Motivation

Still not so much happening here. Motivation is at a low. But Im pushing through it.
Half of my design project is done, thank god.. the logo is finished. Now just to do the website, brochure, invoice, business card etc.

But I have a week of 'holidays' now. Most of which I imagine will be filled with finishing the project for my imaging class and doing my little animation. And of course, sleep. I like my sleep. I suppose I should be social at some point too... we'll see.

Anyway, about this motivation. I believe its based purely on me being forced to draw something Im not comfortable with. Im an 'animal artist'. Im best at drawing animals, whether it be horses or little fluffy things. I dont do people. People dont so much interest me. I wish I were good at doing them, and I know that if I practise enough I will get better. But now, all I want to do is draw animals and improve on those skills.

But I cant.

Cause I have to draw people for class...

Its frustrating because I know what Im making sucks. I just dont have the time to experiment and improve on my people drawing skills and do these projects.

I also tend to get distracted a lot.

Anyway, heres a good little quote made into an interesting text-animation thing. It gives me some motivation to just try and work through this crappy art time.


Ira Glass on Storytelling from David Shiyang Liu on Vimeo.

Another awesome motivation animation is 'Boundin' by Pixar. I really love this short. Especially the little expressions the jackalope does when he's listening to the sheep... its damn well done.



On a more interesting note, heres an absolutely AMAZING animation by Ryan Woodward. The timing and movements are stunning... just watch it!

Not too much happening...

As the title states, nothing much exciting has been happening the past week.

2D class was alright. Ill look forward to working on my short animation. But in the meantime I have a big imaging assignment Im stuggling a little with. Its just a lot of work so far and I have less than no motivation for it...

Oh well. Ill finish it and post up the result here whether I like it or not. Just to prove that Im doing something.

Ya never know, it might not turn out as bad as I think.

2D class starts tomorrow + Pink phink + Presto

Tomorrow I start learning about some 2D animation in Flash. Apparently I will have to make a 5-10sec animation.

It shall be interesting. I look forward to the classes.

I also have design class tomorrow. Im still sketching out my logo design for "Painted dog conservation", and I have an idea on what direction I want to take it. Im hoping the teacher wont completely shut me down.

We shall see.

Now to the more interesting part of this blog entry. Ive just finished a lecture series learning about the history and types of animation.. one of the shorts we watched in these lectures was the Pink Panthers 'The Pink Phink'.

Its brilliant. I love it. Simple idea, very well done. Love the music and the expressions. Its well worth watching.



Another lil animation we were shown was Pixars 'Presto', which is damned brilliant! I love that theres no voices in it, just various sounds they make. The timing is amazing too, not to mention the gorgeous animation.





Ahhhh I must find more motivation for these things. Ill try and post some of my sketches, and Ill certainly post my 2D 'animation' once its done.

*waves*

Stop motion

I had four weeks of stop motion class. Now its over.
I really enjoyed it. I mean, who wouldnt enjoy sitting around playing with plasticine in class?

I have to admit though, that I dont believe the world of stop motion is for me. I respect people that can do it and are passionate about it.. Im just not one of those people...

I really liked making the model though, I think I might play around with sculpting in the future.

Heres my model. I think its cute.

And heres my stop motion attempt. The model started dying halfway through.. his whole shoulder and neck were falling apart, my ocd side wasnt liking it...

Darn assignments

I just received the Terryl Whitlash book in the mail that I was talking about a few posts back, n damn it looks amazing! I only flipped through it a little because I didnt want to torture myself too much... today is all about working on my sound editing assignment.

Ive already had a few issues with the silly pro tool and mbox things. At first it wouldnt install, and after messing around with it for an hour or two and finally getting it installed, getting my assignment opened.. the damned sound didnt work. After another 2 or so hours, I realised you needed fancy headphones or speakers. They wernt just going to play out of my mac speakers... I felt like a fool.

But I have the headphones now.. and I quite like them. They make everything sound better..

Anyway.. must get back to homeworking. Perhaps if it doesnt turn out to be a total failure I shall upload it somewhere and post it here.

Graphic novels

I was a bit bored the other day and I started browsing around different art sites. I sometimes do this if I feel uninspired or want to find some talented artists.

I was looking around the OFF-White site (link in my sidebar) and I looked at their outgoing links, and they directed me to a few other comics. One in particular I quite like. Its called 'Sfeer Theory'. They only have one chapter down so far, and it tell you to wait until september before the next update, but I love the style!

The expressions and storytelling is wonderful. I recommend everyone to check it out.

Find it here - http://sfeertheory.littlefoolery.com/index.html

Another comic I really want to read is Lackadaisy. Ive seen the art for it and absolutely adore it! Again, I love the expressions, and the characters seem quite well developed. Though I cant really comment more until Ive read it...

You can find Lackadaisy here - http://www.lackadaisycats.com/

One of my favourite artist and storyteller at the moment is Yummei on dA. Just wow! Simply beautiful emotional stories. The way theyre displayed also interests me, theyre in interactive flash comics. The art is absolutely wonderful, but the storys are so beautiful.

Here is their '1000 words' short comic. Its well worth reading! I hope one day I could tell stories half as well :)

1000 W0RDS by `yuumei on deviantART

Zombies & Vampires

Nothing much happening in the way of creativeness.

Ive been watching a few zombie movies though. I should probably stop.. theyre starting to make me a bit too paranoid and jumpy...

On another note, Im reading my favourite book series again. Its the Vampire Chronicles by Anne Rice. Ive just finished reading her 'Lives of the Mayfair witches' and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Lestat de Lioncourt is probably my favourite character from a book. His arrogant yet charming spoilt personality is brilliant. Anne Rice makes amazing characters. You either fall in love with them or hate them.

Im looking forward to seeing her take on werewolves too. (see here - http://www.pinkisthenewblog.com/2011/07/watch-anne-rice-reveals-that-she-is-writing-a-werewolf-novel/ )

Im usually not a fan of werewolves... I see them more as ruthless stupid monsters that kill without any control. I cannot see anything romantic about them compared to Anne's vampires.. but Im sure Ill be proved wrong.

And no. I am not a fan of the Twilight series.