What's been going on Update!

Okay...
So here it is the beginning of week 5 here on my journey at Animation Mentor...
I have finally caught up with my posts for the individual classes...but I thought that I would go ahead and share a little bit more...generalities if you will :D

So... First things first... I should take this opportunity to remind you and inform you... So... remember...
it's the top of the month... and that means that good things abound
1.) the AM newsletter will be out really soon (it is already for the AM students...) So be sure and sign up on the Animation Mentor website for your monthly newsletter.
2.) It's time to get to voting on your favorite animation over at the 11 second club...and soon there will be another e-critique up for the viewing.

Also I wanted to mention a very interesting new product that is out by a company called http://www.funhouseinteractive.biz/



It's intended to help in your 3d animation workflow so that you can spend less time in the graph editor...Nice! So I plan on checking this new tool out... so you'll probably hear more about it from me later on.

Now... on with the other stuff!

I thought that I would take a moment and mention some of my thoughts about AM now that it's been a few weeks...

This place really is great. I feel more connected with the gang here than I ever did taking 'live' classes at SCAD. The community really does embrace everyone with open arms... and they continue to embrace as well...it's not just a bunch of hype. I can't begin to explain how cool this is for me... Not only is it nice from the stand point of animation...cause you always need somebody to look at your stuff and give you feedback... but it's much more than that... it' one big huge warm fuzzy feeling... it's Great! And I really have seen my animation skills grow... and it's all because of the community... I've have gotten so many tips, and tricks, and helpful advice... and awesome motivating pep talks... it's great... especially when things get hard and you're asking yourself...'what am I doing here, am I crazy, maybe I made a mistake...blah, blah, blah'


So... I hope to keep up with the whole blogging thing... but better folks than I have gone under.... so we'll see *grin*

I have been pondering my schedule a lot since starting... and I do thing that it's a never ending process of refinement. So far we have had 2 character posing's (can that be a word:D) I drew out my sketches each time...but then when I got into Maya I went insane moving Stu around and adjusting the pose. Now granted... it's why I like 3d.... I can think of a pose better than I can draw it out... but... I've decided that this will just have to change. I've been spending too much time horsing around with Stu...(boy that sounds scandalous) Really though... it was great at first... it gave me some time to get to know Stu and all of his controls... but now I think that I need to utilize my time more efficiently...the way I would in the 'real' world. So I have already drawn a few poses for Stu .... 'Devastation' is the theme this time around. But once I get a pose that I like... or maybe two or three... I will try my best to push the pose like crazy before I ever go into Maya with it...

I have also discovered that whenever possible, it's best to get your planning stages up as soon as possible for the PR (public review)... so that you can get as much feedback as possible early... giving yourself plenty of time to animate on the project later on in the week. So in this spirit I have posted my planning images for the obstacle course... and I will rough out my sketches for Stu's pose while those images are up in the PR.

The first week at AM is suppose to be so that you surf around the site and figure out where everything is... I also discovered that it was a great time to go around and meet new people... some of the 'older' classmates .... and folks that are just starting out also...but in different classes. I met some AWESOME folks the first week out that are still my buddies today :D and some of the people that I've met... I actually already had hooked up with through the blog world... so it was a great chance to go around and find all the people that I had been reading up on for weeks and months already.... pretty cool. I've also realized that there are way more people blogging in the AM world than I had originally realized... it's truly amazing... My Awesome new friend Alexiss has actually started a forum post on the AM site to see who all has been blogging. When it's completed I'll see about posting it here.

So this post should hopefully make up for my lack of posting for the past few weeks... I'm off to make more Stu sketches and to check out TradigiTools...till next time... Cheers!