Before I begin, I just wanted to ask you to leave a comment if you like what you read or if you like a specific thing I do.  I tend to just write about what I feel like writing about but  I like knowing what you like to me writing about or would like me to write about. I’ve only received one or two comments in a long time and maybe it’s my fault for not responding more often to comments but it also seems like no one is out there.  Thanks.

THE SIMPSONS NEWS

Crazy work week this week.  I was given an enormously complicated section late Friday. I had to combine three scenes into one long pan scene. This wouldn’t have been such a big deal if it wasn’t for the fact that I had been given many more scenes besides this one to finish.  The pressure came because I only had Monday and Tuesday to really work on the scenes before I was to move on to another crew.

I worked on and finished as many  priority scenes as I could get to before I got to the big one.  When I finally did get to it (on Friday near the end of the day) I discovered it was a technical nightmare. I had to figure out a way to use the original scenes’ artwork with the main scene I was combining them with.  It took a very long time just to get all the artwork to be the right size. Then I had to add acting as well as separate the characters so that animation cycles could be made out of them and figure out all the camera movements.  This took me all day Monday and by the end of the day, I still wasn’t finished.  On Tuesday I went back on the scene and started hacking away at the last of the scene.  I honestly didn’t think I was going to be able to get it done.  To my surprise, I did. It took me 20 minutes to export the artwork so that it could be edited into the reel.  This usually takes seconds, or at the most, a minute or two.  I had finished with hours to spare.

This allowed me to finish working on all the other scenes I hadn’t gotten to that were of lower priority. I needed to get those scenes done before 3:00 pm because at that time, I need to be at a story reel meeting for my next crew. That, and the fact that it was almost time for me to leave work because I had gotten in early and I was not approved for overtime. I managed to finish those scenes with 15 minutes to spare and I felt very relieved and good about myself when I finally left work

When I got into work on Wednesday I checked the reel to see how the big complicated scene played out in the end.  Turns out the director must not have liked the way it looked because he had re-separated the scene into five scenes. I felt VERY frustrated.

Sometimes a scene has to be tried out before it can be seen to not work well.  I just happened to have worked on one such scene.

FAMILY

For Part 0, CLICK HERE.

For Part 1, CLICK HERE.

For Part 2, CLICK HERE.

For Part 3, CLICK HERE.

For Part 4, CLICK HERE.

For Par 5, CLICK HERE.

After our walk through Mini Mouse’s house, we made our way to Donald Duck’s boat and Goofy’s house.  We all took a small break in Goofy’s house while the kids played with all of Goofy’s things. They had a blast playing on Goofy’s piano:

We were all hungry and needed a restroom break so after leaving Goofy’s house, we made a restroom stop and then made our way to the Toon Town food Court.  The options were very limited.  The food was not very good either.  The entertainment, on the other hand, was great.  Goofy decided to take a break for a few minutes, by going into the Library (as in back stage) when he came back out, he did so with much fanfare.  He was trying to do a cool dance but kept messing up and having to go back inside in order to come back out and try it again.  After three times of doing this, he managed to pull it off. His big finally was semi-standing on his head. It was pretty impressive for a guy in a big suit and mask:

To be continued…

ART/PODCASTS

So, if you’ve been paying attention, you’d notice that I was writing a lot about board games a few months back, and then it slowly drifted to writing a lot about Role Playing games.  This is because all my free time was spent listening to podcasts, reading and thinking about these things. Mostly because of the podcasts though.  There came a point a few weeks back where I ran out of game podcast to listen to and I began listening to the non game podcasts on my ipod.  Some of the podcasts I listened to were illustration related podcasts like:

• Ninja Mountain Scrolls podcast (a very funny group of sci fi and fantasy illustrators that give you a taste of what being a freelance illustrator is like) and
• W.I.P. (similar to Ninja Mountain with a different group of people. Very enjoyable).  This lead me to listen to the
• Escape from Illustration Island podcast (interviews with people who have illustration friendly resource sites for artist), which in turn lead me to listen to
• Chris Oatley’s Artcast, (podcast about a fellow artist in the animation industry. He still has the fire that I once had when I started in animation.  Listening to him has helped me find that fire again) which pointed me to both the
• Big Illustration Party Time podcast (two illustrators who are trying to work on their own comic on the side) and the
• Art and Story podcast (two other artist who talk about the process of creating their own indy comics) as well as the very inspiring
• Steve Silver artcast (an animation character designer and caricaturist who loves to draw. He’s one of the best in the animation business and I was really surprised to discover he had a podcast).

As the gaming podcasts lead me into an obsession with games, the art podcasts has lead me back to my first love, art.  When I listened to gaming podcasts, I often wished I could game more or even create my own games.  I found no one wanted to game with me and I didn’t want to put in all the work I needed to do to create a game.  On the other hand, listening to art podcasts, has inspired me to start drawing again.  This, I can and will put effort into since it directly ties in to my work life and because it’s fun. If you suddenly start seeing a little bit more effort put on the artwork on my doodles or if you see the cartoons come out less often in place of some other kind of illustration or drawing, it’s because this is really where my mind is at right now.  I kinda want to keep it there for as long as possible.

FAMILY

I got Munchkin a used ($15) Dora the Explorer video game about half a year or so ago.  She loved it but she wasn’t old enough to figure out the controls. Not only that, but the game would often not even load on my old PS2.

A week ago I was talking with my brother-in-law Michael and he told me that he got a CD/DVD cleaner and it helped his old X-box play games that wouldn’t load.  I bought a CD/DVD cleaner last weekend and used it on my PS2 and my PS1.  Now all the games I load into the systems work.  I put the  Dora game in for Munchkin and she started playing it again.  Surprisingly, she was able to navigate the game better then the last time she played it.  She figured out how to move the character around the game world. No small feat for a three year old since the game is in 3D (ala Mario 64).  She also listened very carefully to what the game needed her to do and she began to do it.  She started to problem solve the game’s “problems” and came up with the right solutions.  It was amazing.

Now she plays the game for thirty minutes to an hour before bedtime.  She really enjoys it and I’m amazed at how good she’s gotten at controlling the game and problem solving.

ART

My friend Larry Whitaker has put up his demo reel up on Youtube.  Take a look and please leave a comment for him at the Youtube site.  He’d really appreciate it:

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