Character (and myself) motivation

Kept poking my head over to the phone through out the early hours of the morning, to check the time. Got up at 7:15 after what felt like a good night's rest. Lied down a from quarter-past nine 'till quarter-to-ten.

Made me ways over to B124. There, I made headway finally with the design for my "Girl going on a date" character. I based the basic structure of her face off the shape of a heart, and used that as the foundation. Initially, I sketched out her design with the eyes beautifully closed. When opened it'd be boring if her eyes were simply nice so I threw in a Pixar-eqsue twist and gave her beady, somewhat majestic ones. The side-view took a few goes to get the proportion and dimensions looking right. From the side, the girl also somewhat reminds me of a fish, so her nickname shall be Fish Face! To give the character an added element of immaturity, she wears a skull hair clip. Initially a butterfly, or heart, but again - it's kind of boring.

Sat with Oscar and the man with awesome hair, and James (From Chi College). Had a look at Hair's dairy comic we had done a while back - his style fluctuates between each day, which is a nice effect. My favourite comic of his (and possibly of all) is four frames of a mere stick-man (presumably himself). He's walking, but even by frame 1 he starts to boogy a little. At frame 3, he REALLY gets going. Proper boogy-woogy. Then the last frame...he looses it suddenly and reverts to a timid hand-in-pocket walk. It's a blatant fact that I'm the only one amused by it so much, but I need to scan it in at some point - typically, words do not do this justice.

Chi-Jame's comic on the other hand...damn. Damn. From page 1 it is readily apparent he knows exactly what to do with his series of comics since page 1 is a fucking glossary on mark-making clichés. Heavily shaded face, cross-hatch surrounding, lighting from below, etc. The strips themselves were great, too, he went to great stretches on detail and perspective. They were also surreal. One comic in mind had James himself supposedly encountering a man on the verge of spewing. This isn't just any Joe's on-the-verge, his face deforms from the evil to come, even the front teeth expanding in size just to keep the jaw shut from vomiting... pills. Freaking waterfall  of pills. His face is an entire mess, and the mess itself spewing out is almost taken from the film The Thing. Nightmare fuel, right here.

We went on a break, and when I got back, Oscar mentioned he had looked at my comics. I hate them, but he seemed to of gotten a kick out of it. He liked my use of expression. Bleh, no, it's too exaggerated in my opinion. Ron assessed the comics too, and found them to be alright.

Ron came over to check up on how I was doing. I felt fairly regretful to not show much in the way of progress from last time, but he did give me some good tips regarding form and structure for a figure and character. Even with my design, he wanted me to keep it straight-forward in the animation testing stages. My incoherent lack of knowing to keep a design straight-forward was pre-heating Ron to gas mark 6, so by the time I said to him "Man, how do you get those proportions so spot on!", he was skulking out the advice to me like I was a man untrained to piss in the toilet. He felt settled after giving me some tips though, and it did clear some uncertainties for me.

Eventually, we went on a lunch break. I went to Waitrose with Oscar (who just wanted some cigarettes), and bought a packet of Sensations. I was meant to get milk as well, but it slipped past me. Oscar mentioned that if I meet him at his place - no.77 - he'll head onto the next session with me. At 1:45, I did just this, and saw him out of his kitchen. (His is on the ground floor) To my surprise, Chi James lives with him as well. He, Oscar and I headed on back to B124. Oscar asked if I knew Kit - indeed. I guess Kit must of passed on that there was an animation student living in the same house as him.

Back at B124, we were asked to spread out the comics of ours. Oh boy. Our group went around to other tables where other student's comics were left to be checked out. Some were quite cool! Felix had very confident use of line - really clean and smooth, as did another girl. (She really loves cats) Chi James's comics got a few looks from various students. Andy Joule popped in with a coffee also to snoop at our work with Ron. When-ether I noticed some people were glancing at my comics, I died a little.

Afterwards, we headed downstairs. One of the student, a girl from the US, stated her interest and enjoyment to Chi-James, with his work. This guy has potential, even if latent, and I could sort of sense it back last year in the Access to HE course we studied at Chichester College. He procrastinates a lot, though, like I did. But he's got definite talent, I just hope he pulls it all out for animation.

Everyone began to head down to G01. I raced ahead to nab a light box for myself. Got a place, next to Manjit and Sara. Wanted to crack on my animation for the chair-to-door. The problem was though that I hadn't even planned how to structure the scene - I wanted to keep it simple and two-dimension but there were issues with this. I wanted to show the face clearly for Fish Face girl, from her surprise to pouting. Pencils can only squeeze in so much detail, so the face had to inevitably done close up.

