Journal 3/5/13

What’s the approach to working on this piece that’s worked the best for you so far?

Just powering through it. I still get distracted from time to time, but doing it all at once keeps me more focused.

What elements do you find you need to put you in a comfortable and productive frame of mind for working:
at home with a hot cup of tea just before/after dinner?
working early in the morning for a couple of hours before anyone else is awake?
breaking up your six hours of out-of-class work time into smaller chunks, e.g. three times a week for two hours at a time? twice a week for three hours at a time?
mixing work with clearly defined breaks for exercise or other play time?

Just giving myself time and space to work, usually at night into early morning. There are fewer distractions at that time, so it's easier to focus on work.

Journal #3

What did you draw from to create your character(s)? What experiences, thoughts, etc.?

As I said in an earlier post, the main idea for the main character came from a rather odd dream of a snowy ruined city. Aside from the setting, the only thing I could remember from it was a girl wearing a red scarf making a living within the ruins. I couldn't even remember her name, thus I just started calling her Scarf Girl. The way she acts and her obsession with color in that rather colorless world is based more of my own interests in color and how it can bring life to an environment.
Her companion, whom I just call Hat Boy (I'm really original and thoughtful about these names, I know), was created as a need for someone for her to interact with when I decided to make an animation with her a few years ago. I never ended up using him for the animation, but still that was what he was made for and his character is still based around that intention. His main goal is just to interact with the only other person in his world and make her happy... even if he has a rather crude way to go about it.

Journal #2

What did your calendar say would be done today?

I planned that I would have my animatic ready by today.

Is it done?

Nope. Started, but not finished.

How did you arrive at this "result?"

Forgot some things about AfterEffects, namely some annoying aspects of the program, so I couldn't work as fast as I could before. I also had a lot of other things to take care of during this weekend and am still getting used to coming back to school.

What's the plan for next week, based on what transpired this week?

No change. Get done what I have planned. Backgrounds shouldn't be too big of a problem for me since I'm more acclimated to illustrations than animations.

Journal #1

If we have to reduce our animation down to a single sentence or cliche, what would best describe the story, moral, or message of our piece?

"Life after the end."

What was the inspiration for this particular animation?

 This may sound a bit cliche, but the original idea actually came from a dream. It involved a girl with a red scarf in a snowy, barren city. The idea's grown a bit since then, but still holds it's roots from that weird dream.

Are there any artists that inspired your animation?

- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxVAF3xaMPI
Inspired the shape of the characters and how I plan to move and animate them.
- http://alexiuss.deviantart.com/
Does really good ruined cities landscapes. Plan to try to emulate it a little bit, albeit in a more simplified and stylized way.
- http://aidosaur.tumblr.com/ and http://www.johnnywander.com/
More inspiration on the shape and feel of the characters, mostly on how they emote.

Hello and welcome!

This is going to be a progress blog for my junior animation piece, Snowfall.
There will hopefully be weekly updates as I make progress on it, along with journal posts and other things along the way.
Hope to get this one actually done!