48 Slides Later...

... I'm not even kidding, I'm nearly at 50 slides in my PowerPoint portfolio. Clearly I have a lot to show. Even if I never was able to find the life drawings. Pity. Don't lose those, kids. No matter how much you hate the look of them or think they suck, they can really help you out portfoliowise someday.

But yes, my Northumbria interview is tomorrow and naturally I'm getting prepared. I'm not entirely sure what to expect but from what I can tell by the email, we all get a tour of the campus and have some sort of activity we have to do before we actually get an interview. I'm intrigued to see how this will go. I'm also hoping they don't mind that the majority of my portfolio is on a laptop. I'm printing out contact sheets and taking old sketchbooks to show what I've worked on but the videos and the main meat of the work is in a PowerPoint. They never really specified how it should be presented though. Not like Newcastle which for some reason is very elaborate about what it wants. But that's an entry for another day.

I think the main thing I'm worried about is making sure I find where I'm supposed to be in enough time. I know where Northumbria Uni is, there are just specific places where certain subjects are studied. The website has a map though so I'll just look at that. Wish me luck, guys!

Other news... oh yes, I believe I mentioned the work placement that Dave asked me and a few friends to volunteer for. Well if not, I have more details. Last night, we were all emailed by the person planning the whole thing and from what I can tell, we're volunteering as animation assistants in the Big Draw Festival and Art Club. That's what I'm gathering anyway. Should be interesting.

I'm mainly leaving developing the animation further until after this week because of developing the portfolio and also because we're handing in the animatic and any finished frames in on friday. As I've already done that, I can use the time to work on my portfolio till I present it tomorrow, and then fart out a 'How to' on my work. Sorted.

Not much else to say other than that really. Oh, and I finally bought and played Rayman Origins. I'm ridiculously in love with the game already. The colours, the movement, the exaggeration... It's like I'm controlling a cartoon. It's simply amazing.

... although I do wonder why, even when he gets squashed under moving rocks that Rayman blows up like a balloon before he explodes. I suppose he's just one of them types to defy physics. Lets hope he and Pinkie Pie never meet.

SWOT analysis

This is to help me determine my skills in animation, my strengths and weaknesses and what I need to improve on and keep doing. Also this is a good chance to really look at what projects I have done throughout the past two years.

Projects Completed/Working on

Completed Projects- Still Life, Jax and Jinx, Circle Animatic: Footloose and Footless, E4 ident: Little Red, MTV Idents (flower animation, dragged person in pixellation), Stretch and Scare (Timmy animation and voice)

In Progress- Underdogs webcomic, Crumbs animation, Crumbs webcomic, Not a Drinker (loop), Have a Nice Autumn (Ruby slips)

(NOTE: Not a Drinker and Have a Nice Autumn are improvements or add ons of previous projects)

List of skills

Traditonal, Digital Painting, Storyboarding, Concept art, Character design and development, script writing

Programs

Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro, Illustrator, After Effects, Final Cut Pro, Microsoft Office programs, Audacity, Quicktime

List of traits

Strengths: Confident, practical, good at communication, mostly energetic, set realistic goals, can lead when needed to, creative in both projects and solving problems, accepts responsibility for problems and actions, committed to finish projects, can build relationships with team mates.

Weaknesses: Procrastination, laziness, distractions, time management, sometimes not energetic, making decisions, flexibility, risk taking, needs more experience in managing people, prioritising.

... I couldn't resist. I'm not sorry.

I R SMART

This week I've mainly spent focusing on the portfolio and I believe I'll be working on that for the most part next week as well, at least getting the basic requirements for my Northumbria interview on Wednesday before adding and improving it for the Newcastle interview on the 8th March. I've spoken to Dave and he's gone through said requirements with me. There are a few things I won't be able to include any time soon as Ashleigh's stepdad wasn't able to get the files from the hard drive (again, thanks for your help guys, I appreciate it!) and I have no idea where the life drawings I did from last year are, bar one, but I'm going to be redoing a majority of the things I want to include, mainly the morph and the loop and I'm able to regain the E4 ident from YouTube (which seems to be the only thing from last year that I'm genuinely happy with).

