Lazy Absence No.1

I'd apologise for almost a week's worth of AWOL material but as of writing this there isn't anyone viewing the blog. (But that's fine!) The snow really kicked in and any attempt to be productive - aside from the odd character designing - was out the window.

Throughout the week of the snow, it was a marvel. It's one thing to see so much snow collecting here in the UK, it's another to see it before three to four months in the new year. I partook in a bevy of snow related shenanigans - namely snow ball fights from the kitchen or outside. I also attempted to roll a snowball to as big as I could be bothered to make it multiple times.

Here's a summery of what occurred:

• Character designing
• Trying to throw snow balls through our kitchen window at Rob and Chris
• Building a great big snow ball and ditching it in the car park
• Rob and Chris sniping people with food from the fridge (sandwiches, frankfurters, salmon etc) from the kitchen window.
• Making a bacon sandwich.

I'll be resuming as normal now. Fortunately, not much had actually occurred despite the occasion. Days were quite fast, but slow in pace.

I failed (in practice)

Up at 6:30am. It was time I got ready for the last ditch race to the finish at 9:00am.

At 8:50am I headed onto G01 and it was already snowing lightly. Already I felt anxious to get this all done. Getting to the studio room I promptly rushed to the lightbox Line-Tester at the other end of the room to export my previous line tests to my USB stick (as Uncompressed) and re-do the lip sync. Unfortunately, 'Uncompressed' file sizes are a fair bit bigger in size so minutes were being chopped away from the timer.

Johnny, Marcus and a few others arrived too. Also there is a girl with glasses (Don't think she's in our year) that, three times now, has come into G01 and promptly dozed off on the keyboard or light box. She must be burning herself away - proper commitment or falling behind on work? I'll never know! :(  Back on subject, the Line Testers were already taken up and it was 20 minutes 'till 10am - 10:30am being the final point of the deadline. Subaru texted me saying she had overslept and she arrived shortly thereafter. 

The lack of being able to use a line tester was detrimental but everyone needed one as much as I did - save for one of the French students who was using two at the same time - after nagging him various times I was able to use one of them (provided I didn't log him out, but that was ok). Marcus was gleeful about getting his animations burnt onto a DVD and I was replying to him like a stroppy emo in response.

At this rate, compiling, burning the DVD and all, I wasn't going to be able to make the deadline in time. Truth began breaking through my barricades of confidence.

Once I had finally gotten all the animations onto DVD I opened up DVD Studio Pro for the final straight. Subaru was in the process of burning her animations onto DVD as well. At this stage, Johnny was telling me that his friend from upstairs in B124 explained that the deadline was just a faux but I was reluctant to believe this. Luko also called me up at some point to tell me that the deadline was all just a trick but regardless I felt crumbled under the fact I would be missing the 10:30am hour (before, I was intending to email Andy to go ahead with putting me on referral). Whilst trying to figure out the over-all shenanigans of DVD Studio Pro, Su let me watch a tutorial on YouTube of the program with her. It looks simple enough.

I whipped up a rather crude menu (but menu nonetheless) in Photoshop. When popping the asset into Studio Pro, I found out that putting in the text beforehand on Photoshop was a silly mistake - obviously (I think) I couldn't change it to be used on the menu there. Regardless, working my way around using DVD Studio Pro was fairly straightforward and no real hitches until actually burning the DVD onto disc. It kept telling me one issue after the other (often that a QuickTime file failed to burn) and as such, I was getting a headache from it. It was 20 to 12 by this stage and I just wanted to get it on disc.

After taking some files out of the USB, importing and then deleting (etc etc) the disc finally burned. And boy, I was happy! The TV's DVD wouldn't work I went ahead and tried it on a Mac - it worked fine, even if the menu is buggy somewhat (and it crashed on my Laptop here and there). Su rejoiced as well, and since she finished hers (a while before I had) we both made our way to Andy in B124. Whilst going up there, the snow was really coming down. It looked really nice, not to mention surprising.

Up at B124 I saw Andy running through the various ideas with another student. Whilst waiting, Grace and her friend asked if I wanted to participate in the 'Secret Santa' - whilst pausing to consider it, "yes" was answered for me, and so I dipped my hand into the bag to see the name. It was Rebecca, though I couldn't (per usual) remember who Rebecca was. That said, Andy was free and I approached him rather, well...shattered. He told me of the 'good news' but I already knew of it. He stated if this was the real assignment I would have failed - but carried on take this as a good lesson. And how! I best leave a week for post-production just to make sure I don't get the same hassle with the DVD burning and such. Su was told pretty much the same thing.

