Homestuck for lyfe

AAAAAAAA I was sort of going to update yesterday night but then I forgot?!
Well, it's my last day here before Christmas. Everything appropriate has been packed (except for the laptop and some accessories) and... yeah. My bus leaves at 10.00. *PANICKY FLAIL*
Oh just let me link it here too, never too much linking to any of my videos HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

If I could have added some actual animation it would've been very cool. Alas, I had evenings and two weekends and I'm super slow. I still kind of like it though the jittery planets make me, too, a bit jittery. Stupid planets.

And in other news have not gotten much else done since I've been so nervous for the whole week and have been trying to relax and kept failing in it. I have a lot of life drawing to do on the holidays, backgrounds to colour and a nice brief we got for Lock Down! It's about these 1920/30 moving postcards and it seems really interesting, I love looping photographs!

Oh man now I need to go and pack. Oh man oh man oh man and this same thing is going to happen when I finally leave in January. :S

Kekkonen Kekkonen Kekkonen

Here are two pictures of this strange place in "winter":

 The oaks (???) in the park have held onto their leaves the longest.

Some flower thingy. After this one I saw rats in the park yay!

Whoops! Suddenly it's my last weekend here before Christmas!
I've been learning so much during the last month. I've drawn some backgrounds on some serious business animator paper and tried to get myself to understand what traditional Western animation styles might have to give to me. There are some things indeed, but I'm still taking baby steps. Quite surprisingly, I've learned a lot about using Premiere and After Effects! I seriously never thought this would be a thing, but I can actually touch them now and not scream and run away as they explode my work. Totally patting myself in the back here, pats all around!

I only noticed it was our Independence Day on the sixth because I was relayed this fact on the previous night. I never thought about it before but I realised that the UK does not have a day for independence, and this is... I don't know what it is and I don't really know if it makes any difference but I feel... well, it must be different celebrating things like "that one time we sent people to die" and not have it mean something as big as independence. I suppose those kind of things are always supposed to mean that the sacrifice was worth something but I do wonder what exactly. They have the fifth of November here though (which I didn't know was a real thing until I came here) and a Remembrance day for the WWII (which is more like Remembrance week if you ask me), when all the old people wear paper poppies on their chest. It was quite cool, almost like seeing a secret society forming around you spotting all those poppies on people in the street and on the bus and on the tube.

I'm still working on the HS title sequence, and with some urgency since I can't go to the school computers to work on it on Sunday?! Goddamn you English students who do not come to school on Sundays. So yeah, I need to draw loads today and compose the whole thing tomorrow. AAAAAAAA! Due to this haven't really got much done on our music video thing. To anyone who might be reading this, I'm sorry D:

Also I have a Christmas meal coming up with the GameSoc people on Sunday. Exciting. Also also also.

I've seen 30 episodes of Revolutionary Girl Utena in three days. I love internet streams.

Intermission: Homestuck

To quote: Homework? More like Homestuck...
No, this is actually my homework. Sometimes you get to do things for homework that are a lot more palatable than others. You need to go to tumblr to see the rest of them, though! I need to get this whole title sequence thing done for next Monday and it's... sooo biiig... The fact that it's for Homestuck is probably the only reason I can imagine I could lose some sleep working on it, which is all according to keikaku! Have also been drawing more backgrounds for video but with these didn't have a lot of time this weekend for anything else. :(

Another month over

I bring you another 11secondclub video! I really liked the idea of getting to draw the vampire detective and, uh, someone to accompany him. I would have liked to add a background and maybe even I dunno moving smoke, but obviously didn't have any time for that. The hit at the end is a bit lame but I'm not quite sure what to do with it. Anyway! For now I'm brushing this off as finished.

Now I should be working on a title sequence mission we got which is, to tell a short story long, to complete making a title sequence for a movie/series/book/webcomic???, I suppose preferably using After Effects while commencing the compiling of the masterpiece. So I figured I might do Homestuck. Now I just need to figure out hooooooow
*howls into the night with three wolf moon*

