Final Everything...

Final versions of EVERYTHING! Everything...except for the final final, which isn't due for another couple of days so I am doing some last major tweaks on it. The turnout of this final assignment was looking horrifyingly precarious for the first two and a half weeks. Like watching drunk kitties drive "horrifyingly precarious". I chose concept over simplicity and functionality, and ran into some awesome technical issues with building new rigs. I wasted 2 and a half weeks trying to make it work - only to scrap it almost entirely. Somehow a week and a half later, the overall assignment is not turning out nearly as bad as I initially anticipated. Crazy. What's equally as crazy is the fact that I will be done with class 2 in just another week and moving onto acting. Berloody amazing!! Super stoked and hope I will continue to hone my body mechanics even in acting class.


Assignment 2 of 3


Assignment 1 of 3





On another fantastic note, the summer's coming to an end - and while that's not really fantastic at all- Halloween is. Legitimate excuses to dress in costume and drink with friends for weeks on end are always welcome with me. I also have a cool plan for Christmas gifts this year which I'll probably get started on soon. Did I mention that freelancing is terrible? It is. My goal is to find some, at least, semi-permanent character animation work in the next few weeks. I am constantly busy with something, whether it be work, school, meeting up with friends when I can, or occasionally getting crafty with pencil or Posca markers. I've been making an effort to make sure my days have a healthy balance of work and recreation which is new for me. Just the other night I took a break from school work; walked with my sketchbook to a local bar and sketched over a beer by myself for an hour. Nothing big but it totally helped me unwind. It's been small things like that that keep me positive with these stressful AM/work schedules.

Busy busy busy

School and looking for a new job has kept me exceptionally busy. Today I was supposed to chalk it up for literacy here in Portland, but I arrived at the event site only to find that it had been canceled. I'm still fairly bummed about it. I guess it's not so bad since I was up and out early for it - so when I got back home I was able to get an early start on finishing my assignment for tomorrow's deadline. Since I last posted I've celebrated a birthday, finished my first term, gone to San Francisco, camped, gotten strep throat for 2 weeks, gone to the Red Bull Flugtag, and landed a new part time gig doing character animation for a new game, which I start on Tuesday. Oh, and I bought a Heart record on vinyl that I'm thoroughly excited about. Yes!

Re-blocked Assignment 2
I feel like this has got a ways to go

Week 9

Well, I completely scrapped my work from last week's blocked vanilla walk and started from scratch. This was after reading The Animator's survival kit and checking out some critiques from the vanilla walk assignment. Much work to do.

Week 8

Term 1 is winding down and we're getting into 2 week assignments as opposed to the previous weeks' single week assignments. I've found that in the first weeks, I refrained from getting too crazy with my assignments because I didn't want to make the mistake of forgetting the purpose- which is very easy for me to do. After several weeks of that I began to doubt my ability to be original and creative; to be entertaining as well as fulfill the requirements of the assignment. I was scared my ideas were all becoming far too boxy and contained. I want to think like an entertainer, but I know that will only come with time. Anyhow, in week 8 we had to produce a blocking of a vanilla walk or in other words, a normal walk. We also had to pose Stewie to portray the idea of strength. I need to polish the walk, revise my strong poses, and create a concerned pose for week 9. Here's week 8's assignment:

First post...

The thing is ...I have been kicking around the idea of starting a journal to document my AM shenanigans for over a month now. It seems that the only catalyst grand enough to move me to action was my tragic, week-long lapse into an animation coma. That seemingly indelible period of time where things that had always made sense suddenly lose their form from over-processing them mentally; similar to when you repeat words over and over until they lose their meaning. I'm sure this coma was induced by my compulsivity towards perfection and perfectionism's malignancy in any forum of productivity, but I'm also certain it's got just as much to do with the dwindling hours of sleep I'm getting. In Sasha's world sleep tends to finish last. Until!!!! Dun duh dah dunnnn!!!! Today. Psh, after assignment submission, of course! ..and after a promised meeting for lunch with a friend. Finally got some sleep.And wouldn't you know, I was rewarded by my subconscious with a much needed epiphany. Now I am taking another stab at this assignment on overlapping with a clarity that I was too wound up to have this past week. Cheers to that! And cheers to the fact that my super adorable kitty Max likes to hang out in my lap whilst I type. ...and cheers to the fact that I just thought of another pet name for him by fusing the word 'sugar' with something else equally as saccharine.