Cepiiimation

Chapter 5 - Coppelia

2012-02-08T00:48:00.001+11:00

It's week 5! well actually it is week 6 now, but i'm writing an entry for my last week's progress! so let's pretend that we're in week 5 now, *rewind the clock~~~

I had couple of ideas in my mind for my next shot, those are ballet, gymnastic, and ice skating. I did not really narrow them down, it was just stuck in my head and i feel that i really want to do a ballet for my next shot. It surprises me that i really enjoy the dance as i browse and observe the video reference. These dancers, they have this amazing capability to balance their body. I find that very amazing. I did learn ballet when i was a kid.. and it was not a really great experience ^^'' but anyways.. the references that i found were amazing. It was a bit hard to choose which dance that would fit into 200 frames.. and that is like 8 seconds long. All of the dances are amazing and all of them go for more than 2 minutes and even longer! I then found this clip - Coppelia. I was simply very impress with the ballet dancer, she is still so little but she dances very gracefully. She simply inspires me.
I, of course couldn't take the whole clip so i decided to use the last 10 seconds part of the dance. I had to nip tuck the choreography a little bit too. I was a little bit unease when i did it, cause i did not mean to disrespect the original choreography, which by the way is really beautiful.. i did it to create a kind of contrast for my shot and i hope it works well.
This week, I also revisit the basic foundation of animation that i think I miss. My previous mentor, told us that in earlier days, he has a list of 12 animation principles near him when he did his shot. I never forget about that. In fact, I have them on my wall.. but i guess that doesn't work so well.. so, this time around i wrote them down again in a small piece of paper and stick it in between my 2 monitors. It is at the center, very spot on, and i would never miss it lol..
Below is the planning of my shot:

and the video reference:

I did something different this week. I kind of rotoscoped my video reference -o-. I hope this is not a bad thing and i feel a bit guilty about it :| I tried to modify the timing a little bit so it wont exactly look like the video reference. This time around, as i mentioned before, i revisit all the basic foundations again. My peer buddy mentioned that the poses that I did for my class 1 assignments have nice line of actions on it and he suggested to incorporate this to my shot. Everybody that i meet also mention the same stuff and this time around it really hits me.. why am i so slow, duh! >.<! i should have understood this earlier.. but at least this shows a sign that i learn something ^^..
Also, one thing that i learn about sketching, draw them big! you will be able to see them even more clearly and you could push them even more.. the bigger they are the clearer they become! :D
So folks.. here is my first pass blocking:

---

Chapter 4 - Experiment part 3

2012-01-31T02:46:00.001+11:00

Week 4.
On my last post, I mentioned that i would changed my shot to Spline a week early. I really wish that i really did it. I can't changed what has happened though. So i would talk about my experience with plateau tangent. Before I start.. maybe this only occurs to me, not to anybody else.. and if you are a plateau tangent fan.. im sorry if i against you.

I have mentioned on my first post that at first, it seems that plateau tangent gave me a nice timing. However, i found out that the slow in-out and the even spacing in the middle really distract me. It was all right at first, but right after I playblast the shot, the shot would look very mechanical due to the constant slow in-out. The other problem happened when I refine my curve. The timing right after I refined the curve sometimes felt a little bit off. It probably because I really got used to see the animation played on plateau tangent and since it already has given me the in-between poses, i felt that the work is done.
Again, i was Wrong! I think the slow in-out and the even spacing has really manipulated my eyes and i did not realize this until this week. So in this case, i would say that stepped mode is a better option. I feel that in stepped mode, I could really think about the approximate timing between one pose to the next ones without (obviously) looking at or worrying the in-between poses. I also miss one important part that i always do in stepped mode. Every time i use this approach, I put the in-between pose at the right timing. In plateau mode, I did not put my in-between poses at the right timing. - I hope this make sense - I was simply enjoy the in between poses that was given by the computer and i did not even think to place them at the right timing. So, the lesson from this are; do not be lazy, pose that in-between poses, and watch your timing.

I also thought that it was not necessary to change the tangents type when you refine your curve. It seems like i got this one wrong too. It probably better to change the whole tangent type beforehand. I encountered this weird behavior of this tangent type. It probably because i did not change the entire curve tangents type. So this is what happened, when i refined the curve, i always have them on weighted tangent, break them, and free the tangent weight. Normally, after I break the tangent, if I adjust one of the handle it wont effect any other curve shape beside the one at the side of the handle that I'm adjusting. Let's say i have an A key frame and a B key frame on A's right, and i would like to adjust B's curve using B's left tangent handle. Here I have all curve tangents broken down and they are all set to free tangent weight mode, and when I adjust the curve tangent, it seems that any movement that i do affects the shape of the curve shape on the Left side of the A key frame. I hope this make sense.. I'm not sure why this happened and i have not done any research to fix this. My suspicion says that this is because i just partly changed the curve tangent type on the one that i felt it need to be changed into spline. So I would say that next time around, it would be better to have everything on the same mode.. or in any mode but plateau (sorry plateau fan ^^'). The other thing that i found is, no matter i tried to refine the curve, it led me to a sort of plateau shape, uh well maybe that's why it is called plateau mode.

So this would be what i experienced this week and also the last couple weeks. The term is getting even more challenging and there is really no time to slack. I always treat my shot as one part of experiments and i regret nothing from this. I definitely learn and find new stuff even though my grade this week is going down drastically hehe.. It is sad but i feel that that's the mark that i should get. I'm honestly not too proud on how my shot turn out.. it obviously has tons of stuff that need to be fixed. But yeah, i think i will give myself a break from this shot and carry on with the next one, which would be Ballerina Stewie! :) Below is the latest playblast of my shot:

---

Chapter 3 - Experiment part 2

2012-01-30T22:33:00.002+11:00

Week 3.
I had to make some changes for my shot. It was quite stressful because i tried out couple of solutions to finish off my shot but it seemed that each of my solutions were not too helpful because they exceeded the frame limit. I shot couple video references on the previous week and again this week to clarify the steps and timing. Video references are always helpful cause they really allow us to observe what is really happening on our body when we move. I also learnt that it is not simply about recording our actions, but it is also about trying to act out our action based on the timing of our shot. This method really helped me out and this worked really well for my Class 2 shots. I have to admit that i missed this part for my shot and yep, the outcome is quite obvious, i exceed the frame limit. Below is the clip of the actual shot and the alternative shot that i did:

If i could go back to week 3, I would change my entire shot into Spline. I will talk about this on the next post. During this week i felt that i was too caught up with how i should fix the ending. I had a hard time to decide which actions that would look better for my shot. Right now, i honestly feel that it is not necessary to think which one is cooler and which one is not. The most important thing is which one that makes more sense for the shot. I realize that no matter how cool the action look like, if the timing is not correct, the action will fail. Here is the shot that I submitted:

Beside of changing into Spline mode, i would also definitely add and refine the overlap on the body parts. I also struggled with the constraint system that I created. Both hands follow the shovel wherever it goes. This works very nicely for most of the digging part, but it does not really work for the throwing part. The problem was simply solved by using the visibility method that is shown on the training video. Ultimately, I should have done more work this week.

