Aeyoqen's Subaenx Fye

I love being harassed in class!

Sun, 21 Jun 2009 00:01:39 GMT

Holy hell, so guess what happened?

I had this horribly crazy bitch for an animation teacher. Let's call her J. So, J's class consisted of three hours of critique, a crappy video for a demo, and then yelling at us the next week when we didn't do our assignment right because she hadn't taught us shit. I was putting up with it, fighting my way through 3D animation while having no idea what I was doing, when this happened:

After she had critiqued mine and a few other students' third assignment (first animation on a biped as well) we went on break. We came back in the room and one of the upper level 3D animation teachers was there. J says that she brought him in to help critique, and I'm thinking sweet, this guy actually knows what he's talking about, maybe I'll learn something today!

She then precedes to pull up my animation in front of myself, this other teacher, and the rest of the class, and discuss "how horrible this is" for a good five minutes. I defended myself by saying that it was the third assignment, I've never done 3D animation before because I'm a rigger, and I'm trying to learn. She basically responded with "whatever, it's horrible."

After her class, I went to talk to the 2D animation teacher, who is really super awesome, and he agreed to meet with me once a week and tutor me. That was the Wednesday before last. Over the weekend, I learned from other students that J had been going around telling the other faculty that I'm a "troublemaking rigger who refuses to learn animation and doesn't do any work." The rest of the school was pretty much like "Wtf?! That doesn't sound like Psy AT ALL" and they told me about it. So Monday, I went to the dean, and explained what happened and what was going on.

Basically, the same thing happened last semester when she taught anatomy, but because she's an industry animator and the other 3D animation teacher couldn't cover 3D I for the summer, they kept her on hoping things would be better. After telling my story, the dean immediately agreed to let me finish the class as an independent study with the 2D animation teacher I had talked to beforehand. He also said that if other students are being harassed, he wanted to know. According to my friends in the class, they're all being harassed and not learning anything. At all.

Best part? When she found out I dropped the class, her comment was "good, she wouldn't have passed anyway." I was doing work better than half the class (in a class of 6). And, when I went to my first independent study session, my 2D teacher was absolutely shocked at the amount of nothing she taught us.

I hope her ass gets canned, soon.

Ahhhh

Sun, 14 Jun 2009 16:38:45 GMT

I love the weather here lately - been cloudy and cool for the past two weeks, with a little rain here and there. I really want it to stay, but I know it won't...then it'll be like 85 again. Uhg.

Grabbed an old sketchbook when I was in Roseville for my little sister's graduation! I'll try to get to that today after homework/photoediting. It's always fun going back through old ass art.

Not much new other than that...had another surprise party for Josh since he wasn't able to make it last weekend. They're leaving tomorrow, which is sad, so I'm going to go over there and say goodbye tonight.

Also, I'm going to be selling all my Pokemon cards, amongst other things. I know there are some Pokemon fans on here, so if anyone is looking for something in particular, let me know!

Reference?

Mon, 08 Jun 2009 20:45:23 GMT

Any animators out there know of any good sites for animation reference videos?

I have to do a hand slapping a table. I have no videocamera to cap my own reference, sadly.

DAMMIT

Sun, 07 Jun 2009 01:57:28 GMT

I spent MONTHS tracking down an extremely rare book as a gift for my sister, and then FINALLY found it, ordered it, and...

Their server went down, they lost the orders, and sold it to someone else :[

Man, I've been scouring the net for months and I must have e-mailed every single rare book dealer in the US.

WWWWWWWHHHHHHHHHHHHHYYYYYYYYYYYYY

The Icebreaker no more!

Fri, 05 Jun 2009 17:34:24 GMT

Well, Stefen's car got totaled yesterday.

He's fine though - the passenger side got hit and he was the one driving, there was no one else in the car. Basically, what he's pretty sure happened is that the lady was drinking something (a smoothie of some sort, not alcohol...we're pretty sure) and tried to blow through a yellow. He saw her coming, but she appeared to be slowing, and then his light to turn left turned green. She kept going.