Today I drew my first official industry layout of a background for the music video. It was awesome. I discovered it might not be so bad to be drawing simple backgrounds on paper. Also I went to see the Adventures of Tintin with Sam! It was an entertaining watch, the only thing that maybe bugged me was the huge face masses of captain Haddock, the Dupond(t)s and Castafiore. I think they could have achieved the same profile even without placing the face into a sea of cheek? I really liked the part where they, uhh, travel through the Baghar town, in 3D it felt like playing Mirror's Edge at it's best moments. Also it had a lot of Tintin-appropriate slapstick and I loved the title sequence! As my first voyage into the land of British cinemas I note down the facts that 1. you cannot see which seats the cashier gives to you before getting the ticket; 2. what you can do is choose between centre and side; 3. after passing the ticket checkpoint lady you could theoretically sneak into any showing; 4. They show A LOT of advertisements. We got out of there at 16.30 and it officially started at 14.30 at 107 minutes so that's like 23 minutes of consumerism since we came 10 minutes early and that was also almost all advertisements. Wow.

Yeah. So now I hope I'll be working on either more backgrounds or the title sequence for the rest of the evening. Or I might watch some anime because I have lost my wits and am stark raving mad and all that. I hope you'll have a good night tonight whatever stupid thing you may be doing!

In which we find our heroes in a predicament

Oh dear. Well at least it is finished, even if that is the only thing you can say about it. Seriously though I'm quite happy with where I got with the time I had; colours would have been really nice but I ran out of time in a big way. Some other things could also be better! I don't care!

Things I need to finish before school is over:

1st deadline, Wednesday 30th Nov: 
-After-Effectsify own parts of music video
 -requires: redrawing of panels, scanning the panels,, wacom, a hardy computer
2nd deadline Wednesday 30th Nov:
- finish 11SecondClub
 -requires: some time
3rd deadline Wednesday 8th Dec: 
-Have showreel of storyboards and progress shots ready
-make everything pretty
-remember to be critical (I hear this should be easy because "that's essentially what you are!")
 -requires: time!! After Effects?? Premiere??
4th deadline 15th Jan:
-All the backgrounds coloured (6-8 space, something else)
-idk everything????!! (includes 8 A2 pictures/spreads, 6? 3? A3 background images, 11secondclubs,can't remember)
-Showreel for Lockdown of all animation work
-Life drawing portfolio (crazy(remember the figures in environment and domestics!))

That probably is not all of them. But this is a good personal checklist, maybe I'll update when I find the briefs!

Gggnnhnh

Dear diary,

Once again I have reached a point in my studies where I feel I am absolutely useless as an animator. I have tried to make a whacking animation better per teacher's suggerstion for six hours and it just seems to get worse. I just... I just don't know anything!! Where do I put the slow bits??!! What makes a whack look hard?!?! I feel like the stupidest animator student alive, why do I not know this? ;____;;; If there was a god or maybe several I'd be dramatically calling out to one right now to please just let me go home and not finish this task because I CAN'T I SUCK THE TEACHER IS DISAPPOINTED WHY DID I EVEN THINK I COULD MAKE IT THIS IS STUPID I AM STUPID why can't I just spend my days reading erotic literature and drawing comics

listening to porcupine tree's most depressing songs like a boss here

i want a hug

In which mirrors are broken

I just wanted to show you this thing I made and then promptly forgot about! One of the weekly tasks was to create a business card appropriate for whatever it is that you are doing. I tried my hand at it with comics, and I think it's kind of fun despite the fact that I may never find a printing company to print it for me in this shape. The character here is from a long-planned comic project of modern-day fair folk not unlike plants in their nutritional system.

Now I need to be at school. Better posts maybe later this week!

In which we find our heroes disappointed with themselves

I am disappointed with my slow blogging rate. I am disappointed with the fact that I never take pictures and so people will never believe I've actually been to places.

I am most disappointed with my animation rate. I think it is the natural course of events that when you start by placing the bar reasonably high you will always look back and realise the things you have done later will never match that first big bang. But somehow I just feel really lazy recently. This may have something to do with the other fact that my body reacts aggressively to breaking the healthy routine, and so the weekend spent on London got me really off track on both sides of the three days. I am currently in a state of suspicion over whether I am messing something up horribly by not working on my every waking hour. This is the feeling I am most familiar with when working at all, actually. Gods. I need a secretary.

