Observing while being observed.

This afternoon I went out again to a few different places to sketch. I was much more successful thankfully although I still found it difficult because people don't exactly stand there and hold that awesome poses while you draw them!! (I need to invest in some sort of carbon thingamagiggy, like what they did with han solo but portable)
The most interesting part of the day was when I went bowling with a friend. I was drawing in-between goes and the people next to us where just fascinated that anyone would be drawing in a bowling alley. I'm pretty sure they though I was drawing them which I might have if they had done something more interesting than sit there and pretend not to look at me!! I'm thinking off taking my sketch book every time I bowl because it loosened me right up and I bowled 126 and 127 which is pretty good for me.
Tonight I dove into Maya and was really taken back at just how fiddly Stu is to manoeuvre, it was the first time I have played with him and it was hard!! But I got there and I think I have a pose I can hand in this weekend, well that’s after I get some feedback from the classmates :D
Well I think I'm off to bed, it's not that late but I think my head will explode if I keep at this for much longer.

Live Q&A

O.K so I just got our of my first live Q&A session and it was awesome. I got on nice and early for a chat with classmates who all seem very nice, and it looks like I'm the only one not from the US or Mexico which I guess is pretty cool. So during the actual session Matt our mentor answered some question and pulled everyone up on the webcams so we could introduce ourselves, it was all very cool. As per usual when I got pulled up my cam didn't work TYPICAL!! Thankfully I managed to get it fixed by the time I got pulled up again. Also in between my very inarticulate attempts to string a sentences together Matt said he had been reading my blog, (YIKES!!) I think some one had forward it to him because of course it had a whole entry on him............ I knew I shouldn't have said I didn't have a clue who he was!! Damn my honest disposition!! But with that being said he kicked arse (bet he doesn’t read this bit) I was so nervous about all of this but he was so relaxed and friendly I now feel completely fine about getting my assignments critiqued by him. So that's a load off!!

AM Begins

So class started on Monday.....well Tuesday for me and so far so good. I was a little bummed we didn't have a real assignment this week, well that was until I started looking round the site and watching the videos and I realised I had plenty to keep me occupied for the moment. So for this week I'm just cruising the campus and enjoying the experience. We have a pose assignment next week and have to do observational drawing in a public place some I'm looking forward to getting out and making people really uncomfortable as I stare at them across the food court or the park. I think this course will really take my stalking (I mean observation) skills to a whole new level :P
The other big thing this week will be our live Q&A session with our mentor and class which shall be cool. Thankfully the time difference has been good to me this time landing them at 1 on Friday arvo's, for those of you who know me are well are aware of how badly I function without sleep.

And my Mentor is Matthew Russel

Finally this afternoon I received the email I have been waiting all week to get. The one that lets me know who my first mentor is and when we will be having our first live Q&A!!
So for my first 12 weeks my mentor is Matthew Russel. I'm not going to pretend I know who he is cause I had no idea when I saw his name and honestly didn't expect to because I don't really know more than a couple of animators. Still I was excited to go find out cause if he works at AM he must be a kick arse animator!! Unfortunately they weren’t giving me any hints on the mentor page instead of his bio I got "coming soon" but with a little help from google and thumper we quickly tracked down some info. So what I did find out is that he works at DNA and was a lead animator on the Jimmy Neutron movie. He also worked on the Jimmy Neutron series and by the looks of it is currently working on DNS's next feature "Bully Ant" which is due to be released next year.
Roll on Monday!! :D

Update

O.K so last week after I got home I wrote a big nice long blog about how crap my plane flight was ect, ect and I must have been so asleep I closed the window without actually publishing it. Anyway I have been to lazy to re write it so now I'm just letting you all know I have been back a week and settling in just fine. I got over the jetlag pretty fast all though I was slightly like the walking dead last Thursday. So now that my holiday fun is over this blog is converting back to my Animation Mentor blog YAY!! I'm now all paid up and ready to go and it's only 11 days until I start.
I have already started to intergrate between working from home and the office but should be home 90% of the time after next week. It's going to take a bit of getting used to logisticaly but hopefully it will work out. Even though I'm pumped to get started I'm planning on enjoying next week and the last bit of free time I plan to have for the next 18months :P