The Merits of Meyer's Other Book (a minor rant)

I woke up this morning and I'm all like, "I must write!!!"

Today is my last day of college.  All I have to do is show up for the figure-drawing critique and turn in my class portfolio.  Then try to maintain attention long enough while forced to analyze each student's artwork for ten minutes while having to stand up... yes standing is the hard part.  I can't take standing for long periods of time, it gets me all stressed out and cranky.  (Walking for long periods of time has the opposite effect strangely enough.)

My Hand-drawn Animation final was yesterday.  Here's how it went:


Kitchen Chaos: Pencil test stage from Elizabeth Young on Vimeo.

On a related but totally different note, movie trailers that have succeeded in making me want to see the movie:  Warm Bodies, and The Host.

A word on The Host, it is a book written by Stephanie Meyer.  I've read it, and I thought it was better than the Twilight series (for one thing, there is only one book of The Host).  Was it the writing caliber of Timothy Zahn, Anthony Horowitz, or Naomi Novik?  No.  Of course not.  This is Stephanie Meyer we're talking about.  Was The Host at least more palatable than Twilight?  Yes.  Yes it was, and for no other reason that the narrator is a space alien.  The narrator is still a Mary Sue who can do no wrong and has no depth (read: expert/victim/flaw model, implied back story, 3-dimentionality).  When she does mention a past life, it seems to come out of left field (this character can fight?  What?  This was not foreshadowed or referenced in the preceding pages!  I call shenanigans!).  But, any Mary-Sue-ishness can easily be written off because Wanderer is a space alien.  She doesn't feel human, but then again she's not human.  Disbelief remains suspended.  The story was at least decent.  I'd be willing to pay money to see how the film makers handle it (because frankly they can only improve upon it.)

Earworm of the Day:  The BG music to the video Our Story in 1 Minute.  I put the video link first because you must see the epicness that is the video, but the song itself is Our Story by melodysheep.  I am seriously considering downloading this, it would be worth every penny.

P.S. Because I promised to post when I was done...

Cll'li jogging along... and she doesn't look happy.  Safe to say someone's in big trouble.

'Tis My Birthday! Hooray!

Another year older, and life is moving at a pretty fast clip.  Today I worked on a 2D animation of Dripbird jumping for an apple, which I hope to have refined and posted by Wednesday.  I also, finally, purchased an Adobe CS6 package for my PC.  Two weeks from now, I will be creating awesomeness from my own desktop!

Also, my roommate and I teamed up and made cupcakes (from scratch!) and decorated them with icing and chocolate (from the store).

Yay, cupcakes!

 In other news, I was helpful!  I got to help make a prayer network board Willow Chicago is using for its kids' program. I designed the swirly background and mapped out where the colors would go.  The painting and string was by some other super talented person.  I think it turned out great!

It's also upside-down.  But I kind of like it better this way.

Earworm of the Day:  We Got a Dollar (or I Got a Pickle in some versions) from The Little Rascals.  Of course, thanks to NATSU I now have an entirely different (equally catchy) song stuck in my head, but I'll let them have the glory for that.

"I got a birthday.  I got a birthday.  I got a birthday, hey hey hey hey..."

Pictures!!!

Finally downloaded the photos from my phone's memory card.  So today I give my readers the gift of pictures!

First a bunny:

City rabbits.  Totally cool with you walking up and snapping pictures of them.

Still haven't gotten over the novelty of city wildlife not giving a darn.  Was literally a yard away from this rabbit; it didn't even pause to look at me.

A short while later I was looking at the side of one of our school buildings.  According to the masonry, it was originally built for the science department.  They have these decorations between floors.

pictured: side of building.

Then, I noticed something strange about the second floor...

Are those... upside-down frogs?

If my eyes are not mistaken (and with 20/20 vision and a near obsession with all things animal, I'm pretty sure they're right), the old science department building is decorated with frogs.  Architect had a weird sense of humor.

Speaking of animals, I also downloaded my pics from the Lincoln Park Zoo.  Most of them are from such a distance or through so much wire that it's impossible to even tell where the animal's supposed to be.  But there were exceptions.  Here are my favorites:

That pic I mentioned previously of me and the black bear.

Cute, chubby little meerkats, watching the visitors go by.

Pygmy hippo posing for it's photo-shoot.

The Best photo of an african wild dog I will probably ever take.

Earworm of the Day: The button factory song as preformed by Shari Lewis on Lamb Chop's Singalong

In other news, I just now learned how to link a video so it starts on a specified spot (hint: use the share button and click a checkbox for it)

Recalling the Rhinoceros and the Reindeer

Today was fun.  Mom and I went to see the remake of Total Recall.  Despite my trope-literate mind noting everything from product placements to focal-length shifts of the camera, I did indeed enjoy the movie.  My only qualm was that there was no cut longer than 3 seconds (or so it seemed) which after the first hour was giving me a headache.  The film makers made beautifully grundgy CGI landscapes, then gave me no time at all to just... enjoy them.  When it comes out on DVD, I will rent it and use the pause button liberally.

