FYI, MIA BBL KTHX

God damnit! Where did I go?

I spent the better part of the weekend just flat-out animating my Character Motivation - although not all the time. I woke up at 12:20pm today, for instance. My intent was to get it finished by Monday, but I haven't even gotten to the 5th of 9 storyboard keys yet. I've learnt SO much though in the principles of animation - I've feel that I have developed, even if just a little.

On Friday, I was going to trace over the head-turn I had done - it was 24 or so frames - almost an entire second. Unfortunately I didn't think to mark out other facial details (like the hair) during the turn, so as a result the animation in its preliminary stage just wobbles rather distastefully.

The hands also animated just terribly.

Regardless, I needed to crack on with it and besides, I could probably just fix up the consistency issues as I went along. I planned to do an all-nighter on Friday, thus the purchasing of a four-pack Red Bull. Georgia, at about 9pm informed me of an event at the SU bar that night but had to pass on the offer.

My courageous 'all-nighter' plan didn't get far, however. At 1:00am or so, I just felt way too tired. Of course, that's why I bought Red Bull but my greater conscience told me that, in the long run, I'd work better from a 7am to evening schedule than potentially half-assing my work from a brain-dead instance.

So, I dropped to sleep.

At 6:40am, up I got. Showered and such. I was ready to work when, right out of no where, the penny suddenly dropped with a horrible clang. The 'Character Motivation' exercise is meant to have us animate a character getting off a chair or similar and walk to the door in a manner related to their condition. (ex. Stroppy teenager, old man, playful child) I had gotten the 'Girl on a date' - and I decided on a close-up shot of her sitting on the sofa. Chest upwards. 

But duh - I haven't actually SHOWN she is sitting on the sofa, at least not clearly. It's implied to some extent that she is (the sofa behind her, of course) yet this clearly isn't sticking to the intended brief - not close enough anyway. The legs aren't in view - there is isn't a full enough shot of her. I can't really take the risk of being vague about the setting here.

So I fell into dismay. Other than this implication, the head-turn just felt too screwed over to try and fix (although I could, even simply, but nah) I laid on the bed, head into the pillow, and just thought. I tried to relax myself. My mind laid the conclusion to these mistakes: "And now I've learnt." I wasn't banging my head against the wall with frustration - I was more afraid and fearful towards the mishap I'd created, and so for two hours I thought about what to do. I glanced at my storyboards, and crunched at what I aimed for vs. what is required. I could just animate the scene with the girl further back - either from the sofa itself or the focal length/zoom, but the face would be smaller and I'd loose that important element of clear facial expression.

But then something else had struck me - something I decided to just skip from self-assurance - the body turn-arounds. I was so fixated on pushing the narrative with facial characterisation that I ignored this pre-requisite to the scene. And now I've learnt. If I had actually taken the time bring into account how tall I want her to be, what her overall shape is and everything else - design her actual body itself - I would of foresaw the issues that would arise now. The sketchbook was still missing due to assessment (Which I also suspect a bad remark/grade is going to occur) so I instead grabbed some paper and started roughing out the general design for this character - named Fish Face.

Because I still intend to display emotion with the necessity to draw her away from view, I shrunk the body proportions to almost Super-Deformed levels. There would of been better ideas, for sure, but this one did solve two problems: one being the mud above, and the other to underline the fact I am animated a girl going on a date. Not a teen (although acceptable as well, no doubt) and definitely not a woman. I've seen two people animating the same character archetype as me, and they both tip more towards teen/womanly.

So with that said, I sketched a few designs on the proportion and landed on one to my liking - one that ultimately allows her to sit on the sofa in current view-point and yet still show her legs for sitting down. It reminds me a lot of the funny proportions in the Wind Waker, and is very much similar. 

Finishing the designs, I could move on the next stage and actually start the pencil-test animation. Paranoia from my previous mistakes lingered however, and I was set on not repeating the same problem. I was hesitant to get going, so I stopped and relaxed on the bed. I thought about what to do, exactly. I thought, and thought and thought. Read a couple of pages over in The Animator's Survival Kit to reassure myself on what to do, and also unintentionally dozed off at about 8:30 or so. Awoke at 11:00, but still felt reluctant to jump off the diving board in the deep end. When it came to 1:30pm, I finally felt eased enough to know what I wanted to do, and how to go about doing it.