Here's a photo shot from my phone showing the requirements. The rectangle with circles and shapes was for Ashleigh's 3D character and doesn't apply to me. And if you're wondering why there's a question mark next to the 3D in the list, that's because my 3D attempt from last year crashed and burned so hard that Dave is actually discouraging me from including it. Can't say that I blame him. Or that I mind all that much to be honest.

The 6 or 12 section refers to how I should layout my animation on paper to add to my portfolio. So basically capture 6 or 12 frames per pages and be sure to include the basic movement/story, depending on the animation.

I'm taking comfort in the fact that I have the majority of what I need but I'm also apprehensive that what I have won't be varied enough. It would really put my mind at rest if I could find my life drawings, which I hope I do. I've been considering what I should add exactly though, also considering animation work I did before college. Dave seems wary of this idea but I know for a fact that I want to include my 'Still Life' stop motion photography project. It would be a bit of a break from the traditional work at least.

I'll leave a list here including what I absolutely want to include, in no particular order:

1. Redone loop animation of BF drinking and eye spin
2. E4 ident (also include advertising posters)
3. Circle animatic (IF it can be found)
4. Ruby run cycle (maybe add Snaps eating a banana and dropping the skin for Ruby to slip on? Purely to show more of an interesting sequence than just a character running)
5. Still Life stop motion animation
6. 1st version model sheets for Crumbs
7. Life drawings (if I can find them PLEASE GOD LET ME FIND THEM)
8. New and improved model sheets
9. Storyboard/Animatic for Crumbs
10. Any complete scenes, namely the intro at this point
11. MTV idents
12. Underdog concept art
13. Crumbs concept art
14. Any work done in pencil/pens
15. Include various sketchbooks to present.
16. Cocktail Hour posters
17. Caricatures

... Woah, even with the missing stuff I have a lot to show. Have to admit that helps me feel a lot better.

Anyway, now to get to the real point of this entry, the not-so-smart SMART targets.

S- I want to have the improved loop, improved morph and extended Ruby run sequence done to include them in my portfolio. I also need to hunt down my life drawings to take photos of them. I need to obtain the Still Life and E4 ident animations from YouTube and I need to pick out what exact concept pieces from both Crumbs and Underdogs that I'm most happy with and want to include.

M- I'm hoping that I haven't given myself too much of a task to tackle here. My interview is on Wednesday and I believe that if I get cracking as soon as possible, I'll have the requirements I need. The priorities will obviously be getting the ones I can spend the least time on out of the way so screencapping the animations I already have for the layout should be easy. Acquiring the animations I still need to screencap will be next. Then picking out my favourite Crumbs and Underdogs pieces. Finally then working on the redos/improvements of certain pieces to screencap them. First and foremost once I finish this entry I'll have a rootle around the studio for the life drawings.

A- I'm sure this goal will be attainable if I stick to the above plan. I'm hoping that the quicker tasks could get done in two days, maybe even less than one so I can focus on improving the animations before screencapping them.

R- As everything is going in the portfolio, everything is relevant. There's... not much to say other than that. To be honest, I never got this section. It's obviously important to do otherwise I wouldn't be doing it. It's not like I plan when I have my coffee... although maybe I should start doing that.

T- I have until Wednesday to get all of these done as this is the date of my Northumbria interview as stated above. I'll talk to Dave on Monday about what pieces to include and so by Tuesday night I should be well and truly prepared... hopefully.

For the most part I'm confident but I'm also worried about the missing pieces and hoping they won't hold me back. The main reason I'm hoping I find my life drawings is because they give my portfolio that bit more variety that I know they'd be looking for.

