Pure Contour Drawing

Three more drawing to proceed with the info in the book. The first two are pure contour drawings where you study just the details and can't look down at the page. They are of an Orchid plant and the wrinkles of my left hand. The third is on a piece of transparent plastic with erasable marker (also of my left hand). Incidentally the plastic is the window that i stole from the bankomat back in 2005.

Upside Down Drawing

47 minutes till my Animation Mentor class and I'm uploading more excercises from Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain.

The excercise is to redraw a Picasso image (original shown here) which is upside down without turning the image and without turning one's own drawing. I repeated the excercise two times.

On the second I thought I was getting somewhere until I got to the face and head and then I lost my train of thought. I'm pretty impressed that the arms of the chair are in perspective and that it actually looks like he's crossing his legs. Things get al little funky around the shoulders, but it might be because I was lying on the bed when I was drawing and wasn't really in the best position for drawing that far down on the paper.

I can't really say that I felt anything different than I regularly do when drawing except that it was a frustrating excercise and I felt worried about the details. I felt I had to check and recheck the angles of lines from one to the other and it was driving me crazy. It paid off where I didnìt get too lazy and the areas where I got lazy really show.

Drawing On the Right Side of the Brain Excersize 1

As one of my birthday presents Fabri picked me up a copy of Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards. I'm planning to follow the lessons in the book in an attempt to improve my skills as an illustrator and hopefully, animator as well.

The first excercises in the book are to be undertaken before reading ahead and learning the techniques that the author reccomends. The student is to do 3 drawings at their current level.

1)Self Portrait
2)Portrait from memory (I picked Fabri)
3)Drawing of left hand (or right hand for lefties)

I haven't drawn anything in a concentrated state for a long while. I think that the self portrait and the hand drawing were the most rewarding right now, but I don't think I did too bad on the image of fabri either, even if it doesn't look like him. I'm pretty sure the book leads you to draw these same subjects when the course is done another time so we'll see how I progress.

I'm also studying a bit of body language and acting from 2 other books. I tried an experiment at the post office today with the clerk, you know, smiling more and making more eye contact and I realised that those little things really do help.

More Photos

Mouse Loading Boxes

Here's an excercise I did in my last few days at XChanges with a rig they let me play with. I struggled with the elbows a bit but eventually got it to seem like there was a little bit of weight involved.

I'll Light the Fire

Well, here I am posting some photos of the loft for your viewing pleasure.

OUTDOORS & SITE

MAIN LIVING AREA

KITCHEN AREA
To be continued in the next post with bathroom, office, stairway and upstairs!

Mid-June

We just bought a loft. It's pretty awsome. It's in an old factory. I should put up photos or something. 80 square Meters and I'm going to keep it pretty much all white with 40's furniture and weird junk all over.

I've been throwing out all my clothes and I still have more to get rid of. I want to have a wardrobe like a uniform... everything goes together and there are hard fast rules.

Hate to complain but it was 30 degrees in my bedroom when I went to sleep last night at 11:30- how is that possible? Doesn't the sun have something to do with the temperature? I've taken to rolling around in a bathtub of baby powder before I go anywhere... is it worse to be sticky and sweaty or get heat stroke cause you're preventing your natural cooling systems from working?

The stage has been great and I'm still there for a few more weeks. I really like the group of guys the place has brought together and lunch-times are always alot of fun. I've learnt alot too and my robot project hasn't come out too too badly. I wasn't really keen on the modelling or rigging or animation or materials etc. as individual items, but all together I think it's looking prety decent. I have a few weeks to polish it up.

I'm on a break from Animation Mentor which lasts only a week and then we get into facial animation. Man I'm excited, but also nervous for it. I feel like I struggled quite a bit with my last shot and I'm still a bit insecure. My mentor Dana Boadway was great at reassuring me though and I'm hoping my next mentor will be as awsome. I learnt LOADS. I tried my hand at drama-style acting and hope to be able to attempt a comedy shot next term. Maybe the shot with the 2 characters side by side. I don't know.

We've been to loads of weddings lately. 3 in June alone. I'm all wedding-ed out and exhausted from all the hanging out with strangers and travelling to far off places and all the primo,secondo,dessert-buffeting. Man. Hard work. All the brides were lovely though... really.

Struggling with Finessing and New Favorite Movie Contender

I'm having a bit of trouble finishing the work I need to get done for my shot this week. I keep hitting procrastination and misinspiration. I think the best thing to do is go in via arcs one by one. I'm going to take a break now and get back to it this evening.