(go to part 3)

Chapter 2 - Experiment part 1

2012-01-30T21:26:00.000+11:00

The past 3 weeks was indeed very super mega challenging..so, this is what happened..

Week 2 was the week when I transferred my sketches to Maya. I had to change my planning and make it simpler. It was so hard because this time around my mentor really taught me about story telling. It is not only about 'create a story' and the rest is history, but now it is about 'building a story'. It never really hits me that how our head moving, a quick look to the left, and other small, tiny detailed actions would affect our shot. Our body movement is part of the acting choices. It is easy when we talk about it, but in my case.. I definitely still have to learn a lot. Moving on to how i approached my shot. This time around, i was really impressed with the plateau workflow that was introduced on the lecture this week. I decided to try this workflow right away. During my planning and blocking pass, I felt that plateau workflow worked really well for me. This workflow helped me to figure out the timing faster and not to mention it created in between poses for me (me such a lazy **s.. tsk tsk tsk..). It pretty much made feel that i might have already done with my blocking. Below are 2 clips from week 2:

Silhouette stewie, to see if the poses are readable

Original View

Looking back at my shot now, the main reason why i felt like i have finished with my blocking is mainly because the curves at plateau mode have an easing in and easing out. I was very please to see the outcome because i thought it was good enough and because it felt like all the poses are in the right place, right timing and looks like it has a quite all right spacing. Boy i was Wrong.. i guess there is not such thing as 'i have finished with my blocking' and when do we actually finish our blocking? I don't have a definite answer for that for now. I hope i would find the answer in the future. Anyway, i learnt that the easing in and easing out, they created this illusion of timing. I am not sure how i am going to explain this but in a nut shell, it felt pretty much very mechanical, very pose A to pose B kind of feeling. At that time, I of course did not realize this.

(go to part 2)

---

Chapter 1 - Slap!

2012-01-11T17:57:00.000+11:00

Class 3 Week 1. This term is my first term with different mentor. I was indeed anxious, especially last night when i received a notification email that my new mentor just gave me a critique. This time around, we really have to consider to add some kind of story in our shot and to give the character personality. My new mentor is Tim Crawfurd : he points out right away that my works on my first 2 term did not really have personality on it. So i think this time around, i need to bring this to my works. I have no time to freak out or anxious about getting new mentor or to have adjustment period. Below are my planning sketches. I feel that i have to take and analyse more video references since my shot is not too strong and still lack of personality. Another thing that i did differently is that i didn't do pencil test and i didn't really act out the action. I thought i was going to try different approach.. but yeah.. it didn't go too well o_o.. but at least now i know what works for me.. ^^

---

Chapter 11 & 12 - Class 2 dun dun dun!

2011-12-31T15:17:00.000+11:00

Hola! This entry is supposed to be posted last year! I was away to one of my favourite places in this earth.. and no .. i did not manage to visit Square Enix office -o-! .. i think i will cheat the publish date .. just to keep things organized hehe .. anyways ..! Class 2 was wrapped up last month .. and I think i could have done better for my last assignment.. One thing that i learnt is never leave for holiday before school is officially on holiday.. I know that this is an online school .. but .. It didn't feel right hehe :p So here is my last shot and my progress reel for Class 2:

Push:

Progress Reel term 2:

I really want thank my mentor, Scott Lemmer .. I had him for 2 terms and I have lots of respect for him! I promise to keep up all the good work and keep improving! Again, thank you sir! *cheerss! :)

---

Chapter 10 - The Lovely RGBW Spaghetti

2011-12-05T07:30:00.001+11:00

Everything could happen right after you switch to spline. -___-
So this weeek.. not looking soo good.. mostly because of my own fault.. i was distracted a lot.. geez it is hard to keep myself focus on the assignment o_o .. this week was tough.. i do feel that i could have done better :p The only thing that i could do is to continue refining and polishing my shot.. whatever happened, i need to move one .. :( *sigh .. Below are the playblasts of this week progress:

---

Chapter 9 - Reblocking

2011-12-05T07:20:00.001+11:00

Where was I on week 9 .. I see no post o_o .. anyways...
I had to re-block my shot and this time around the camera has been chosen. My mentor prefer the first camera angle. The challenge for this one is that we could not see Stewie's face clearly throughout the shot. It is definitely hard to keep it visible to the camera. These are playblasts for my re-blockng shot:

---

Chapter 8.2 - P.U.S.H !

2011-11-24T10:00:00.001+11:00

This week, there were couple of very pleasant distraction.. and i am still distracted..! i have a theory, if you have something that keeps coming back in your life, it might as well means something for you ^^ i never am a fan of regulations in my entire life, don't get me wrong though, this doesn't mean i love to raid a candy shop or do crimes ^^'' bottom line is that you are really in charge to write your own life story and nothing and/or nobody should stop you.. editing from other folks are necessary, but everything should come from your heart.
Uh well, back to the main reason why i am writing this entry, the blocking process of the PUSH shot. I will not say this is easy.. but i have to admit that all the lessons i got from the wind walk really help me out here. I struggled a lot to fit my shot into 250 frames..I exceeded 10 frames last week and i am still working on it now.. My mentor critiques really helps me to fix the problem. Below are the blocking and a revision I did for my rainstorm walk :

Push Blocking:

Revision:

---

... let say, i am going to see Square Enix in a month? woot woot!?　：D

Chapter 8.1 - Push! Push! Push!