Originally, the animation started with Fish Face putting on some earrings - now that I think about it, I think this was, of all further actions, the defining point that you could tell (or at least get the idea) she is preparing for a date. But I skipped it, at least for now I am. Carrying on from there, I I decided on animate part 2 to 3 of the storyboard keys. Relaxing, eyes closed and looking all rosy - to the door bell ringing and opening her eyes. Only her eyes and mouth would move, so I drew the body sans the facial details - I'll template those on top. 

When drawing the eyes and mouth, it gave me the opportunity to try out one approach to animation I hadn't practiced yet - spacing. Or rather, spacing in a controlled manner. I've begun to notice that the difference between the animation of your average-Sunday TV episodes to the anticipated climax special is the flexibility of the spacing - more on that later. Spacing is something I do wanted to try and become versed in since my walk cycle - while not bad, certainly had a very static feel to it. It looked like a wind-up toy doing a Samba inspired march across the screen! It's not what I wanted - what I wanted needed that special essence of spacing! (Yet again, now I've learnt)

Once the eye-opening bit was done, it was onto another simple action - although I say simple, I made this far more planned and 'set-up' than I think it needs to be. (- but then...) Doll Face raises her head in excitement to the door bell. Doll Face? Yes, not Fish Face. Why? Partly because the way she sits on the sofa. Her proportions and small size means her legs don't event flop down at 90 degrees as typical to sitting - they literally stick straight out! Her face, at least at that stage is jarring, like an empty void - that of a doll Of course this is clearly showing bad character designing but hush now - I am using this to my advantage. Doll Face is also somewhat of a pun to the nickname of pretty ladies used in Brooklyn during the 1940s.

As I am writing this now, I am still working on the head-raise. It's 13 or so frames (but likely more) and it's not even finished! Because: Above trying to avoid a repeat of wiggle-vision, I want to make different actions happen at different times during this rising transition. When I boil it down, what I want is the head-raise to be enticingly subtle.  This requires spacing, and that has certainly made for a drive through death valley.  Not only does Doll Face's head rise - her head tilts upwards. If any experience from the last attempt at turning head mass has taught me it's to plan everything first. Not just the eyes but the eyebrows, mouth, nose, ears, cheeks and blah blah. Everything. Otherwise I get unsure on where to put the shapes and how to change volume = wiggle wiggle. 

The preparation took just way too long. I think I spent most of Saturday yesterday planning out the frames with guidelines. I'm not trying to animate a city scape here, so...I don't know why this took longer than it had to. My aim for subtly I guess. Often the case is with most animations that the subject is spaced enough between each frame that consistency, whilst very much the crux, isn't such a huge disaster if it isn't perfect since even at 12 frames per second, it goes by fast enough that we miss it; the flow comes ahead of detail. This isn't entirely true if the subject is in profile (amongst other things) but that's why I hated the two-dimensional walk cycle. But here, the start and end point of the head rise isn't very far apart so the finesse of the pencil line had to be delicate. I also haven't got the line-tester to lean on for ironing out mistakes bit-by-bit - any slip ups I make over the weekend means more time wasted trying to rectify it.

Which, incidentally, I didn't exactly spend every hour of my time on this animation. At various points I would suddenly become afraid and hesitant again, and sort of run away from the challenge due to the above. Basically I pussed out and took a few hours break. On average I spent about 4 to 5 or so hours each day. I guess that's not bad but it certainly isn't using my personal use of the light-box to the best of its worth. 

Back on topic - the 13 frames of head rise proved a little tricky. From frame 1, along with the guidelines, I marked out dots (think dot-to-dot) on where the other details need to go; I saw this advice brought up in How to Draw Anime and Game Characters Vol. 1 of all places. Before actually animating, I first thought "Oh no, that's too much hassle. Why would anything bother doing that?" And here I am. I didn't dot out the details on all the frames since the seeing frames beforehand thanks to the light acting as a good guide unto itself, though I bet I'll see why cheeping out like that is going to bite me tomorrow once I see this tested out.

