I can do it...

Man I just drained these days! Exciting times. 9 days into school and I am lovin it! I wish I could make it my full time thing but have to pay the bills....:(

Have a Q&A at 8 my time 7 pacific. Stephens runnin a lil behind so I figured I would post the first part of my assignment. The sketch in public thing then pick one and pose stu. I really dont get out much and was a weird feeling sketchin people in public. Wouldnt be so bad in my mind if I were in a group of people doin the same thing... Any ways I wanted to go to the park by my house and sketch there but alas it rained. My friend/co-worker let me tag along with him at lunch to Arbys. ( I bring my lunch so it was nice of him to eat there while I sketched.) Needless to say heres the page:





Wasnt the greatest place for poses. One day I will make it out to the park.
Thanks for lookin!

EDIT-- Added first Stu at Arbys pose:



NUTHER EDIT---
was bugged out by that back foot :





EDIT--- lil more character :

Stu Poses..

Last nite was messin with the Stu model and tryin to get used to him. I will keepin practicing with him for the rest of the weekend. Still need to work on gettin used to the rig. Much easier for me with a pencil thats for sure. Here they are in all theyre glory. The elbow drop wrasslin move doesnt read well, but Im learnin!woo hooo

Edit: worked the devestation pose a lil more. Tried to push it a lil further:

Edit 2: last one tonite. Im still havin a hard time gettin used to this. Gonna take a while:

First Q&A with Stephen..

One word....completely AWESOME! Was fantastic hearing Stephen talk about work and fielding questions from everyone. All the people in my group are kik butt and have a lot of energy. I sat just listenin mostly as am not quite comfortable with the process yet. Alot of great questions were answered and it was a very inspiring evening. Stephen was even kind enough to stay until we all got kicked off. So two hours of gettin to know people.

Stephens work is here: Stephen Site

and heres some pose sketchin I did last nite waitin for the Q&A to start:



and



More to come!

What a day!!!..

First day is winding down, and Id like to say I am completely overwhelmed! Just finishing up the The live Global Q&A. With Bobby, Shawn and Carlos. Man... was so cool just to sit and watch these guys talk and answer questions. So much to absorb!

The excitement that everyone has is amazing! I really love the feeling that I get from it. I feel like Ive found what it was I was lookin for. Now I have to figure a way to focus on stuff while Im at work thats not animation mentor ;) . Today was the worst cause I spent a majority of the day cruisin campus....

My Mentor ( whew FINALLY ) is Stephen Gregory --- BIO: Since leaving Cal-Arts in 1996 Stephen has had the pleasure of working on some of the most influential animated films in recent years while being employed at PIXAR Animation Studios. At PIXAR Stephen has worked on “A Bugs Life”, “Toy Story 2”, “Monsters INC.”, “Finding Nemo”, “The Incredibles” and is currently working on “Cars” which is due out summer of 2006. While attending Cal-Arts, Stephen had several summer jobs which included an internship at Turner Feature Animation during “Cat’s Don’t Dance.”

This is OH SO COOL! heheh

I hope I can get enough energy to keep postin in this dang thing.
Catchya later!

Still Dont Know...

Still no email lettin me know who my mentor is. I guess it will be a surprise tomorrow. Kinda sucks that other people already know theirs. Makes me feel like the left out kid :( Either way I know that I will know something tomorrow. I guess theres a live Q&A tomorrow with the founding members of animationmentor. I think...I guess I will find that out when I get my email.

Cant believe that it starts tomorrow..Things just go by so quickly. I really cant wait to find out who I will be spending the first part with. Mentor and mentee wise. Some days theres some serious second guessing about me doin this. Im really gonna give it the ol college try though!

Next week, First assignment. Stay tuned!

Orientation..

Whoo hoo! Recieved my orientation email today! ( Although Jason was nice enough to provide me a link last night so I went through it then. Thanks Jason! ) Man I thought I was feelin anxiety earlier this week. Im gonna age like 50 years by the time monday comes rollin around!

I took our car in this morn to get the transmission looked at. I hate car stuff.. kinda like dentist and doctors. And that doesnt help the anxiety. Im sure its gonna cost a load. Hopefully I will get my shiz together by monday. Im in need of serious composure...

The madness....stay tuned!

Come On Friday!

I am so ready for you Friday. Even more ready for you Saturday! 4 more days... Crazy.This weekend I am goin to empty my mind, (Aint gonna take much) and prep myself for monday. I cant believe its almost here. What to do what to do...

Did some more sketchin. Not much else. I initially thought I would do some learnin. But the anxiety is gettin up there. SO sketchin I went.

My mind is mush

Last few days my mind has been mush. It seems the closer to the day school starts the more mushy my brain gets. Man, how am I gonna be when the day arrives? Any ways quick one tonite. I like to draw when I cant think. And tonite I doodled and inked a lil bit. Havent used a pen in a long time. It was relaxing. The first bit was some funny heads and the second was some star wars ( of course ) Thought I would post em on here so I had more than my office on this thing to look at. Sad isnt it...

here ya go:



and




four more days in less than an hour!
Peece,
Mel

5 freakin days!

