I made sure this week to actually put time in each day on my assignment and yet I still ended up staying up extremely late on Saturday (well technically Sunday morning) finishing. Overall I’m quite pleased with this one, there’s some great things and some really really bad things. Overall the timing isn’t where I’d like it but to do the things I’d want I’d need another 50 frames to get more time for the reactions and such. As well Mike recommended I have him bounce around or hobble a bit when he’s on one leg but I just didn’t have the time to modify that sections since it was already working reasonably well.

Anyways new assignment is similar to the last although some choices allow for us to use a Stewie with Arms. I’ve still opted to continue without arms on this one and bring back Tailor as an instigator to the action. Let’s see if I can actually have some blocking done by Tuesday this time.

Busy week as usual, but I made sure to take some awesome advice from my mentor Mike Walling regarding inspiration. Back in high school and at VFS i had this trusty little 13 inch TV VCR combo hooked up to my PC that I would watch DVD’s and video on all the time. I don’t know what happened, well maybe its because I gave my sister that TV, but I sort of lost this concept. It wasn’t a distraction but more a constant inspiration anytime I looked away from what I was working on, Bam there was some cool animation on that would keep me going.

I also think it helped a bit with my common procrastinating by giving me a few seconds of something else to break up the grind without getting up and leaving to watch TV. So I ripped the old 27 inch TV from our Bedroom and moved the printer scanner to the side so that I now have a TV with video constantly while working, and I love it.

Now to the cons. First I’m still rehabilitating my back from NAB , so I have to get up and walk around often anyways, constant pressure on my lower back won’t help things. So the idea of the monitor keeping me from leaving the computer isn’t really working yet.

The other con is a big one though. After a recent DVD and BluRay rental at the local blockbuster a few weeks ago I looked at the price and knew that there are much cheaper alternatives like on demand., but Time Warner On Demand hasn’t really worked well for us. so I asked Rick at work about his Netflix account and how he liked it, and he not only recommended it but gave me a coupon for a longer free trial that they received for friends and family. Well I’m hooked already, haven’t even received the first disc but I’m catching up on heroes since I haven’t seen an episode since early season 2. So being inspiration and not a distraction hasn’t really worked out I wasted most of Friday night watching TV instead of working. Bahh what a stupid awesome invention. Damn you Netflix, Damn you.

Anyways here is the refined blocking so far, didn’t finish the end walk at all, but this is also a little different then what I handed in. I cut it down to the last five minutes on this one, too close. Sadly though I didn’t notice that a last minute tweak caused a major pop in my animation, it was a really stupid mistake, but there was not time to re-render and upload again, so I just added a note for Mike on my incompetence. Anyways I figured I’d fix that one issue before posting here. Anyways Enjoy.

What a crazy week I guess I screwed up my back while tearing down at NAB so a few chiropractor appointments to help fix my very painful back, and Amanda got all Wisdom Teeth Removed. Nothing nearly as entertaining as the infamous David after the Dentist video, but pretty funny none the less.

I was able to act out some parts a little more and capture some more reference, so this weeks assignment was quite fun, a real chance at some acting and reacting. Because I chose the gum assignment I wanted to make sure I tried something a little different than the typical pulls away from gum until it lets go and Stewie falls, so I came up with him lifting his foot to look at the gum, which is a tough task when you have no arms to balance. Stewie will then sigh and continue to walk with one sticky foot.

I didn’t get the blocking quite to where I’d like it right now, the final walk has no indications of the sticking yet, and both the starting and final walks are lacking any character right now. Still The stumble is working pretty well so far, his checking of the foot needs some refining for sure, and the sigh timing is off but I think working pose wise.

What a week to be both finishing one assignment and starting another. I wasn’t really set up to film reference while in Vegas, although one assignment option was drunken stumble, and there was plenty of that I can assure you.

Anyways, refined a lot f it, I’m still not happy with the ending, but thats what this is all about, learning right?

Crunched what I could before going to Vegas on Friday for NAB. It’s pretty rough and trying the record every 4th frame for blocking as one lesson suggests as a technique didn’t really work out well for me, I think its complicated things and made it really hard for me to focus on great poses and timing as my mind is too focused on making the 4th frame instead of thinking about it is “KEY” frames.

Hopefully I can fix it up a lot while in Vegas, but well it is Vegas and I’m a notorious gambler so I’m not setting high expectations on myself.