Damnit Robert, speak up!

Up and AT DEM. Hopped out of bed at 8am. That's a whole two hours before lesson!

B124 and Robert, as per usual, provided us the basis for Principles today. He's a good teacher, in his mid 50s or so, and he does have a lot of experience behind him. It's too bad that how he speaks just bugs me. The most prominent example is how he muffles his voice, lowering the sound of it towards the end of a sentence.

"If you look at how someone walks, ern, you know. ... ...they subconsciously sort of catch themselves before they uh, fall."

This should be a teacher sort of habit but I haven't seen anyone have this kind. Of course, if I were to bring it up with Robert I am more likely to be told it is a medical condition of some sort and ultimately feel like a burnt prune cake.

With the two groups again, ours stayed upstairs this morning with Robert to work on character designs after an intricate and helpful teaching on the walk. With a sheet of a task given out, we were also given a slip of paper with varying design 'elements' to it. These elements were to tie in with the animation assigned which is to have someone stand up from a chair and walk to a door.

Mine, for instance, was 'girl going on a date'. My mind began racing ideas around and I didn't really want to settle on a pretty girl since that's kind of boring - I want to surprise my audience (which there will be none, don't care though, it is practice). I initially had the idea of super-active and expressive girl who is naive and easy to be blazing with joyful gossip. It didn't hit me until about 15 minutes that I was basically copying Charlotte 'Lottie' La Bouff from The Princess and the Frog.

So I wanted a reverse role and played on the idea of a timid, introverted and loyal, kind girl. Again, still boring so I thought "She has to have features that are clearly unattractive but remain appealing." I went on the idea that she is a girl who, for her date, desperately tries to hide her fatty bits on the waist - perhaps through tight fitting dress (as unrealistic as it could seem, it is a cartoon). I flashed up a number of designs for the face, keeping mainly a nervous, sweet and timid essence.  Gonna explore some other ideas, soon.

The session finished and on the way back to 92 I was weirdly down over the missing appearance of Su. (I'm guessing she is with the other group) I was irritated with myself too because, well, why should I care? My desire to hang with Japanese is probably me just clinging to the past without realising.

Called up Fern Medical Practice back in Room 5. Had to wait a bit before being put through, with a pre-recorded pish-posh voice telling me to hold every 20 seconds. Arranged for an examination tomorrow at 1:05pm, cool cool! Read 10 minutes worth of my Japanese in 10 minutes a Day book. One cool feature are the sticky labels that come with it - featuring words. I stuck the various Japanese words to the stuff in my room associated with it; 'Kagami' on my mirror, for example.

Scoffed my way down McVities Chocolate Digestives and then made my way to room G01 except no, first I ran backwards then to a cash point outside Waitrose. Needed to give Andy Joule £15 for the soon-to-come VOICE TRAINING. Anyway, off to G01 and everyone was already punching holes into their paper for the peg bars. I asked one in front where he got his paper - it was his. In fact, ALL the paper the group was using was of their property. Shit. I once again ran backwards, this time to an art shop within the University itself. Sadly, it ran out of charlie average A4 cartridge paper so the woman at the counter suggested a simple A4 note pad.

Payed. Ching ching, bingo bango. Ran back to G01 and thrashed out pieces of paper from the notepad like that of a conductor indigently orchestrating New World Symphony. The group sat down and...
We just sort of got on with practicing the walk. No staff were there, which was really peculiar. It fit into place naturally anyway - of course we'd need this room to practice the walking motion. Andy Joule did in fact pop in, and went around giving around a few tips. Gave him my £20 and jokingly called me a fool for giving him the full £20 (Pub!1!!). :(

Not sure how everyone else went about with practicing the walk. Generally, as The Animator's Survival Kit suggested, two contacts are best; each for when the legs are both spread ahead and behind the most ('contact' refers to the feet touching the ground) One passing position as well, acting as midway point for the two contacts.

I botched up my stick figure, somehow, early on in proportion. Six to seven heads are the standard adult height but this one had about 10-12 heads of height. I attempted to remedy this with very VERY long and flamboyant legs. Slightly felt like starting over, but more so I could feel that animating this could be pretty fun and characterised. As such, I went ahead with an extremely fruity prance.

I got both contacts and passings going on across the scene so I give the drawings a test view on Dragon. Ew, what the hell! Well, I knew that of course more frames would be needed to suss out suitable timing, spacing and anticipation for the characterful walk but the test view looked like a really surreal Latin salsa happening at turbo speeds across the page. Hm.

Robert eventually got around to looking through my stuff done so far in the sketchbook. I was anxious about his advice and more importantly me getting pissed off with it, but much of it was fair and he really did understand lots of the sketches well. Save for the feather. Not ALL feathers have to drop horizontally. That's like that weird myth that cats never fall on their back. Couldn't finish the walk cycle so I'll do so sometime this week.

Got back, and I popped into Sophie's room. Cripes, Rob and (in particular-) Yannis sure do enjoy chilling in there. Could it be Sophie's vast array of exotic blankets and pillows? PJ rang up Sophie, asking her to preheat the oven to 200 centigrade before he got back. She did not take kindly to this request.

And that said, PJ was around a little later, coming back with Jamie. He noticed my Waitrose bag and in response to getting (admittedly) good deals at Sainsbury's jokingly then let slip "No hard feelings, man!" BITCH! Say that again! To my Waitrose bag!

Tonight I had Liver, Bacon and Onions. Looked nice but I never understood why my sister threw such a fuss over it. Chatted with PJ over some of the stuff regarding his work and career. YouTube invited him to something, and he got a goody bag which included a fleece that he then wore today. Man, lucky! He went and played a card game with Jamie - one that involved making your own rules.

Went on my laptop and played a few flash games online whilst waiting for my supper to cook, one of which was Robot Unicorn Attack. I quickly closed the game down for my laptop volume was damn high - but Kit heard enough of that music to quickly notice I was playing Robot Unicorn Attack. He suggested I play Happy Wheels. Happy Wheels? It's like those Motor Cross games which require careful sustaining of balance. This, though, took stuff to fanatical levels. Gone are motorbikes and in its place are old men on wheel chairs, jews on segways and much more. The segway was particularly impressive regarding the physics of the body. It flexed and bent startlingly realistically to the momentum of the segway. Of course, injuries are heavily realistic as well. Given the nature of injury with those Motor Cross games this was hilarity and jarring.

The supper was ready, and so were Jamie and PJ's. It's 'Cheap Night Tuesday' but the duo for some reason decided on a whole chicken. They say it was cheap, though, so it works out. Me though, I had my liver, bacon and onion! Piece of shit, that liver! Now I understand why my sister had feared that meat like the plague. Not even lemonade could retain that after taste - cream crackers needed to be yanked from the end of the table in assistance to this fuck up dinner.

It's a good thing I bought a bag of Walkers Sensations to curb the rest of the hunger pangs then.
PJ asked if I was doing anything tonight - I do admit the comics need to be cracked on with. He invited me to a film he's watching later at his place with others - it sounded cool. Unfortunately I had to skip on it from inevitable preoccupation.

Ah, tomorrow on Wednesday is library induction. Maybe we can finally get our UCA card then?