Initially, I had her running from the computer to her bedroom door, with the camera shot being done from the bedroom door itself looking outwards to the room. Trying to design this scene properly however proved to be too big a complicated issue, and I don't even fully know yet how to keep the background elements separate to the layer of drawn animation. (Redrawing the background each frame is just unpractical) Instead, I decided on a close-up of the girl sitting on the sofa, facing frontwards, with the door behind the sofa to the right. From focal length, it'd be about 44mm, roughly. Anything below 33mm...screw that. I'm not even practiced on perspective animation yet (but now I see why films almost never use a straight-up 2D dimensional camera shot, like most animated sitcoms do).

In terms of keeping the animation in perspective, one important piece of advice came back to me - one actually coming from an Anime/Game character designing book. It explained that in most cases of a scene, the character eye's are always on the centre of the horizon line, or least the character of focus. Remembering nothing more, I traced a faint line and tried getting the background elements in place for the scene. It proved trickier than I thought, as somehow I wasn't getting the sofa to look anything like one, and I have to take into account that girls are not adult size. When Fish Face gets off the sofa, she's more likely to slide off, or at least lean off of it. Along with this, I also need to bring into factor where her height is in proportion to the scene when standing. She might not even be higher than when she was sitting down.

Regardless,  I got on with sketching in roughs for the key frames. I started off with her attaching key rings to each ear, as well as turning the front door handle as a reference to where she should be in proportion. Actually, I asked Manjit at one point to just stand up for a second. She was near the studio door, and I wanted to get a rough understanding of where I'd see a 5ft figure in perspective to a door, at sitting angle.

On occasion, I'd hear Erika play back her lip-sync animation on computer. I think she was animating it by After Effects. From the voice recording, she chose the line of her partner and decided it was optimal to characterise him as a man with a beard. Sara mentioned to me that Erika had done commissions for Microsoft, like PJ had done. Nice! Erika seems to already know a fair amount of After Effects and the like - it would incidentally explain her e-mail to the course advising on how to get QuickTime working.
I asked her a variety of questions regarding how eventual commissioning to Microsoft. After returning to work on my animation, something struck me. It's so stupid, and I think it's just a coincidence. PJ has a wholesome fan-base, but he is also regarded as being a handsome devil. Erika, likewise, is...well, she's definitely not half bad. Is Microsoft just keenly focusing on exterior motif here? It's not unheard of for companies to go about favouring appearances, but...is it really the case? Most likely not, but it isn't like big name corporations to go about handing out commissions to just anybody with good knowledge on After Effects. Whatever, I'm over thinking it. Contacts! That was likely it.

Sara and I really sunk into conversation. She use to spend a lot of time in Chichester when young, like I did. It's surprising how many people seemed to of visited Chichester. When she was 6, Sara would also visit a farm in West Wittering frequently. She's fairly family orientated, and still lives with her parents up in Guildford - more due to Farnham being so close by, it's cheaper just to travel. We talked about what we want to do after University. One of Sara's mother's....friend, works at Disney in Florida, so she hopes (again, from contact) be able to get some work - possibly apprenticeship through her. Hope she does, that'd be awesome. On my side of the fence for the future, told her I'm not sure. Grunted that I'd like to work out in Japan at some point. Ultimately, I'd like to just make an impressive piece of animation for the film festival one during my three years here at University.

It came of 4:30, and Sara had to head off to play some netball, and cook for her friend afterwards. Incidentally, I was to meet my dad at about 5:00 or so - he'd drop off my clothes for me. I checked on how Manjit was doing for animation, and China James as well. James is now doing his walk cycle, finding it tricky. He mentioned that the 6-step walk should have about...108 or so frames? 120? Can't remember exactly. I told I'm I have done 24 or so far. He choked a laugh, but I mentioned that putting in character to a walk cycle can be difficult which is for some reason what I decided to do. Told James I'd let him borrow my Animator's Survival Kit book at some point to help him on the walk cycle.

Headed home, and came across Jamie and PJ hanging out in the kitchen. Took out the rubbish for the small bin, and tried to get a bin liner for the recycling bin, but typically the Porter's Lodge was unoccupied. Had to go get some milk, and something to eat for tonight. As I headed out, PJ was on the phone, so I threw over to him a Mr.Kipling Angel Slice. I believe he likes those.
In Waitrose (again), brought a pizza - Pizza Express American Hot, to be precise. Whilst waiting in line, Georgia and Yannis appeared out of no where from behind me. Nice to see them here, and Georgia had some rather luminescent lipstick on. (Decided not to comment on it, though) The two of them were going to Starbucks, and I contemplated joining but...was hungry and wanted to put the pizza on. Passed by James Allen on the way out of Waitrose. He didn't notice me (or did he?) since he was fixated on scanning for Yannis and Georgia ahead.