But in terms of generalised inspiration I saw Horton Hears a Who last night (albeit in Italian - Orotone e il Mondo dei Chi) and I absolutely loved it. It was fantastic. Great story, characters acting and the animation was super exaggerated and fun. Apparently 22 graduates from AM worked on it so that's something to aspire to.

In terms of aspirations, jobs and the like, news has it that my phone's been ringing off the hook with interviews and offers recently. I don't know what it is... spring fever? Anyhow, starting a stage on the 5th of May and looking forward to it.

House Hunting and Other Hunting

Fabri and I have been looking at apartments lately, on a whim really to see what's out there and if we'd be willing to buy. So far we've seen alot that we like but every place has a catch. One's too expensive, one's too far from public transport, one opens up onto the garbage disposal. i guess with patience we'll find what's right for us.

I'm meant to be starting a stage this week at a post production company but I haven't heard back from the boss since last week. I uess I just have to truck along and see what happens. I had a phone call for some other work last night but it was from a client who is pretty unreliable and always contacts me at the last minute.

It's been pretty rainy lately, but I'm not letting it get me down. I'm too busy to be sad about anything and anyhow, things seem to be going great!

I'm working on a face in Maya for animation cause I need to get my skill-set back up if I want to have a job. Here's the progres after a few days on it. Slowly coming along and definately better than anything I've done previously. I'm following the workfolow of Jason Osipa as in his book 'Stop Staring'. Hopefully it'll turn out pretty decent.

In terms of the Cola assignment, I'm working on simplifing the blocking and getting everything nice and clean for my next upload. Dana said I need to simplify and I'm finding it easier said than done. We talked about it a bit more in the live Q&A yesterday and I thnk I'm getting the hang of it. I've gone into splining cause I feel I can understand what's goign to happen better from there. Hopefully everythign seems to polish up nice.

Week 3 - Coke Machine

Things are going well so far with my first assignment for acting. I had struggled the first week with the video reference and getting all my ideas to fit into the allocated timing. Blocking is done now and I'm heading into refining the blocking but I'd like to head what my mentor Dana Boadway has to say about what I've got so far first.

Well, I'm not going to feel bad that I'm a bad blogger. I have other things to do. Most of them relating to animation anyhow. I'm currently reading 'Timing for Animation' by Harold Whitaker and John Halas and listening to Clay Kaytis' Animation Podcast on my ipod. I'd really like to get a copy of Desmond Morris' Manwatching, but it's out of print and quite costly. I found used ones on amazon, but I haven't got the money right now and I guess it's best to read one book at a time.

Inproving at Animation Failing as a Blogger

I know just look at my other blog to see how bad I am at this. Class 3 has begun now and I didn0t even update on class2 in all this time! Dimos was a fantastic mentor and i got over some hurdles with planning and blocking. Now I have Dana Boadway as my new mentor and am already immersed int he 2nd week of my first project. Here's what I have so far: It still needs work during the blocking pass but I'm waiting for feedback from my peers on the site. I'm feeling pretty good about the acting so far though I did struggle with my video reference last week.

Months and Months!

Well, I'm just awful. Since I've been gone I've been to Canada, India and got married. What kind of unreliable blogger goes off and does all that without an update? Halfa year has gone by.

Okay. Montreal and New York at christmastime was awsome. Fabri's whole family came along and it snowed and we saw all the sites and did loads of shopping and eating and hanging out.

The wedding was last month and I still haven't even gotten around to talking to my friends yet and telling them all about it. It's cause I'm always so busy with the next thing. Which at the moment is Animation Mnetor again, finding a job and an apartment. Anyhow, the wedding was really lovely. I wasn't stressed at all during the day and I thourally enjoyed myself. I wouldn't change a thing except having more of my girlfriends there but that wasn't in my hands anyhow. It turns out the place we had the wedding was Sofia Loren's old house. Crazy stuff. Small world too cause my mom's friend ran into her at the airport on the way back from the wedding and that's how we found out.

India was crazy. A mishmash of colours, sounds sites and smells. There were animals everywhere and people so so so many people. It really was a wonderful adventure. We met some great people too; our driver and the folks in the little villages. here's where we went:


When I get the photos I should post them and then it'll inspire me for more details. We've been looking at apartments to buy and have seen some interesting options but I'm concerned about finding the money for the deposit. i guess we have to go through the process of finding one we like enough first. The money is somewhere!