Said a quick hi to Andrew and Marcus, and told them of the mind-fucks I had to contend with over DVD Studio Pro. The two of them were busy doodling up some drawings - I assumed it was design work for the 30 second animation or otherwise. Me and Su headed back and parted ways, intending to return back to B124 at 2pm in order to show Andy the DVDs. Popped into Waitrose for some snacks over lunch and popped back. Sophie was in the kitchen and we hyped over the amount of snow falling outside. By the time we finished, most of the Student Village was already blanketed in an illuminating white. It really was spell-bounding, especially since this was before January. I had to take a photo of the view outside the kitchen window for my dad and sister.

And to think at 11am, there wasn't any white on the ground whatsoever!

Spent the next 40 minutes 'till 2pm in my room and then headed back to B124. On the way there however, reaching half-way, Oscar was passing by telling me news of how the University is closed. After holding that thought in slight disbelief I asked him to repeat: sure enough, it really was. We sure are unreliable against the snow. :(  Oscar mentioned he'd spend the time to work on his designs (but I think he'll just be playing Gran Turismo 5) and I felt it would be wise to do the same. Carried on back, and decided that since Farnham already looks so picturesque in the snow, why not do some reference photography? By this stage, the idea had hit me to base the 30 second animation on our discovery of a snowbound Farnham, so some snaps wouldn't hurt. Whipped on my coat, grabbed my Canon and ventured back outdoors to head to the hill behind the campus.

On the way there I had gotten a text from Su asking where I was - I responded with the current status of the University (And Andy going home.) I headed up to the hill, and snow fights were already rampant around the student village. I had to be swift, and an artful dodger lest I become soaked in freezing substance. Up atop the hill of Farnham, still snowing, the view looked magnificent.

Suddenly Farnham stopped being boring

Su called up, and said she was down at the student village with everyone. Before this, she texted me to ask if I wanted to come to the park with them. I debated, but thought that with such a rare occasion like this it'd be wrong to waste a special day with my fellow animation friends. I headed down towards my house and found the gang. Su, Nikki, Sumaru, John Goodhead, Matthew Brookes, Nathan, James Lee (China) and Rebecca (As well as an MA student) were all there. Already snowballing one another.

We headed up to the park with Matt gracefully pushing a trolley of snowballs up the hill pictured above. It took a while as we couldn't go far without another snow fight breaking out. Finally getting to the park everybody pranced around frolicking in the snow like a painting from the 1500s - whilst the gang made snowmen and angels, I took the opportunity to wander around the hills of the park, seeing it's fresh, crystal white beauty. Primarily it was also to let me warm my fingers up in the pocket as they had become too numb to properly use the camera. I've never seen rural areas so dense with snow before though, so there was never a dull moment during the stroll.

After I wandered back Nikki and others wondered where I'd gotten off too. Nikki subsequently called me Dora the Explorer.

Brave or Grave!

I'm just missing days repeatedly now. That's no good!

Today was my last effort to get everything done and ready for some hearty DVD watching for Monday. My intended wake-up time for these busy occasions would naturally be 6:15am but the cold weather that creeps it's bitter, stinging fingers around my room prompted me to remain in warmth furthermore.

So, idiotically, I got up at sometime past 11am. My plan was to get the DVD cover produced in the morning and head over to town at 9am for CD cases - as well as to get and fill in a form for my electrical appliances. (New ones, anyway) Then arrive at G01 at 9:30 for some actual pencil testing.

Well, no. I got afraid of the busy schedule ahead of me, and tried to sway past my anxiety about the stuff that needs to be done. I left at about 12:00 and then headed into Farnham for the CD-Rs - heading back, I dumped my stuff into the room and made haste to G01. Of course, everyone else needed to get their stuff tested and exported for the DVD so the queues for the testers were rather large and foreboding. To pass the time I...uh. Didn't do much. I wanted to finish up the lip sync but my phone was dead on power, and I really needed a computer to accurately place the plurals and such - but all of them were being used also.

Marcus (who distinctly has two badges of Sonic the Hedgehog) was hard at work polishing up his characterisation motivation and Andrew (from Thursday) showed me his book of doodles and inspirations - he has some nice detailed designs. Maybe one day I can make the level of detail for mine, too. Andrew's designs typically vary from horrific alien/demon orientated to fantasy type. Together it makes for a sort of 'dark fantasy'. I'd like to see his future animations.

