February 29, 2012

Digging for Artifacts (rediscovering old work is scary)

I finally opened up the plastic bag of drawings I brought with me here from Australia... all the paper inside feels so precious! I feel like I need to wear special gloves and keep them away from harsh light and keep them in their plastic home, away from air... I started to animate 2 scenes while still in Oz and now I'm settled and prepared enough to start on them again. But it's been about 6 months since I drew the keys!!! ARGH! It's scary going back to work that is so old now and I'm going to have to remember where I was at... 

Here's my new desk! I've got my work laptop and my light tracer there. I'm going through everything.
Here are some of the backgrounds. I'd love to give them away one day as gifts or something... Like I said, they feel precious... I spent a lot of time fleshing out bg's before finally cleaning them all up digitally.
And here is my paper punching station on the floor! I've got a lot less space here in San Francisco and a much smaller desk. I do actually have a little cabinet that I bought to store stuff from Ikea when I moved here a few months ago and haven't put it together yet... Old punchy should probably find a home there.

February 27, 2012

slow but steady

I'm still struggling, as usual, to balance all the aspects in my life. But since my last post I feel pretty good about the amount of work I've done on Pickled! This past weekend I did work, for my job. But the previous two weekends were all about Pickled. Part of the reason I was doing work over the weekend was because I had a massive headache on Friday and had to take the day off. And on President's Day weekend I was really sick. So with all the down time, I needed to do some catch up.

But anyway, I've put down at least basic rough paint for all the backgrounds now (well except the montage ones), I prettied up the leica/animatic enough to show to a couple friends at work and I punched a stack of animation paper.
Next time I make a film... I will definitely use a different approach. I'm dying to put together a piece FAST! (Well, not necessarily the story elements), but to just crank out some emotional stuff that's relevant to me or fun or experimental... Maybe just do pencil tests and no clean up... Something less all consuming.

February 11, 2012

12 days, Pickle Free

UGH. It's been 12 days since I have been able to work on Pickled. My dad was in town the past couple weekends and I had a major deadline at work yesterday. I feel chaotic... I need to clean and do laundry, get groceries and friends are asking me out for drinks... Oh yeah, my personal trainer who I regret signing up for 3 sessions with is going to kill me for eating the whole world yesterday and not exercising enough. I'm angry that I never have time to draw... or play my ukelele... or work on Pickled.

Balance! There's been little 'semblence of it for me recently.

On Thursday I went to a mini concert by Lana Del Rey and then waitied 3.5 hours to meet her and get her signature. I wore my 6 inch platform heels. Actually they aren't that bad in terms of pain due to longterm standing up, but 3.5 hours of not walking/sitting and just standing will suck no matter what shoes you're wearing. I got there a couple minutes late and only heard 3 songs. I guess her song list that evening was very short, meant as a bonus to the real event of the evening; the signing! We weren't allowed to take photos which sucked as I lugged my Polaroid around the whole night. I got a snap with my phone while in line before realising the no photo rule. (She's in the center of the photo above in white!) She really was sweet and gave some time to every person in line. All 300 people! It meant she missed her flight home :P It was totally worth it to wait in line. Now on to some background painting!!!

Come with me to the Ghibli Museum!

I made a video for my youtube channel about my visit to the Ghibli Museum this past March.