The interesting factors are that that intersection is visible from pretty damn far away, so had she been paying attention at all (even if she did turn out to have right of way) she would have seen him turning with PLENTY of time to brake, or at least swerve out of the way. Also, the speed limit there is 45, and she hit him with enough force to flip his car in another direction and then she ended up on top of a curb - seems to me like she had to be going MUCH faster than 45 to pull that off, and Stefen's van is (was) a tough, heavy car. Another factor - there are tracks for the lightrail that run between the left and right sides of the street, so that adds a bit to the amount that someone has to turn, and she hit Stefen's car pretty far after he started turning. I'm pretty sure she was pretty engrossed with whatever she was drinking to have not seen him begin to make that turn with that much distance to cover.

Unfortunately, there were no witnesses, so most likely it will go 50/50. The main thing is no one got hurt! The Icebreaker is totaled, but that car had a good run. And actually, if they find out Stefen did have the light to go, there's a good chance they'll repair that disaster and give it back to him.

FYI - The Icebreaker is a bright red minivan from the 90s (we're actually not sure if it's Mitsubishi or Plymouth) that in its heyday had about 500 stickers covering it, and a decal on the back screaming CHILDREN ON BOARD that took up about 1/4th of the rear window. We have pictures of the before and after, they'll get posted someday.

Sheesh, still?

Thu, 04 Jun 2009 18:52:21 GMT

Another DA retarded front page conversation seems to have appeared on my...front page. Or at least a continuation of something.

Man, I am seriously going to scan all of my old sketchbooks when I next go home. I am really sick and tired of people accusing me of copying or ripping off other artists when I've been drawing the same thing since, well, forever. When I came to DA, I thought it was kinda cool that there were a lot of people also drawing similar creatures, then it turned into a huge dramafest, and honestly, had I known I would have not bothered at all.

I should just purge my gallery, but I don't want to be one of those.

Buh.

On a happier note, I'm finally getting some physical therapy for my carpal tunnel, so maybe my hand will finally stop constantly burning! Hooray!

Not to mention, it's cloudy. And may rain. Mmmmmm...

FUCK YOU CALIFORNIA

Tue, 26 May 2009 22:57:08 GMT

AAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

WHEN WILL PEOPLE FUCKING ACCEPT OTHERS FOR WHO THEY ARE

Rare Book Help?

Tue, 26 May 2009 01:08:02 GMT

Hey guys,

Anyone know of a site online where I can look up the value of old and rare books? I've tried everything from Alibirus (err whatever it's called) to Amazon to Powells to various random rare book stores and sites, and the only information I've been able to find has been about reprints, not originals.

Help?

Thu, 21 May 2009 20:34:31 GMT

Sorry for the lack of updates - went to Sacramento over the summer break, saw some good friends, came back and started classes. The past two weeks in a nutshell.

Storyboarding will be owning my soul this semester, but at the same time I'm fairly certain that this summer will be much less stressful than others. So far my classes seem alright, I get Thursdays off to take care of errands and such, and I'm done by either 1 or 4 everyday. My only worry right now is that all three of my jobs are on hiatus, and even though I have some funds stashed and Stefen can more than afford to support us for a while, it always bothers me.

Last dentist appointment today. I'm resistant to novacaine, so last time they had to actually go and pull out some sort of rarely used, super strong stuff. It did work, after about twenty shots.

Not much else going on. Stefen is home before going to work, we made Mexican Chocolate pudding of AWESOME, and I'm doing some computer maintenance before getting to storyboarding homework. Also, I now own a 42" plasma TV that I'm going to attempt to fix. Yay.

Dentist Hell

Wed, 06 May 2009 01:41:25 GMT

So I just had what was probably the most painful experience of my life.

I went in for a cleaning at the dentist a few weeks ago, and they mentioned that the sealants I had gotten as a kid were leaking - they were actually really impressed that they were even still there, I guess they're supposed to wear off after a few years. So they made me an appointment to get the sealants removed and reapplied, etc.

I went in today for the first of three appointments to replace sealants on eight of my teeth. Going to the dentist is nothing new or scary for me - I had braces for eight years, had a retainer since first grade, had something like twelve teeth and my wisdom teeth pulled, so I'm pretty used to it. I should also mention that I have a very high pain tolerance. Anyway.