I learnt of Marcus and Andy's friendly rivalry starting back from their foundation year - and Andy made a bet to Marcus on which one of them could produce the better animation for their final major project. Andy won by at least a mile with his somewhat renowned 2,000+ frames of animation that he achieved in just 3 weeks. Perhaps his prime fuel had been reading the Animation Survival Kit over 3 times by that stage - start to finish. My condolence to Marcus though, as he too seemed eager on animation and his characterisation motivation snippet is a very refined piece of work. It shits on my scruffy attempt.

Luko Hawes was already in G01 when I arrived penciling away on his lip sync - most of the Year 1s were franticly finishing up their Characterisation Motivation pieces. Oscar turned up too - he's been scratched a bit by stress; his facial hair is in close to full coverage, looked exhausted and the voice was croaky. Yesterday he wanted to relax and finally play Gran Turismo 5 but the lingering deadline kept his primal fears on the edge of tension. He headed back to his place at some point to try 'line testing' his animations through a camera of his PS3 and light box. Avian arrived too - no longer is he crudely nicknamed TMwAH - I finally remembered to ask his name. And damn, Avian is a bitching name.

At some point I headed to the library to whip up a CD case cover. Matt Brookes was around there too. I tried to spend no longer than an hour on the cover and I think I just managed that despite the design of it being freaking simplistic. (Classy test and a few straight-forward illustrations) I saw Kaori working on her animation designs shortly after finishing, and Rob passed by. Likewise, two of the Year 1 students were also working on the computers - they were busy preparing their DVD using DVD Studio Pro but were experiencing issues in that importing the Quicktime files wasn't being allowed. ('Unrecognised format')

Heading back to G01, I had to simply wait for a line tester to be available. Through the day all I could do (like so many others) is linger around. I -could- of obviously worked on improving the animation, adding a few in-betweens, but I felt too tense to get things going. Luko's buddy was on a line tester at the far end of the room and allowed Luko to shotgun after him - likewise, Luko allowed me to follow suit on his part. Thanks, man!

In the mean time, I tried seeing on getting DVD Studio Pro up and running. I missed Jon's 'vital' lesson on Friday (in fairness, I had no other opportunity to use the light boxes + line tester) but Andrew was helpful in lending me some advice and notes he jotted at the time. The whole process was simple, in fact! Up until "Unrecognised format" - the error that was being foreshadowed back the library. In fact, it wasn't just me with this conundrum - most people in G01 were getting the similar issue. Sara was the first to come across the problem (being ahead of the game) and the answer would be from Jon's word of advice earlier today when he came in - he said that Liam's test run on the DVD player in B124 ended in negative results. Why? H.264, Quicktime's prime codec. It's pretty odd since that codec is regarded as an industry standard due to achieving the better of the two worlds that is compression & quality. The solution was to export the movie files as the forbidden Uncompressed formats. One's who do not hold back the beastly, formidably true file size of the movie.

Before realising Dragon would do just this, Andrew discovered the makeshift solution of running the Quicktime movies through Final Cut Pro, saving them as PAL-DV mpegs. Would it work? Yes! Result. DVD Studio Pro happily imported the movies from then on. It's too bad that Final Cut Pro wouldn't open for me from that point onward though... So much for preparing a DVD menu. :(

Subaru arrived in G01 with whooping chunks of paper to line test with. Fortunately by 6:00 a line tester (one without a light box, which most needed) was available and she leaped into the seat of it. I wondered if Su would be ok - she tends to come and go enigmatically from the groups and I guess she hasn't had the opportunity to test her animations proper until now. When she was exporting her movie of the bouncing ball, it had hit me. "OH! Settings!" H.264 could be changed to Uncompressed from Dragon itself! It solves the problem outright. I requested her to pick that choice and I shakily watched the result of the finished product. As mentioned Uncompressed format is, well, uncompressed. Simple 1.2mb files could easily blow up into 140mb. Quicktime player already looked as if it was suffering from he high size in file and lagged - Subaru was tense from the potential issue. I got it to close and recommended she save stuff onto the Mac itself than her USB pen drive.

Ah! And Luko finished on the line tester. I swept up and launched over to the other side of the room at speeds of a worldwide nuke launch. I roughly under one hour to get all my stuff tested and put on a DVD complete with a menu in this time - but I felt like I just wouldn't make it. I  rushed my Characterisation Motivation in for one last test run. The paper is still grainy and I missed the beginning eye-openings, but it'll have to do. What amazed me, though, is how acceptable Doll Face's strut the door turned out. It's NOT THAT BAD! It was enough to warrant a big 'WHAO!' from me, shaking up a foreign student nearby. I was pretty much convinced that the walk was going to look like shit from the rushed nature but I guess with at least some proper planning it can come out better than I think.