That's all for now and I hope not for the next 6 months! I have animation stuff to get back to and other things going on and I don't want to forget to eat lunch.

Terry Fox Hope Run

I can't believe what's happened to me recently! I've become a bit of a sports buff! ately I have been feeling pretty alright so I started going tot he gym every day. Then I felt even better and started pushing myself harder and harder. There's this one trainer there who laughs at me when I can't do that last situp and so I try to go further and further (to avoid the laughter of course!) Anyhow, I'm off track now...

So one day I was at the gym and I saw this poster for the Terry Fox Hope Run in Milan in a few weeks time and before I knew it and before I could stop myself I had signed up! I didn't even know how many kilometers it was! And certainly with my knees I wouldn't be able to run it right?

But it's a good cause... a great cause...so I signed up and asked everyone I know for donations or to run with me. And a few said they'd run and a few gave their donations. In the end no one joined me that sunday but I finished the 5k in 46 minutes, and I raised €100 which I put towards Cancer research.

Not too shabby.

Hip & London

I went to London a couple weeks back with Ashley to catch up with friends and see the Tragically Hip. The concert was great. We managed to get backstage and meet Paul Langlois.

Saturday we went to Chelsea to meet Jason and ended up going clubbing at Mahiki. Nice place. I haven't danced like that in ages. I love going out with Jason cause he's got great taste of places and we like the same type of evening.

I also caught up with Lana and met her daughter Mila. The girl is so pretty and independant and adorable. Very outgoing and quite a handful, but she seems to be happy to go out for coffee with mum when she meets friends.

We stayed at Lindsay's place so I finally got to meet Adam and caught up with them too. Lindsay's off on a trip around the world soon. Very exciting. Her apartment was full of gadgets and awsome travel goodies.

Michelle and I caught up for brunch in Notting Hill. Lucky me that almost everyone was in town. Missed Simone and Adrian though cause they were off getting married in Australia. Nice! I came back feeling refreshed and invigorated and missing London terribly.

Class 2 Begins!

Hey guys, I have Dimos Vrysellas as my mentor this term! I'm psyched! he's worked on films such as, "The Prince of Egypt", "The Road to El Dorado", "Spirit, Stallion of the Cimarron","Sinbad and the Legend of the Seven Seas" and "Shark Tale".

It's 4:22am here and he's doing a demo right now in the Q&A. Not so cool it's 4:20am, but soooo cool getting a demo this early in the course!

Class 1 is Done!

Howdy! Class 1 wrapped up this week with a look at walks with weight. It was a helpful lecture and I think I'll be able to apply the new concepts first thing in Class 2. It's amazing how fast it went and how much we learnt in such a short period of time. When I look back now at animations I did before AM my face turns all rosy-red, I tilt my head and eyes towards the floor, slightly to the left, my shoulders are up and my arms grasped behind my back at the waist and I point my toes inwards. Hahaha... you see? I'm describing a pose for an emotion.

Enjoy the compilation film and see you in a few weeks for the start of Class 2!

Gets carried away...

Well, I can see now how it's so hard to mantain a blog when you're busy doing a million things at once. Finally I have a minute to update you all on my progress at AM. Things are going great... we're in our 4th week of walk cycles and learning lots at the moment about hip rotations and balance and shifting of the weight.

I've posted the revision of my Vanilla walk I did a few classes back. I haven't gotten any further critique on it yet so I don't know if it's perfect yet, but I'm feeling good about it. Thought that could change cause everytime I look at any of my work a few days later or after a new lesson I want to go back and correct it. Also, here's a few of my more recent Stu poses:

Cricket for Amatures

Babysitting is tough but I learnt how to play cricket (well, easy cricket actually... no running thank g-d!!) I finished with 22 points... Alessandro (the kid I'm looking after) got 145 points and Thomas (his friend) got 120... but it was his first time.

22 is a pathetic score. Hopefully they think I was letting them win.

Hello! Long time!

Hey there... started my babysitting job yesterday. Alessandro is so sweet... but he likes to play ball in the house so I should probably get him to stop that before he breaks anything. I have to stay 4 nights next week... but the extra pay is welcome.

We're off to Rome this weekend to get some paperwork and to see Fabri's sister. It's going to be nice cause I haven't been in Rome in ages and never with Fabri. Looking forward to our adventure.

Not too much new to report. Animation mentor is on week 10 so I've got only 2 more to go for this term. It's going great!

I made this silly avatar on Yahoo... hope ya like it.