I will let you know when I have stuff to show! This one thing should be ready next Wednesday, and then at the end of the month I should have another 11secondclub tag for you. Wonderful. In the meantime I will be working on concept art which I am probably not allowed to flaunt since it is like actual work. :/ Also small things like a character turnaround which I also cannot show. Or I am definitely not sure if I can show. Anyway. Bare with me!

in which there is not much information shared

Just a quick update before I have to dive back into the pile of unfinished work. Caricature work is done. Have keyed the new 11 Second Club animation. Music video animatic is progressing slowly... This week I'm also supposed to do an ident animation in the spirit of E4 stings, which are a bit like the ancient Mtv idents. Naturally I decided to go for the most laborious possible option. Probably not going to finish it in time though. Already feeling the disappointed looks of teachers in my neck. Lay it off, teachers! Girls just wanna have fun!

In which there is relevant animation content

This is the lipsync task for last month, or more like for the last two weeks of last month. I'm probably not going to work on this any more since the official deadline for submissions is/was today and we need to start working on this month's voice track tomorrow. I'd really like to try animating in the style of Adventure Time but since I don't know anything about the track I can't really make any decisions yet. Also I don't know if I should start training myself in paper animation since that is the big thing here... And the music video is going to be animated on paper... it is sort of terrifying.

Today we had storyboarding in the morning and caricature drawing in the afternoon. I chose Alan Rickman asdföakll I can't draw
I just
Well, on the sixth try I actually got something out that faintly did resemble Mr Rickman but then I only had the head and it looked like the type of caricatures you get in newspapers and not like an animated caricature and I kind of was supposed to have the body too and people thought it was someone from Star Trek. >::::P For next week we need to draw a proper version of a caricature and sculpt a 3D model as well. Bleugh.

Even with the clocks turned back it's finally getting darker here. The temperatures feel like they're a month late and with no snow to look forward to I don't know how I'll handle the dark until Christmas. On the other hand that's the exact same thing you get in Finland so I guess I'm just going to be fine, plus it has been a lot dryer than one might imagine, I must have some sort of a freak power that any foreign country I got to gets freaky weather for the first weeks I spend there, and then that freaky weather messes up the whole rest of the year. That is clearly why it's still so warm.

Oh! and about last weekend: I don't really know if anyone comes here from somewhere else than facebook, but I kind of like flaunting certain pictures around. Like this one, which inefficiently documents my purchases from last Saturday's CMC Expo, which, in essence, was what we in Finland would call a dealers' room. In a great big hall.

I bought All three volumes of the lovely Hemlock, Stone Monkey (just for the colours), Sea volume 1 (on hindsight I think I should have taken them all), Omnipathy, a quirky short comic, and a tote from, uhh, the people who make things like Leopards and Leotards.

I find myself wishing I'd have time to draw my own things. Like... Homestuck fanart.

Pepsi problem

Whoops!
This is the first part of the rotoscoping task, e.g. the one I actually finished. The idea could have been better but... yeah. Rotoscoping. I haven't made much progress with the other part (it was about boats) now since it became less mandatory. I have trouble knowing when our teacher is pleased vs. not pleased with something, but he did say it might seem like Pepsi is a litter problem. Well. I totally meant it that way. >::::/ In other news, I'm going to London MCM Expo tomorrow! I have the best classmates. Which reminds me I should probably go and print that ticket right now, before I forget. And then animate some more jellyfish for lipsync. Have a good weekend, everyone!

Cough cough

I have a smidgeon of a time here and writing seemed like a better idea than sleeping. Also sharing a picture or maybe two.
I think I finally caught the cough that has been pestering my room mates. Niiice,
We're currently doing rotoscoping. The actual point of it, I guess, was to learn to use masking in After Effects, but I am completely skipping that part and just rotoing in PS. Such a rebel here, yeah, you lookin at a man making his own path! The brief we got doesn't really incorporate vector rotoscoping well, as in trying to market pepsi with a certain aesthetic to preschoolers and the elderly. Amazing. It's kind of brainless, so much that I can't seem to be able to concentrate on it properly. Might also be the exhaustion left over from last week that has leaked over to this week in the form of short nights. I really despise having to sleep less than 7 hours and last night was the third in a row. I know I have to rise tomorrow relatively early to go swimming again and then to animate until late at night so I can't even sleep in, I just have to sleep enough.

We have so much to do. It's all interesting but there's just so much of it. I kind of like doing dope sheets for lip sync.

This was Southampton when I arrived a month ago: Now it's all brown orangey and stair-y and just
This is what is it. All the time. Oh the good old days when we had proper sun and proper temperatures.

Gggghhh

You may gaze upon the humble author now with scorning looks.