At 7:00 the security guard popped in - but didn't give us the 'ol boot out. He left, and I think he allowed us more time than usual which was great and noble. Not like that ass once during last week that kicked us out as early as 5:30. Still, I was done since I finished my Characterisation Motivation run but ultimately I still feel fairly screwed. Referral from Andy feels inevitable from either missing the deadline or handing in a rushed product - 1 hour 30 minutes from 9am will likely be not enough time, but I don't know. I just feel like a twerp for pussying on the animation for 2 weeks back in October. It would of saved me a great amount of grief I'm in now.

Regardless, Su came over to the line tester and Mac that I just switched off. She turned them back on again (oops) and went ahead on using it. I guess some of her animations needed multiple layers. Eventually it was just me and her left in the room - she was staying behind late to frantically finish things, and since she was in the same position as me a feeling of pathos compelled me to stay beside her for company. Luko popped back too (!) as he wanted to borrow a DVD from me - his task of burning a DVD was left in the hands of his housemate, however Luko told me if his friend ends up forgetting to do so (which, apparently, he frequently does) he'll be forced to speedily produce the DVD in a last-ditch effort tomorrow morning.


Su eventually finished her line test, and we headed off. I tried to joke to her "At the speed you work, you deserve another Niku Jaga!' but she didn't pick it up. (FAIL.) Told Subaru that I'd help her out with DVD Studio Pro tomorrow although that was a stupid, compulsive move on my part seeing as how I NEED advice myself on the program for missing Jon's lesson. We parted ways.

With half an hour to go before 8:00pm I headed over to Waitrose before it closes up, getting something for supper tonight. I picked up a Lasagne as well as a few bits and bobs and waited in the looong queue at the Basket Only line. Stupid folk at Farnham should use trolleys more. :(  Guy called the rest of us over to an additional till being opened. On the way out, Rob again! "Small world man!" He had a ring binder in hand.

Meandered back to my place, a little tired and flustered. After taking my boots 'n coat off I wondered up to the kitchen to prepare the oven for the lasagne. Kit was there also but shortly popped away to answer a call. Ah, our house has some cool decorations for Christmas now, courtesy of Georgia and Sophie! Sophie was upstairs for a bit too, as well as Georgia. Had my lasagne with some spaghetti. Rory turned up after finishing, and chatted with looming deadlines - the Photography course Rory is on is expecting a heap of projects completed in a short space of time, and Rory was just given a new one last week. In similar occurence to G01 being cluster-fucked, Rory is not looking forward to the Colour darkroom getting cramped like morning subway. Rory has also been enjoying Gran Turismo 5 over the last week.

So, tomorrow. I make it, or I fail it. I do need to push for using the line-testers non-stop, and devote at least 40 minutes of time to compiling the DVDs onto disk using DVD Studio Pro. I'd better make it! All I can think about is trying to make it in time! I have to!

Despite this Andy will probably tell us off for not animating our 30 second animations on Monday.

Nearly there!

Missed another day - I do blame this on general laziness. Worked again from 9am to 7pm, and took liberties of skipping the lecture (Of Daniel Greaves, an animator) and Digital Skills to get on with starting and finishing my lip sync. I don't have a light box to work with outside of the class so I had to use all the time I have.

I also had the time to (finally) see Andy and do some Q&A with him, as well as show the work so far. I showed him my Characterisation Motivation and liked the 'flow' of the animation and phew - he had no qualms about it save for the rather symmetrical pose + movement of the arms. (She looks and animates a lot like an advertising billboard at the beginning). He also had a gripe with the shrinking of the character when she lands and its true but I don't really want to fix that - it's not terribly bad and I fought constantly with circular volume to get it right.

Asked Andy various things about what he wants for the 30 Second Animation - he simply wants an animation of any sort that amalgamates everything I tried so far, be it the walk cycle, lip sync, weight and so fourth. Because I feel so tight on time from here till' Christmas, I asked him:

"Can I get 30 seconds animated in one week?"
"No. That'd be impossible."