The dentist started removing the sealant on my upper left teeth. I was pretty souped up on novacaine, so I wasn't feeling anything, and then the back tooth started to slowly hurt the deeper she drilled. It got worse and worse, and then she looked at me and said I had a really horrible deep cavity on that tooth from the sealant, and asked how I hadn't felt anything before. My teeth hurt once in a while, if I eat something cold, but never any more than that, so I said I really didn't know. But then, she had to drill the rest of the sealant off, and the cavity ended up going to the nerve. Which wasn't even the worst.

The dentist told me that she was going to try to do some preventive work as so I wouldn't have to get a root canal, so she was going to put a few layers of some special dentist goop before she filled the cavity. She said that the goop itself wouldn't hurt, but drying it wasn't going to be fun.

And that's when she used one of the high pressure air blower things to blow air ONTO A NERVE. The entire left side of my face was numb, but I kid you not when I say that's the worst pain I've ever experienced in my life. I had tears in my eyes from it. Oooohhhh man.

So long story short: childhood dentistry gave me the cavity from hell, and possibly a future root canal. Joys.

Feedback, please

Sun, 03 May 2009 22:02:27 GMT

Alright, so an interesting issue has come up at my school:

About 2 months ago, people started riding around those Razor scooters that were popular years ago. There have been no accidents, no damages, and even teachers are riding them. However, they have been officially banned for scuffing the floor.

I wrote up a proposal and a set of rules, included liability forms, fees to cover the floors, a system of rules, adding mirrors to the hallways, needing to be approved, having it be a privilege to those students of good standing, etc. - the list goes on and on. I did this on behalf of the group of students who wants to keep scooters.

I have a feeling I am fighting a losing battle here. What do you guys think?

If you're really curious, I can post the write-up I did as well (be warned, it's loooooong).

DONE

Sun, 03 May 2009 02:22:56 GMT

Finally, sleep.

This semester honestly kicked my ass.

Here's hoping I will NEVER have to go through that again.

Final Checklist

Sat, 25 Apr 2009 20:20:22 GMT

Okay, so-

Drawing for Animation 2: ~~2 rough body pose sheets,~~ expression sheet, ~~construction sheet, 5 point turnaround,~~ final action shot (lineart done) - each for all six characters. One size comparison sheet. Due Friday.

2D Animation: Walk across the screen, 5 contacts total (ROUGH DONE). ~~Fixed alternate walks.~~ Due Friday.

Concept Design: ~~Everything organized into folders and put on the server, everything printed and mounted on presentation boards.~~ Due Tuesday. DONE

Advanced Rigging: ~~Final script consolidation and hierarchy fix.~~ Due Thursday. DONE

Econ: ~~Final Essay with bibliography.~~ Due Wednesday. DONE

Alright, I can do this.

sigh

Sat, 25 Apr 2009 03:42:12 GMT

Mike, I miss you.

Maybe it'll work this time

Thu, 23 Apr 2009 23:51:42 GMT

Okay, so I rechanged the e-mail account tied to my Live Journal AGAIN, so that I can actually receive comments as opposed to trying to remember to check everything. I tried doing this before and it didn't work, so my apologies if I never responded to something :/

Fusion Awards tonight! I get to be the photographer and wear a slutty evening gown (not really) to walk people to get their awards. Heh, should be fun. I'm kinda bummed that we'll have to cut rigging short, but oh well. Maybe I'll get an award, wouldn't that be exciting!

Currently, I'm trying to finish up work for Drawing for Animation 2, because I am direly behind. My other classes (specifically rigging and animation) have been taking priority.

But right now, gotta help setup for tonight!

No More Heat!

Thu, 23 Apr 2009 04:23:34 GMT

Fortunately, this heat waves seems to be going away. 90 degrees in April? Uhhhg....then again, 90 degrees at all sucks. I still really want to buy a portable AC, but I'm the only one...Stefen doesn't mind the heat, and most people in the bay don't have ACs anyway. But seriously, it was 85 degrees in here, and last year it got up to 95 in our apartment. I can't do that again :[

The plants seem to enjoy it though - I got quite a few sprouts that have come up, and it looks like I'll have more tomato plants than I'll know what to do with. Also have some cherry tomatoes, peas, dill, Thai basil, and even a lemon tree (!!) that have sprouted. Along with my arsenal of other veggies and herbs, it looks to be a promising summer. I'm going to try to plant some apple seeds and redwood seeds as well, at some point.

