Monday, February 21, 2011

a bunch more books

I have been having a great time with Amazon...great to be able to search for very specific books and get them delivered within a few weeeks - i am a patient gal...
but not quite the same as browsing in bookshops...but sadly the bookshops don't really have the kind of books that i want...we are still a Specialist industry as such..
and of course Now, Borders and Angus&Robertson have gone into receivership.
sux actually..
anyway...
some new books:
"The Sharpest Point: animation at the end of cinema"
is not too bad - a couple of very interesting papers etc, and a few rambling personal notes --seems to be from a conference collection (Ottawa??) so has been a useful one in my readings lately
also bought Hayao Miyazaki's biog when i found it in a fab book/comic store in Oslo (of all places!)..
havent got stuck into it yet...
hoping to go to Studio Ghibli museum when i get to Tokyo!!

also bought the next Chris Robinson book...the one showcasing indy (famous) animators...was good... great to read about these people...as good as Unsung Heroes of Animation..
he is great when he is talkig about people he admires...very interesting and positive...he's awful when he's very cynical and snarky (aren't we all), but guess it's important (and we all do it somewhat!)

anyway...more books to follow

welcome back sparky

incredibly crazy past six months or so...
no place her to start documenting this..
will just deal with the NOW now..

am back at the drawing board - YAY - (after a long hiatus)
essentially got too busy to get down to my studio and DO anthing, but at the same time, did quite a bit of critical reflection on the project...also gathered some more reference materials for another conference paper etc...
was wierd coming back to the first animated sequence - the one that is most fully animated so far....
i wanted to toss it all out and change it completely...if only i COULD do it five times over... like a Pixar animator who produces nary 1 minute of footage in the space of an entire year or two for each feature...now There's luxury!
anyway... adding more inbetweens, re-timing, adjusting some dodgy looking keys..
remmebering where all the buttons are on the software!!!
and starting to get the colour treatment locked down...playing with gradient fills and textured brushes, textured papers, crayons and pencils
thinking about lighting throughout..
and what kind of background??
it was originally just a simple textured sky-blue..(azure) backplate...
maybe this background business needs to change/alter to add some depth..
and i need some SHADOWS...urghhh...haven't even got that far yet!

anyway... major panic for this is to get the sequence finished for the Gympie Regional Gallery group show which starts on April 5th...
that gives me five weeks of FLAT out work to get it done....which doesn't include all my teaching and service load at the college...huuuuurrrrrrrrr
it will be a hard call...
It is aproximately one minute.
today i need to finish the inbetweening (all cleaned up)
friday morning, finalise the colour treatment and get started on it!

am being diligent with my two days per week to work on this...but it's gonna be hard in the next few weeks of start-of-semester stuff... BE STRONG girl!

and meantime, writing another small paper on Issues in Animation Education for the trip to Tokyo in three weeks... a side-track i know...but a part of my job i spose...and is interesting!
but the main game will be for the paper i am presenting at PCA/ACA in San Antonio Texas at the end of April... it's the Pop Culture Association conference...huge...3000 people...and quite a few hundred papers...
should be fun--and at least get a section of my thesis out there Properly this time and PUBLISHED!

more to come!
busy beaver this year.
back to drawing..
NOW