. I stayed for about three hours and got five pages of sketches done. I think I did well with the elephant shrew and the degu. I seem to have gotten their body structure down nicely. I need to work on moneys and reptiles though. I'll probably return to the small mammal house the next time I go since monkeys are really fun.