Well while I go and look for said still lifes, here are some sketches I've done over the week in sketchbooks to kind of pad it out and hone my drawing whatsits and blah blah blah.

 I wanted to do a sketch of both Lilac and Scarlet puffed up defensively. Lilac just looks adorable to me. 

I can imagine Ginger being nervous around spiders but I think it would be absolutely hilarious if Snaps was. And her various over the top reactions. Ruby doesn't seem quite as impressed however.

Baby Tweak looks quite shocked about something. But what? I'll never tell...

... not yet anyway.

I wanted to kind of blend the two series' that I'm working on together, see how the two art styles contrast. I'll definitely colour this one.

And my odd version of a chibi. I can never draw them right. Oh well. It doesn't look too bad regardless.

"Aww, wee lamb."

Whatever unimportant thing you're doing right now (because compared to this, it's unimportant, damnit *bricked*) stop doing it and watch this. Right now. Right. Now.

An ENTIRELY Scottish cast. Not mostly scottish like How to Train your Dragon (and don't get me wrong, I LOVED HTTYD but... Scottish adults and American kids? Whut?) no, no ... AN ENTIRELY SCOTTISH CAST. A princess that isn't OK with being a princess. Her hair. Her accent. Her hair. Her Dad. her hair. EVERYTHING.

Just stop breathing and marvel at it. Seriously.

This is a big risk for Pixar to take. It totally deviates from their usual formula it seems. I don't mean to go all feminist on everyone here but if you think back, the main character hasn't been a girl in any of their movies so I'm really interested to see how this will go. The only main concern I have is her being some sort of mary sue that does everything perfectly. I mean don't get me wrong, I love the hell out of her so far but I do hope they don't screw this up somehow. However what I've seen so far I've been pleased with and hey, this is Pixar. They haven't disappointed me yet.

*gets off her soapbox now*

... yeah ok, this movie is important to me because of Scottish. BUT COME ON. Even if it wasn't there's so much incredible things that make this a delight to wait for. Just watch the above clip again. And again. And again. As I know you will. AS I KNOW YOU'D BETTER.

*bricked* ... Ow.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to set up a camp to wait outside the cinema to see this movie. See you guys after... uh...

... AUGUST? Oohhhh! *faceplants*

BTW, if anyone can tell me where I can find this poster, I will give you my kidney should you ever need it.

How does it DO that??

Regardless of your opinion towards My Little Pony, this is completely relevant. The person who created this video certainly knows what he's talking about and this'll be a great reference point for walk cycles in the future, certainly on how to make them run smooth.

I'll certainly be looking at this video to help me out more often in the future. I know some of you will be put off because of ponies but seriously check it out at least once. It's certainly helped me.

I know I wasn't the only one who fell in love with the opening walk cycle at the start of the song.

Crumbs Cast Poster. Also More Ponies.

And here we have a poster with all the main pigeons together. This time we have Scarlet, although she's kind of in the background and not one of the main characters at this point.

In totally-not-at-all-related-to-college-work-news, the Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie keyrings I ordered less than a week ago arrived! Before the Ponies I ordered before that... in the same country. While the keyrings came from America. Yet they got here sooner. Go fig.

... not that I'm complaining mind you. God knows I've been wanting these for so long.

... My Little Pony merchandise still falls into animation, damnit.

Crumbs Posters

Just some advertising to try and get back my motivation for working on the frames. I'm quite happy with all of these actually, I think all of them reflect the individual pigeon. I even took the chance to reuse some vectors I'd done before. Some call it laziness, I call it resourcefulness. It totally is laziness though.

As you can see, all of the pigeons have some breadcrumbs with them, mainly tying them to the name of the series. Green had to be a fatass and have an entire slice of bread to himself though. Knowing him, that's not all that surprising.

You won't see one for Scarlet right now though, these are just for the pigeons starring in the animation. I might do one with her at a later date.

I think Tweak's poster might be my favourite. Just... that pigeon is beyond help.