We also went to the Lincoln Park Conservatory, which is also free and filled with plants.  They have the sensitive plant which is loads of fun to play with because it folds when tapped.  They had banana trees with bananas growing on them.  They had plastic dinosaurs hiding out in the fern room, which was hilarious.

Then, just because it was next door, we stopped in at the zoo.  This time I got to see the beaver, an american kestrel, and got a picture sitting right next to a sleeping black bear (there was glass between us, chill).  Also, we saw rhinos.

sketches of the zoo's white rhino (I think he was getting tired of people by then)

In other news, I meant to post this Monday to go with the "out of my mind" concept I was in, then realized I hadn't scanned it yet.  Another Animalburg ninja character; the only one that might be truly insane.

Snow is scary.  All the other ninja are terrified of Snow.

And while I searched my binder for that image, I also found this...

No, I wasn't sure how to spell "Rudolph".  I write, the spell-check spells.

...which I drew while finding a (hopefully clever) way to incorporate the Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer mythology into the world of my Twiggy and the Jackalopes story.  Initially I was going to have Rudolph be a complete myth or a "the ghost" but then thought it'd be fun if the whole "had a very shiny nose" was just exaggerated/mis-interpreted.  My version of "Rudolph" is the head reindeer who wears a very ornate red halter to display his status.

Earworm of the Day:  10,000 Reasons (Bless the Lord) by Matt Redman

Animated Animals and Mutant Food

That is a preliminary walk-cycle test for my original cartoon character, Beth.  This will be the first time she's ever been animated.  Can I get a celebratory "Whoo-Hoo"?

Too early for that?  Ok, moving on.

Went to the last day of Taste of Chicago.  I decided to be curious and daring and ate an Irish Egg-roll.  Come to find that it's essentially the unholy love-child of a spring roll and a quesadilla.  Both are up there on my favorite foods.  Neither should ever be incorporated into the other.  In terms of ingredients, an Irish Egg-roll is simply an egg-roll wrapper filled with cabbage, flecks of pink meat that were probably part of a pig at some point, and lots of white cheese.  Note that, like a real egg roll, the whole wrap is fried.

Cheese + Frying oil = Me having zero appetite for the rest of the day.

Also yesterday, we went to the Lincoln Park Zoo; which is, by the way, FREE.  I've gotten used to the turnstiles, ticket booths, and bag-checks employed by everything from theme parks, transportation, museums, and even the local public library.  So it was utterly surreal to walk of the street and right up to a grey sea lion tank with no one stopping me.  If you ever get a chance to go, do it.  No, it's not exactly Disney's Animal Kingdom, but it does have a surprising variety of critters for a zoo funded by donation.  My favorite was the takin.  I'd heard of them but I'd never seen one in real life before.  Apparently they're related to goats.  The rest of the Lincoln Park Zoo's menagerie can be found here.

Earworm of the Day: Winter Wrap Up.  Yes.  I'm serious.  I'm a female animation student that spends a lot of time on the internet, it should not come as any surprise that I watch MLP.

Here's Some Tea, I'll Avoid the Parties

I have no connection whatsoever to Lipton, I was just told to do a fake commercial for Motion Graphics class, and I decided to do tea (because I was drinking tea at the time).  I chose Lipton because... well they're well known... and they're logo is easy to draw.  Oh, and the song is the intro to This is Your Life by Newsboys (normally I don't listen to a song with that much chorus-repetition and sap, but my iTunes was on shuffle that day.  It was a total light-bulb moment.  It's so delightfully commercial!)

 

Another animation test for Carpe Noctem.  I plan to do all the hand-animating this weekend on account of the school computer labs being shut down.  It's due to this little world-leader get-together called NATO.  Maybe you've heard of it.  I understand that the university trying to avoid innocent students getting jumped by crazed protestors... but I can't help but note that this never happened in Champaign-Urbana.

If you're struggling to get This is Your Life out of your head now...
Earworm of the Day: Kids in America as sung by Cascada and seen in the English-dub of the Digimon Movie.  Was I a Digimon nerd as a kid?  Yes.  Yes I was.  In my day it was either Pokemon, Digimon, Yu-gi-oh, or Dragonball Z... and I chose Digimon because:

1. the monsters spoke in full sentences
2. "surviving in an alien world" is a more compelling premise for a TV show than "competing in a card game tournament".
3. the fight scenes didn't last a month.

Strangely enough, fast-paced fight scenes are also a reason I like Nickelodeon's Avatar.  Personal preference I guess.

The Nature of Randomness

First off, I animated a run-cycle for Marvin last month.  Here it is:

Secondly, Chicago got lots of snow last night, and more flurries are on the way.  I have plans to make a koi fish sculpture if the snow becomes at all packable.

So I've been contemplating the logic of randomness as comedy. When I write out a conversation between two characters, what often gets the most laughs is not what I mulled over for several hours beforehand, but a stray quip that I pulled out of nowhere to fill a hole in the dialogue.  It is not Spitfire's reaction to Lisa being Super Gecko's daughter that's funny, it's the offhand mention of "a union of homicidal librarians".  It's not Roy's witty comeback to an aggressor that stands out, but Fleet's rhetorical question concerning brooms.

