Hey, guys!
Here’s my class 1 progress reel. I’m planning to re-work my character walk once I’ve taken body mechanics, hopefully I can make it stronger. Crits welcome!
Wow, time really has flew! My mentor this term was Mike Walling, an awesome animator from Blue Sky. I will forever be thankful for his dedication to his duties as a mentor. If Mike’s experience is an accurate representation of the industry then it’s just more re-assurance that I’m going into the right field. Mike really seemed to love his job at Blue Sky.
I thought that I knew the principles of animation pretty well before coming to AM but just like anything in this world, every time you learn something it opens your eyes to the things you don’t yet know.
The Animation Mentor community has been awesome. Everyone there is passionate about animation and I really feel like I could go to any student, ask for their honest opinion, and actually get it. I was a little nervous about posting public reviews at first, it’s hard to post unfinished work for everyone to see. I’m glad I got over the fear, because getting critiques by other students has helped me tremendously. I also tried my hardest this quarter to help others with their work by posting PR critiques. I think it’s helped me more than it’s helped anyone else. My animation eye is getting so much better, instead of just feeling like something is wrong, I can pinpoint the issues and that’s helped me in my work a ton.
My new mentor is Joe Mandia. I’ve only had a couple of Q and A sessions, but so far I can attest to his awesomeness. Joe is extremely dedicated to his students, he gave us all of his contact information and even his AIM screenname. Body Mechanics is an extremely important and difficult class, but I know that I’m going to learn so much.
I’m a peer buddy this term, meaning that I have a small group of first term students that I help every week. They’re all doing very well so far and I’ve been trying my hardest to provide them with all the help I can, and I hope that it makes things easier for them.
I’ve gotten emails from a few readers (crazy, I know) asking questions about Animation Mentor. I have a little secret for those of you who are planning to join… DO IT NOW! The prices are increasing by $1,075 with the new curriculum, but if you pay the $500 enrollment fee by August 31st you can still get the current price.
I promise you won’t regret it, no matter who you are.
And tell them I sent you. 
So for quite a while now I have wanted to make my own puppets. I don’t even want to do ventriloquism, I just want to make them. Tonight I was scouring the internet for information on making puppets (there’s a HUGE hobbyist community) and I came across a list of suggested books for the beginner puppet maker. My eye zipped down to an image of a book I haven’t seen since I was 7 and it immediately took me back. I’ve always said that the Christopher Hart books are what got me hooked on drawing characters, but tonight I realized that it was Ed Emberley’s Drawing Book of Animals that truly got me hooked. I remember going with my class to the school library and checking that book out over and over again until my teacher sternly suggested that I should branch out a little. (kind of like when I kept making my mom rent Star Wars Animated Classics - Ewoks: The Haunted Village, but that’s a different story) I found the book on Amazon for $1.07 and I think I’ll buy it, take that Mrs. Seamons.
Oh, no, don’t get me wrong. I’m leaning A TON at Animation Mentor! The one thing that I can’t seem to get into my head; however, is to save my freaking work!! Tonight was the second night that I’ve lost a considerable amount of work to the electricity god… who I’m guessing is Zeus. On Monday I started on my bouncing balls project and I had planned on having the light ball trigger the fall of the heavy ball. It was actually beginning to look pretty good, I was in the ZONE and animating my cute little heart out when ZAP!! The lights, as well as my computer, went out. Well I really learned my lesson and after a palm slap to my forehead and a “stupid stupid stupid” I promised myself that I would not let that happen again. Yeah, needless to say, it happened again tonight. I might be better off now though, I decided to scrap the concept and do something a little more basic… after all it IS “Basic Foundations”
The good news: I had enough battery in my laptop to play 23 games of Spider Solitaire while the power was out… one of which, I won!
Wow, my first day on AM was quite exciting. I watched a few of the videos and I’ve begun playing around with Stu a bit. That IK arm is going to be the death of me, I know it’s good practice but I’ve had traumatic experiences in the past. The Eric Goldberg interview was golden and it made me even more excited for his book. A lot of the people in my class have pretty good demo reels already, which is intimidating but I’m grateful that there are so many talented people.
Tomorrow, my first Q and A.
It’s funny how things work sometimes. Tonight I was driving to pick up Taeler from work and I tuned into NPR hoping for some company. Usually NPR doesn’t come in very well but tonight it was crystal clear, which was nice for a change. There was an interview with David A. Price, who’s book I admittedly haven’t read. They discussed the beginnings of Pixar as well as “The Pixar Touch”. There’s a couple little nuggets of inspiration in the interview, so give it a listen below.
And congrats to Pixar on Wall-E I haven’t been able to see it yet but I hear it’s great.
Firstly, AM starts in a matter of days. I’ve been waiting so long and finally the day has come. It’s killing me not being able to log in to the site between classes. I finally got my Mac Pro, I’m a happy camper! I haven’t done anything too intense with it yet but I have only seen the beachball cursor once so far. The down side is that my monitor stopped working so I’m using a 15 incher for the time being, it’s killing me. Maya on such a small screen is depressing. Also, if any prospective AMers are reading this and need a webcam, I’m selling my Quickcam Pro 9000 as soon as the Quickcam Pro Vision comes out, this thing has great picture but in OS X you can’t switch it from high res mode, so it’s stuck at 5fps. Unacceptable!
I’m really excited for Eric Goldberg’s new book Character Animation Crash Course! I’ve read a lot of his notes and I’m sure this book is going to be loaded with great and unique tips.
And what blog post would be complete without a little GRRR? I just have to quickly express my disgust with the Wal-Mart /Home Depot self checkout kiosk. It’s crazy that companies so global would contract something so vile. I hate to sound like an elitist animator, because I’m not. but come on.. come on.
I can finally log in to AM! Right now I only have access to the orientation page and I haven’t yet been assigned a mentor yet. Nevertheless, I’m really excited. I watched all of the orientation videos and there was a lot of good advice (thanks Alexiss) that I had to learn the hard way at Art Institute. I can’t wait to gain full access to the site so I can meet some more geeks like me!
Next step, getting the money for my Mac Pro.
I just watched the Weinstein release of The Thief and the Cobbler and it was very painful. It’s like putting sunglasses on the Mona Lisa. Parts of it are beautiful but it’s a textbook example of studios trying to make things more appealing and ruining art. What a shame.
Thank heavens for the Recobbled Cut.