Once the head itself was roughed out, finally, I moved onto the details of the face itself. This was quite fun! The eyes were fairly scary to draw in as they were the big perspective show on the face. I had these blink a couple of times for character, and tried getting in a smooth movement of the iris. The eye-brows (as mere lines) were slightly more irritating in that, for such a simple mark, they kept on becoming inconsistent through the Extreme/Breakdown frames. Well, again, I should of marked it out on all the frames ahead of time.

Ah, and spacing the facial details. I wanted to try flexibility (or better known as overlapping action) to here, and I hinted about this above. After reading Animator's Survival Kit numerous times, I rested on the idea to do one thing at a time with the animation - animate the body and head shape first, then the arms, then the eyes/nose/mouth etc and then any drapery or hair. It's a rather sure-fire sounding system, but its catch is taking baby-steps eats a lot of time as I've come to notice.

But why flexibility?

Because living things aren't machines. We're not machines, and I certainly don't want my character Doll Face to be viewed as such. What I mean to say is that nothing moves at the same time when we animate as beings - it's one of the biggest aspects of the kinetic reality. This is also why I brought the difference in animation quality. Typical episodes of a cartoon show - Nickelodeon, anime or whatever - maintain a cheap and workable budget by using less-experienced animators. Spacing and timing is fine and straight-forward but what I notice lacking is flexibility. I don't stand with enough ground as to why, and it's also arcs, weight and easing things in that ignored often, but without flexibility - overlapping the action - I think a lot of believability is lost.

Anyway, the mouth, eyes and arms all move at separate times during the rise. With 13 frames, I thought about what would be best for what to move and open when. The mouth doesn't start opening until half way through, the arms rise 1/4 of the way in and stop 2/3 through, the eyes blink twice near the beginning and so on. When I test this tomorrow, hopefully it'll come out the way I wanted it. Easing in and out was vital to the spacing, and I can't stand stop-start start-stop jerkiness. Fluency, man!

Right now, I'm currently drawing in the actual frames on top of the 'drafts'. It's 10 to 2am, and I wasted nearly 2 hours writing up this blog. That's what I get for skipping, though. Aiming to get this done before tomorrow as I have life drawing nearly all day. Sticking in in-betweens would be nice, as I effectively want this animation running on 'ones' - 25 frames per second.

After I do the head rise, I need to rethink the system for drawing in the frames. Fortunately, action is here more spontaneous - at least until Doll Face starts walking (and in perspective dimensions too, GULP). It took way too long last time, I need to start the lip sync effectively on Wednesday as both have to be in for Tuesday next week. There's the 30 second animation for Principles (and Digital!) to think about as well.

I'd better speed up!

Alarm went off at 6:30. Alas, I ignored it and was up at 11:30.

Didn't particularly achieve anything on the way up to 1:45pm, and I'm irritated with myself. Left the house at said time, on the way to Jon Weinbren's lecture. Got there about 5 minutes late - but the lecture didn't start yet anyway. Got a space next to Luko who arrived before me.

Things kicked off with the first few minutes of Alfred Hitchcock's film Vertigo. From the title sequence (which is apparently the first to use computer graphic-y visual effects) up to the lead character fainting into the distressed arms of his lady companion. We laughed frequently at the now outdated cinematography of the film - if Hitchcock saw into the future of his film's impact, he'd be aghast.

The lecture today talked primarily about camera - angles, shot types, depth of field, 'Line of Interest' and so on. The last mentioned element there - line of interest, was an interesting one. I didn't know about it, yet heard Andy Joule bring up something relating to it during the presentation on Tuesday. "Don't cross the line" - so I recall. I threw my hand up and mentioned this to Jon, he asked "Do you know what he meant by that?" "Nope." Andy wasn't referring to the deadline, he already made that point very clear. It was relation to our 30 second Animation project.

'Line of Interest' refers to, for example, a line between characters in dialogue (where the camera if facing), path along which the actor is moving, direction in which the subject is looking etc. One point that the slide mentioned is the 'key principle of montage is to AVOID crossing the line'. I sort of see now - granted I swear I've spotted one or two directors break this rule before. I guess it would happen.

Lazy Summery No. 6

Man, quick tired. Sorry, will have to make this a short one again.

