Susan Pevensie

So here is my first homework that involves actual animation. We were required to make a 3 second animation of anything we chose. I’ve been in the Christmas mood lately, so I based mine off of a Christmas scene. So here is my homework.

01_final.flv

Well our last assignment at the Academy was to draw the female torso. Do you know how intimidating that is? For a person who has never drawn before, this is very intimidating. It’s amazing what you can do though when you learn step-by-step on the rules and fundamentals of drawing. You can check out the rest of my charcoal drawings in my sketches portoflio!

^{Charcoals used: Soft Vine, 4B Black, 558 White, Compressed}

My last homework assignment for my foundation course, Analysis of Form, was to basically hang a piece of fabric on the wall and draw it with charcoal. I’ve never considered myself the greatest of drawers, but with this foundation course it is teaching me to look at objects and see the simple shape within and then apply the knowledge that we have learned from lighting and effectively shade it and render it out. Of course, when I first started this homework’s reading material, I was intimidated very quickly.

It’s quite hard to see the simple shapes within a hanging piece of fabric. It is also quite hard to see how you can possibly make something look like what you see in real life when you’ve never really been into drawing that much. It’s crazy to think that I actually finished this homework.

I haven’t submitted this for grading to my professor just yet because I am waiting for a critique on it from my workshop instructor so I can get things right before the final grade is given to it. I know there’s room for large improvement and I know this isn’t perfect. It’s still a good feeling knowing that I did this all by myself with the instruction and direction from the Academy.

^{Charcoals used: Soft Vine, 4B Black, 558 White, Compressed}

If you would like to see more of my Analysis of Form homework, go take a look in my Sketches gallery in my portfolio.

These past few weeks I’ve been talking with Vince De Quattro and David Nethery about animation and visual effects. I never thought I’d be talking with such accomplished individuals in the industry — it’s just mind blowing. We’ve had discussions about how to really succeed in the industry but most recently we discussed how to actually jump right in.

For the past 4 years I’ve been thinking I’m never going to find a job in animation in the midwest. All the jobs are on the west coast, right?! That’s what I thought too. Vince brought up a good point, though. My long term goal is to land a job at a studio that produces feature films. Isn’t that everyone’s dream though? I’ll make it there, someday, but I’m never going to if I don’t get any experience. I need to get some smaller jobs here and there to build up a good resume and maybe even add some more things to my portfolio. Vince seemed to think there were jobs everywhere for animation and visual effects. Foolish man! Doesn’t he know I lived in the midwest? Not too foolish, I suppose.

So Vince asked me if there is a local news channel here. Of course they’re is! So why don’t I see if I can get a job doing some small work on their title screens, commercials, and segment animations? So I was wrong. I never thought that there were small things like that I could do. David even took it a step further and found something else in the midwest that I could do.

To my surprise, he googled “Animation Studios in Iowa” and the first returned result was an article about a guy who has opened an animation studio right in my back-yard. Well, about 2 hours away from my back-yard, but that’s beside the point.

So I guess there are more jobs out there than I originally thought. Perhaps I can go around to local businesses and make commercials for them. Lord knows they look horrible right now. Of course, I’ll have to wait until I actually know what I’m doing.

So yesterday we spent the whole day moving the furniture to mom’s new house. We sort of moved mine into the corner since I’m not able to live here, but I will be living here until the 1st. Once October 1st comes around, I’ll be moving in with my dad. It’s really easy to say this is the least stressful thing I’ve had to do.

So here I am on my computer barely hooked up (Monitor, Keyboard, and Mouse) finally connected to the internet writing this.

This new house is really nice. It’s the neighborhood that I grew up in as a kid and the actual place my mom is living in now (the one I’m writing this from) is my childhood best friend’s old house. So just being in here reminds me of a bunch of childhood memories that I had growing up — it’s very weird.

The old house we used to live in over here is now occupied (after 5-6 years of it being empty and renovated) and the people who live there are jerks and are very loud, apparently. This is what our old neighbor says, anyway. She wishes they would move out. I was going to try to get that place to rent, but mom said I probably wouldn’t be able to get it so I didn’t even try. Apparently these people tried and they got it — how unfortunate for me. It’s a 1 bedroom house that’s small, but still quite large for a single person. The kitchen, dining room, living room, and bathroom are all very large. There is even a walk-in closet in a short hallway! Oh well, guess I’m stuck with where I’m at now — living with my parents still.

The only good thing so far that has come out of this is that I finally have a bed. For those of you who do not know, my bed broke around February this year. It was an old kids bed so I’ve just taken that mattress and put it on the floor and I’ve been sleeping on that since then. Well, now that we’re moving mom into her new place, we couldn’t get her mattress and box-spring to go up the stairs. It was too big as a queen size. So now I get that bed and mom gets my old mattress that just sits on the floor. In a way I feel really bad for her because that old mattress of mine is the most painful experience you will have to sleep through, but at the same time I’m kind of happy because I actually get a bed now.

