Alright, kids. I know I haven’t posted in a while. A lot of things had been circling around where my attention was needed more, rather than attention to my side projects. The biggest being an impending eye surgery (corneal transplant). The rest of it… family politics. Leaving it at that. Haha. So my side projects will resume at the end of the month. Health and stability first!

Happy New Year, Happy Holidays, and all that jazz!

It’s a new year and I have new plans/resolutions. Once I kick this New Year’s Flu, I will be diving in it full-force, which include but not limited to:

1. Be more awesome – A friend of mine suggested this one. I won’t get anywhere unless if I don’t keep my awesome going.
2. Participate in the 11 Second Club consistently – Gotta keep those animation skills going!
3. A 365 photo project – I’m thinking of doing a photo that encapsulates the day for me. 
4. Drawing/Creating something every day (or every other day*) – ranging from sketching from the anatomy books to learning new skill sets with Photoshop and Illustrator
5. Finally getting that animation job – Kid’s gotta pay her bills…
6. Reading more – My goal is 7 books by the end of the year. I have some hefty literature on the list.
7. Running – My body must be taken care of. Depending on my knee, maybe I’ll get to run that 5K finally…

Lately, it feels like I’ve been running to stand still between helping my folks out with the disarray after Sandy (nothing drastic, just a lot of clean-up), Thanksgiving with family and friends, and even taking a trip to Disney World because my season pass was about to expire and I wanted one last taste of the “magic.”

I was fortunate enough to stay at the Art of Animation resort. I do have to say that I was impressed by the resort and how they brought alive “Cars,” “Finding Nemo,” “The Lion King,” and “The Little Mermaid” in the themed sections.

But the one thing that got my attention at full force:

Art of Animation resort’s lobby

The lobby! It’s flippin’ impressive! …And basically the only thing I really want to talk about because when you walk in, you are greeted by a massive wall filled with concept drawings.from the four films I just mentioned. Absolutely fabulous! (I get super excited over concept art. I don’t know why, but I do.) But I committed the cardinal sin as an artist: I left my sketchbook at home! So I had to settle with staring fondly, and with some jealousy, at Glen Keane’s “The Little Mermaid” drawings.

I envy his style.

Let’s just leave it at that. Haha.

And since I did the walk cycle, it has been placed in my demo reel:

Every so often I run into an animation job description that wants me to include a walk cycle. Okay. Haven’t done one in a while, so BAM:

I admit it. I’m a nerd and I love Doctor Who. Last Saturday I was feeling rather frustrated with my creativity and directed it at my sketchbook. Out came Amy and Rory, the Doctor’s companions. And the sketch itself (below) seemed fairly decent and what I usually don’t do is follow through with a proper “art” piece out of it. Okay, since I was fooling around with Illustrator, let’s see what we can come up with.

I think it came out fairly well. You know, minus my problems with drawing guys coupled with drawing hoodies. Putting that on my list of things I should practice…

You know what I’m proud about? This picture:

Granted, this is 4 years old, but it was my first shot at modeling, rigging, texturing, and lighting… this is pretty cool to me. This was part of an assignment for 3D class in my undergrad and there was an entire story behind this, but it was never completed due to the school having only one lab dedicated to 3D use and there always being something going on in that room. And maybe also for the fact that rendering was painfully slow, slow processors, no render farm… that sort of thing.

Thought: maybe I should finish this off. Update it. Model things more nicely. Texture it well. Light it correctly. Animate a small vignette. Yes? Yes!

Still here. Still no job in the creative field, even though I’m trying super hard and sometimes it gets a bit discouraging at times. But that’s okay. I’ll eventually get there. Keep doing what I do and get better at it.

Momentarily, I’m taking a break from animation to focus on refreshing my memory with Adobe Illustrator. Playing with features and following some tutorials on maximizing the use of certain tools like using 3D. It’s pretty cool and a nice breather.

Sample of stuff I was mucking around with.