Wanted to be up for 6:30, and the alarm clock sounded the strum as well. But nay - up at 9am. I'm not ready for this yet. :(

Cooked the rest of the sausages and bacon, which took longer than expected. At around 1:00pm I headed over to G01 to crack on with my character motivation animation. Progress is ok, and I'm animating on 1s/singles. Unfortunately though, I haven't even fully finished 25 frames today - one second worth of animation. It's of the girl character turning her head to put on the other earring. Yeah, I better speed up. But not 2s! I do not like 2s.

Towards 7pm, me and Manjit were the only two left in the room. Poor Manjit was having difficulties in trying to get her walk cycle's frames ordered correctly - she kept making a mistake and because of Dragon's stiff way of working, she had to start again repeatedly in shooting them. She also can't get much of proper sleep due to main hall being a loud, irritable place.

Security guard came, and I left. Waited for Manjit outside, and we parted ways. (That's a cool white fleece she has) Back home, I saw Yannis and Sophie hanging on the 1st Floor foyer upstairs. Their Asian friend (forgot his name) was taking portrait photos of Dan. Oh. :o  Headed on into my room, and began charging my phone. Shortly, I ordered a pizza with potato wedges and a 1.25 bottle of Coke. Since it was buy-one-get-one-free in student offer, of course I took up the opportunity.

Whilst waiting for the delivery to arrive, I chatted with Dan outside. Apparently the photography shoot was in fact for his course and not Photography's. We chatted about the University workload and it's painful weight on out chest and shoulders. Dan has to juggle between projects as much as I do. Incidentally, I apologised to him for my absence in last week's lesson and told him I'd try and go to the next. This week's routine was, apparently, quite hard!  Still, Dan was chilled as ever about it all. He always is, and that smile just KEEP'S ME TRUCKIN'.

The pizza was here! Took it upstairs, and offered the free one to everything to chow on. They were quite guilty about the idea of getting a free pizza - but it's cool. It is my intent. Gave them the potato wedges as well, which didn't help the guilt of theirs anymore.

Nobbled the pizza and wrote this blog. Unexpected cop-out end. :(

Tomorrow, I better get the books out for the essay to write. I decided on Topic No. 5 - ah, and also the lecture is later in the afternoon.

The thumb is out! Nearly!

Couldn't sleep too much through last night despite the early night. Not sure as to why, although I guess part of it was due to Yannis and Georgia making a lot of noise throughout the night. Both noise, and you know - noise.

Woke up this morning past my allotted 6:30am waking time. Upon first inspecting the clock, it was 7:30am. But meh, oh well! Boy was this morning misty. Farnham looked like it swallowed into a cloud.

Shortly before lesson, I put my diary comics/autobiographical strips into a ring-binder. Because I didn't have any stickers and, for reasons I do not know, I couldn't be bothered to go out and buy some, so I cut out small rectangles from a sheet of A4 and with some glue it made a pretty good substitute to labelling my work. Put on my student number as well, although that probably wasn't necessary and I wasn't entirely sure if the number was right.

Headed onto B124 with 3 minutes past 10. More and more I am slipping away from Course Leader Leslie's words of "arrive 15 minutes before the start of the lesson" (because - "we are really anal about time keeping" that is word-for-word). There, the entirety of Year 1 was there, being the hand-in date for our sketchbooks and the like. Eventually, the boxes with the books were shifted away to the office by Ron and Andy, after a bit, told the other group that they are free to go.

Now, Andy turned to us. The 'lecture' today was pretty important as it was explaining the 30 second animation project. It's a bigun and also occurring amidst all the other current projects - Andy of course realises this. With the presentation at hand, we were run through the steps for the animation for what we are to do: a script, storyboarding, time-scheduling, animatics, animation and post-production.
Andy states that a script is to come before storyboarding.

Also, a script suggests the necessity for voice-acting and sadly that is so. I'm not against the idea of including some voice-acting and a lot of simmering ideas equate its fundamental need - it's just none of us are trained in acting and a bad performance can jeopardise and ruin a good animation. (That's not to say mine will be though, of course) We can't simply just commit the time to learn either which is likely what the staff will turn to advise us - time is everything in animation. I don't really know what to do...