He's probably right but I'm confident that if the animators at Warner Bros were expected 20 seconds a week (or be fired) there shouldn't be anything to prevent me from achieving roughly the same. Of course, I've been a slow drawer and only managed 12-17 frames a day (from 4-6 hours of work) which I whined to Andy about. He paused for a moment and then recommended me to simply do the roughs of the animation first - then clean it, give it some real quality. Not a bad idea! Granted, I think I have been doing roughs (that is, guidelines, circles and such) the entire time - most of my characterisation motivation is rough! This is one the thing that's been bugging me a large amount - my slow speed. Why, I'm not sure, but I do need to speed it up.

Yesterday I also got a call from my brother to see how I was doing - that was nice of him! He had grave concerns that I was practically working and not spending time to chill out. I DO spend time to socialise in the kitchen and such (whilst cooking) but admittedly I have spent most of my time sitting on my ass animating. And well, animators have to do nothing but animate. Richard Williams but it best: "Animation is nothing but work!" and the Animation course leader of SouthHamption University also made a true statement in that we won't have time to do anything as seconds have to be drawn and produced unlike filming (I mentioned that before).

Today I felt a little better in regards to where I am; the characterisation has one section left (the walk to the door) and lip sync is a matter of matching the lips themselves to the drawing which won't take much time - I wish I could animate the body but I just don't have the time. I was about to, but this time I pulled my Chain of Reality and obeyed the little time I have left.

Today I once again got up at 12pm and didn't head to the library (for a lightbox to animate on) until 3:30 or so which was really stupid of me. My excuse is today was a real dip in temperature and my feet never managed to stay warm whatsoever - granted it isn't bitter cold that it would snow, though apparently Sunday and Tuesday will be bringing the white rain. I doubt it will however.

So, I headed on to the library at 3:30pm and waltzed back because I forgot my peg-bar and tape, and animation book. Worst instance was yesterday were I went back and fourth between my house (getting as far as half-way through the student village each time) five times. I kept forgetting something, sometimes the same thing, over and over. At the library, I found a light box but was unsure of where a near plug would be. Asked a member of staff and directed me to one, plug adapters sitting plain in sight on a few of the tables. Whoops - but at least I found a nice light box.

Got on with planning the walk to the door as it requires perspective use (which will be done far more than simple profiling) and didn't...achieve much. I got the basic extremes down but the walk as a whole kept leaving my mind (and eyes) scrambled from the mess of differently roughed and coloured drawings. One page of the Survival Kit had a good demonstration of how to plan perspective walks but it didn't mean much to my current scene as my character is in a medium shot before the walk. (the lesson on perspective walking started with using a full body character as a guideline) I better animate it all tomorrow with the details to along with it.

The library closed at 5pm unfortunately (which I was aware of before arriving) and headed back feeling underachieved. Back home, I packed my stuff back and thought about what to eat tonight - eventually arriving to a simple burger. Before going, I searched my entire room for my headphones which have gone missing. Pockets, my bed, under its sheets, the floor, behind books, tables - all over but to no avail. I was confused as I was SURE I didn't take it to the library (I don't listen to music whilst working) and I didn't leave it in the kitchen. Asked Sophie (who like me was packing with snacks) and Yannis but they didn't see my 'phones either. Yannis has another cold, poor man, and is weighed down by heavy work.

Headed to Waitrose (with no music :<) and had this fucking tune stuck in my head. I don't know why - other than the track is based on snow which I'm anticipating for Farnham. Meandered around Waitrose for a while picking out the food - whilst checking out, the card machine accidentally processed my transaction as being £0.03...! I should of gotten away with it, but notified the guy behind the till (he just looked at his screen perplexed until bringing it up).

Headed back home, and was about to cook grill a burger until it had hit me that I forgot one necessity - BUNS. Buzzed back to Waitrose for some. Oh! I found my headphones too - they were in one of the other smaller pockets on my coat, somehow I missed it. On the way out, I saw Dan and we talked about looming deadlines, projects and the cold weather - not the nicest topics but he manages to keep a calm demeanour about him which always impresses me. Dan is in advertising - one of the tricker projects he needs to do is write an essay concerning propaganda. At 1000-1500 words, it's a short piece but he hasn't been given any example readings - he has to literally skim through the books himself. Ouch.

Rob also arrived at our house and he proclaimed that he drank too much, and he was drunk. He certainly didn't act like he was though. Becky was up visiting our place - Sophie planned to head to hers to play on PJ's new Kinect thingy which he had gotten free (along with 6 games) free from Microsoft. I cooked my burger with the griller kept close and as I repeatedly mistake, it's kept open to prevent steam building up. Of course, opening the door (prompted from Becky's "Who's left the oven on?") had smoke billowing out like a locomotive. Still, the burger looked fine and dandy. After it finished cooking I ate it with some red onions. It was yummy! With some bacon, it would of been a real treat. I'll get some tomorrow and have it with the burger.