2011-11-17T10:44:00.001+11:00

So, this is our final pick list for this term... i pick push and/or pull a heavy object. The reason is simple.. I want to learn correctly about the body mechanics.. and i really want to get it done right! so for this one, i keep it simple. It took me quite awhile to take the video reference.. I came with several acting choice that ended p horribly.. I'm such a bad actor... really... really.. bad.. -o-! anyways.. here are my planning, which i did it quite differently this time, i'm giving myself an opportunity to learn 2D animation software.. it's not a good 2D animation, but i think it will help my shot :)

Video Reference + animatic in the end:

Animatic only:

Keyposes:

---

Chapter 7.2 - Survived from The Storm .. o_o

2011-11-17T10:22:00.001+11:00

Oh boy, the past 2 weeks was... superr stressful but Fun at the same time! My bum is kicked by this heavy rainstorm shot Literally. I regret nothing from choosing this one.. I learn a ton from this shot :D I'm not sure where i should start... all i could think is those spines are really killing me and im so grateful to finally have a chance to use stewie, and this week we're using stewie...(wait for it...) with Arms! :D I feel I learn a ton about overlap and drag, weight and force, ultimately the whole body mechanics in this shot.. Now it is not about moving one character from one to another point, not only creating a story, but this is really a combination of all of those. Below are the process of my shot and the polish i did yesterday, i still think it could be improved..

First pass refining

still have feet detaching from legs and pops .. sometimes hiding the head is very helpful, it gives a clear view of what's going on on the shoulder and upper spine area

still refining..

final pass refining...

polishing.. and still refining ...

---

Chapter 7.1 - The Third Pick List

2011-11-09T10:31:00.003+11:00

I think i will do simple dance move.. :)

---

update: I think i will not do the simple dance move.. my mentor mentioned that he would avoid this one.. which i think this is make a lot of sense cause this will not show the Force as much as the other pick lists topics.. so my new choices would be: balance while standing on a ball, push/pull heavy object, tug of war, walk up the stairs and trip, and walk up stairs of different heights. Narrowing down the list, now! :)

---

update: Down to 2 choices .. Push/Pull a heavy object and Walk and trip going up a staircase

---

update: Push/Pull a heavy object it is! :)

Chapter 6 - Oopsie Daisy

2011-11-09T00:25:00.002+11:00

So last week.. was super tough.. my stress level was above the normal capacity. However, i learnt a lot of stuff last week, and really folks, watch lectures more than once if you could, watch it over and over again and absorb all the information like a sponge! After watching the lecture, i realize that there are couple of important things that I miss. During my planning, i focused on my characters back story, a lot. I wrote the whole story about his life, personality, where he lives, what happens, and how he handles the situation. This, however, is not enough! one important thing that I miss is I don't bring this characteristic, all of these information into Stewie. I didn't show how all of these will effect his movement. I find this very hard and this is the last week for this assignment, hopefully somehow i could still incorporate this idea, even though it's a little bit too late and i really have to listen to my mentor's critique.

So here is my first pass splining :

This week lecture is super helpful too. It explains everything and one thing that I miss is Internal Force. This is like a hit on my head.. the external force is obviously massive - heavy rainstorm - but the internal force, the thinking, is lacking.. so .. im going to refine this shot! *pumped! :)

---

Break - Happy Halloween!!

2011-11-02T00:01:00.002+11:00

Happy Halloween :)

---

Chapter 5.2 - First Pass Blocking

2011-10-31T19:45:00.002+11:00

This week's blocking was very tricky. It was hard for me and i'm sure for everybody too, to transfer from ballie to stewie rig :) I'm really grateful to have an opportunity to use ballie. The rig really teach and give me a better understanding about hips movement. :( awh i miss ballie already :p anyway! back to my blocking.. It was hard to create the feeling that there is a force that comes from the opposite of his walking direction. I also have a hard time with the spines! it was really confusing to figure out how they will move. One thing that really helped me was to act out the action.
I really thank my friends for critiquing my work. I took most of their suggestions and apply them to my blocking. It was really helpful and i really appreciate all the help. I also drew some thumbnail sketches this week. I kind of feel that my planning was not strong enough so I thought it would be a great idea to draw some more and this helped me a lot :)

Here is the first blocking that I did :

After i received the critiques, I pretty much re-block everything, changed some poses, timing, and camera angle. Here is a playblast of my re-blocking :

---

Chapter 5 .1 - Walk in a Heavy Windstorm

2011-10-27T13:16:00.001+11:00

It's week 5! whoa O.o
My final choice for Pick List 2 is walk and lose few steps in Heavy a windstorm. Someone gave a friendly reminder about this before, but.. never do your planning a day before submission!! -_______-!
.. *sigh .. anyways~~ \('▼')\ ~~♪♫ here are the planning pages .. and i realise that this is not enough .. im currently still analysing the reference.. i find that the movement, how the body works and react to the environment is a little bit unique and unusual o_o ..

and also, my video reference ...

---

Chapter 4.3 - Polishing

2011-10-24T13:19:00.002+11:00

Finally done with my Polishing.. however, i feel that this could be done better and it could be polished even farther. I added slight squashes and stretches on the body.. i didn't want to go too far with it because there are too many things going on on the screen already.. with all the hops and honestly the hips are moving a bit crazy.. and i''m very unsure about the hips, i like the overlap that is happening on it.. so i choose not to modify it.. i did tone down one part of the rotation because it feels too much.. I should ask other people and my mentor about this...Refining the knee pops were tricky too.. i pretty much messed up some of the poses and somehow following the knee's path of action make it looks even weirder. At this stage, i decided to just polished according to my render camera. The reason is simply because it should look right on that view. I'm a bit worried with how the knee angles correspond with the feet and i think I found the solution just now o_o...
Here is the final playblast for my Hopscotch :) :

---

Chapter 4.2 - The Progress

2011-10-22T01:06:00.001+11:00

Tracking down my own progress for the last 2 days .. Super slow progress -o-! I aim to finish the shot by today so I could start my planning for next assignment :) Anyway, here are the refining progress :

f 1-60

f 1-95

f 1-122

f 1-200

moving on to polishing stage now :)

---

Chapter 4.1 - The Second Pick List

2011-10-18T17:19:00.001+11:00

---

hmm it seems i lean towards to lifesize hamster wheel and walk in heavy storm... both topics really interest me and either one of them could be a really great exercise for weight shift and posing .. i hope some inspirations will appear on my dream tonight :D

---

i think i have the winner.. it's walking in heavy rainstorms.. my mentor suggested on q&a today to pick the one that you could visualize the most.. and for the past few days, i feel that i have a good theme or story going for this one.. so this would be my final pick.. the choice is locked in! :)

