So I've Graduated...

... and I didn't get the grant money I was hoping for from the Delaware Scholarship Incentive Program. So I can't really afford graduate school next year. I spoke with my one friends sister who has 1 bachelors degree and 3 masters degrees and she said that after Oliver and I get married financial aid becomes a lot easier to come by. I can see that being true. Still not attending graduate school right away even though I got in and even was able to skip a class is a pretty big downer. So I'll be working saving money, paying back loans, applying at game companies, and today I sent out about 100 postcards for various illustration jobs that my work seemed to fit into. I am also reconsidering going to graduate school specifically for animation. I'm thinking more of an "Entertainment Technology" program and to specialize in animation, because I think I might rather work in video games because of the constant production work flow and I like being busy. That and with video game you don't get the out sourcing that comes with the animation territory (at least television animation).


So since graduation other than working I've also been working on food illustrations as seen above because Charlie suggested it to me after he saw my postcard 3 months ago and I'm finally getting around to drawing some

I've also started preproduction work for my next animated short "Level 4 Goblin" Title still in the works. I've pretty much started on making a map and fleshing out the map a bit so that I have and idea on where this goblin is going when I storyboard it. The basic concept is this goblin gets dropped into a game of dungeons and dragons while the world is being built around him I expect the run time to be between a minute and 2 and a half minutes. That'll sort its self out after I do the story boards and throw them into an animatic. I also want to go to 3 film festivals that have animation as part of their work and depending on what happens next year I really want to go to the Ottawa animation fest.

I have also watched this one anime Puella Magi Madoka Magica and between that and The Amazing World of Gumball airing on CN I am really taken a back by their animation. They are very different types of shows; Madoka Magica is a sad sad show with amazing character development and upon watching the ending my tears caused Lancaster PA to rain for a day straight, and Gumball is a silly show with less developed characters and convenient situations and over all hilarious shenanigans. Both these shows that have recently been airing in their respected countries have several different animation styles and techniques inter graded in the show and pull it off really really well.

This is a .gif from Madoka Magica and it doesn't show how awesome these combined techniques really look, but it does show the gest of what I am talking about. (Also from this show I learned that Joan of Arc was a magical girl).

The character designs are really adorable and between that and the way the backgrounds are build and the lighting in some of these shots I'm really blown away. (This show has the most intelligent humorous cartoon mom).

I'll try not to wait too long between posts because the result tends to be super long.

Networking and the Home Stretch.

I'm in the home stretch with my Multifunctional Laser Tiger Animation which is making me super excited. I haven't fixed the one shot with a camera yet or started the other shot that has a moving camera. I want to get most of my thesis composited and rendered out before I do simply because the camera is super hard on my computer.

I've also finally started on my story board assignment for concept art and I feel that theses tight-ish storyboards are a bit more time consuming then they should be. So I just have to keep cranking them out or they simply won't get done.

Yesterday I went to a video game panel over in Harrisburg and I brought a concept art and model work with me and after the people stopped talking I asked if they could look at my work and give me some feedback. They gave me some presentation tips for my 3D models adding images of the wire frames as well as writing a polygon count on the model page, and were really impressed with my textures in fact the guy from Schell Games and the Firaxis Games told me that I should send my submission package with a demo reel to their studios. I'm honestly super excited about this especially with Firaxis 'cause I enjoy the Civilization games.

Today there was an AIGA portfolio review at my college. I sat with a total of 5 people since students stopped wanting to show their work at 11:30 and I was kinda "well I paid $15". Of the 5 I saw 2 people didn't say much or didn't know how to critique illustration work and I started asking them technical questions and presentation questions just to force a dialogue. Then on the flip-side 2 of the guys I spoke with were really awesome about giving me feedback and talking about my stuff and people I should be looking at some of which I've never heard of. One of the guys who was from a publishing company was really interested in my patterning work and told me to contact him once the semester was over and we could do lunch and I who quite enjoy lunch was bubbling over with excitement. The other guy I spoke with gave me some advice but it was sort of you should want to be a graphic designer so I didn't take it too close to heart.

Finally I'm really excited for the new Looney Tunes Show that's going to be coming out soon.

Just look at them it's so stream line and awesome! PLUS Bugs and Daffy are roomies I think this show is going to be the sort of thing that "wrights it's self".