Just as well for opting out of Starbucks! On the way through the car park near the Student Village, I got a call from my dad. He came early, and said he was up in the car park where I was. Strolled ahead to see if he'd pass by but was parked already, knowing of his presence because he belted out my name aloud. Thanks, man.  Nonetheless, it was good to see him again. Hopped into the car and headed nearer towards central Farnham. We stopped by a local pub for a drink and told dad of news. He mentioned to me that my sister Holly had a hard time at work yesterday as she is pumping large amounts of work into ordering the food for schools, yet the boss/manager only allows her a 10 minute break or so. The concern is mainly spending long hours staring intensely at a computer screen which can ultimately speed or boost fatigue (and of course, headaches). Oh, I've been there. Late nights of Civilisation IV.
Dad glanced at some of the news reporting on a TV behind me in the corner, some sort of national parade happening in France today, it seemed.

Dad called up Holly at some point, tempting her to use/play with his iPad. He really has been getting his jollies from that gadget. I'm somewhat bewildered, Dad showed disinterest and confound to this product after it's unveiling and now he's getting avid satisfaction from it. He passed the phone over to me to let me talk with Holly. Asked her in concern about her excessive working, but she rubbed it aside as simply a bad day. Extended periods of time was utilised chatting with Holly, and dad eventually started pestering me to hurry up. In something of a panic, I abruptly ended the call mid-conversation with a OKGOTOGONOWBYE. BEEP. and briskly handed back the phone to dad. He had wanted to say a few final words to Holly before hanging up, but he just recalled her. Started throwing suggestions or ingredients her way, and I'm convinced Holly was just playing along with interest.

Finished up my Budweiser, and headed back to the car. Drove back to the car park, and dad took my heavy-duty laundry to the house with me. Yannis and Georgia (and James Allen) were outside having a smoke, and dad handed me the bag. Whilst saying my farewells to him, I was oblivious to Georgia keeping the door open for me which warranted dad to hesitantly mention out it to me. I'll be seeing him and everyone else next Friday.

Upstairs, I preheated the oven and slapped in the pizza. Rory arrived back soon at that point, too, from Sainsburys. It occurred to me at that time that he and I tend to operate in a similar routine, even like with yesterday in Waitrose I chose to get a ready-meal, like he had. Rory disappeared again, and I haven't seen him since. He's been mysteriously M.I.A a lot of the time, as of recent.

Georgia, Jamie, Sophie, PJ, James and Yannis were up. After eating up the pizza, James was busy in the process of preparing some sweet tasting Vodka mix. It involved hard-candy, Sailor Jerry's, lots of shaking, some Fanta and other fucking bizarre alchemy that took place in front of me. Jamie corrected me, Alcoholemy. Sophie seemed initially moody at one point, with both her legs and arms tightly crossed, but simmered over momentarily.

James Allen was at dismay when he discovered that PJ and Jamie vandalised a magazine of his - one in fact made by students of the university. I'd seen the booklet before over the previous couple of days, but never explored it properly until now. It's a neat little concept but honestly, I mistakingly believed that some illustrations were a result of PJ/Jamie's doings. Actually, this wasn't the only evil act of PJ and Jamie. PJ tried playing with one of Sophie's crafted pumpkins, squeezing it at the sides to make it talk like a puppet. Unfortunately he crushed it's cute little face into giblets, and proceeded to attempt at hiding the evidence by cramming the entire thing into another pumpkin next to it. At this point Sophie had noticed it, and bore witness to Jamie helping out with crushing the entire thing into another, finishing it via punching the lid on. It was the funniest thing to see, Sophie's dismay and all. :(  James theorised it had become a META PUMPKIN. I tried to reassure Sophie by perceiving it as a form of reverse pregnancy.

Kit and Rob were also up shortly after. Rob looked high, I think he was, but doing well nonetheless. According to Georgia (and well, himself) he was most definitely high this morning at 9:00am. Kit noticed the ruined result of Sophie's pumpkin and reckoned it was an Inception. I agree with this theory. It wasn't all bad though, PJ and Jamie's doing. As art students, we finally talked and theorised about a...piece of potential art!

I mentioned to Kit an incident Yannis may have caused either last night or on Sunday. In one of the houses (88? 82? Not sure) there was a honking party...and then a honking fight. Now, apparently Yannis was drinking outside with his friends near the place (but unassociated). Once he finished the drink, he whimsically tossed it behind him and unintentionally, it crashed into one of the dudes at the party. This guy mistook it as a hard-act by someone else amongst the crowd and boom, brawl outbreaks between the two. Supposedly though, this wasn't the cause but I like to think it is. I had already went and told this tale to Oscar, so I'm giving Yannis a bad name here. By the way, Yannis and Kit have an friendly-hatrid going on. Kit and Yannis both kept demanding to one another: "Don't talk to me." followed by "Nah. I'm just joking." Optionally, Yannis would tuck in close and offer something to Kit. (In this case, Jamaican Ginger Cake)

As I wrote this, I heard the finale outside. PJ and Jamie took it one step further, and finally threw out the pumpkins from the kitchen window, timing it so Sophie would see on the way back. The duo kept stating they would, but I thought it was just bluff. HOW I WAS WRONG.

This entry also took too long. Two hours and a half, god damn. I was meant to of showered by nine and now it's half eleven.