The next big point was, of course, time-management. Or 'scheduling' as I prefer! Andy brought up again the very revelation that shambles us all: just how little time we have in the remaining weeks. I went on and on about my cold over the past couple of days and this is why. Our teacher ever so wonderfully put it that "you're really gonna have to pull your thumb out at this point." ...and he's right, as much as we haven't be telling ourselves that enough. Andy recommended using Excel to plan out a timetable for the next few weeks in managing work and self-set goals which is a fair option, although I prefer Microsoft Entourage - the peak in a suite of day-to-day, spick-and-span time planning. The student email system is also operated by Outlook which features a condensed version of Entourage of sorts.

At this point, I tensed up in neither a good or bad way. I just realised at least a little bit more the gravity of the whole thing. I thought I'd better get scheduling. Andy talked us through further about animatics - the process of getting the basic pacing and flow of the narrative (drawings) right and the actual animation. There were other pointers as well, but straight-forward. One of the things that Andy did talk about was acting - how we should refer to actors for our animations, how they do it, how they get 'everything' in. Theatrical actors were suggested however as Andy felt that film actors do not accentuate their gestures, emotions and everything else to the degree of theatrical. True indeed.

Another pointer Andy mentioned was something to do with narrative - I couldn't remember the details to precise measures but it was how an apparent mistake students always do at first is not establish what is happening, or what is going on in a scene enough. They cut or move onto something else. I see what he means and it's noticeable, not to mention questionable why they let it slide. But my gut had churned when considering the other side of the coin - when the flow of the narrative is at the rate of the morning rush-hour, when something is established longer than it should be. I noticed these in some student showreels and it out-right annoyed me. It could be due to simple structured plots on part by the students, but some films have shots where, for instance, a man will just stand right in front of a door for 3 seconds before opening it. I really hope this isn't what Andy meant to push for in rectifying the mistake. It may be just paranoia and not at all. Subsequently, Felix raised a hand and said he prefers quick snappy shots.

TL;DR - I don't want my animation to sit there establishing actions for ages. Smoothness, man!

Before finishing, Andy did some Q:A time. I asked him how we're to improve on something when realistically it isn't possible coming towards a deadline. His solution: finish it earlier and use the spare time to then fix up and polish things further. It's an obvious solution but I'll see if I can use the Christmas holidays for that period of additional details. Actually, the question was more of a deliberate jab at Andy's "You must never be too satisfied with your work" vs "We expect you to meet the deadline. You don't want to cross it."

Various other questions were thrown around - mainly regarding the occurrences of snow in England how our nation typically goes into critical-lockdown from the appearance of such anomaly. Apparently, it has occurred before, last year, that a deadline had to be rescheduled because the University had to be closed for a week. Andy's answer to this years was that he'll give a prize to anyone determined to hand in at the day of the deadline despite the potentially ridged conditions.

After the session finished, I asked Andy about the time-tabling plan. My question was admittedly quite cheesy - if anything can be done and passed with a firm time-table. "I don't see why not!" I recalled to him a course-leader back in SouthHampton University saying to us (after the interviews): "You won't have the time to go out drinking with friends from other courses." He added, "This isn't like film-production where minutes are recorded with a press of a button; in Animation, every drawn frame count towards a second of animation needed for completion." This nugget of forewarning stuck with me since. I'm glad it did - now I'm beginning to realise what he secretly stressed.

Headed back to No. 92 with Oscar and his pal, TMwAH. Oscar took him over to his place to give him a copy of a couple of Adobe programs. That's cool - and I need to fish Adobe After Effects from him at some point as well for obvious reasons. Headed onto Waitrose for a few nuts and bolts. Heading back, I went into my room and relaxed for a bit, calming myself a little. Later on in the day, I began composing a time table in Entourage for the next few weeks, tweaking it constantly. When looking good, I tried syncing it onto the iPhone...but irritatingly the iPhone was scrambling up the calendar events. I tried various acts to get it fixed but none to my prevail. It's a bugger since the iPhone is essential what I'll be keeping with me the majority of the time but never mind - I'll work out another way.

Went over to the library to print out some storyboards, and had a £5 note to use. The credit machine upstairs was under repair so down to the one at the ground floor. It wasn't able to process my fiver though most likely due to the crumpled and aged nature of it - so I turned to the reception desk as an option to pay credit. Instead though, the woman took me over to the machine to demonstrate how to put credit in...uh? She quickly noticed the £5 note was going to work it so yeah, manual transaction it was.

