Last Semester!

And suddenly we're in the home stretch.

It's been a really awesome ride at Ringling. I know I've learned tons, and I'm mostly happy with the things I've accomplished here. Thesis and the job hunt are the final big hurdles, and I am optimistic that I'll cross the finish line just fine.

This semester I'll be taking digital painting, a great opportunity for me to develop my concept portfolio alongside my animation portfolio. I'm going to guess that I'll be hired into animation, however... I don't know if my concept art abilities are quite up to competing with the legions of illustrators out there.

I'm also feeling like I have a bit of wiggle-room this semester to get some life-things back in order. I'm trying to exercise, and my lower back is currently really sore from Tuesday's Capoeira class. I'm studying Islam and film as side courses. I'm doing occasional RPing with friends (though I've relinquished my DM/GM role for now). I'm exploring indie games, such as The Path by Tale of Tales.

To summarize, things feel balanced and unless I'm grossly underestimating the path ahead of me, the worst of the work load is behind me.

Cheers to 2010! Happy trails.

Thesis Progress

Hallo everybody,

I thought I'd share my thesis progress. I'm currently at the 2nd / 3rd pass animation stage, looking to do some revisions over break.



Edit: apparently it's bad procedure to post the WIP until it's a final product... so says the great CA dept. :/ sorry folks

I'm still in it. A good victory.

Sorry again for the infrequent posts. Basically, I've been wrapped up in school the past few weeks making sure I can progress to the next semester. It's never a sure thing in this department. Now that the senior mid-year show is complete, however I can finally say that I will, for sure, progress to spring semester.

Today was a bit of a roller coaster. I got up at 9 am, went to the senior show, saw all the other work all my classmates have been doing. It was a wonderful and nerve-wracking experience. Lots of cool stuff going on. That process took about three hours, followed by two hours of waiting thorough the teachers' deliberation. I was happy to find out neither I, nor any of my close friends, failed. I do not actually know who did fail this semester, but I hope that they will push on to make fantastic pieces next year. Good work and good luck everyone.

After that, I had a nice time cleaning and eating at my house, followed by Princess and the Frog. Good movie, I enjoyed it muchly. Now, I am heading out to Pacific Rim with Aless.

More updates as time and events warrant. Ta!

Between Conquest and Discovery

Sorry for how seldom I've been posting of late; thesis is still chugging along, as well as a bit of table top gaming on the side. I'm trying to dial down the side-gaming these coming weeks, as I'm finding it rather exhausting. Still playing Ragnarok a bit tho...

In any case, here's a digital painting I did while feeling braindead in the labs. More to follow, I think. (Forgot to time this one, about an hour or something..?)

Factory With Algae Farm

90 minute painting for my water class! :) Possible factory of the future.

If I had the time...

So many things I'd theoretically love to do!

I occasionally muse about all the projects I'd like to do if I weren't already tied to thesis and other responsibilities. For example, I've always liked the idea of making my own clothing... probably baggy stuff made of brown canvas with lots of flaps and buckles.

Recently, I've been imagining how cool it would be to take a low-poly character through the full concept/ development process. Make a bunch of silhouettes, rough sketch pages, then make a character sheet with turnarounds, prop designs, etc. Maybe do some color studies, even some related environment work. Then, go ahead and model the character in Maya and do some nice texture maps. The way I see it, if presented well, such a packet would stand on its own really well for a concept/ modeling portfolio.

That being said, I'll have to finish this animation before I can begin working seriously on anything like that. I'm excited about this film, but as I said earlier this month, I've been so deep into the process for so long that I'm a bit fatigued. It's a distance race, and I need to try to stay focused.

((I might still be playing Ragnarok after labs close... shhhhhhhh.))

Dear iRO: are you serious?

I have reasons to both thank Gravity and reasons to curse them. On the one hand, they made Ragnarok Online, which I regard lovingly as the first MMO I ever played. I spent many hours in Rune Midgard in high school, grinding away to level my spear-based Knight, and I look on those hours fondly. For this I thank them.

They also, however, made a free-to-play server during my senior year... this is a seriously unfortunate development.

The worst may be over, however: though I spent about 11 hours the past few days gaming rather than working (please, I know how dumb this is, no need to berate me), I may have shaken the MMO bug thanks to a design flaw! Designers take note: if your going to implement a cool new Gunslinger class in your MMO, please make sure there's more than one freaking merchant in the entire game world who sells bullets. Making low-level players glued to a lonely town miles away from anything else because it's the only place they can get supplies is remarkably ill conceived.

But again, I suppose I must give credit where it's due. Thank you, Gravity, for giving me a good reason to stop playing your game and go back to work. <3