I’ve successfully made it through my first module of school as tomorrow is my last day of our first lesson. This first lesson took 2 weeks — a little long in my opinion, but that’s just the first week. It’s probably structured like that so students can get the feel for online classes. The rest of our module’s only last 1 week. That should be nice because I thought this first week was dragging on because I was done with homework by the end of the first week.

Well, now you know how life is going for me — stressful. Have a good day!

It’s now day 4 of my online classes at Academy of Art University. I’m really enjoying my classes, too — they are really pushing me to my limits to see what I can truly create. So how does the online thing work?

Every day I sign onto the website. My main page is a portal of links and destinations for my classes and helpful resources. When I want to focus on my Animation class, I click on the ANM_101 link which is the class code for Introduction to Computer Graphics for Animation.

Once I click on my class I want to focus on for that period of time, I see the syllabus which displays each module summary. A module is equivalent to a text book chapter. Now I get to read through Module one for example. Throughout this reading I have exercises to do. When I come across those, I do them. I keep reading until I get to my homework portion in the module. Once I get there, I do the homework.

Now that I have all the reading and homework done, I can submit my homework by taking a picture or scanning my drawings to the discussion forum that is moderated by my class instructor. When you submit it, it looks just like a forum with an attachment, similar to IP.Board without the bells and whistles. After you submit your homework to each appropriate thread, you wait for the instructor to critique your work which is my favorite part. I love getting critique!

So that’s the basic run down of it. Of course, there are exams and other things I have to do to keep my grade a passing one, but it’s not all that hard. The only thing that is hard is the challenge of pushing your talents beyond what you thought you were capable of.

I’ve already learned a bunch of things just from my Analysis of Form class. I found myself looking at the world a little differently today as I was analyzing the basic shapes in everything. Cylinders, spheres, cubes, cones… It’s amazing how everything is truly made up of a basic shape.

Well, there’s my update! Time to get back to playing Spore!

So today marked the beginning of the school year in my community school district. My two little brothers went to school today, defiant of course, and here I am sitting at home. After 12 years of going to school every day, I feel like I’m skipping a day of school. It’s a very weird feeling — Hopefully I won’t feel this way when college starts September 4th.

Forgive me for such a short blog post!

Yep. It’s 11:10 AM on a Tuesday morning and I’m bored. I really wish school would start. Unfortunately, my first day is September 4th.

RadioShack. Our RadioShack store is getting an ‘upgrade’! We’re basically getting new display items and we’re rearranging the entire store for a new updated look. Unfortunately, the employees have to move everything! The only thing we’re not in charge of is taking out a wall and moving the parts drawers. It’s going quite well and I’ve done a few wall panels of new merchandise, but not much because every time I work during the upgrade I’m only putting in 3 hours of work. Today, however, I’ll be working on the upgrade from 2:30pm to 8pm tonight.

Music. I just got a copy of the most beautiful soundtrack in my opinion. Casper! Composed by James Horner, it’s very spooky yet fun and beautiful at many times. He took a great advantage with the harpsichord that is used for that “creepy” feeling and he achieves it well! You’ll have to play the YouTube video at the end of this post to hear the music.

Sound Card! Totally bought a sound card! I love it! I’ve got surround sound now! I’ve been playing my games and watching my movies with it and it makes such a larger impact on you when surround sound is available! It’s so awesome!

AAU. So I’ve received my first book for my classes that start on September 4th. By the time classes start I’m going to have it finished! It’s such an interesting book! You should check it out! Now I just have to buy a few more things and I should be all set!

Scholarship. While I am going to Academy of Art University, there is a scholarship contest going on for Vancouver Film School. It’s basically a deal where you show your portfolio and give honest answers to essay questions and you could win a full ride scholarship to Vancouver Film School’s 3D Animation & VFX course. I’m going to go ahead and put in my application for the scholarship and see if I win anything. It’s worth a shot, right? I’ve already started working on a portfolio — I’m also trying to get this website fully functioning so I can display my portfolio for the whole world to see :P

Wrap-up. Yep, I think that’s about it. Guess I’ll post again soon!

One Last Wish:

So I just got the letter a few days ago. I am listed as a student at Academy of Art University in San Fransisco, California. However, instead of moving away to California, I decided to take the online courses which will get me the same exact education and degree that I would get if I attended on campus.

So the stress of that is finally over. I’m accepted to college. I’m staying with my girlfriend. Everything is calm again.