After eating, and writing this blog, I headed upstairs and out of boredom played a word association game with Yannis and Georgia (though Georgia only for the first part). Good fun, although it wasn't so strict on the rules.

Tomorrow, I need (NEED) to finish the walk to the door by all means as well as add the rest of the details to the animation - not only this but also complete the rest of the lip sync (sans a light box) and design the box art for the CD case. I also need to actually compose a DVD along with a menu - Jon's lesson yestarday Friday taught this but I just couldn't risk missing time. Hopefully, though, people on Monday will lend me some tips.

Lazy Summery No.7

Working from 9am to 7pm must of worn me out more than I thought, I think.
Got up at 12:30pm today... (!!)

There was an essay writing lesson today at 2:00 - originally Jade Midson requested for me to show her where the room was but she skipped the session due to having to leave at 3:00. (We ended up finishing at 2:50, however)

Before that I took another shot at seeing if Andy was in his office - whilst ringing, some guy popped his head out the door. There was a pause at first, and he asked me if I was looking for Andy - yup, was he in? He responded with a no. Ok, but still - what was the point of him responding I wonder?

Also popped on by into the library to see if they had a lightbox I could use through out tonight but as I expected, they were bone-dry on them. Headed to the 2:00 session for the essay writing, and waited outside 15 minutes beforehand. Saw one of the guys I befriended, and waffled non-stop to the poor person. Got to her everyone else's current ideas for the 30 second animation. They're already getting a good grip on the planning for it all, as for me...

The session went quite a well with the essay writing - I had learnt a fair amount and it eased a few confusions with it all - being able to take a choice of referencing to a personal level, and that we should ideally use just 3-4 examples is great. I had thought we'd need a fucking library span worth of referencing to get through. My friend (John, I think) really doesn't like the woman that teaches us for her her use of big words, and (from later back) flaunting her degrees and expertise.

Headed into town with Andrew Stalley afterwards - a tall man, sporting long flowing hair and a taste for long coats. Before realising this WAS Andrew himself, I heard words floating around, mainly from Gee Saurez that there was a guy who craves for smoothness in animation and had done 700 (possibly an exaggeration) pages worth of animation in a matter of 2-3 weeks. When talking about his ideas and hints that he constantly animates (And I do mean to, shut up UCA staff) I began to realise it would be him - although, admittedly, the 'tall and thin' tidbit from Gee was the distinctive factor.

I asked his name, and when saying it to be Andrew I grin just sort of grew on my face, for reasons I'm not sure - I guess I was just antsy to actually see whoever the hell fits smoothness and fluidity into their work. On the way to Sainsburys and places, I asked him all sorts of questions on his past animations, how he goes about doing it, where he gets ideas and so fourth. An interesting guy, I just wish he'd put his work on the internets.

Headed to a shop that apparently doesn't just sell light boxes - sells them for cheap. Apparently it's near the Post Office and I eventually picked it out. Headed upstairs to enquire about the products and yup. They're sold out. However, they do have A3 but they got £70 upwards. Typically, animation students go after it. I sort of wish I never told anybody about the library loaning of a lightbox now, speaking of which. Any case, I walked out of the shop feeling botched. What now? I needed to get this motivation done by today but it appears I can't which is great - I only have myself to blame here for not drawing fast enough.

Headed back home, and grabbed my papers and bag, heading off to G01 to pump in more frames to the animation. Today, I've done about...12 or so. I still can't understand how I only manage 12 drawings in a space of 3 hours or so as I swear it only takes me about 15 seconds or so to draw in the actual character. Granted, I plan a lot - and test a fair amount too. That and I do waste time trying reorganise my sheets of paper which tend to go scattering off all over the table like a bomb explosion. Nathan popped in (From street dance) and mentioned his week's absence of heart burn + another health condition mixed in. Poor man has had a rough time being in hospital, getting no sleep from pain and so fourth. He hasn't told Andy about his condition (and absence) yet which I hope he does. He should get some spare time from the deadline.

Nikki was working on his 30 second animation behind me, far ahead of the crowd. I'm not sure how she managed it, but well, she has. Her coloured and detailed background impressed a fair few, Nathan in included. All her frames are, speaking of which, pencil coloured which is quite a feat in my opinion. I tried to help her with some advice here and there concerning stuff like wind effects, frames per seconds and blah blah.

