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.

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.

After read­ing a bit of the book I have for my cur­rent class, I feel like work­ing on my comic again.  I think I know what’s wrong with it, and I have a bet­ter idea to fix it.  The biggest prob­lem is with the con­flict.  It’s there, but there isn’t enough of it, and there needs to be a cen­tral point of con­flict that the char­ac­ters have in com­mon.  Right now, they all have goals, but noth­ing that really uni­fies them.  I think I’m look­ing in the wrong place for the con­flict.  Before, Dierdre’s main quest was find­ing her father, but there’s another char­ac­ter in the story that played a much minor role who would fit bet­ter.  I’m just not sure how to go about it yet.

I posted some final shots of the room in a new gallery.  It didn’t turn out so bad, though it’s not as detailed as I’d have liked.  It looks can­dle lit, which was one of my goals.  I’m going to play around with the pro­gram some more, maybe make some scenes from my story.  I think it’d neat to have mod­els of the envi­ron­ments where I can actu­ally explore it instead of just mul­ti­ple 2D drawings.

I’ve been pretty busy for the past week.  I’m get­ting bet­ter with 3ds Max, and work­ing on some more per­sonal stuff on the side.  This is what I’m cur­rently work­ing on.  The first two are dif­fer­ent views of a room I’m cre­at­ing for my 3D mod­el­ing class.  The third is a pic­ture I’m work­ing on of my rogue.

A new pic­ture was added to “Con­cepts.”  Anna is a char­ac­ter I cre­ated for the ani­ma­tion class that I’m cur­rently in.  It’s pos­si­ble I’ll be work­ing on some ani­ma­tion for her or some other char­ac­ters I came up with, but I’m not entirely sure.  Still work­ing on the pic­ture for the site design.  Right now, school, my son, and game stuff are tak­ing up a lot of my time.  Wouldn’t have it any other way, though.  :)

Another draw­ing added in “new.” I’ll fix the issues with the site once my break comes around. My classes should be over by next Sat­ur­day, and I think I get a cou­ple weeks to relax before the next one starts.