you leave me with my jaw on the floor

So, I have decided that I need to give myself a day to update this blog, or it will never get done! And, Monday seems like a lovely day, even if it is technically Tuesday now. :) So, I'm going to make an effort to update every Monday, no promises though! I just got back from a lovely night at the bars helping my friend celebrate/bemoan her first day of real work, so now seemed as good a time to update as any!

So, the last, wow, has it really been three weeks? Anyway, the last three weeks have been as fabulous as predicted. Paul Allen (my mentor) is really great about answering questions during Q&A and giving AMAZING e-critiques. Have a mentioned before how grateful I am to have stumbled on this school?

Anyway, here as the two poses I did for week 2 and 3 of AM.
Our first pose was supposed to be, well, anything! Just to go out and sketch poses from life. Davis, is unsurprisingly, very boring when it comes to poses.


This pose is supposed to convey "excitement", I can't even tell you how much trouble I had with it! I felt like every pose I came up with was really cliché. I also feel like there something really off about this pose, I'm working on it.

Week before last we did a basic bouncing ball. I decided not to tempt fate and just do a very simple bouncing ball. I did put rotation on the ball, but you really can't tell. I could of left the curve of the ball visible but didn't for a couple of reasons, a) I wasn't very happy with how the rotation was looking and b) I hate the way the nurbs curve looks around the ball!


Then, this last week, we did two bouncing balls of different weights. A lot of people changed the sizes/colours of their balls but, well, I'm a total maya wimp so left things alone. I haven't gotten my critique back for this, so I'm still a bit nervous about it!



So, yeah, that's what's bee going on! My guess is that my mum is the only one who will read this (hi mum!) and maybe my sister (hi Dani!). But, if you do read, yay!

J'adore y'all mucho! (I like to mix up my languages sometimes =) )

PS I feel it's worth mentioning that the subject/title of my blogs are always song lyrics, just encase they seem super random to anyone. ♥

Mon soleil c’était toi, Je suis perdue

So, I was just watching "The Dot and the Line: A Romance in Lower Mathematics", possibly my favourite animated short ever (what can I say, both of my parents worked in computer engineering as I was growing up, I was doomed from the start to fate of utter geekdom) and it truly hit me how unbelievably amazing that short is. Because, let me tell you, could I possibly be more in love with the line if I tried? His attitude, his gestures, everything he does? But wait! How is this possible, how can I have almost the same affection for the line as I do for Mr. Darcy? (The line, of course, lacks Fitzwilliam Darcy's caustic wit, but we cannot all be perfect.) Honestly though, how amazing is the animation in that short that, literally, every line dot and squiggle has personality? Of course a large part of the charm does come from Robert Morley's superb narration of a superb script. I also have come to believe that Chuck Jones had animation directing super-powers. I think he must have come in contact with a radio-active flipbook or something at some point in his career, it's the only logical explanation I have!

My point is, watch this short. Seriously. I love the anticipation at about 5.27, when the line makes his second angle. There's a real sense of strength, it baffles me. Also, the ending always makes all verklempt! I can't help it. I love the dots attitude, and how she realizes how useless the squiggle is. (Much like Elizabeth in Pride and Prejudice as a matter of fact...hmmmm) Anyway, enjoy. :)



to finish, I'd like to share a story a heard involving Chuck Jones. Lord alone knows the veracity of the story, but I like to think it's true. So there's a man, who somehow knows Chuck Jones (I know, I'm great with stories *sighs*) Anyway, his son is a huge Bugs Bunny fan and introduces his son to Chuck Jones as "the man who draws Bugs Bunny." And his son, slightly bewildered by the introduction, replies "No, he draws pictures of Bugs Bunny." Wouldn't be amazing, to create a character so life-like, that a child doesn't believe you when you say you created him/her? I think it's a great goal to have whenever you create something.

xoxoxo

et c'est la liste des choses que je veux faire avec toi

Oops, I guess I kind of fell down on updating about the last week of Maya Springboard. I was just so busy, I spent the week with my family in Disneyland for my younger sister's birthday and the proceeded to jump on a plane and head off to Norfolk Nebraska for the Great American Comedy Festival, so I've just now gotten time to sit back and relax. I just want to say now how much I really appreciated the springboard workshop. Not that week 1 of class 1 has started I can't even tell you how nice it is to already know people in my class. I think I would be overwhelmed if I had just jumped straight into class one. Not just because of the work-load but also because of fear of the unknown. Maya Springboard gave me a really good idea of what I was getting myself into.

I also just want to mention how awesome and amazing Brad Bradbury was to have as a mentor. As an Alumni he really knew what we were getting ourselves into, as a person he was pretty much all around awesome. :)

So, As long as I'm doing the 'Maya wrap-up' I'll put up some of the work I did.

This is from the first few weeks, where we went over very basic modelling/lighting etc.


The next week few weeks we went over tangents and, basically, moving stuff around. This included a floaty bouncing-ball thing and moving a ball in a circle (way harder than you think). Eventually though we got to move a robot arm, yay!



I totally neglected to make curves invisible when I did the playblast of this one... oops.

And then, last but not least, we had to make a one legged character take a step... it doesn't exactly look great but, at least he gets where he's going!


So, that's that for Maya Springboard. I really had a great time, I can't even tell you how much. This session looks like it's going to be just as great, if more work. A little work never hurt anyone, am I wrong? My mentor is Paul Allen (who used to work at DNA productions) and I'm really looking forward to having him help me learn about animation! Everyone in my class so far is super nice as well, so thus-far I have nothing but positive expectations and I don't expect to be disappointed.

Bises!!