---

Chapter 3.2 - Blocking+

2011-10-17T06:12:00.002+11:00

So .. i finally decided to hit the Spline button :) I did it from frame 1-70 first.. refining each body parts one by one, change them into spline mode.. then continue to the next frames..and so on.. Somehow i got carried away and treat the blocking more like refining the whole parts.. maybe it's all right to treat it like that? or should i use linear..hmm.. .. I changed the last bit of the animation as my mentor suggested last week.. i hope the idea will go through :) and good news is.. Final Fantasy 13 is officially finished! so no more gaming!! I feel bad this past 2 weeks.. i was so distracted!! anyways~ below is the blocking+ for my hopscotch :) :

This is my quick sketch based on a quick video reference that i took for the walk in the end of animation..i did not use the whole poses due to frame limit.. but it was a great source for reference! they really helped me a lot :)

---

Creating Stu Silhouette Tutorial

2011-10-16T12:37:00.001+11:00

I was helping a friend to create a tiny silhouette for Stu pose assignment. Many of you might have already know how to make the silhouette but I thought i would make a tutorial video about it and share it with everybody :) I hope this would help... and.. This is my first ever video tutorial! ^^ yay! Enjoy the video and thanks for watching! :)

---

Chapter 3.1 - Blocking+

2011-10-15T11:49:00.003+11:00

Cleaning up silhouette..Fixing the poses..adding moreee breakdown poses.. i think i'm ready to depart from my blocking+ .. :| im anxious to press the spline button! here is my process so far .. -o-

fixing the silhouette of the poses..

Tried out layered animation.. im not used to it yet.. but it's an interesting method :)

Fixing Ty and Rx

followed by fixing Rz

: >

---

Chapter 2.2 - Blocking The Hopscotch!

2011-10-10T00:06:00.001+11:00

This week is the the first stage of my blocking! I found it very challenging, mostly because with hopscotch, i have so many similar poses and my mentor suggested me to exaggerate the poses so that i would have contrast in between the poses, and exaggerate the weight shift. I also struggle with the frame limit, i need to cut down some of my hops so i dont exceed the frame limit. I had some dilemmas about which part i should cut out, for example: should i cut out the walks at the beginning of the scene or the ending or the hops :/. I really think i should focus on the hops.. but at the same time i would love to have the intro-content-ending aspect on my scene. Below are my process:

40% blocking:

Before i cut out the hops

After the cut out:

First pass blocking:

---

Chapter 2.1 - Hopscotch

2011-10-03T04:05:00.000+11:00

I made my mind, hopscotch is the winner! :) I was a little bit unsure on how i will draw my thumbnails.. i have tendencies to draw every details which leans to almost rotoscope my video reference. I thought i should draw this frame by frame which i tried, and it was way too complicated and extremely unclear.. and coloured pencils did not help :( i remember one of the mentor show us a thumbnail sheet on the lecture..i thought i will make my own version of the thumbnail sheet. I also made a list of the elements that i need to put on my planning so i will not forget them. At first i was still.. sort of rotoscopig my video reference.. i drew the essential poses on my thumbnail sheet.. and then, when i refined my planning.. it came to my mind an idea, that i should treat this like drawing a comic! i used to draw comics.. and why dont i apply this to my planning, maybe it'll work :) So here is my attempt, i think this works for me.. because i got the rough timing, the main key poses, and the weight shift. One thing i did not get is the distance of the translation z or whatever it is that goes forward..

---

Chapter 2.1 - The Pick List

2011-09-28T21:37:00.001+10:00

---

Chapter 12 - what? it's week 12?!

2011-09-17T11:56:00.001+10:00

Woot woot!? it's week 12! today term 1 has officially ended. It was closed by final q&a hosted by Jay :)
it goes so fast! .. too fast! people say time flies when you do something that you love :)
i'm so happy that we're all made it through class 1 and i'm so happy that i could meet a bunch of very friendly people all around the world! haha this is so cool ^^''
After 12 weeks, here is my first progress reel! shame that i have not finished my tailor revision :/ i'm going going to take some computer day off and will work on tailor before term 2 starts. Tailor is one of my favourite rig so far :) well folks, here we go:

Thank you very much to my mentor Scott Lemmer for all the awesome critiques and tips, also to all my classmates and everybody who helped me throughout the course. Thank you so much and i'll see you next term and all around campus :) !

---

Chapter 10 & 11 - Character Walk & Stu Poses

2011-09-17T11:47:00.000+10:00

The last 2 weeks were so hard for me. I chose a shy walk for my character and lots of people interpreted it as down or sad walk. It was a tough one and i learnt that it is really, really hard to convey a subtle emotion, especially in a character that has no facial expression. This is a really a lesson for me :) During these last 2 weeks, i took many of video references. It was very helpful but I had a difficulty to transfer that poses on the video to my animation. Looking back at the process, i do know why i struggled in finding the correct poses. It was because I did not make a clear thumbnail on how the footworks and the body works. It was not just about taking a lot of video reference, but it is also observe how the body works. After I submitted the assignment, i kinda find out that by seeing our upper body as ballie's head would help. At first i just observed the hips area. It has a very subtle movement which make it so difficult to see what is really going on there.

However, i treated my last weeks as a special learning week. I tried a lot of workflows. I tried to do pose to pose, combine it with straight ahead animation, the process really taught me that in order to achieve one shoot, you couldn't really stick with only 1 workflow. It was an experiment! if it didn't suit or you're not getting anything out of it, tried something else! don't be afraid to try many different workflows (as this was mentioned by my seniors yesterday during our AM gathering, yay gathering!). Practice makes perfects no? :)

Below are my works for the last 2 weeks :)

Let's start with Stu Poses:

Concerned:
Original and Revision:

Exhausted:

Original and Revision

Balance:

Original and Revision:

Click the images to view the larger version :)

Now the animations:

Vanilla Walk Revision

Character Walk Blocking

Character Walk

---

Chapter 9 - The Vanilla Walk

2011-08-29T04:34:00.002+10:00

I close week 9 with this post :) Walk cycle has been a great learning experience, really grateful that my classmate told me about the Ghost tool. It was definitely very helpful. The knee popping drive me nuts, but i really learn a lot about the importance of spacing. On the other side, posing Stu was so difficult this week. It was really hard to make a nice pose. I am happy with my pose, i tried to tweak it just now but i could not think any more and the more i tweak the weirder it becomes. So i better leave it alone.

