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.)