Added a few con­cept pic­tures.  I’ve had an idea that’s been kind of both­er­ing me for a while, so I decided to go with it.  Since I feel I’m more of a hands on learner, I thought it might be a good idea for me to cre­ate a 3D short, using every­thing I’ve already learned and hope­fully learn­ing a lot more in the process.  So, I came up with a story about a lit­tle fer­ret and his Granny.  (I love fer­rets, and I think they’re very expres­sive ani­mals, so they seemed like a good choice for char­ac­ters.)  I’m forc­ing myself to do this the right way and fin­ish all of the pre­pro­duc­tion before I start mod­el­ing.  It’s hard.  :)

I’ve got sev­eral prob­lems I need to work through.  The first is which pro­gram to use, but I think I’ve fig­ured that out.  Maya is sup­posed to be bet­ter for this sort of thing, but I really know noth­ing about it.  I bought a book for it and found some tuto­ri­als, but I think it might be a while before I can take on this sort of project with it.  So, I’m using Max for the time being.  This IS sup­posed to help me learn more about the pro­gram, and it doesn’t hurt to be pro­fi­cient in both.  Another prob­lem is with Max itself.  My knowl­edge of it thus far is lim­ited, and there are a lot of scenes I have planned that I sim­ply would not know where to start.  Hope­fully the project will help me rem­edy that by the time it’s fin­ished.  (You’ll never learn if you don’t try, no?)

Flip is the name I’ve picked for the main char­ac­ter.  I’m not quite sure yet if I’m going to keep it, but I like the ring of it.  I’ve added a con­cept draw­ing of the liv­ing room and some char­ac­ter concepts.

Added a new pic­ture and 3D model.  I’ve got sev­eral oth­ers in the works, as well.  I hope to have most of them fin­ished by the end of the month.  I’m really try­ing to push myself to learn how to use 3ds Max.  The classes are teach­ing me some things, but I don’t feel that it’s enough.  I chose a port town from my story and am work­ing on build­ing that up in 3D as prac­tice.  The boats are giv­ing me some trou­ble, but I’m sure I’ll fig­ure it out.

Two new draw­ings added, one in new and one in fan art.  Both are the result of bore­dom and access to a pen.  I don’t have much else to post right now.  I was work­ing on a game demo for school, but the team respon­si­ble for actu­ally mak­ing the game ran into trou­ble and the whole project seems to have fallen through.  I was work­ing with the sto­ry­board­ing and ani­ma­tion team.  We man­aged to get one of the cutscenes done before the end of the project, but I’m a lit­tle hes­i­tant to post it since there are many oth­ers who worked on it, and I’m not sure how they’d want to be cred­ited for it.

We’re near­ing the end of our project, and I have three more sequences to grind out in the next cou­ple of days.  No idea when I’ll be able to work on this again, but this is what I have so far.

I’m not really sure how to write this. I think I mostly just need a place to orga­nize my thoughts. Some­thing hap­pened today (which I’d really rather not talk about) that made me real­ize that I need to make dras­tic changes to my life. Am I crazy? I’m prob­a­bly going to sound like I am, but here it is: I’m going to be apply­ing to sev­eral top end art schools around the coun­try over the next few months. If I get accepted to one of them, we’re going to find some way, any way, for me to attend. No, I don’t know how I’m going to get there, and no, I don’t know how we’re going to afford it. I know it’s going to be hard, but it’s some­thing I have to do.

More than any­thing, I think I’m wor­ried about my fam­ily and most of all my father. The clos­est school I’d be apply­ing to is in New York, and it’s not at the top of my list. I don’t know how he’d react to me being so far away. Maybe I’m wor­ry­ing over noth­ing, but I keep think­ing about when he told me he needs me. I know I can’t let that keep me from doing what is nec­ces­sary for me to suc­ceed. There are no oppor­tu­ni­ties for me here, so I have to seek them elsewhere.

