Fear And Panic In The Air

It's 12:42am and the dying battery on my laptop tells me it's been a long night. I recently left my job at a game studio to work on my short film full time. Most people don't come close to finishing their film in the very small amount of time we have in the Advanced Short Film class at Animation Mentor. I was for sure going to be one of those people until I decided to take a leap of faith and give myself 1440 minutes a day to work on it. So, here I am on my second cup of coffee with 3 giant LCD monitors shining their bright, eye-piercing white light into my brain, showing me I have about 60 seconds of animation left to do in a few weeks. Professionals would tell me that's impossible. I'd tell them they were right. Then I remember I'm a professional too, so I know it's possible.

It's possible, at the expense of the following: Sleep, Girlfriend, Food, Exercise, Fun, Fresh Air, Video Games, Movies, Friends, Sleep, Sun, Beach, Water, Sleep, Food, Sanity.

Anyway, that's what's going on with me lately. I've got about 4 weeks left. I hope everyone is doing well and having a great Spring.

Babbles

When I run from nothing nothing sways for sweeping sweeping endless never days of hour glasses ocean waves are slaves to moons and moods and blades.

Bobbles

See world through dragon lens with unmoving cinematic ecstasy within persons afoot and warriors within us all are impervious and sanctified though they never tried enough for self rules of righteous amazing areas of flow and personal justice amongst thieves souls spring through and away from it all and into a bottomless abyss of my ability of faithless envisioning and crys where it kills and engines roar and purr and cry with tainted metal eyes storms brew beer and deer kill men with souls full of crying bleeding hearts within ken and when it all comes to them to see and there part of me then time will stop for minutes after ten and fifteen hours after pastors cry with ammunition flying by.

Class 6: Advanced Short Film

This week begins my final class at Animation Mentor. It's been an amazing place to be and I can't believe it will soon be coming to an end. This school brought me from having never animated before, to landing an animation job in less than a year. It really is that good and I'd recommend it to anybody looking to learn the true foundations and principles of animation.

My new mentor is Don Crum. He's currently at Pixar working on Wall-E, and is from what I hear a pretty rad guy. I'm looking forward to class 6 a lot. Lots of things have changed for me in the last month or so and I think I'm finally going to be able to give this short my full attention. Keep checking back for news on my short, "Kunren!".

I also love my girlfriend Emily very much. Thanks to her I'm an animator. =)

Mickey Sketches

I started doing some practice sketches this week. Trying to learn the shapes and lines of a couple of characters so that I can improve my drawing skill, and thus my animation. You'll probably get to see lots of these in the coming weeks. =)

Anthony Rizzo has been giving me some super good tips on how I can improve. Check out his blog if you have some time. There is some really nice stuff there.

"There is no remedy for love but to love more."

A rose for the girl I love. Thank you for everything, I'd never be where I am now without you and I owe you so much more than I could ever hope to repay in a lifetime. You have my eternal gratitude, as well as all the love I could ever give.

An Epic Day, Feature Animation!

Today was an ultimately epic day: my very first day animating on a feature film. It's heart-pounding to think only a year ago I was learning how to animate a bouncing ball, now I'm working on a feature. I'm still not quite sure how that happened...if I figure it out I'll post the algorithm straight away.

I've always believed that hard work will get you where you're going. Perhaps that's why I enjoy Rock Lee so much from Naruto. His character is based of the premise that he was born unable to perform at the same level as his peers, but becomes a "Genius of hard work" and proves to everyone that he can still be an awesome ninja even with his terrible handicap. I don't necessarily believe I was "born" unable to animate, or unable to do anything for that matter, but it's certainly been a long and bumpy road trying to get here from little old Brewster. I've gotten A LOT of help from A LOT of GREAT people of whom I'll be forever thankful for, it's because of those people that I was able to work so hard and persevere to get to this point.

Generally speaking I'm not a very confident guy, it takes a lot for me to except or admit that I can do something well. This is one of those rare times where I can sit back, relax for a minute, take a deep breath, and be proud of myself.

This is only the beginning!