So does randomness always create laughs?  I don't believe so.  Take the show Adventure Time.  That show is crazy-random, but it's an adventure show, not a comedy.  I've watched a few episodes and though I was entertained, I don't remember laughing that much.  I think it has to do with the concentration of randomness.  That is, if a show is random continually, then we begin to accept the unexpected as normal for that world.

I have come upon the theory that in order for randomness to be funny, one must first establish a baseline for "regular".  One must have a straight man for the funny guy to play off of, otherwise we'll be unaware that anything's amiss.  Animalburg has it's share of absurdities--super powers, crime-fighting ninja warriors, time travel, space aliens--but all this is just the background.  This is, in fact, the opposite of random, with rules and narrative continuity holding them in a neat structure.  Randomness is found in the one-time gags, the plot-hole fillers, the filler-dialogue, and the moments when I'm stuck for a villain to fight.  It takes a split-second to write and a hand-wave to explain.  You can't plan random, that's what makes it funny.

Earworm of the Day: Background music to The TV Show.  I know I've linked to it before, but the song randomly popped into my head today and it took me a whole 10 minutes to remember where I heard it from (my first guess was a video game).

Turtles, Arowanas, Pirhanas

Went to the Shedd Aquarium today for the first time since I was... 4?  5?  Well, it's been over 12 years so it was time to go back.  We went out for brunch first though at this amazing place called Yolk.  The food was very good and Dad loved the coffee.  The aquarium was fun.  They had an exhibit about the amazon, which included some of the biggest freshwater fish I'd ever seen.  Forget trying to catch one with a fishing pole; they'd pull you under before you could reel them in.  There were also a lot of turtles.  We saw an aquatic show that featured white-sided dolphins and a talented sea-lion.  It was surprisingly short, but I guess it's best not to tire out the animals.

The sad thing was, most of the fish I knew the names of, I learned from facebook's Fish World game.  Well, you can't say I haven't learned anything.

On another topic:  When one is creating stuff, it's always good to check if it's been done before.  I can't say yet whether or not someone else is developing a tv-show with ninja hamsters, but I did find the game Ninja Hamsters vs Robots.  Now if only I can get past the 3rd level.

Earworm of the day: Wake Up by The Arcade Fire (because the Shedd uses it in their aquatic show).

Chicago

Life has been interesting.

I am now at DePaul University in Chicago. A quick Wiki-search will tell you that the name Chicago derives from an native-american word for "wild onion". The building with the most square-footage in the city is Merchandise Mart, which is so large it has it's own El station, and it's own zip-code. The two tallest buildings in the US can be found here: The famous Willis Tower (formerly Sears Tower) and the Trump International Hotel and Tower. In fact, Chicago is the birthplace of the skyscraper, but you probably already knew that.

It snows and/or rains every other day here. Typically I go bananas over snow, but now it's lost it's charm. I really prefer the rain. I want spring to come. I'm tired of iced-over sidewalks in the morning.

Public transportation has been a blessing. I've yet to ride the bus, but the el/subway are so convenient that I really can't complain. When we were hit with a foot of snow earlier this year, I was still perfectly mobile. Others had to dig out their cars and drive through slush. I just had to walk and hop on a train like always.

The other blessing is the stores. There's a reasonably close Trader Joe's, and an Aldi right underneath (turns out they're owned by the same company!) It's a bit of a hike, 4 blocks maybe, but I need the exercise. Even more convenient is the Borders store, which unfortunately is closing due to bankruptcy. On the up side, their closing sale was the best excuse to get a really huge book on animals, a really cute greeting card with a frog, and a copy of Mouse Guard (which is becoming one of my favorite graphic novels).

I think I like Chicago.

Preparing

I am preparing to attend DePaul University in Chicago this winter.

Yikes.

Every time I check my e-mail, I realize how much paperwork I still have to do, the orientation I must attend, and the room clean-out that needs doing before I leave. I'm not sure how on earth I'm going to get all of this done. I am considering quitting my cashiering job just to have the time. The thought scares me a bit, mostly because I have never written a letter of resignation before and I'm a little unsure on how to go about it. Also, I have gotten very used to having a paycheck handed to me every 2 weeks. Minimum wage or no, it's a nice thing to not have to hit up your parents for money to fuel up the car and buy art supplies.

Sure, I have a savings account, but I don't like dipping into it much. I guess my hope is that it will grow enough that when I'm in my thirty's and some emergency happens, I will have cash stored away to deal with it and not go bankrupt. Or at least that's my logic for now. Give it a year or two, and I may use some of it to buy a copy of Maya, or a new computer.

I am in the middle of a major transition, but I must take a moment to congratulate a friend for making it through her own . My buddy Maria shipped off to basic training at Fort Jackson on Monday. She now has the rank "Private" officially attached to her name. I'm proud of her. She'll do great things.