There's a guest visit from Daniel Greaves who's an animator experienced in the industry. I may skip it though to work on the stuff due for tomorrow in Digital Skills which I just now had I found out is going ahead. They want a storyboard(s) print out for the Digital Skills 30 second animation which I haven't done yet since, well, my focus needed to be on the Characterised Motivation. (The frames are not going to draw themselves :<) I know what I want to do for the Digital skills animation, just not how to storyboard it since which I should really by now.

I Missed One

I skipped on yesterday - granted, not much had particularly occurred outside of animation. Saw Andy in G01 and I planned to get some advice on spacing, volume control and so fourth - he was too tied up reviewing everybody though, I so didn't get the chance.

Today I headed to G01 early at 9:40 (albeit intended for 9 'o clock) - there I saw Gee Saurez - a student from the US of A. She just came in as well, and was preparing a light box. We didn't exchange much words then, 'spose from that morning grumpiness.

From 9:40 onwards to 12:15 or so, I worked away on getting Doll Face to GET TO THE DOOR. As of writing this, I have managed to get her to spring off of the chair - the overall frame count here, from what I saw, is 17 or so and that's pretty meagre - not even sure if all of those frames are brand new from today.

Thank god for the line tester though - Richard William's preferred method of animating sure does the trick. Combining the planned posing of key framing with the improvised, magical flow of straight-ahead.

I tested my animation along the way, and it helps so much. I just started out, and seeing what has and hasn't worked is huge help. I found out the leap of joy only needed one frame (12 frames per second) despite adding in four, for instance. Mamoru Hosoda's style of 'impulsive' animating (he's a genius with in-betweens, imo) has been inspiring me the whole way through.

During the course of today, I had a lunch break at 12:15 and didn't return until 1:30 to 2:00. During these times I was antically trying to suss out Andy Joule. Multiple calls to the office (you have to call using the phone just outside) only ended up to the anwering machine. I tried at multiple intervals throughout the rest of the day up 'till 4:50pm, alas to no avail.

Animate up 'till 7:00, where we forced out per usual by the security lock up. I showed Nikki where the booking office was, and headed home with Matthew Brooks (he sure is a friendly chap!), Nikki and her energetic friend. The latter two live nearby, incidentally - Nikki in the house ahead of mine, No. 96.

Was feeling pretty tired, and I'm bummed and anxious over the lack of good progress today. I really wanted to get this characterisation motivation done today, but I just can't let myself half-ass it somehow. It's my own fault for wussing out a few weeks that I am in this mess in the first place anyway. Tomorrow, it's GOT to be completed so I can hopefully start and complete the lip sync on Friday.

Ah, and I have an essay-writing lesson tomorrow on Thursday. That should be helpful.

All Night Long

I was up working until 4:20am, last night. I didn't even plan to, the sad irony given that the intended all-nighters beforehand never took off. Georgia, Yannis and Sophie were up pretty late too, though, going to bed around my time. I wanted to clean up the kitchen for Monday - it wasn't done yet - but I got tied into my animation. Georgia finished it all before I had the chance though and I'm in her debt. We talked a bit on the coincidences of unintentional all-nighters and it appears Georgia is well aware of forcing it to happen never does make it. (Anxiety and such, I suppose)

The 13 frames (22 if the eyes are counted) are finished. Finally - now I can rethink a better, more stream-lined system to working the animation. Having the line-tester certainly helps for quick fixing!

Headed to sleep at 4:30am. 6:30 waking time was past the point, no way did I want to do that! Instead, I figured 8:30am-9:10am being preferable - I get some good shut eye at least. Sure enough, 8:00 came quickly - though I'm getting better at anticipating morning sabotage on sleep. I got up at 9:20 or so giving me about 40 minutes before lesson. Didn't before washing myself, I just wanted some tea for the ol' wake up boost.

Headed off literally at 10 'o clock thanks to extravagant time keeping. Rushed to B123 for Life Drawing, and on the way I saw Sue walk on ahead. Upon arriving in B123 it turns out Sue wasn't our teacher for today's lesson - it was someone else, a latin sounding (sorry that's uneducated) girl who looks to be in her late 20s/early 30s. I crashed in late to the party like a bumbling twerp and sneaked to the nearest easel. I didn't bring (again) any newsprint paper with me but fortunately, there were spare scraps of it left around the easel I chose.

