Happy Halloween

I did say I was planning on stalkin' you guys on here right? Well Happy Halloween and eat lots of candy!!

Weekly Comment Woo

This... This was a frustrating week... I have fallen behind and it stinks. I'm stuck on my diving board still and I have resorted to making a ninja the looks like he is made out of cheese. Meanwhile I have to plan out quickly what I'll be doing for the bag of flour. Gotta put my thinking cap on. Also I've been busy this weekend creating a bday present for my step dad. I decided to do a picture and frame it. So I took a picture of his from when he recently went to the grand canyon, spruced it up a little and then had it printed out on special paper.

This is the original one, kinda bleak and boring and you can see storm clouds coming in. The view is amazing but I saw a lack of sun and pretty colors, it needed a better vibe to it. 

This is after being edited. I had to ad a whole different sky. I admit, it definitely isn't my best and the little outline by his head is annoying but I couldn't fix it and now it's there to bother me forever. Since my mom also stinks at focusing the camera(you could see in the bigger version because his face was horribly blurry even if it's a background depth of field picture it wasn't a nice blur) So I softened the overall focus to fix that up. I also added uber obvious highlights that I wasn't able to properly smudge and blend because a certain Photoshop was lagging the smudge tool. But this was my bday present for him.

Anyways. If it weren't for me falling behind I would of enjoyed this more. On the upside I got to go on an epic field trip and watched an artist weld. It was pretty epic. I guess it was a pretty decent week though despite my minor issues.

Now... One of my favorite animations I've seen on youtube: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHLwG3ioD4Y

See ya'll tomorrow!

Trick up his... Tie?

Izzy Hyman shares a few tips to people on how to hide a lav microphone. All are similar techniques, but it's where you put them. Lav microphones are annoying to hide and if you're not careful, the audio can be ruined. However, the tricks Izzy performs show us just how easy it can be to fix these problems. All you need is a little bit of tape and some clothing on and you're all set. What he does is tie a loose loop with the cable to create strain relief so the cable does not create vibrations for the microphone to pick up on. Another big issue is clothes rubbing against the microphone. What he does to solve this is fold the tape into a triangle, doing this with two pieces, and sandwich the microphone and keep it in place so it won't rub. After that, it's just a matter of where you hide it. You can hide it under a tie, under the collar, on a bra, or under your top shirt. Of course it all depends on who your Talent is. Some people are allergic to gapher's tape, so a good substitute would be first aid tape.

Though I'm not yet doing anything in filming where I'd need to hide the microphone, this will definitely be something I should remember for next year should this topic come up. It's definitely useful and the comments on the video agree for the most part. I'll keep this in mind for next year.

A Mentor's advice

Nicole Herr, a character animator, answered ten questions in which gave student animators insight on how character animators work as well as how to improve themselves. She explains firstly about herself, how she got into the job, why, and about the actual work. She first really knew what she wanted to do when she watched The Little Mermaid and had sent a message to Disney asking for advice. A Disney Senior animator had called her later and talked to her about it. After she explains the job, she goes into great details about how she decides to animate. First, she decides whether or not the little details are important. If they are for a more realistic project, she will use many details and get references of creatures with similar body types and study them. If it's a more cartoon-like animation, then she'll perform the movement herself and study it. After explaining the processes and steps she takes and the measures she goes to, Nicole gets into explaining what she often finds students doing wrong. Students do no plan well, they tend to over complicate their shots and forget to keep it simple. To fix these problems, Nicole states that you must know who you're animating and their motivations for their actions. One also must know the mechanics of the action, and the easiest way to do that is by doing them yourself. Another great idea would be to ask for others' opinions. Students should also remember that animating is a Team Sport so you need to act as a team. The last question asks Nicole what her dream shot is; she responds by saying it's the next one.


Nicole Herr sounds like an amazing animator with a lot to showcase. She has given great tips on how to go about animating a shot. One thing I can take for this is how she plans out her shots. I tend to give hardly any thought to it and it doesn't come out as well, so I will need to change that. Thank you Nicole for all the tips!