Yikes. Soon I will be posting the adventures. Man how time flies.

Yesterday I got to hear the babies heart beat for the second time. (The first time was kinda rushed and we really didnt get to hear it as well.) This time it put it back into my head that Im gonna be a dad. I have a hard time thinkin Im gonna raise a lil person. Me? A dad? Crazy...

This year is filled with so much change for me. All for the better, but my anxiety is through the roof, as the waiting is killing me. (For our first child and skool!)School is pretty close. So my eagerness to jump in is at full bore.

Today is also the last day I have to eat a damn BK kids meal. I will be done collecting the 31 star wars figures! Hoo Haa! I couldve made a movie like "Supersize Me" about my whole experience with burgerking. Am glad its almost over.
Added a couple more of my classmates to the links section, and thats about it with my update today.

Later!

Cleaned my room

Tomorrow will be exactly a week away from the start of school! Whew! Almost there. I spent most of the weekend cleaning and lounging. The wife and I rented Be Cool, The Terminal, and Boogeyman. Nothing spectacular out of any of them.

Got my home office ready for skool. I thought I would post pics of it here so you can see how outta control I am:











Ive been extremely outta control since star wars came out. Im sick of eating at burger king just to collect the toys. I will pick up the last 4 toys this wednesday, and I dont think I will have BK for some time to come.

Have a dentist appointment tomorrow. I hate the dentist. Actually I like my dentist but I dont like goin to the dentist. The the wife has a doctors appointment tuesday. We still have a ways before we do an ultra sound to find out what the babys gender will be. We will find out torwards the end of July. I hate doctors. Although since the pregnancy Ive not complained about doctors. And I like my father in law. Just dont like goin to the "doctors". Welp thats pretty much it tonite.

Later!

Finally!

Ok finally got the quick gallery up! ( Sheesh I shouldve had that up years ago. )Will be an easy one to update while Im goin to school. Still have the design stuff to put up and organize the section that I will post my school projects in for all to mull over. 11 more days. ( In an hour it will be 10! )

I got my student ID today and finished up registering. Oh so close. I hope I do good. Its been so long since I did any kind of school work. Its been easy to teach myself, but that has been with no structure at all. I just need to relax. People do it all the time...

Now I have to clean my home office and get it organized so I have a creative place to do my thinkin.

I better hit the hay, and dream animated dreams...
peece

Meeting other mentees..

Started meeting other students today. Threw me back some as I was feelin like school was further away for some odd reason. Makes it feel even more real. ( Breathe Mel..) So far alot of the people that Ive met are a long ways away from my lil spot in Utah.

Im so glad that I got onboard this crazy thing called animation mentor. The nerves are only gonna get worse as the day gets closer...

Tonite Im goin to work on my site a lil more. I think Im goin with a quick version of it instead of doin the hairy flash like I wanted initially. I just have to upload most of it then hook it all up. ( Ive been sayin this for like 2 years now )

I dont know when I will get info like my student ID or when we will actually be able to log in. You would think I was 5 and Christmas was like a couple of days away. My life seems to have a lot of waiting right now. I can hear my father : "Builds character son..."

Well better get crackin on the site,
Peece

Getting closer

Its gettin pretty close to orientation day for the summer people over at animation mentor ( including me). I didnt think I would be this big of a wreck. Im hopin I can really absorb the whole thing. Im excited and oh so nervous...

Saw Episode 3 this weekend. My take: visually spectacular. Hurtin on the dialogue but the most entertaining of the recent 3. Was weird after it ended. I could feel the end of a magical time of from my childhood. I know theres the possibilty of 7,8, and 9 but I dont feel like they would do what the older ones did. sigh..

Im goin to try and get the lil bit of my web site up this week and link it to this blog, because the only person readin my blog thus far would be me, and Im getting pretty bored.

Such a good day

I finally got the call to set up my payment with animation mentor! I dont even know what to do with myself. Took the day off to work on my site. Gettin closer. Really want to get it finished before hand so its one less thing I have to worry about while in school.

Get to do some animation at work. Nothing to spectacular. Will be fun but I havent used max in a long time so will be quite a challenge to switch modes. The past few months has been nothing but maya. That and design stuff. I cant wait to become an animator....

Not much else to say other than "man am I excited!"

Peece,
Mel

Nerves

Man have the nerves been goin alot lately. Last friday the wife and I heard the babies heart beat for the first time. ( I took Friday and Tues. off to extend my holiday) , and yesterday the baby was outta the first trimester. Crazy to think 6 more months...... oh man what to do.

Also goin to (cross fingers) start animation mentor on the 20th of this month. I sent my papers in a couple of weeks ago but havent heard anything yet about making payments. I may have to call and see if they got the stuff...Im dying to know if all is good. Started to get into the reading mode. Got the last school book the other day ( illusion of life ) and man am I excited to make the journey into the animation field. Will make sure to try and update this weekly when school starts.

Off to bed and dream my happy animated dreams!
Peece