After wasting extended periods of time trying to find the storyboard templates I eventually tracked them down and printed them stupidly in colour. It was £4.00 for the job of 10 sheets and I didn't argue a lot against that. Mono prints would of been a lot more economical since 10 sheets costed a mere 50p. Having a green UCA logo on the storyboards just isn't worth the budget. I'm already learning.

Wanted to go to G01 for some animation but it was already a little late and I just wanted to relax for a bit. Besides, I need to actually plan the storyboarding for the Character Motivation first. I went upstairs to put on some supper, and decided on some tasty braised steak with mashed potato. Ready meal, but of course! It slipped my mind, however, that it needed to be defrosted (throughout the day/night) before cooking. Not all ready-meals are a simple freezer-to-oven approach of course. I'm such an idiot. I realised my mistake when taking it out of the oven after 20 minutes of Mark 6 action that the meat was STILL FROZEN TOGETHER. Whoops. Put it back in the oven to accidental Mark 7-8 for another 20 minutes and thereafter it was fine, somehow. I haven't had any stomach problems either, so hot damn.

Oh and saw Kit in the kitchen. He was on the phone to his friend at one point and they were discussing about an event tonight concerning pyjamas and a t-shirt. Sounds like the Carnage in Guildford is on.

Plonked out on my bed for an hour or so. I heard Sophie, Georgia and other housemates tweeting around in the foyer outside my room. After a bit and starting with the blog entry it became apparent that everyone (sans Rory, I'm guessing) was planning to head to the Carnage event up in Guildford. Many of Sophie's friends were hanging outside of my room at one point awaiting her. One of them had pretty colourful pyjamas. White with many bold coloured shapes. That guy in particular, actually, asked who's in No. 5. Louie responded my name, and as the typical confusion goes - "As in, Pierce Brosnan? Like, James Bond?"

Tomorrow is my first proper day in enacting my time table. It's to the core, but not quite hardcore. Even then, I'm nervous about the workload I'm committing myself to - even if it's the only way to get this all done before Christmas. I'm sure it'll work out fine, though! I believe in myself to get everything finished up. I know I can do it. It just takes faith. (God, that was ABYSMAL, but I need to let that spark of bravado speak)

Cycle of Walk

Well, I planned for shopping in Farnham at 9:00am, to then work before 10am in G01 but I got out of bed at 11:15.

Cold has, for the most part, cleared up now - which is great. Whilst making my tea the cleaner came up - a different one than who I usually see. Whilst waiting for his bucket to fill, he told me "this place is usually clean compared to others" - it was a nice compliment. I said we try, and although he admitted again that whilst it isn't spotless, it's still a fair job.

Sometime at 12, at headed into Farnham for a spot of shopping. Mainly - DVD-Rs (cases for them). Quick snoop at Waitrose had the discs themselves. of course, but they were in the 'cake' packaging which wasn't what I was after. Headed instead to WHSmith - and there I found a variety. Picked up a pack of 10 for £10.99. Ah yeah, before heading to town I also dropped the lightbox back to the library. Lacking any hole-punched paper (it has specific to the peg bar) made it useless. :(

So with that done, I rested a bit and headed to G01 to finish off my walk cycle. Not a lot of light boxes were actually being used at the time - only about 6 or so. Everyone else were working on their sketchbooks. Added in the last few frames, and waited about for a line tester to be available. As it happened, one eventually was - at the far end. On the flop side, this was a line tester hooked up to a Mac, whose Dragon software failed to export the animations last time. But this time could be different so I re-shot the frames; plus the resolution and picture quality is better.

With all the frames taken, I eagerly hit the spacebar to watch the result - the walk was silky-smooth, and character illuminated from my efforts. I did hick-up on about 4 frames - one misplaced a little near the beginning, and three were a back-to-front on a leg lift, but they didn't detract too much from the believability of the performance. I'm glad I gave the stickman an eccentric jive to its walk in the end - it has added a lot to the essence of the animation. Drawing this simple walk cycle and seeing its results has given me confidence that I can leave as fluent and strong impulse to other next exercises. I can't stop watching it!