And the ladybugs hatched! They're kind of cute...

Most of them don't have the orange yet, and they're tiny, but I guess there were a few more egg clusters that I didn't see, because I have some that are in different stages than others. Either way, they're decimating my aphids, so I'm happy.

Constant Schoolin'

Wed, 22 Apr 2009 05:57:50 GMT

Man, I hate this heat. Portable ACs are something like $280 used, but it just might be worth it.

Still at school, gonna stay through most of the night to work on stuff and chill with people. We've got food and scooters, and coffee will be involved soonish as well, so all is good. Not to mention I found out that I can sub Horror Films for my Ethics class. That's right, HORROR for ETHICS. I love it.

Got the cooling pad I ordered for my drastically overheating laptop today, and it seems to be working quite nicely. I picked up an Antec cooling pad, with a HUGE fan...

FANTASTIC (get it - ha. Haha.)

We'll see how well it works when I'm running three instances of Maya.

Roight then, back to animating.

Finalzzzz

Mon, 20 Apr 2009 00:24:34 GMT

I received a rather nice apology today, so all's well that ends well!

I'm having a really hard time concentrating on finals, either because I'm overwhelmed or burning out. I have a lot to do, and keep working on things, but I feel as though nothing is getting done and I'm getting further and further behind. Bleh.

But life is good! My parents surprised me by inviting some of my good friends from Cogswell to Benihana last night for a birthday dinner - it was AWESOME! birdsong, Andrew and Josh all came (we're sad that you were across the country, Julia!!) and we all had great food, merriment, and wonderful company. My little sister got me a novel signed by the author (Tobias Wolfe, one of my favorites) and she also found one of Mike Sandborn's Spirit cards. I nearly cried at that.

And, I got a shiny new tablet. The old one (man I need to take pictures of that thing, it's hilarious) will be used for travel until it's made into a Cintiq. Let's just say Intuos 4 is all it's cracked up to be.

So I had an awesome night with family and friends, and then we went back to school and worked, gamed, and rode around on scooters.

Gooood times.

SOMEBODY MAKE ME WORK

New Blog!

Wed, 15 Apr 2009 02:03:18 GMT

I've started a new blog for all things rigging - resources, links, videos, etc. etc. Everything I can get my hands on!!

Rigging!!!!

I'm by no means stopping posts here, I'll just keep the rigging stuff over where the other TDs and I can geek out.

LOG IN

Mon, 30 Mar 2009 18:43:40 GMT

There is a friend's only post that ALL ARTISTS AND 3D MODELERS WANT TO SEE

LOG IN

In Which the Homeowner's Association can go further fuck itself!

Sun, 29 Mar 2009 02:29:37 GMT

Fuck HOA.

My friend gave me these really cool flower boxes, so I decided that I was going to plant flowers in them and put them on my balcony ledge. I didn't think that anyone would have an exception to seeing FLOWERS as they drove in the complex, and I thought I could do a seasonal thing even, which would be cool. So I measured out evenly where the boxes would go, installed hooks on my balcony and secured each box with wire, and made sure everything looked nice. Within a few hours, I was told to take them down.

What the fuck?

I found out California Homeowner's Associations are made of pure evil - if they want, they can prevent kids from RIDING BIKES. How stupid is that? I'm pretty pissed about the whole thing...first the lights, then this (not to mention the windows, which is a completely different story). If Stefen's parents weren't moving in here after we move out, I would do something completely evil on the last day, like put up lights and make a giant banner that says "HOW DARE I HANG THIS MOTHERFUCKING BANNER IN YOUR GODDAMN COMPLEX, YOU OLD FUCKS" or something like that.

On a happier note, the new Silversun Pickups album is awesome, and I got my new lens yesterday.

Adventuring with friends

Fri, 27 Mar 2009 04:33:11 GMT

Went to SJ today to visit Chris and finally meet his fiance - it was good times! Stefen and Chris seemed to have worked out some sort of game related thing that they're doing where Stefen would be the art director, which he's really excited about. Kristin and I spent the time while they were talking sharing animal stories :D. We had a good time, even if Chris couldn't find the uber awesome slushy place.

