Half way there!

Class 3 just ended this week, and I am officially half way done with AM. THat's crazy to think about. It's been going by soo fast.
Here is my progress reel for the first three classes. THe dialog shot will be finished in class 4, where we'll be given a full facial rig to really be able to give our characters expression.
But for now, we have a week off before class 4. As much as I love AM, my brain could use the time to recharge. I have to move this week, too =(. It's only 3 miles, but it's a pain. I will, however , have my own office for the very first time! It will be nice not to have to have all my computer stuff crammed in my bedroom. I will actually have an entire 3rd floor to myself! woohoo!
Ratatouille comes out next friday! Everytime I see the commercials on tv, I get really excited. SO much so that my roommates make fun of me. Unfortunately, that's the day I'm moving, but I will be there! I can't wait!!!!
On a sad note, my mentor Michal Macarewicz is not going to tech with AM any longer. I feel incredibly lucky to have had him as my mentor. I learned sooo much from him, and he really took the time to give thorough critiques. I mean thorough! THey were often 20-30 minutes long! I'll always be thankful for that!
Comments are always welcome!

I need to watch more tv

I need to watch more tv, or something. This week we had to find audio clips for us to animate a dialog piece to. Sounds easy, right? Sit around, watching movies to try and find some dialog.... It's harder than one might think. For this project we have the remaining six weeks of this class to work on it, as well as the beginning of next class. That's a long time. I not only want to find a good quote to challenge me, but one that I'll be enthusiastic about working on for a couple of months.
So, I spent the last couple of weeks making myself watch an enormous amount of movies. My dvd collection has grown considerably from me raiding the local blockbuster sale rack. I wanted to find a quote that people wouldn't recognize right away, and to try and stay away from the overused ones that are so convenient to get on the internet. After ALL that movie watching, I found two of my quote options from a most unlikely source... Miss Congeniality 2. Yeah. Well, I'll be damned if anyone recognizes the quotes!
Up above id me acting out my potential quotes. I'm really undecided at the moment, and I really want to get the feedback from my mentor.
Anyway, enjoy watching me make a fool of myself! Me..? I'm going to read a book. I've watched enough videos this week already.
Comments are always welcome!

Cookie thief final!!

Here's the final version of the 2 beats pantomime animation. Well, final until I get my critique =)
Michal gave an awesome critique this week .It was a half hour long and really nit picked about polishing my shot. It;s great to hear him go through my assignment in such detail. If he didn't take the time to do that, I feel that I would never know to look for some of the stuff he pointed out. Now I know to look out for those details in future work I do,
For this week's assignment we have to find three audio quotes that we like for possible lines to animate. yay!!! Our models will have real faces now! They will be limited facial rigs at first, but I'm really excited to try this out. I started watching a bunch of movies last week to try and find some lines I want to animate. It's tough! I have a few in mind, but I'm going to watch a whole lot of movies this week too.
As always, comments and questions are welcome!

Cookie Thief part 4

This week was tough. I think refining and polishing your animation can be the toughest part because in the earlier stages you can see alot of prgress from week to week, but in the later stages you can work for hours and hours on little things.
Overall I think it's coming along pretty good. It's to the point where I have to put it aside and not look at it for awhile so I can see it fresh. It amazes me how absorbed you can get in your own animation to the point where you can't really see it anymore.
This week for class my mentor (Michal Makarewicz) posted some awesome tutorials he made for us. It was about concentrating on getting the main part of the body (the hip or root area down) before even worrying about arms, legs, and all the rest. It was so great to see those videos and how he works through it. I still feel sometimes that I am wrestling with the graph editor more than workig with it, but watching him work really helps. Michal is an awesome mentor and really goes the extra mile to help everyone out.
---In non AM news, my sisters wedding shower went off fine. We were blessed with a warm sunny day surrounded by not so nice days, which solved the problem of stuffing 55 people into an average size house.
Me and one of my roommates have been putting ads on craigslsit trying to find 2 new roommates. Sadly, two of my current roommates are moving out. It's really interesting seeing who responds to the ad and shows up at your door. Though the ad specifically says 'no psychos', some have responded anyway. It's like playing some weird people lottery and hoping you win.

--I'm off to watch some movies. We have to animate a line of dialog from a movie for an assignment soon, and I am definitely not a movie buff =0
As always, comments are most welcome!! If you have a critique, comment, or question about my assignment, or Animation Mentor in general, I'd be happy to hear it.