Below are my sketches, yes there are a lot of them! I found it so difficult to portray the emotion through my drawing. So i thought the more i draw the more variation i will get :) I get my final pose from a video reference of myself. Also, I'd really thank the mentor for telling us the tips.

And these are my final Stu pose and my Vanilla Walk :

and last but not least, Revisions! :

That's all for week 9 and I happily welcome, Week 10!! :D

---

Chapter 9 - More Walk + walk cycle copy-paste tips

2011-08-26T01:08:00.004+10:00

This week we're refining our blocking and pose Stu, this week theme is Concern!! I find this very tricky because there is a very thin line between concern and devastated. I did some sketches but i feel like i still don't have a strong pose that portrays concern. My mentor suggested that we should narrow down which type of concern we're going to portray, for example will it be nervous? worried? intense? staring? etc! there are many kinds of concerns and it is hard to find the unique one! i will definitely do more sketching tomorrow :)

I also decided to make a tutorial note about copy-paste the walk-cycle key since me and my fellow classmates were discussing about it this afternoon. I will upload it here and I hope this tips would be useful! I also have to credit my classmates for teaching me the correct way to copy and paste! Apologize if there's any error/misleading.. if you had a better way to do it feel free to edit it :)
And Remember to Keep tracking your timeline! You should not rely on this 100% since this is not the base formula to do walk cycle. Keep Tracking and Refining your animation! Most importantly, Have Fun guys! Happy Animating! :D

---

Chapter 8 - The Walk! part 3

2011-08-22T05:25:00.000+10:00

Here are my blocking videos! the only difference between them is my first blocking didn't have rotation z which makes Ballie tilt to the weight where the foot steps (thanks to my friend Donna for pointing out this part!). Lesson for this week, never underestimated simple things! :)

1st Blocking:

Final Version:

---

Chapter 8 - The Walk! part 2

2011-08-20T18:18:00.005+10:00

I spent some days to really understand the walk cycle. I shot my own video reference and re-watch the lectures, i really think walk cycle is tricky and it's not as easy as it sounds ^^. I have my walk cycle planning here, i will post some of my try outs too :)

My first messy planning that i love!

Clean up :

Final Planning with some small revisions, thanks to my friends for pointing out the mistakes :)

---

Chapter 8 - Stu Pose

2011-08-19T00:24:00.003+10:00

My First Attempt applying one of the poses on Stu, it seems the silhouette is not clear ..

Change the angle:

Second Pose

I had some trouble figuring out which way the torso arch should go.. i decided to look for some image reference, and after debating with me self for hours, i really do think that it should go inwards, like this >> (

I also decided to use my Second Pose for my assignment since this pose is more readable by my friends, though i really enjoy creating the first pose :) So here is my final piece:

I'd like to thank all my friends who help me improving my work this week :)

---

Chapter 8 - Physical Strength Poses

2011-08-17T15:40:00.006+10:00

Below are my sketches for this week Stu Pose! I try not to over think about it cause I usually make myself confuse by doing that :p My favourite poses are the ones I circled. I lean towards pose no 9 because there is no props involved in that pose and it is just pure physical strength, and it is a very simple pose. I might have to do a lot of tweaking to make it seems less effortless cause at the moment it looks like he's pulling his legs up easily. The other one is no 10, the reason is simple, rock climbing is cool hahaa. I actually like no 6 and 5 too cause they have strong and long line of actions.

I browsed more basketball slam dunk photos and found Nate Robinson's photos during Sprite Slam Dunk Contest on 2010! (He's still in NY Knicks ^^). I used these photos as reference for my strength pose and I believe lots of physical strength is needed to do a slam dunk. Below is the updated sketches:

I did few more sketches, you could see them on the bottom right of the drawing area. I'd also like to thank my classmates for giving me such an awesome tips for drawing!

Complete Strength Sketches for Week 8!

---

Chapter 8 - The Walk!

2011-08-16T19:04:00.001+10:00

It's week 8 everybody! This goes too fast! (>w<)
Anyway, this week we're going to do a walk cycle! I went to the park and since there was nobody there, i decided to stay inside my car and observed the crowds. A lot of them were carrying grocery bags, back pack, and other objects, so it was a good chance to observe how the weight effects the body.

My first observation was on this guys who walked across the park. He was quite far away from the place I was sitting down so it's good, i could observe his movement without him noticing. (well.. it will be extremely awkward and embarrassing if the person caught me staring at him -o- ). I notice that there would be always this subtle movement on the chest and the head will follow up. For those who were carrying the backpack on one shoulder, I notice that the shoulder that carried the weight was tilted up and it was stiff. The object also effect on how the person is walking. My further observation also give me some new info that the way the body moves is also effected by the body shape and the personality. It was hard to observe the torso area since it was covered by the person's outfit. I also notice that the hip makes ∞ arc shape when it moves. I also clarify one thing that always confuse me, this was the hip movement when the foot makes a contact to the ground. The hip will tilt up.
Below is one of the sketch I did today, i think the observation was really helpful.

---

Chapter 7 - Tail-or part 2

2011-08-14T17:41:00.004+10:00

So .. i really pit myself into trouble .. I really struggle with my animation.. my friend told me that there are too many things going on on the screen and they suggest me to cut out some part of the animation. I totally agree with them! So I decided to simplify the animation and bring down some unnecessary decoration. I'm still refining my animation now, well it seems like it start to come together..*finger-cross.. +_+ I'm working on the timing of the tail.. Below are the progress clips:

Planning:

Modified:

Cut the end part

(i actually like the part when tailor jump on that green ball :( .. but hey, it's not about me, it's about the animation!)

Refining:

Keep Refining~

Final:

Conclusion: Tailor is very challenging ^^ I had to go frame by frame to monitor all the poses. I'm not sure if this is the right way to do it. This week i decided to go and challenge myself.. i also don't know if this a wise move or not.. hopefully everything goes well..

---

Chapter 7 - Tail-or

2011-08-10T11:38:00.004+10:00

It's week 7!! This week we're going to animate either one of the character! Taylor / One Leg! I'm super excited this week :) I'm off to plan my shoot, keep an eye of this space folks :)

---

a preview of my first plan .. i kind of feel it's too complicated.. .. do you think this is too complicated ..? i want to challenge myself a little bit.. but i'm scared i'll be overwhelmed by this ..

Complete planning:

---

Break Time!