Herkkä hetki from Anayte Delahay on Vimeo.

I am so not in touch with youtube and it's whys and hows. For example, why is the quality shit? I howl into the night and my howl goes unheard.

For references sake, this has 130 or so frames all on twos. I put all the time I had this week into animating this... and still it looks like it does. It's all Photoshop now except that because I am a fool I composed the actual video on Flash, good program, best friend. Photoshop only gets a timeline function in the CS5 version so I worked with the weird frame system. And sucked. But you can only suck so long in a given thing before you have to stop sucking!
I literally finished it right before the clock turned 12PM in this horrible Sunday night. Didn't get the lipsync task done... but oh well. I'll take a look at the program later.

You know what would be nice?

It would be nice if I didn't take up huge goals and start working on them one day, thinking I could use all week for them and planning accordingly, and then the next day get more work for the same deadline. That would be nice. I either need to learn to animate faster or to animate less. :/ Previous is preferable.

I have been putting all my free time into the most recent animation task we got, hilariously going by our school's motto "it can be anything". The requirement was that it needs to be one shot and it needs to be "finished".

I will show them. I will show them all. I got at least 110 frames at this point. It's all shit but it is fabulous learning shit.

But first I may fail handing in my lip sync task on Monday.

Observations:
Crows are black.
Squirrels are grey.
Nobody reads Homestuck
and anime is gay.

Actually I think quite many people would willingly watch good anime if given the chance. I got major spoiled about Naruto the other day. I also finally have both decent chocolate and decent tea in the house, life is nearing perfect from 0,1% all the way to 10%.

Our first fight

I had my first exchange crisis over the weekend! Yaaaay. I had just done my showreel on Friday and then had to work on pitch pictures and I felt completely incompetent. I just couldn't communicate what I wanted and I was the shittiest animator on earth and everyone else was so much more laborious and I might have been a tiny bit homesick too. But maybe that was more about having someone to physically hold on to rather than actually being home, because mostly things have been considerably easy here. I also cried in front of people I really didn't know that well (that seems to be my default strategy in a crisis) and I feel I confused them when the crying took so long to stop. I am already learning new things about myself, like that I am a crybaby! Also that I like to throw fits. I would like to think they make me feel better faster in the end but really I'm not even sure about that.

Anyway, I'm okay now, plunged myself into new stupid things to do, like animating in Photoshop - what sort of an idiot came up with that?? I need to have this finished by next Monday and I am so bad and it is so slow and AAAAAAAAAAAAAARARARGRRGH!! This taught me that despite what I previously may have thought I am actually pretty well off with Flash because goddamn if this isn't the worst animation I've ever done. D: I will show you when it's ready and then you may cry with me.

I think my new swimming hobby might be at a crucial role in keeping me alert enough to do animation for nine hours a day. This is the first time in my life I've ever paid for being able to exercise and... it's okay. Today I came home super tired, maybe because I didn't go to the family pool afterwards like usually to get my water massage (???), but usually it's been - dare I even say it - ...refreshing? Maybe all the exercise propaganda is just getting under my skin. Anyway, for some reason I always manage to buy really stupid things in the store after swimming. Today I bought:

dried fruit in fancy package x 2

scone x 2

cornish pasty x 2

I have to say I prefer lihapiirakka to that huge pasty thing. It was too big. There was too much... not meat. Taste was bland. I guess this was to be expected.

After this short but crucial update I am so ready to go to bed. Tomorrow: school from 9 to 6, then more animating. Goodnight!

This is my 18th day in Southampton, England

...and only now I could find the coordination in me to put together a stupid blog. And even now I should be doing something completely different, namely animating my name and a surprised boy and changing Flash movies into .movs or so I heard. But I'm not. Because.
This week has been my first with real lessons. The first two went by trying to figure out how to buy food and how to walk to school and how to survive in the bureaucracy jungle that Southampton Solent University. This week has been about getting my first homework, despairing over how good everyone else probably is and trying to make some friends. In the course of the few months I will be spending here I hope to be able to write about the easy things and the hard things so that maybe next year's exchange students might know how to do stuff better and also so that I will remember what there is to enjoy about this whole huge thing that is trying to turn me into a different person altogether and wow. I've done a lot of new things while being here. Like gone to a pub. Shocking! More about all the things later, I need to start walking to get to Rock Band this evening!