I’ve added a new cat­e­gory for sto­ry­boards and posted the ones I was work­ing on last week.   It took me about two days of almost non­stop work to fin­ish those, so I hope they look rel­a­tively decent.    (Minus the sec­ond page.  I rushed the end of that one, think­ing I wouldn’t fin­ish in time … which I didn’t.  Oh, well.)  I’m sure I’ll have sev­eral more before the end of the month.  I just hope they don’t make me quite as sore.

Three new pic­tures are up in the con­cepts sec­tion.  Two of them are views of the set I’m design­ing for my own short.  The last is a model sheet for one of the char­ac­ters I cre­ated for my sto­ry­board­ing class.  His name is Joey, and he’s the vic­tim of his older brother’s bul­ly­ing.  My story focuses on poor Joey being bul­lied out of his break­fast one morning.

I’m learn­ing quite a bit in this class, and I’m glad I waited before rush­ing into the plan­ning stages of my short.  The class is teach­ing me how to plan shots and show how the cam­era will move in thumb­nails and sto­ry­boards.  Both of those skills are going to be essen­tial to me telling the story effec­tively.  The final sto­ry­boards and ani­matic (where all the stills are put together with music and vocal work) will be a nice addi­tion to my port­fo­lio, too.

Fin­ished my final.  I know I still have a long way to go, but it’s a start.  The last class has made me more famil­iar with Adobe Flash, and I feel com­fort­able enough with what I’ve learned to con­sider work­ing on a project of my own.  I’ve got an idea for a short, and I’ve already sketched out some parts of it.  Right now I’m work­ing on some con­cept draw­ings and try­ing to fig­ure out length and how I’m going to han­dle adding sound.

My most recent piece is under “new.”  It’s one of my con­test entries.  I’m still unsure about it, but Ian’s right.  I won’t know if I don’t try.  Below is my cur­rent work in progress, Ignis the Fur­nace Mas­ter.  Ian sug­gested it because of all the col­ors and the oppor­tu­nity to use dra­matic shad­ows (which I love).  Right now I’ve only done base col­ors.  I’ll start work­ing on shad­ows and detail tomorrow.

My new class is 2D Ani­ma­tion.  I’ve learned some basics before, but this takes it a lit­tle fur­ther and the final project will be a short sequence of a char­ac­ter called Trip­ping Tim (model sheets in con­cepts) who saves his grand­mother by slip­ping on a banana peel.  My last assign­ment was a bounc­ing ball.  I know the quality’s poor.

Feel­ing so shut off from the art com­mu­nity has been eat­ing away at me for sev­eral months now.  There are so many things that I want to do.  I want to go full time in school, but I can never find the means to do so.  I want to get out there and get expo­sure (which could also bring in money to help pay for full time), but at the same time I worry that I’m sim­ply not that good enough.  That’s what pre­vented me from enter­ing work in a juried art show a cou­ple months ago.  I feel like I have very lit­tle to show for myself.  Ian says that I should just do it, and he’s right.  I won’t know if I’m good enough if I don’t put my work out there.  I’ve come up with sort of a loose plan of things I need, and will try my hard­est, to do.

• Enter the Emerg­ing Artists con­test for Visual Over­ture.  I have one month before the dead­line to get my sub­mis­sions together, and if I’m of the win­ners, I’ll get fea­tured in the magazine.
• Enter other juried shows as they come up.  No spe­cific ones, yet.
• Join the NWAA.  I’m putting it off until after the first two, but it’s worth a shot.
• Children’s book?  Ian’s idea.  I know I can do the illus­tra­tions, but I don’t know about writ­ing it.  I told him if he writes it, I’ll illus­trate it.  I still wouldn’t know what to do with it after that, but I guess I can fig­ure that out.
• ACM Sig­graph 2011 in Van­cou­ver.  Sig­graph is a huge con­ven­tion for com­puter graph­ics, and every­one in the indus­try goes there, includ­ing the big names in fea­ture ani­ma­tion.  It’s a great oppor­tu­nity to meet other peo­ple in the field and see how it’s going to change.