Jimmy!

At risk of becoming captain obvious, I have changed the background color of Penguins With Jet Packs from black to graphite.  I had a comment that the white-on-black was a little hard on the eyes.  I can't complain; graphite is very in right now for animation software and it's reasonable to believe they're on to something.

It's been very wet up here in Chicago, and the rain only stopped an hour ago.  Luckily it hasn't been too windy for umbrellas.  I finally invested in a set of register pegs so I can utilize the light tables in the 4th floor lab.  I have a short animation I want to make, but drawing in the computer is so tedious.  I wonder if good ol' pencil and paper will be better or worse.

Today I had a mini-animatic due in Storyboarding.  We were given a 12 second soundclip from the TV show South Park and asked to make an animatic with it.  The visuals were up to us.

I have never watched an episode of South Park (though cultural osmosis has taught me it has something to do with satire, vulgarity, annoying voices, and the repeated slaughter of a particularly unfortunate character named Kenny.)  My unfamiliarity with the show meant I was free to make up whatever explanation I wanted for what I heard in the soundtrack.  This was incredibly fun.  Here is the result:

New thing to note: it's always best to create a mobile version of an animation in iMovie before attempting to upload to blogger.  The original copy was apparently too large.

And yes.   I did look up who this "Jimmy" character was after I was done with the project.  No, I do not have an interest in watching South Park any time soon.

Earworm for the day: The Russian folk song "Korobeiniki"  (old-school gamers, you're welcome)