Flying

And that is what I did today.

Earworm of the Day: "Test Flight" from How to Train Your Dragon The video doesn't have the voices/sound fx to it... but it's still epic anyway.

Post #100!

Translation of hen-scratches: "Leah is sent to get more chalk.  She zones out when teacher gives her instructions.  Trial and error door-opening."

Today is my hundredth post (I have also just discovered there's two d's in "hundredth".  Who knew?).  I was planning on posting something cool... but the coolness didn't get finished in time, so instead I'm just going to update on projects.

My new animation project currently in production is titled Carpe Noctem.  It is a minute-long sequence told from the first-person point-of-view from an ordinary microchiropteran bat (I can spell "microchiropteran" without spell-check first try... but not "hundredth".  Shows you where my priorities are...).

The project will be photoshop/hand-drawn animation with 3D enhancement... which I haven't puzzled out how to do in a timely manner yet.  Doesn't help that the school printer ONLY prints Double-sided documents.  Not to mention screws up the page order.  .

On the up-side, I remember how to MEL script:

Forest-generator.  Aka: proof that I know MEL scripting.

 The basic look is coming together too.  After Conner the Contortionist, I am fed-up with doing outlines in Photoshop.  I've replaced them with gradients and value-contrasts.  Takes about the same amount of time... but it's so much easier to focus on, and the results are so much cooler.

Nighthawk for Carpe Noctem.  In retrospect, I might've made the beak too big...

Discovered in research that nighthawks can make a booming sound with their wings wings (yes, their wings).  Birds, bats, and sonar-jamming moths?  I am in flying-creature-animation heaven this week!

Earworm of the Day: Already did Guide to Marine Life... and can't link to my project's bg music... iTunes shuffle says The 59th Street Bridge Song by Simon & Garfunkel.

I wanted to find a song from a school play I was in back in first grade... but YouTube hadn't been invented yet then.  (I remember practicing the song with a cassette tape.  If you don't know what that is... ... ok, I'll post the link.  I feel old now.)

Nanobots

Every so often, my brain picks a particularly unusual trail of "what if's" and lands on an idea that would work well in a story.  On rare occasions I hit upon an idea that fills in several plot/world-building holes all in one go.

Today, that was nanobots. 

A typical interaction between Marvin and the scientists who want to study him.
Beth, of course, is not typically in the room.

Nanobots can explain about 5 things about Kenlilians without breaking a sweat.  Especially if they're self-replicating nanobots.  That being said, I'd have to do more research on the subject to see what kind of molecular-level wackiness is already possible.  You never know when truth becomes stranger than fiction.

Also, I just love drawing Beth making crazy facial expressions.  Her relatively recent redesign and a few different drawing classes at school have given me more tools to work with.  Perhaps the biggest for me now is cheek deformations.  Getting a bulge right up to the eye when a lip raises does wonders to bring a character out of the uncanny valley and into likable-talking-animal territory.  I've also been trying to do more with her ears.  Every little subtlety counts.

Earworm of the Day: Ok, I'll confess I still have last week's earworm stuck in my head because I'm using it on a project.  I'm not going to repeat myself, so have another nice earworm-free day.

Calling the Hero Out

One of those moments where I get one silly image in my head and it all cascades from there.

Silly image in question:

You know a Kenlilian is angry when they can stop the local Superman substitute mid-flight.

The local superhero (Eagle), in pursuit of a character running from the law, crashes through a cargo shipment being guarded by a Kenlilian (Cll'li).  After bringing Eagle to ground, this exchange happens:

Cll'li: Fourth time!

Eagle: I'm really sorry--

Cll'li: I come through your town, you come through my stuff.  See is problem here!?!

Eagle: The city will pay you compensation as always--

Cll'li:  No.  You will stop breaking things or I will re-enact the Battle of Li'nk Teor* on your face!

(*The Battle of Li'nk Teor kicked off the beginning of a violent governmental/cultural revolution that occurred on  the Kenlilian home planet.  Incidentally, the first day of battle was the day Cll'li was born.)

Earworm of the Day: I got nothing. Good day.

Conner the Contortionist

I finished it!  Yay!

I've been up to my ears in homework as you might imagine.  Easter weekend was uneventful (you could even say boring) and today I'm simply looking forward to the Her CDM meeting later today (I come for the pizza, stay for the people.  Great group.)

For my next project... Well I'll hold off on saying.

Earworm of the Day: We Won't Give Up by The Afters

Surreal and Contorted Circles

If I haven't posted this week, it's because me and my teammate from Motion Graphics class were busy making this:
 
And if I don't post for this coming week, it's because I'll be finishing the character animations for this:



Have a nice week!

Earworm of the day: The Windmills of Your Mind sung by Noel Harrison, but written by a French Guy.