I'm really enjoying animating in Maya. Wish I'd had more time to work on both these animations...
I feel like we're so overwhelmed with deadlines that we aren't really able to put in 100% effort into any one project because we're too worried about meeting the deadline.
I do my best to plan my time but and for the most part i think i'm okay but i also want to be healthy socially and physically so sometimes i need to make sacrifices. I literally plan my days out by the hour and i have to make a conscious effort to go out downtown or see friends. If i don't make time to exercise or go out sometimes with people, I feel really crappy and depressed. I really don't think it's healthy to be stuck at home doing homework 7 days a week, which happens too often. So as a result I hand in assignments late or really bad quality work. I know other classmates have the same struggles.
Balance is so important in this program, and self discipline. You really won't survive if you can't keep yourself mentally happy and healthy.
Above is the Sentai Snail's entry for the 24 hour film competition! The Sentai Snails, aka: Eggy, Erika, Jon and Christian, and me!
The contest details:
Make a 30 second short film in 24 hours with a team of 5 people. We are not allowed help from teachers, or are able to use pre-existing characters. The entries will be themed so as to prevent anyone from prepping ahead of time. There were 52 groups participating from USA, Canada and Australia! There were prizes from Dreamworks, Disney, CTNX, and Wacom to name a few.
Unfortunately, we didn't place.. but no harm done! It was a really great learning experience for everyone involved. We had some great laughs (some freak-outs too) and are proud of our silly chickens!
To be honest, our team was not a close knit bunch to begin with. It actually formed very randomly and I only just met two of our teammates just a couple of weeks before. To top that, we almost did not even get a chance to participate due to the limited number of Cintiqs in our studio! We managed to scrape in with some persistent emailing on my part..
On the day of the competition all the participating groups gathered in Nancy's classroom (our storyboard teacher who organized it all). We all waited to hear what the theme was to be via a live stream on YouTube. When we found out what it was, a lot of us were concerned:
"All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others." - George Orwell
Such a difficult theme! We thought it was going to be something like 'cooking' or 'embarrassing moments' or something broad like that.
Luckily we were able to come up with a story quite fast. I actually thought of show-cats originally, but then decided chickens might be funnier and it seemed to spark something with the others and then everyone started throwing out jokes. Erika was storyboarding while we were throwing out ideas and we were actually laughing the whole time. By the time we were done, this is what we had:
We made some minor adjustments and then started breaking it down into who would animate which scene.
Christian animated the grabbing and the roast scene:
Erika animated the swallow scene:
Eggy animated the pecking and the blowing up scene:
I animated the little jig that the fat chicken does and the weird ugly squashing scene lol:
Jon did all the backgrounds/layouts: (plus inside the barn)
Also a huge thanks to Erika who did a lot of fixing up, compositing and sound editing!
Trivia!
Within the last hour of the competition, Christian's Cintiq crashed and messed up all the coloured frames for the pecking scene. Jon and I had to speed colour around 200 frames in half an hour so that we could upload it in time!
The weird hen noise at the end where the egg comes out of the roast is actually Jon's voice.
We made a bit of a screw up by not colouring outside of the frame, which is why the human hand is 'dismembered', which you can see in the first screen cap for the grabbing scene.
The egg that the smaller chicken laid is not coloured in properly because Jon forgot that the background for the chickens was not going to be white!
I came up with the title 'Well-Fed', but before that we were thinking of 'Sunny side up', 'Cracked', and 'Fluffy Chickens' to name a few.
You can see the skinny chicken's bum-oley when he lays the egg out of shock:
Wrapping up
It was a great and fun experience all around. I feel privileged to have worked with such talented people and even though i was technically 'the group leader' it was really irrelevant to the process because everyone brought their A-game. I also learned how to compromise in spite of creative differences, and to stop and listen to what others had to say--even if you think your idea is the best.
I still remember crying with laughter when we all watched the scene where the chicken squishes his head in and does the weird tongue flicking thing. I have to say i still laugh at the gravy farting noise and the egg at the end, but i'm probably biased :)
Hi I'm alive im sorry.
Here is some stuff from last year and summer,,
I was busy with cons so i didn't draw a lot over the break except to do some commissions and print stuff. Sometimes i feel like long breaks help me come back fresher and looser~
I almost got Oscar up in the display case but i formatted the page vertically instead of horizontally so it didnt fit ....... bragging-right dreams crushed lol
Ive never drawn a pig before ..
help
My painting mark is crappy right now so i did an extra painting... hopefully it will help :S
So i just finished my first day at Sheridan in the Animation program, and although it was a bit of a rocky start as i expected, i'm excited regardless. First period was awkward because i got to class just on time but the whole lecture hall was filled so i sat alone at the back like a loser lol. Nobody really talked to each other until second period but I made a couple of friends in the end so it wasn't too bad! Painting class looks like it will be fun! I'm not that great with gouache but it looks like such a versatile medium that im excited to gain a better understanding of it! I want to make pretty gradients! lol
I really would like to get to know more people in the program, as i feel a bit like a fish out of water.. I hope people dont think im scary because most of the time i have a tired bitch face on lol damn 8am classessss @_@
Anyway, here are some of my pieces from my accepted portfolio. Sorry you dont get to see my room drawings, they were really bad and for some reason the pencil like.. rubbed off? idunno maybe it was too waxy or something..
Life Drawing
I got all 4s on the Life drawing section of my portfolio (including hands and animals) yaaaay supah proud
Objects
Storyboard
Character
sorry for the huge watermark lol
Yup thats it~ The rest is not that important or not that good lol.
Feel free to ask me any questions, it took me three years so im pretty sure i can tell you how not to do a portfolio quite well lol