Weekly Life

This week was probably the worst for me-and not because of school but because of my circumstances at home. For one, my parents ditched me and went to the Grand Canyon, those lucky ducks. Secondly, my dog's fence was supposed to be finished on Tuesday and as it still stands-the people forgot about us /again/ and it's not finished. SO I could not leave the dogs outside and almost every day of that week I got to come back home to the mess the dogs made and cleaned it up. Among other issues, this week became stressful for me. In class, one of the hardest projects I faced this week was the wave. Bah, I just couldn't get the tail movement to my liking in the very end, but I did find a way to color eyes to a way more of my liking though I doubt you'll be able to tell. I still need to learn how to shade... It would help if my computer would not freeze up every few minutes and if I could actually practice drawing with my tablet but that still won't work either. Not only that but now it's starting to get jittery on my computer at class which makes it very difficult to get work done.

Some of the good aspects is being able to see everyone's work and getting amazing ideas from them. I've had fun speaking with everybody and though It scared me to have others critique my work it makes me give more thought to my work.

What I really want to learn is to draw scenes and someone please teach me how to shade because I'm hopeless.

Anyways, I don't have much to say about this week as not much happened for me otherwise. Have a great Sunday and see ya'll tomorrow.

Brain Manipulation

This article opens with a description of an intense scene from Iron man 2 to hook readers and get their attention. It then explains the point of speaking of this scene-which would be the experiment that took place. Both filmmakers and scientists are gathered, each sharing their knowledge of this particular subject. Where will the eyes travel? For filmmakers, they used their intuition and experience with audience reactions. They explain how they calculate what they can fake and what must be realistic. Two factors that must be always real to catch the audience's attention and for their brain to "stitch" together what's going; physics and faces. Faces-explains Jon Favreau-are just too hard to copy no matter what you use. The same is with physics. On the other hand, Scientists used experiments and analysis of the information they've gathered. They collected data on 75 people, using a camera to track their eye movement while software created frame-by-frame heat map. When this was looked at, Smith noticed that the red spot closely followed the movement of the eyes. It was found that people paid most attention to the action within the scene(the dueling and the cars bouncing).

I don't find this too interesting as myself, but as both a student learning how to take photographs and as an artist, it helps me get a better understanding of how to draw the eyes to and/or away from certain areas within a photograph or a video. Though, one of the rules in photography(rules of thirds) has already helped me understand how to do something similar to stimulate the viewers. I was able to take only small bits from this and connect it with other rules I've learned.

I wanna be a Rockstar!

In the world of video games, Ian Bowden is one of the most experienced. Formerly an Art director at Rockstar where he'd taken part in making GTA, Ian Bowden moved to a mobile company set in Berlin called  Gameduell. In this article, Bowden gives advice that has helped him within his years of practice.

1. Watch for the trends: When making art of any sort (drawing, logos, advertising, etc.) it's good to look at other examples. Don't copy them though, put an exciting twist on this trend and be original with your work!

2. Visual quality is important: The quality is a very important part in any art piece no matter how small of a screen or how small in general it will be. Don't do a lousy job! This is "life and death" for art, what makes it sell. Pay attention closely to details.

3. Sketch sketch sketch!: Ian Bowden says he always carries a sketch book and keeps a keen eye out wherever he is, for ideas of course! If you get an idea, jot down notes, sketch something real quick so it's fresh in your mind and you can go back to it and do something with your ideas.

4. Experiment!: Don't just do the same thing over and over, try new things, otherwise you'll be stuck. Sometimes-says Ian-the only way to get past a rut is to move forward. Look around for ideas as well.

5. Be Modest/Humble: There's always someone or something better, and they too can give you ideas, so be open minded and look for ways to improve. There's always something you can learn out there.

This article was very inspiring and has already begun to encourage me to test out new ideas, etc. There's honestly nothing I could disagree with since I do a lot of these steps myself-such as being humble about my work and watching for those trends especially on website designs since I do edit a lot. These are tips that any artist can take with them anywhere no matter what they're doing. Car designing for example. Car looks and abilities are all based on what everyone is looking for right now. So, artist or not, these tips can truly help you.