Hiya Thurston

June has been pretty dead in the water in terms of legit art stuff. There's random doodles of animation like this and kalkie gags over at my deviantart and tumblr account.

The most important stuff that occurred was my brother's graduation from UC Santa Barbara at the 16th, and me being here in LA with my sister until the Anime Expo from the 29th-July 2.

What I want to spend this whole time on is trying to write out the script for my Necromancer collab script while I'm with my sis her writer bf.

Good Day

Morning-crammed for Color for Illustration about our emotions around the time of 9/11. Did bleh on critique corner since my illustration pieces were far too literal (eg. drawing the burning towers), so have to think more metaphorically And send a new sketch either tomorrow or before weekend-
-as I struggle to try and finish my grayscale exercise And my painter's circle And my hue comparison exercise this weekend.

Damn you acryliiics~ D8<

I'm super super glad that I have Animation 2 on the same day, just being able to doodle and animate stuff makes me feel better.

Well that and the fact
- our teacher (Hans Brekke) brought in a friend from Tippett studios (who'll also be our sub for the next 3 weeks while Brekke's in Norway).
- Despite my cruddly squiggly flash linearts, both teachers didn't mind and I actually did fine on blocking the walk cycle. (walk cycle with teacher critiques implemented)

-He showed us this lil film he and the rest of the Tippett studios did on one of their slow production days. XD And he's the protagonist to boot.

-Then after class I helped out a sophomore who's doing walk cycles for the first time so it felt great being able to be of help.

Then on the bus ride back to Webster I got free ice cream from Colleen and listened to Cel's 'Celphiphany' on the parallels between George Lucas' career and his own movies.

Pete Doctor in CCA

Pixar's Pete Doctor (Monsters Inc., Up) came to our school Monday night to give a short talk on like how the movie Up came to be and generally the work and effort of thousands of artists and life and so on.

Stuff that I got out from his talks were these:

-When Pete was younger, he always thought Disney came up with stuff just like this: 

Turns out, life doesn't work like that. (Though sometimes I wish it did).

-In terms of the debate between realistic 3d and or motion capture, vs the stylized kind of animation, Pete threw out this general question: There's real life and then there's caricature- which do you prefer to watch (as an animation)?  Caricature wins over the other because people will always want to see someone else's point of view. (Not to mention botched realistic 3d leads to the uncanny valley problem which turns people off alot, for examples see the Polar Express or Mars needs Moms). 

-Do your research. Regardless of department, you can't just pull things out of thin air. As an old teacher of mine says, 'You put out what you put in'. 

-Find what you're in it for.I think this is important as knowing why you're willing to do the labor of work expected for an animator in order not to grow stagnant or embittered or jaded over time. 

-Do not attach yourself, or your worth to your goals. Pete mentions that people who tie their self-worth to a goal in mind (eg. I will become a director!) burn out really fast when they are faced with disappointment (eg. ending up in the special effects dept) and thinking they have failed tremendously in the grand scheme of things. 

-The last bit of advice I jotted down wasn't really geared towards animation but rather in directing Voice Actors. It helps that instead of telling a VA 'sound more/be more angry', you can help the VA better by giving them a playful direction or idea in their heads like 'Punish this guy/ make them remember this day for the rest of their lives' because it allows the VA to not just sound like a character but act out with full intentions how they think the character would be.

Ended the talk with some signature signing and doodling, and that's how I got my Kevin bird doodle on my notebook.