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.

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 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.

Ani­ma­tion done for one of my classes using Anna.  Just a sim­ple walk sequence.