2011-08-08T03:03:00.000+10:00

I bought Sharpies yesterday, i did some rough sketches and i could not sleep.. and i feel like drawing! i have not drawn something for awhile! (except our lovely Eager Beaver Mascot!) I miss drawing! argh! ^^ anyway.. the idea is about my heroes... It came up in my mind couple months ago and tried to draw it on computer but it did not work out.. i could not start drawing on computer :( i like the traditional pencil and paper approach.. uh well.. i think this drawing could be elaborated in the future.. i have some special plans for this.. but i dare not to plan it cause it usually will not work if I planned it.. ^^'' hope you like the drawing.. i owe AM for all the new drawing techniques they have taught me so far .. :)

---

Chapter 6 - The Pendulum part 3

2011-08-07T21:07:00.003+10:00

I have finished my the pendulum assignment. It seems simple but it is not. The more i think about it the more complicated it become. I think I do quite well for this assignment though. I think the most challenging part is to figure out how the pendulum looks like on each frame and the timing. Below is my final planning and my final version of the assignment. I'm sure there will be some stuff that need to be fixed.

So I animate the pendulum on the wrong camera view -o- Lucky my friend mentioned this on my PR.. Here is the right one:

---

Chapter 6 - Revisions

2011-08-06T00:56:00.004+10:00

I just finished my obstacle assignment revision. I have to admit that I almost defeated by this one because it was so difficult! The important lesson that i got from this assignment is that I have to spare 50-80 or even 100 frame left to let the ball settle (my friend actually told me about this, but it didn't hit me until I started making my assignment ^^''). So it's like writing an essay, there should be introduction, main body and the ending. It was difficult but fun at the same time! :) Hopefully the revision looks better!

---

Revision Updates:

This is a revision for my pose. My mentor suggested to make the pose look more appealing. In order to achieve that he suggested me to push the pose more by tweaking the legs position, move them apart so that they are not sitting on the same line and by doing that, the pose will look more 3 dimensional. Below are the drawing by my mentor and my revision:

---

Tiny Revision for weight balls assignment :)

---

Chapter 6 - The Pendulum part 2

2011-08-04T15:21:00.001+10:00

A Sneak Peek of my planning shoot. Something is not quite right here and i think it is because i let the computer do my breakdown poses .. i have to go frame by frame and see what is wrong inside! :)

Planning:

Refining:
I did some changes so it doesn't look that boring

---

Chapter 6 - The Pendulum

2011-08-03T20:54:00.000+10:00

It's the Pendulum! I'm excited to do this one. I saw many pendulum assignments on YouTube before I attend AM and i always told myself that I dont think I could do it. Now, here i am trying to animate the pendulum! this is cool :) Sneak peek of my quick planning! Trying to keep it simple :)

---

Chapter 5 - The Obstacles

2011-08-01T19:01:00.003+10:00

Obstacle assignment was.. sooo tough!! It was really a challenge and I think I started to get the understanding of the whole concept (timing, spacing, anticipation). These concepts sound very simple, however it took me quite awhile to be able understand the flow and co-operate them in my animation. It was really a tough assignment for me and im sure it was too for everybody else, but it was a really good exercise.. I am very anxious to receive e-critique from my mentor this week ^^'' .. Here are my process:

Planning:

This is my initial plan .. there's gonna be a slight change on my first blocking cause i thought the shoot is too plain.. so i decided to make the ball slides~ ..

Blocking:

Well.. it became a little bit hard to settle the ball .. cause the slides accelerate the movement and i found it super hard to stop the ball... and i feel like it was not a good call to continue the idea especially I only got 30 frame-ish left to make the ball settle :/ so I went back to my original plan..

Re-Blocking 1:

Re-Blocking 2:

Final:

This was one hard assignment haha! I had a lot of trouble trying to settle the ball and i find it so hard to make the perfect rotation for the ball.. I kind of feel that these have become my recurring problems.. :( I hope I could find a way to fix these issues. I'm still not happy with my final piece too...But like what i've said, this was a really good exercise! I'm really nervous now ^^

---

*Beep Beep this is an extra clip!
My Revision for last week assignment!

I hope I showed the weight contrast better :)

---

Chapter 5 - Devastation

2011-08-01T18:28:00.001+10:00

So this is my process in achieving my devastation pose.. and I listened to some old sad Laruku songs while I was posing Stu, just to set me in the mood ^^..so here i go:

This was the first attempt .. it was so hard to tackle the overlapping body parts.. (although now that i look at it again.. the pose actually didn't look that bad..-_-)

So I talked to my classmate and he gave me some suggestion to tweak the pose a little bit, I take his suggestion and put his hand on his head to provide a clear silhouette.

Comparison:

I feel the pose on the right is more stronger, I decided to go with that one!

More tweaking on his legs, arms, hands, and tiny tweak on the weight shift ..

The one before the final tweak:

I got more suggestions from my friends after I uploaded the pose above, which were to lower the head a little bit and to clench his fist a little bit more:

tadaa! I uploaded that one.. I actually did some last minute tweaking on the pose.. but I had a trouble with the image file. The colour that I got from Maya was changed drastically when I imported it into Photoshop. I tried to re-render, took a screen shot of it and i had no luck.. I have no idea why.. I really want to upload this newest version, but I did not manage to do it in time..this is soo ironic, i'm still Devastated i didn't upload this version hahaha .. but hey it is a lesson, I need to keep moving on, don't I? Well folks.. hope you like it :)

---

Lesson of The Week: "I Should Not Listen To Any Musics While Animating"

Well some people able to do that.. but I found that I was really distracted >.< so my solution was to play only 1 favourite song during my 5 minute break! and afterwards, I continue Animating! Yeaah! :D

Chapter 5 - Time Flies

2011-07-27T22:36:00.000+10:00

Well the theme of this week is.. time flies.. it does ^^' It's week 5 people! :) This week we have to make another Stu pose. The theme is Devastation. I have done some sketches.. I did not sketch as many as the those I did for the excitement pose. This time i want to let my right brain works. I would like to challenge myself whether I could elaborate much from the pose that I have now. In my previous work I did not manage to apply all the animation principles to my pose. I particularly missed staging. So this time around I want to add some stories for the pose. Wish me luck ^^ ..

Here are the sketches:

Quick Revision on Photoshop:

---

Chapter 4 - More Bouncy Balls! part 3

2011-07-25T00:26:00.002+10:00

Bouncy ball is not as simple as it sounds after all. It is really tricky to get the right timing for me. I mentioned that I used animation snapshot to refine my spacing. However, this is not a really good idea. I happened to become too attach with the tool that I forgot to check how the animation looks like without the snapshot. So the lesson is, the snapshot is good to check the timing and the distance of the balls, however it is not a tool to determine the entire movement of the ball. I also find it tricky to determine when the ball start losing its momentum..(i hope i got this right..) so the bounce starts to die out..I also did my revision for last week, i hope they are going to be all right.