Chris also gave me an awesome sign - not just because it's a sign, but because it has "Elevator" misspelled on one side. So now, hanging above the door to the balcony, is a lovely, huge, black and white sign blaring "ELEATOR->" and it is glorious.

Alright, I am going to fix and finish this animation now.

Ladybugs and Sidewalk Chalk

Thu, 26 Mar 2009 04:36:32 GMT

I had a very random, but very fun day today.

Stefen is no longer really sick, so we decided to go out adventuring. We started by going to Goodwill just to see what we could find, and there was a pretty good selection today. I ended up getting two pair of pants and a pair of shorts, which I desperately needed. We found a ton of really awesome frames, so we stocked up, since we tend to use them as gifts, and also found another wall shelf. Got some mango tealights, a really lovely smelling vanilla candle, some vinyl wall stickers, and a thing for growing plants upside-down. And we got all this for less than $30. Gotta love Goodwill.

Afterwards, we went over to the local nursery to pick up some ladybugs, because I'm having a crazy aphid problem. Also bought some beefsteak tomato seeds, but then I had to get out of there, because otherwise I'll go buy all the sick plants out of pity. I do want to go back there and look around, even though I know it will result in another plant to add to my evergrowing family.

We got home and walked to the grocery store to get some food for dinner, then it was just about dark enough to release the ladybugs. Basically, we sat and played with ladybugs for an hour or so. It was a lot of fun, except some of them were really stubborn and would rather crawl up my arms than onto the plants, but we made sure that all of them were out of harm's way (except for two that got caught in a spider web :/) before leaving them for the night.

Stefen then suggested we do some sidewalk chalk art before making food, so we did, and got some fun looks from people walking by on the sidewalk where we were...arting. Sidewalk chalk is pretty damn fun.

Got back, made a really awesome dinner, and now we're just chillin'. I think later we might adventure out to get a 20 lb bag of rice and bubble tea, but now it's work time.

Daytum

Tue, 24 Mar 2009 23:02:00 GMT

Is really addicting.

If you go to their home page, you can request a beta invite. Kinda cool stuff.

Stefen was crazy sick last night - had a fever that finally broke around 103, and now he's feeling a little better. I'm just worried that I'm going to (or already have) catch what he had. So in the interest of not giving my classmates all 103 degree fevers over break, I'm going to not go to rigging today. Which is sad, because I really like that class, but...alas.

It's kinda sorta not really spring break. By that, I mean there is still lots of classwork and work work to worry about. I'm hoping that at least one day we'll be able to go adventuring, and hopefully that day will be after I get my awesome lens. Mmmm.

Next on my lens list: Wide angle or fisheye. Something landscapey. Micro would be nice to have someday as well.

Gotta finish writing this script for rigging.

In other news, I'm pretty sure my washing machine will bring about the apocalypse. Not the dryer though, he's cool.

Eraserhead - More Fucked Up than The Wall!

Mon, 23 Mar 2009 03:42:43 GMT

All I really have to say after watching Erasherhead is,

Holy. Fucking. Shit.

Filmwise, it was amazing. David Lynch is pretty much a genius, there was such amazing use of composition and chiaroscuro, and it worked so well in black and white. But seriously, this is not for the faint of heart. If you have a weak stomach, don't watch unless you never intend to eat chicken or cream of wheat ever again.

Also, the characters were GREAT! They all had a lot of personality in their appearances alone, especially how John Nance had such crazy hair and was always hunched over. Brilliant.

My favorite character was The Man in the Planet. No spoilers here, but if you find this creepy, don't watch this movie.

Awesome.

Got my animation done, started on a rig that I've been meaning to do, and agreed to design my brother a logo for his newfound fish tank setup business. Should be interesting.

Aaaand Chris just called! Mayhaps I will get to see him this week, which would be pretty awesome, since I haven't seen him in almost two years. Come to think of it, it was two years yesterday that I left Cal Poly.

Stefen should be home soonish. Made mixed berry gelato and pumpkin pie for him, since I was in a cooking mood today between animations.

HOW DID I NOT KNOW ABOUT PORCUPINE TREE BEFORE, OH MY POSSIBLE GODS-