With that out the way, I went to export it to QuickTime and...it failed. So: don't use this line-tester again. I shoved the Dragon files themselves - both the ball bounce and walk cycle - onto my USB dongle and shifted to a Mac next door. Alas, QuickTime exported them fine and even better, I finally got the ball bounce done too.

One of the guys (who has frequented G01 as much as me, as of recent) told me that tomorrow Ron and Andy only want the sketchbook and comic-strips handed in. Well damn. That's good news but threw me off a touch as well. Besides that, at least I don't have to stick the animations on disc quite yet. I could get on with the character motivation exercise now but I didn't think to bring the frames with me.

Instead...I tried animating a bit of my own inspiration. Just passionately going for it - just whatever I felt could and should be done within me. That said, I tried roughing out some sketches for a punch scene I had in mind. Inspired by anime (Yup.) and director/animator Mamoru Hosoda, I wanted to see if this 'energy' of movement in mind could translate well into paper. Did some rough guides, going from a stern, standing position to a broadly-hunched wind-up to a punch and finally to an almost fish-eye perspective of the punch about to be delivered. These words are hard to follow, basically one of the things I had always wanted to explore is bringing the exaggeration and the energy of a fight into animation. Of course, most animations and their fights are exaggerated to begin with - but I want to refine the subtle details. Impacts of a punch, for instance, must be irresistible to play around with.

I'll scan and show the work done so far in any case at some point - and maybe even a line-test if I get far enough with it.

Headed off shortly and silently without saying a good-bye. Reviewed my animations a couple of times on the laptop. Eventually headed upstairs to put on some dinner. Sophie, Rob, Georgia and Yannis got back with shopping. It was nice to see everyone together again after a good week or so - in particular Rob and Sophie! Put on the spaghetti bolognese and caught up with everyone. Rob noticed my apparent cold. After eating my dinner, Jamie popped up. "McJAMMIN'!!" gleed Sophie, and Jamie snarkely responded "...Who're you?" I love it when he shoots her down like that. :(

Doorbell rung and I popped down to see who it was, probably a friend of Yannis or them lot out for a smoke. Nope! It was two Fashion students selling Krispy Kreme doughnuts, door-to-door, for a pound. (to fund their fashion show, if I recall) No thanks. I "reassured" them that I'd tell my fellow housemates upstairs. When I returned to the kitchen, they asked me right off the bat who that was. I told them "just two people selling Krispy Kireme doughnuts" - "Krispy Kreme!?" asked Sophie in a surprise. Yeah, and I told her it was for £1. Surprised by the apparent great value there (I didn't think so) Sophie reached out the kitchen window to call for their response. When confirmed of their whereabouts in the student village, Sophie darted out the house in an act to get her hands on some delights. She returned shortly - with two of the confections and a balloon. Yannis returned from his room to the kitchen and witnessed Sophie with them and further enquired how she obtained these items. He himself followed suit and went looking for the fashion students. The two of them outside kept screaming out their selling of Krispy Kremes which grated on Rob's nerves. (I almost got him to belt insults at them through the window - one of his more noticeable traits)

Man, after looking at the website though...I feel inclined to go hunt some of the places down when I return for Christmas. Mr.Donuts in Japan was awesome - irresistible places to visit and eat, my two companions would agree as well. Krispy Kreme looks just as good, so.... :(

Tomorrow I'm to hand in my sketchbook work so far. I've done most, if not all the required stuff so far - it's just a case of binding together the diary comics and tidying up the book.

Lazy Summer No. 5

Didn't do a whole lot today. Just resting for the most part. I got bogged down by the stupid cold that developed from yestarday. Took a shower and some hot drinks as a means to melt away the 'goo' blocking up my head. I wanted to go to the library today, and get some books necessary for the essay. That didn't quite happen.


Headed to Waitrose at 3:45 and got some marmite, waffles and cheap custard creams. Not bad! Put on supper at 7:00 or so - an indian pack meal from Waitrose. The packaging it came in is cool! At 7:30, dad called me up on Skype and we had a chat - mainly because he was going back to work in India the following day. He brought up the idea of using a taxi (that he uses for the airport commuting) to head back to Farnham from home each weekend (under his payment). That's kind but I'd feel to guilty. He reassured me about the work for University and that he'd help with the essay. I think dad has misinterpreted my stress and anxiety coming solely from the essay - it's generally from having to shift through all the work up to December.

