Okay, lets see here.
This poor old blog has been dormant for ages. I'll try to sum up the past six months as concisely as possible!

Last summer, June through August, I had a wonderful learning experience at Lightstream Animation studios in Petaluma, California. I helped out in organizing reel submissions for them, taking notes at dailies, drawing up little designs, and I even got to animate for them a little too. My favorite part, besides learning as much as I did with Maya, was being a part of the dailies meetings and conference calls. I learned so much that way, about how communication works within the studio, how animators could plus their shots, and how long it takes to do certain types of shots. It was nice to see that even the experienced, talented animators took time to get a shot working just right.

After my summer months at Lightstream I had a few weeks off before starting up school again. I took the time to visit with friends, go to the Walt Disney Family Museum (again), to the Pixar exhibit at the Oakland museum (for the first time), explore the city, and just hang out at home.

By the first week of September it was time for CalArts; my third time around. Seems like each year I gain a new perspective on those in the class before me and after me. Seniors now don't seem so daunting (since I've now known them for two and a half years), and freshmen seem so happy and, well... fresh!
I need to put myself in a certain mindset for this year. Last year, for whatever reason, I could easily make myself feel like it could be my last year at school. Thinking that way created a feeling of urgency that really helped me get through a large work load! This year I don't feel that urgency yet; maybe because I now have that security of knowing I'll be around school next year too. That's the plan at least.

This year's film is bigger than what I've attempted before; it has dialog and more than two characters! In fact, I have a whole playground full of characters. Luckily I won't have more than a few on screen at once. Once again, like last year, it won't be colored-in characters, not enough time. Watercolor backgrounds are probably the way to go--although digital background paintings are sounding more and more appealing to me, since I could paint right over pencil drawn backgrounds with time saved (very important!) and no risk of accidental smudging!





The sketches above are random storyboard drawings for my film. It's about a loris's first day at school. Do you know what a loris is? My main character is a loris, and her name is Lois.

Below are some figure drawings for this year.




Well, take care everyone. You may not here from me again for another six months. If that happens, I apologize! But I hope I have something fun to talk about next time I write. :)