I love being an Animator!

Today was a great day to be an animator!  Had two new classes today, 3D: Character design and 2D: Toon Boom.  I don't have any work to show for 3D yet, but for 2D we were assigned to redesign the castle that we drew out of the hat.  I drew Howl's moving castle.  After studying references pictures, I got really excited about it and decided it was a good pick for me, versus having Cinderella's castle or Hogwarts.  

I looked up many pictures and wanted to make sure I got a little bit of everything from the castle with a touch of my own ideas. This is only my first sketch of the castle and will have the side view soon which I'm currently working on. 

Here's bunch of random sketches I've done recently that I'm pretty proud of :)

Random animals with my elf Annie Fenay

Ariel

Cute penguins!

Baby Dumbo 

It's time to do homework-TTFN tata for now! :)

Clay and stuff

Day one was a success!  While public speaking isn't going to be my favorite class in the world, it won't be horrible.  I have been introduced to the world of Stop Motion and clay!  I'm not new to making things out of clay since I worked with it last year in Animation I....

(we were interviewed and I was asked my most embarrassing moment-then we had to make multiple mouths to match with what we were saying)

...but not to this extent.  I'm more excited than I thought I would be for this class!
The first assignment we started today was working on our Zoetrope's.  Yeah, that was my reaction when I first heard the word.  A zoetrope is (in my words) a round piece of cardboard with clay on it that animates in some way with 12 frames and only works if you spin it on a record player and have a strobe light flashing...here's a demonstration for better understanding...

Pixar's Zoetrope - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5khDGKGv088

Sooo Pixar's zoetrope isn't exactly what I described, but that's what mine is going to look like.
We had a great time in class today trying to measure 12 equal pieces on our cardboard pizza plate (as our professor called it) as our minds went back to high school math class.

I think that's all the excitement that happened today...that and the fact that I discovered I'm aloud to park in the lot outside my dorm becaaaaaaaaause I'm a JUNIOR! By credit that is, I'm still in my sophomore year, but with the classes I took in high school and over the last couple summers, I have enough to get me a great parking spot.
That, and my roommate and I also decided last minute to watch the season 3 finale of Downton Abbey...worse decision we've ever made.

Until next time, here's an encouraging picture :)