Home October 20th 2013

I was very unmotivated today, so I spent about 30 minutes sketching ideas for the next segment of bugs, but didn't actually work on the bug sequence at all.

Class October 17th 2013

During class I spent about 15 minutes turning the sunset images into movies for tests to see how well they played through.

Then for the majority of class we worked on making self portraits in three different cartoon styles : Adventure time, Regular show, and Bobs burgers. Lets just say mine need a lot of work.

At the end of class I spent about 15 minutes combining the logos I am working on into one file that I can work on at home.

Home October 16th 2013

It took me about 15 minutes to set up, but once I did I spent about an hour and forty five minutes working on finishing the sunset and then making it disappear.  After I finished that, I spent about three hours editing the rest of the dragonfly photos. Now I just need to get on merging them together.

Class October 15th 2013

In class I spent about an hour and 45 minutes editing the dragonfly photos. I lightened and color corrected them, as well as got rid of any weird spots or pencil marks.

I also had a discussion with my teacher about the project. During this time we discussed that I am going to need to do a lot of color correction for this project. We also talked about how
I need to do the tear effect at least one more time, other than that it will look jarring and out of place. He also mentioned working with stills and not just animations, which would save time.

I also asked for advice on how to make the sunset disappear. I was originally just going to play it backwards but he said that would look cheesy, so I had to erase or tear or something.

Home October 12th 2013

Today I worked more on the beach scene. It was actually coming out right today. I think I was just having an off day the last time and it just wasn't working. You can see from the first two sections on the right that it just wasn't working the other day, and that todays progress was a lot better.
I spent 2 hours and 50 minutes painting today, and almost finished but didn't get the last section done due to the school closing. I spent 35 minutes setting up and cleaning up my work station.

Class October 10th 2013

In class I still didn't feel like painting, so I continued to work on my logo. I did some sketches and then scanned them and worked on them digitally. I spent 1 hour and 35 minutes in class working on these. My teacher gave me so input on some of the designs, such as making things silhouettes.

Home October 9th 2013

Today was just a very unmotivated day.

I started with 30 minutes of sketching dragonflys, even though I was already done with the dragonfly. There is something about the body and the way it looks that I really like. After that I spent 25 minutes erasing the dragonfly for the next transition. Then I spent 30 minutes trying to mix the colors I was going to need to do the sun sequence. After finally figuring out my color pallet, I tried to paint but it was coming out horribly, so I eventually gave up on working on the senior project and went to work on my logos. I spent about 15 minutes trying to paint, was absolutely hating the way it was coming out, because I was personally not in the mood to be doing it at that point in time. Then I spent 2.5 hours on logos.

Class October 8th 2013

I spent an hour creating test videos of all the picture I had taken. This includes a test of the transition itself, a test of the dragonfly animation and a test of the trail-transition-dragonfly altogether.

Then I had a small critique of my project so far, which everyone loved. They gave me a few suggestions of where to go with the project now.

1. For the dragonfly, repeat the same animation I already have digitally to make the dragonfly move across the page. Don't make it so smooth though because of the way the animation is done. Make it come in and disappear 3-4 times and that is it.

2. For the next scene for the beach, do a geometric ripple again, doing vertical strips. For this do each strip a different time of day for the beach, aka first is sun rise, then midday, then evening, then sunset then night, etc. This will keep the colors from getting too muddy and will allow the geometric patterning to continue from the first scene.

After the critique my teacher showed me some things and helped me brainstorm some ideas for the logo. This is still in progress and nothing is really concrete yet.

The rest of class I worked on the blog, updating it and adding video progress and photos.

Home October 7th 2013

I spent about an hour and a half brainstorming what to do next. I was trying to figure out how to do what I wanted and how I could make it transition into the next big scene. In the end I just moved forward with making the bug, and then will figure out the transition to the next big scene after.

Then I ripped apart the last drawing to transition it into the next clean page for the next set of drawings.

The rest of the time was spent animating the dragonfly and making it move. I spent about half an hour doing research of how dragonflies fly. I spent about 3:40 hours animating (ripping apart and dragonfly).

Class October 3rd 2013

I put my self portrait together in a final cut pro document and exported it as an mov. Yesterday I created and shot it, but didn't have time to make the actual movie. This took 45 minutes, where I rendered a few different sizes and some with titles and some without.

Then I worked on putting what I had done on the senior project into an mov file so that the class could see it in motion instead of as stills. I started this 15 minutes before class started, altogether taking 30 minutes to complete.

The rest of class was  spent critiquing everyone's self portraits and productivity on the projects so far.

Self portrait:
1. looks like me enough to know it is me -good
2. "colors of the wind" was mentioned
3. Some find the flowing of the hair weird, while others were not bothered by it
4. Ties in perfectly into what I am doing aesthetically on my final project
5. Delete the sketch underlying the ink, sketch ruins the mystery and overall quality of the piece - mentioned starting with the final image and erasing and saving instead of having to erase so much on the photos I already have.

Project:
1.like slow start and then quick progression, like the change in pace
2. in the test - froze on the wrong frame for the second image
3. Make freeze frame wiggle like the rest of it, jarring to have stuff wiggle and then have a freeze frame.
4. likes the growing tree/trail the best, it is the strongest one
5. Good with the different ways of building and breaking down each scene - keeps it interesting
6. Do something short and simple next to keep the beauty of the big scenes
7. Need to lighten and color correct - need post production edits
8. Swap back and forth between really simple things and really elaborate things
9. nix the animals, keep to landscapes and bugs

Home October 2nd 2013

Not part of the project but part of the class was to do a self portrait animation. I did a realistic cartoon version of myself in the style of the project that I am currently working on.

Home October 1st 2013

Directly after class I stayed to work on the project more. I was in the lab all night, getting setting four and setting five done. Only one more to go for the sequence! Overall I am pleased with how this project is turning out, but there is going to be a lot of editing to do when I am finally done.

I spent an additional 4 hours and 54 minutes working on the project after class.

Class October 1st 2013

Today in class was a work day. After doing random things in class for half and hour, I finally got started with painting the fourth scene in the sequence. By the end of class I did not finish scene four, but I did get quite a ways through it. My paint time is getting faster, but that is probably because the image size is getting smaller.

Worked for 2 hours on the project in class.

Home September 30th 2013

During this time I worked on finishing the third background. I was hoping to get to the fourth but I didn't make it that far. I really like the way that the third one came out.

Worked for 4 hours and 40 minutes (with 20 minutes set up / clean up and a 30 minute break - so really 3 hours and 50 minutes).

Home September 28th 2013

During this time I worked on completing the second forest image, and then worked on transitioning it into the third forest image. Overall I am please with how all of this is going, and hope that it gets better and better as I go. The only discouraging part is how long it is taking to paint each scene. I was hoping to be done with the forest scenes already, but at the current time and only in the beginning stages. Hopefully this gets faster as the images get smaller.

Spent 3 hours and 50 minutes (15 of which is set up / clean up) working on the project today.