When it rains...

My mom quotes Hee-Haw when she speaks about life, to wit: "If I didn't have bad luck, I'd have not luck at all." It really does seem that as soon as things begin to clear up for me, I have an immediate reversal of fortune. Everything was on track, I was all set to finish up my animation roughs for last week when suddenly my mother-in-law was in the hospital with breathing problems. Panic. Manic action. Run around helter-skelter. Sleep deprivation. And then, everything turns out okay (she had a drug interaction the her pharmacist and doctor did not catch). But, once again, it puts me behind the eight ball.

Which is a place that I'm beginning to get used to. Unfortunately.

So, in playing catch up, I have animated my brains out over the weekend, culminating in getting six shots of rough animation out. I'm glad I'm working in limited hand drawn animation - no, honestly, I am. That's not a snyde remark, because I am really beginning to dig the rough hewn look of the animation. I am just hopeful it will translate well once the cels are properly cleaned up and colored. I'm going to need to do a test for that fairly soon, but I think it will turn out okay.

Speaking of testing, I'm giving serious consideration to building the set for the gray warehouse scene in Maya and then taking still shots for use as backgrounds. Why? I'm discovering that the biggest skill I lack in animating (2D) is draftsmanship. I am a terrible draftsman, and although that might not be a problem with figure animation (I'm looking at you Bill Plymton), it is when that backgrounds look crappy. At least doing it this way I will be able to get the camera angles right. Again, need to test and figure it out.

So, what's next? More animating. Lots and lots of animating - because I saved all the big, long, difficult shots for the very end. And everything else of course.

Until next time. Stay tuned...