My Revisions:

This week assignment:

---

I forgot to post my planning. Planning was a lot of fun! It is almost like evoking the uni student inside me hehe :) So here I go:

... i have tiny hand writing, click the image to view the larger version :)

---

Chapter 4 - More Bouncy Balls! part 2

2011-07-22T00:14:00.002+10:00

My problem last week was timing and spacing. During q&a i consulted my biggest problem with my mentor :) He offered some tips and at the moment i'm trying to apply it on my animation!
Happy animating everyone!

These are the progress so far:

Planning:

Blocking:

Enable the snapshot to check my spacing! This helps me to reduce the snappy contact as well :)

---

Re-Blocking:

Chapter 4 - More Bouncy Balls!

2011-07-20T16:16:00.003+10:00

We're going to animate two balls that have different weight this week! I also took my own reference video and i'm going to post it here.. hopefully this video reference could help you all :) . Okay, here we go :

---

Chapter Three - Bouncy Ball Animation

2011-07-17T23:27:00.002+10:00

We're animating a ball this week! This week did not go that well for me .. starting with grumpy people at the cinema, alarm clock did not ring several times, and poor time management. Well this is a lesson learnt, next time i should now which one is my priority.. *phew.. so this is the animation that i did:

---

Revision:

---

Chapter Three - Who's Excited? part 3

2011-07-16T00:02:00.005+10:00

Finally i finished tweaking my final pose .. following are the steps that i did to tweak the poses :

i noticed some overlapping part on the shoulder area ..and i had the same issue on my last week's pose .. so i tweak it again .. so that my pose has better silhouette ..

and finally.. with the aid of rendering tutorial from my classmate! (thank you so much ^^)

I hope he looks excited ^^

---

Revision

---

More Revision

I really want to thank my friends for all the feedback :) I have to admit that i got very attached to my pose.. and reading all the feedbacks really reminds me that I should see this as one scene that needs to be done and i need to listen to my peers, analyse, and develop the suggestions creatively :)

---

Chapter Three - Who's Excited? part 2

2011-07-15T15:20:00.001+10:00

Posing Stu ..!

I found out a new way to fix the pose. Following is the step by step tutorial :

render your pose
open it in photoshop
create a new layer on top of your rendered image.
re-sketch the image in photoshop. save as.
return to maya and put the edited image on the image plane. (It is the 4th icon from the left on your viewport menu)
On your viewport, select camera attributes icon, choose your imagePlane tab and set the Display to : looking through camera, so that it only visible to one particular camera. You could also customize the alpha gain to the level you want.
Turn on the Xray mode and start tweaking!

Original

Insert the edited image on the image plane

Tweak! and voila!

---

Chapter Three - Who's Excited? part 1

2011-07-13T22:49:00.005+10:00

So this week we have new assignments which are sketching a pose about excitement and apply that on Stu, and the other one is to animate a ball. I am going to start with the sketch first.
So today i went to the cinema to see Harry Potter TDH Part 2, which was super awesome :). I was hoping to see some actions in the cinema. Sadly, the plan did not go that well..Some of the customers there did not look excited. I even saw a grumpy dad with his kid.. (i was like .. whaa?) .. anyway, in a nut shell.. i did not capture any excited pose.. :( I did sketch few poses while i was waiting for my friends:

Well...they all didn't look excited. I like the one on top right though. I was quite disappointed because i didn't manage to draw the poses, so i decided to switch to plan B, which i actually did not plan ^^''. I unconsciously observed the body language of the people surround me. I still remember there was this kid that looked excited. I did not manage to sketch him because i was filling my drink up -o-. So back to the boy, i kind of feel that the excitement effects the way he walked. I notice there was a lot of energy when he walked. It was shown through the weight shift when his lower body parts moving, which automatically effects the upper body parts movement as well. His head was held high, with wide smiles on his face, and his arms swung beside his body.

That was the only detailed observation I did. I felt I need to do more research so I went to YouTube to browse some footages. During the research, I kind of think that there is a thin line between excited and surprised. I might have think too much about this. However, this footage that i found, this is clearly show excitement. I'm going to use this for my reference :). I'll write more after my sketching session.. i should not spent a lot of time for this one cause i still have to animate the ball. :)

---

I sketched more poses:

---

Revision:

So I was talking with my friend earlier today, and got some feedback from him. It seems that my poses are not strong enough and some of them did not convey the idea of excitement, which i agree ^^. After the convo, i know what i am missing on my drawing.. it is the background story, the essence. My friend suggested me to put more action, a gesture that convey excitement. I found this very challenging since i dont want it to look cliche :) .. i think i am going to spend some time with my sketchbook :) ..

---

More and more sketches:

I did a new experiment today, i felt so stuck and watching video reference did not do any good to me.. so I record my own! ..and umm i am not going to post the video! ^^''

I continue to draw my pose from my video reference, and the image above is the result. However, I still feel not good about them. My last pose (22) I got that one from google image and i decided to choose that one because the other day I drew a beaver and it used the same pose. I remember the reason I drew the beaver is because i am very happy and always excited to see my friends in eager beaver groups. It is always exciting to visit the group because I always find something new that could learnt! So.. i might have crossing the line about being too attach with my own work, but i think i have to trust my gut this time :)

I think I learnt a lot more about sketching this week, my campus mentor Chris Chua, he gave me tips and trick which were very helpful! I applied the method he gave me and i think it works really well..

So next on my post would be.. posing with Stu!

Eager Beavers! Yeah!

2011-07-12T21:02:00.002+10:00

I was taking a break and suddenly i want to draw a beaver ... i spent the last couple of weeks with the most awesome community i have ever met .. so this is kind of a tribute for them :)

To all my eager beavers family :)

you guys are super awesome .. Cheers!

---

Note: i have never observed a beaver before.. i am surprise to find out that they have webbed hind-feet. I found it in this website.

Chapter Two - The Poses part 6

2011-07-10T16:59:00.003+10:00

These are the poses that got a lot of votes from the beavers.. I got a little bit confused with which one i should use .. so i decided to re-sketched each poses and see which one that has the most interesting LoE.. my personal favourites are 14,16,17, and 21 ..

