I'm busy being an animation student again!

The month of January is almost over! I've been very busy this past month with homework and lectures. I'm taking a workshop with iAnimate (as I mentioned in December) and it's going really well! My teacher, Jason Anastas is awesome. I would recommend him to anyone. Taking this workshop is a great opportunity for me to improve my 3D animation but it's a great overall animation class as well. I've never received lessons and reviews quite like this. I'm learning so much.

I really, really miss working on my film! It's frustrating for me to be so busy that I have to leave it on the back burner. I've gone through periods in the past where I wasn't able to work on it and it's always the best to get back to it.

Tomorrow I'm going to purchase a used copy of The Art of Tangled from someone I found on Craigslist. I miss drawing and there are a couple of gorgeous art books that I haven't allowed myself to get over the years because my husband and I were trying so hard to pare down on belongings as our living space has gotten smaller with the past 3 moves. It's also expensive to ship stuff around the world so we're generally just trying to save some money too. But I feel like I could really use the inspiration. Most of the art books I've hung on to over the years are instructional or informative types. The "how to's" and the "survival kits". I need some beautiful art books full of inspiring drawings! I already know it's a great book since I've flipped through it and seen lots of the drawings online.

I went back and watched the talk by Jim Capobianco at CTN on his process of making Leonardo, his hand animated short film. Jim was an inspiration to me and it's both relieving and terrifying to think that it took him 10 years to finish his short. Here is Jim's making of blog.

Leonardo still

Time to do some homework!

Last Blog Post of 2013: Goals

Yesterday I was asked if I have any New Years resolutions for 2014. I used to set New Years's resolutions. Now in my life I'm constantly setting goals for myself. I keep striving to be a better artist, a healthier person and a good wife and friend. On December 10 my husband and I started eating healthier and regularly exercising together. We both have our own fitness goals and we are being realistic about them. Working on our goals together is rewarding. An ongoing goal of mine is to create honest artwork. When I create or animate a character I want to be honest about who the character is, how they feel and what actions they would take. It's the trickiest thing I think about animation. The principals can be mastered but a dishonestly animated character or story will not feel believable.

Starting next week I will be taking an iAnimate workshop on body mechanics with Jason Anastas (a fellow Sheridan grad!) that will take me until mid April. My goals related to taking this course are for me to get better at animating with Maya, and to polish my animation skills. I'm going to be crazy busy doing homework on top of my day job. I sure hope I'll be able to keep fitting in occasional workouts during the next four months but I know I'm going to have much less free time. To make things easier on myself I'm going to try to cut out time spent in other ways. For example, cooking simpler meals at home. That will take less time and there will be less dishes to wash. I'll do what I can to best balance my time. I will likely blog about my experience with iAnimate.

This picture is a meal that my husband made over the holiday break. It was one of the best meals I've ever eaten and it took him 3 hours to make. There were many dishes to wash.

See you in 2014!