Life drawing today wasn't exactly intense, but the teacher did often push on 30 second drawings done with us looking at the subject dead-on (no peeping at the paper!) and/or drawing with a continuous line. Or with the 'bad' hand. It's the typical life-drawing protocol challenge here and as brain numbing it may be, I did learn a lot. I feel I've gotten better at the proportions from the waist down and that's awesome; it's an area that I often slip up on, and irritatingly botches up my character designs.

Despite my late comings (after the lunch too) the teacher was sweet. She pushed me in the right directions on the task (kept mishearing, maybe from late night) and appreciated some of my earlier drawings. She showed one or two of my drawings to the class as an example of the outcome intended. It should be honourable but I felt like hiding behind an easel from embarrassment to myself. She picked a whole bunch of people's work for examples though, fortunately, and we also frequently laid down our work on the floor for others to look at.

I frequently conversed with TMwAH over the course of today about various going-ons of University - be it life drawing, character motivation/lip sync, accommodation and all other things. Another chap, too, although I need to catch their names at some point.

After finishing life-drawing, I promptly headed to G01 after dropping back the light box. Really wanted to test out those frames! See that careful work turned out. I dropped in at the wrong time though - there were only four people in G01 but all of them were intentionally using the lightbox. Hell, I think one using the Mac wasn't even using it FOR Dragon (pencil testing software). Another girl from Year 1 came in, also intending to test her animation. She nabbed a light box ahead of me from asking, something which I, for some reason, didn't feel inclined to do. Chatted with G01 Sophie in the mean time. She's a nice person to just talk to! I could easily spend hours conversing with Sophie.

Whilst doodling Sonic (an animation of him is really inspiring me at the moment) a group of 2nd year students came in - they (or at least, those lot) have come from their Crit. Many are relieved to have finally  got over and done with it. Man, I wonder what that means for me when the time comes. Some said they can finally sleep, and I wouldn't put it past them to not actually be joking - at least not entirely.

One of the light boxes became available after they left, and I promptly jumped over to use it. When compiling my layers (frames) animation on top of one another, I noticed an issue regarding the transparency - or rather, it's noticeability. I should have known that one paper atop another would fade those beneath it as I saw this occur enough with the light box over the weekend. Regardless, I carried on ahead. I switched off the lamps by the side, it and it helped suss out the frames beneath a little better.

After I finished snapping all the shots and tested it there was yet another issue that passed by me - the grain/noise of the paper. It wouldn't be so bad on the normal basis that the animation just goes from frame 1 to frame whatever but I snapped the same drawing a number of times to give the sequence some pause. The noise of the paper grain stops to a halt as well the inconsistency is rather jarring. I thought the movie crashed or buffered at first!

Still, the animation looks almost there so far. I think I just need to cushion in some in-betweens tomorrow and it'll look spick and span. Also need to re-draw in the entire frames which is going to be...ugh.

Checked out Sara's lip-sync animation. Looking pretty good so far! I was relieved to find out she was still working on the character motivation like me but she is nearly done with that. I asked her she went about animating the lip-sync: Sara is doing it through timing the frames through stop-watching the words and sentences itself. Nice and traditional approach compared to some who are using Flash as a crutch. Who can blame them? I hear lip-syncing is pretty tricky to get right.


Dropped my stuff back home and went to Waitrose for some supper tonight. After some mindless meandering around the place, it struck me that a Fajita might be a nice change of pace. World cuisine always helps to inspire me. Got some typical waffles and snacks as well.

Almost immediately started with cooking the Fajita when I got back. Cooking took much longer than I anticipated though. I tried to take out the rubbish from one of the bins but the fact it was overflowing should of been a big enough hint that help was necessary. One of the sides to the bin liner was buried all the way into the rubbish. An attempt to try and pull out the liner (my left foot to hold down the bin was needed) resulted in some trash tipping onto my leg including the expensive jeans. It would be Saturday night's indian of all the fucking things, too.

Just before eating the Fajita, I put sunk the previous bin bag into another. I formed a meta-trash. Fajita was really quite nice, I'm surprised I had managed to eat all of it. Later that night, Holly gave me a call (or I called her back). She advised me to worry, yet again, but I took it to heart. She's right. There's no point in anticipating the consequences when I can just be ignoring them, working which'll ultimately avoid it all. I also desperately needed the loo, but I think Holly wasn't (fortunately) noticing from the sound of strained voice. The call took to long though and, well, TMI. LULZ!!!


Tomorrow, it's to G01 for 9:00. I sent Andy an email over the weekend asking for advice on spacing, volume control and other things. He responded today that it's a bit of a large topic so I'll talk to him tomorrow in G01 about it all.