I decided to choose no 17 because it shows a long LoE.. and shows the entire body shape.. I also think 14 has a lot of potential.. but i dont want that big bag obstructing the view.. it could be a good challenge though :).. i previously have also tried out pose no 22 .. I like the outcome .. but i dont think i want to submit a dead body of stu for my 2nd assignment at school ^^'' ..

This is my first try out of pose 17

---

Revision

I received feedbacks from some of my friends about the FK arm ..oh gosh .. i found it a little bit difficult to work with FK controller .. I always work with IK controller and i find it very easy to change the shape. Uh well, i think this is because i hardly use FK controller that's why it felt so difficult. I also found out when i changed the FK arm, I also have to change the shape of the whole body..

Revision 2

More fix for the pose! i was advised to bend his torso a little bit (thanks steve) .. i think the tips work.. i obtain a more natural FK arm bend .. oh FK .. i really relly have a hard time with you! i think this is my final pose for the assignment :) i will edit the light .. it looks so gloomy now ^^

The process:

change log:

1. First attempt

2. Tweak the body and head. Bend the FK arm to give balance to the pose

3. Bend on torso area, more fix on FK arm. Change the head direction

---

Chapter Two - The Poses part 5

2011-07-08T23:32:00.006+10:00

Posing with Stu ^^

Stu is .. murdered ...

Revision:

I received a lot of feedback from the beavers ^^ .. cheri and walter told me about the natural action of the hands.. even though the person is laying on the ground.. a hand shape should not laying straight like the one i had on my pose.. there should be a slight bend on the fingers and any other hand area.. it is such a great advise because it did not come across my mind at all.. I tried to apply that on my revision pose above :)

At the moment i have difficulties to choose my final pose.. i just watched the assignment video again.. i think i will spend some time refining some of my favourite poses...

---

Pose 2

this pose is more difficult than the first one i did .. i am a little bit worried about this one because the meaning of the the final pose (bottom left) is sort of departed from the meaning of the original pose..

---

Revision

trying to fix the pose ... but it is still not quite right ...

---

Chapter Two - The Poses part 4

2011-07-08T15:51:00.005+10:00

I have compiled my sketches.. following are the poses I chose.. My favourite is #12

---

Chapter Two - The Poses part 3

2011-07-08T13:30:00.002+10:00

I sketched more poses, but this time I did it using a different approach. I chatted with Yen-Shih couple days ago and he told me that we are allowed to draw based on a still image. I think that is a really good idea and it did not come across my mind. So I decided to sketch the poses based on image stills from the television series and 2 statues at my home. I found that it was easier for me to draw the pose through this method because it allows me to analyse the body shape and the line of actions thoroughly. One benefit from this method is that I could pause the television whenever I saw a good pose happening. The flaw would be the inability to observe the whole pose due to the scene framing. The solution for this is simply to re-create the pose by yourself and ask someone to take a picture of you... and that would be.. a little bit.. awkward.. ^^

This time I also have an upgrade for my sketches. They are not so stick figure-y now! They have boxes to represent their body parts! and these boxes really help A lot .. :)
Now I am going to pick my poses .. and i might need your help to choose my final ones ..
see you shortly :)

---

Chapter Two - The Poses part 2

2011-07-06T15:57:00.002+10:00

I did a test two days ago. This is Stu doing a salute. I like the first render .. but I feel that the pose is very stiff.. It is supposed to be stiff because he is giving a salute, but the pose looks so unappealing.. So I tried to break down the stiffness and give a little bit of an arc in his pose.. I still feel something is not quite right.. I hope you guys could help me :)

---

Revision:

not much change for the revision, i took some advises from the beavers :) but it seems i really couldn't do much for this pose .. i will leave it here and continue to practice with other poses :)

---

Chapter Two - The Poses part 1

2011-07-06T12:47:00.002+10:00

I went to the park yesterday to sketch up some people. Unfortunately there were only a kid with his bicycle, his dad, me, and my dogs. There were also a lot of people working on the construction site. I found it quite a challenge since i have never done this before. It was so hard to sketch them because they kept moving. At some point i became a little bit upset because i saw them in such a great pose but i was unable to draw it and the poses happened just only in a split second. I decided to record their activities and um ... it appears that i recorded the whole action wrongly, so i pretty much got .. nothing ^^''. Well it was a challenge, i guess i just have to do it more often and get used with the process :)

Some stuff that I learnt from yesterday was I become more aware about the line of actions that happen in the body. As I struggled to draw the pose, I decided to draw the line of actions first and then continue to draw the figure. Somehow it really helped me.. the tricky part would be when I drew the legs and hip. The reason is because when I reviewed the poses I drew.. I got them all mixed up. I confused with which one is the right leg and which one is the left leg and which way the hip is moving..

Here are my best attempts. I should do more drawings from now on..not an ordinary drawing, but a speed drawing.. hehe. Well folks.. Say hi to my stick figures! ^^ .. don't laugh! ^^''

---

Chapter One - New Class

2011-07-03T01:29:00.014+10:00

After the uber long wait, the class has officially started. It was fun to finally see everybody in the class and everybody else around the campus. My mentor is Scott Lemmer! It is really an honour to meet and have him as our mentor. I really looking forward for everything that is going to happen this term!

The first week in the campus is pretty much an introductory week. I have a chance to explore the web site an check out the training videos. I definitely have to try out stop motion animation. it looks hard but also fun at the same time.

I also have a personal project. I drew something last week, I still have not finished it.. I better finish it before it is outdated ^^'' ..

Pre - Animation Mentor Works

2011-07-01T23:15:00.009+10:00

Hii..I just finished editing my old works. I thought it would be nice to compile them together and make it as my reel :). I find it very interesting that when I edited the videos and scrubed the timeline, I found so many mistakes and errors. I am glad the works that i did are not 100% perfect. This really tell me that I still have a Lot of things that need to be learnt. I would love to hear what you guys think about the animation :) comments and critiques are highly appreciated!

My New Animation Mentor Blog! :D

2011-06-27T17:34:00.003+10:00

After all tweaking, fixing, and the huge urge to keep fixing and re-designing my blog .. I am happy to say that now my blog is up and running! (*fiuhh! finally.. I always have this obsession to re-design the blog, ugh -_-!..) I also have re-located all of the old entries to other blogs too :).. this page is now become my Animation Mentor Blog! :D speaking of AM.. tomorrow is going to be my first day in AM :D i'm so happy and excited! It truly feels official now :)