I'm Not Dead I swear

I realize it's been a while since my last post. This is largely due to the Class 5/6 phenomenom I've noticed, that most students choose not to publish short film works in progress in a public domain and I'm adhering to that as well. It may come back to haunt me in terms of film festivals if it actually does become a festival piece who knows. With that said, it's been an amazing learning experience, that is absolutely no lie. As of now there is only 2 1/2 weeks left of class 7, then I will be ready for the almighty and scary class 7! (Class 7 being a colourful euphemism for the real world industry). Exciting and a bit scary at the same time, but mostly exciting.

Against my original plan but not against my better judgement, I will not complete my short film this term. At the start of class I made a verbal contract with my mentor that I would only tackle 30 seconds of my short film, so I can make those 30 seconds as best as I possibly can, instead of 1 minute 17 seconds of less-than-awesomeness. At most CG film studios where 3 seconds / week is expected, that's about right on par, plus I'm still a student learning and more than polishing out my animation also polishing out my workflow mistakes. That has been the real power of this class so far, I've really developed my workflow into something very functional through experimentation and trial and error. On top of that, I've also increasingly developed my eye into seeing finessing on an even more detailed level as well as a series of "aha!" moments, which are so gratifying.

Sooo much more to learn I feel incredibly humbled by how much there is yet to know, but that's also the very exciting part of the whole industry as well, I will keep growing and learning and pushing myself, and I freakin' love that! With the end of AM so nigh, I will gratefully look forward to my xmas downtime, but much work to be done before the actual graduation in mid January; namely polishing up other shots and compiling a new and improved demo reel. I don't want to jinx anything too much but many new extracurricular projects coming up as well; namely Mass Animation 2, 11 Seconds Club and some Crysis game modding so much to stay busy with.

Also, this week marks the 26th issue of Andy-Mated, my webcomic I'm doing for www.vancouveranimation.ca. In other words, that's 6 months of drawing a web comic and everything that entails. Not only has it been a great commitment but a great way to keep my creativity flowing and improve my artistic and photochopping abilities. Each week it grows slightly stronger so I hope to keep this up.