Tomorrow, I must get the Walk Cycle complete, put on a DVD with a case and labled - the same for the bouncing ball exercise.

Lazy Summery No.4

Jumped out of bed at 10 past 12 today, that's pretty bad. Slept a little better, though.

Called up my father and sister - but to no answer. Tried the house phone too, and no luck. At 1:20 or so I fried up some sausages and bacon - a good time to eat some of them. Sausages cooked fast and well (and I nearly burnt them) but the bacon took longer than they often would.

Later that day, at about 2:30 my dad rung up to say he was about to head to Farnham with Holly - about six minutes or so. 45 minutes later, he called up again to say he was coming up to the car park. Walking into the car park behind the Student Village, there I saw him - with Iggy hopping around. Gave him 40p change for the ticket machine, and took guided Iggy to the car. Saw Holly in there, looking well! Iggy promptly hopped right into the car, back onto her lap.

Leaving the doggy friend in the car, we headed to a cafe down around the arcade. Candy...Twist, I think it's called. Not only was it a cafe, it was a shop for sweet confectionary as well. Dad and Holly got to see how I was doing; I behaved a little bit tense, especially for a minute around my sister but I cooled. Tea was nice, and my dad had a "really strong hot chocolate" along with a coffee. Caffeine, it gives mankind power.

Afterwards, Holly and dad looked into a couple of shops on the way up to Waitrose - a perfume/fragrance and clothes shop to be precise. My sister saw a coat that caught her eye, and my dad put an order of some sort on for it for Christmas. (Along with a 'royalty' card or similar - something to get a discount, I think) At Waitrose, I picked up some goods for me from an Indian meal, stuff for a stir-fry, milk and so on. Taking the opportunity to, dad and Holly did a shop up there as well. I really appreciated how easy-going dad was with this food shopping.

After packing the goods into the car, I kept my shopping and headed back to my place - Holly, dad and Iggy followed. I was a little cautious on Iggy coming along (He tends to get hostile around teens, and barks) but he was fine. He enjoyed stopping mid-way often to peep at students hanging outside their house. We all headed into 92, and dad needed to go for a whizz (as did Holly). Iggy hopped all around the room checking it out, and probably lavishly investigating student smells. Before leaving, Holly and dad reassured me about staying on top of University work and figuring it out - that I'd do fine. I really appreciated it!  In particular, dad often talked about the essay. It isn't top priority for me...but I would actually like to start it at least by the end of next week.

Followed the trio to the door, and gave them my farewells. My dad is heading back to work in India on Monday. Packed my shopping away and started up the stir-fry. Jamie popped up, having woken up recently; he had to film his documentary at Woking from 9am and didn't get back 'till 10am the following day for reasons involving some shootings happening only past midnight. He talked about how weird it was to fall asleep during the day and I talked about the new Winnie the Pooh film. (Traditionally animated! ENGLISH Christopher Robin!)

As I was eating up my stir-fry, Yannis popped up. He sounded a little grumpy, and wondered "why is there a cup there?" Cup left in his cupboard, I believe, but it might be the sink. Likely the latter. Oh, Yannis got back yesterday if I recall. Not only did he head back home this week, he also went to a gig featuring his favourite band, The Foals. One of his friends during the event had pissed in a cup ('Weenier cup') and placed it near the legs of a seated girls without her notice. Yannis himself didn't see the result - but he expected it to of been good and bad. Yannis spent much of today asleep as well, since he was both up through the night for the Foals, and spent a good portion of the time travelling back to University the following day.

Yannis wondered if I had a cold - I confirmed it (it started manifesting today, actually) and he offered me to use some of his cold pills. "No thanks" - but I do appreciate the offer. He dumped his washing on top of the stuff that was mine in the sink - he must of not noticed I was going to wash my stuff up soon. :(  Finally did so after consuming the entirety of my stir-fry. Even now, I feel full!

I could Georgia outside of my room moments ago so I guess she (and maybe Sophie) is back from Brighton. Tomorrow I'll head to the library to get some of the readings for my essay - albeit I need to still choose a question for it first.