Throwing Money At It

There's nothing worse than a blog that doesn't get updated is there? Well I promise that mine will soon be out of that phase.

I've been feeling very lethargic lately, which is nothing new I guess, but it's been getting to the point lately where I just can't bring myself to work at home. However I've been taking steps to get myself "back in the game" as they say.

Firstly, I have managed to scrape together the money for the new DVD version of Richard Williams' Animator's Survival Kit, which is about the closest I'm ever likely to afford to a proper animation course. The set is comprised of 16 discs containing a combination of the book that most of us animators own, along with Richard's famous Animation Masterclass. I'm watching them in order, and am so far up to disc 3. I've actually learned some really useful things from it so far, which I'm glad about as it begins to justify the large cost!

Also I thought it was about time I actually got some use out of my animation desk. It has been sitting idle for quite a few months now for two reasons. Firstly, the draftsman's chair that accompanies it is very old and inhabited by untold numbers of critters, making me rather reluctant to park my derriere on it! Secondly, as much as I want to do things the traditional way with paper and pencils, it just takes so bloody long to get from paper drawings to final video, even if scanning things into the computer. For that reason, all the 2D animation I have done recently has been on my Cintiq tablet.

So I have decided to really get into the digital domain and combine my Cintiq with my animation desk. I will shortly be bolting the tablet to the animation disc, allowing me complete rotational freedom with it. I have also just bought a very, very small notebook computer which will also live on the desk in order to allow the Cintiq to function and also display the timeline for my digital animations.

Finally, I've ordered a new draftsman's chair, which will hopefully only become home to me and not anything with six legs.
So there you have it - a very expensive way of digging myself out of a rut!

Birthday Blues and Beauty Sleep

Well I turned 26 yesterday, but boy do I feel a lot older than that!

I'm soooooooo tired lately. I wake up at 6am every morning, and sometimes at 5, but don't go to be until about midnight. 6 hours of sleep is just not enough. Only myself to blame though!

In between my Lego work today, I made this dreadful excuse for an animation. It's not so bad in terms of movement, but it's really badly drawn. It's a combination of my lack of knowledge of what a gorilla actually looks like and a sheer lack of drawing practice.

I tried drawing a human hand the other day. I was shocked. This is the standard I used to be able to accomplish, but the one I drew recently looked like a 10 year old had done it. For ages I avoided doing any actual animation because I always thought my drawing skills were too weak. The annoying thing is that now I'm trying more animation, I'm not so focussed on the technicalities of drawing, so my standard is plummeting.

I would absolutely love to take a month off work and do nothing but draw every day. I really need that.

On another note, I got Sleeping Beauty on Blu-ray last week. I've only had a quick look at the main feature so far (I'm saving it for closer to Christmas) but I'm stunned by how it looks. It could almost have been animated yesterday. There is a really interesting extra with it called "Four Artists Paint One Tree", which is a fascinating comparison of the working methods of four Disney artists as they all paint the same tree in very different ways. Really interesting stuff.