This time last year:

Well this time last year I was working for Primark *sigh* but more interestingly I had applied to Cubic Motion, an animation company in Manchester who specialise in Lip sync and similar things. I saw the job add and so sent off my application email complete with Showreel, not expecting anything in the way of a reply. But to my surprise I was offered the chance of some trial work. It was more of a test really, I was given a sound clip and a rig and a couple of days to animate to it.
My moment of joy was all too brief thanks to a sudden realisation that I was lacking a PC and on top of that, I had just accepted an extra shift. what followed was an extremely frantic series of phone calls to friends in hope of gaining a PC for a couple of hours. After passing that barrier I was confronted with a larger one "hang on a minute, I have no idea how to use Maya.." I spent a good 4-5 hours learning the very basics of where things were in Maya. By this point it was in the early hours of the morning and having a shift the following afternoon I left it for the night (in hind sight, this is where I probably went wrong). Getting up as early as I could I headed back to my friends house once more to plug away and to my surprise, under the pressure of a looming deadline I found myself enjoying myself. I had but 5 hours to do the best I could and actually managed to have a good time. After almost falling flat on my face once more at the prospect of rendering this cobbled animation I overcome the final obstacle and sent away my attempt.
By the end of my shift I had received a reply which left criticisms and areas they wished me to improve upon and re-send. Which I did once again with the time constraints caused by my current employment.
The end result, I was beaten by a competitor, not surprising really, given that they were able to complete the task using a full week and most likely their own facilities.

Despite my defeat, I enjoyed looking back on the last few days and just absorbed what was left of a well needed adrenaline rush. They offered to keep me on file in the event they needed more staff, but unfortunately they never responded to another email after that point. Thinking back though and the whole point of this post is that I missed out on a really good opportunity, because I didn't go all in on it. So I wasn't comfortable pulling a sicky and to be honest I doubt I ever would but at least now I have my priorities straight.

When I look at the last 12-18 months I realise that I have only applied to 3 jobs really. Which isn't particularly aspirational. I remember after my last defeat thinking that I wouldn't apply until I had my showreel shining. But I haven't actually gotten that far since have I?

The time for sitting on my hands has past, hopefully this half decade of mental block has lifted and this coming year will see me in worthy employment... No i'll go one further, I will sooner quit than continue my current post and free up more time to persue that dream job.

To round of this post with a bit more nostalgia (for me at least) heres last years lip sync test:


and heres the revised version:


As you can see, they asked me to remove the moustache, it was daft of me to leave it on to Begin with, but to be honest I didn't no how to shave the rig, nor did I have the time to find out how. But find out I did. They also had me remove all head motion, they literally wanted it down to the motion motions or "phoenemes".

End review, considering the little time I had on this and how much I enjoyed it. I think lip sync, could be my thing, or my way in. I suck right now but this felt relatively easy and it can only get better!

-Paul Out

Adding character:

Not quite there but its a start to carving out some new characters, ive established an age and the start of some emotion. Time to have a cack at those key poses!

11 Second Club:

Fairly sure I've mentioned 11 second club before, never entered, but planned to on more than one occasion. But as per some...excuse got in the way I'm sure. Well this month will be different. This month I've written on a blog where people can (but won't, who reads these thing?) see proof of my intent.

So I've gotten started and here's this months audio:

Voice One: "I've thought about it a lot, and we've talked about it, too. I told you there, there might come a time when I'd be... moving on."
Voice Two: "Yeah, but I didn't think you meant anything like quitting. I thought you just meant dying!"

I passed up a fair few months based on a lack of interest in the dialogue, this months seems quite cool so I'll have a crack at it. To get started and to help me visualise the scene I created the first image that came to mind in a 3D scene.
 
So step one; Ive plotted the basic layout for the scene. The camera angle and exact character placement will change but, I've at least plotted an idea and hopefully put across some kind of mood. Next step will be to create the characters, else it's going to look like a scene from "multiplicity"

The rig I've chosen seemed to be the best choice available, not to sell it short the "Morphy" rig is a great rig. Unfortunately I've had to step into the world of Maya, a programme I am yet to learn. I managed to put it off for a while now, but it's time to move on. Maya is a widely used industry programme so it should pay off. Getting back to the point, the rig has a wide range of customisation, I'll settle for a height, build and age alteration but I'm not too fussed on getting fancy with clothes and accessories at this point.

Just Do it:

Here's a simple but effect bit of motivation courtesy of Nike (one of the few brands with a decent slogan) which matches me quite well. It reminds me that where I may not actively wish to sit idly by whilst nothing happens to my showreel, a tired mind easily persuades you to leave it till tomorrow.
I am no longer satisfied with time and enthusiasm being used with little appreciation at the hands of some retail company... Time to move on. Still have to pay the bills, so the plan is simple. Have less bills to pay.

Less bills = Less money to be earned  in a rubbish job= time to animate = better job opps = Happy Bunny.

Unfortunately this may well mean sacrificing my house to move in with others once again, but hey im currently sat in my unfurnished "office" writting this. Sometimes a step or two backwards down the road can reveal a new fork in the road and hopefully a better direction.

Some Basic Rig progress

 So here is a few snaps of my basic rig so far, by basic I mean typical humanoid shape. For the shape I am rigging a standard man model found on XSI.

So far I have the an IK - FK (Forward/Inverse kinematics) mixed rig , so I can switch between either mode at any time. The grey structure around the bones will be used as for skinning later and helps distinguish between IK/FK. Both legs have been fitted with some basic sliders for foot movement as well as some extras like stretch (seen in the picture below).

I reached the point of finishing the spine. This too will stretch but rather than have a slider to switch that function on and off, I've added a colour changer to the material to let me know if there is any accidental squashing/stretching.

Now I really do wish I could come up with something like this by myself. But whereas I may have no difficulty in producing my own rigs, this one has been done following a "pro rigging" tutorial set from start to finish. I just hope its sinking in.

Settling In

So its been 3-4 months now and I'm settled at my part time job now and getting into the swing of using the Studio. Now I say settled, but really I'm just waiting to get to the studio every time I'm there. As far as part time jobs go, its the best I've had! its relevant to my interests at least, but its just not enough!
So, I'm increasing my efforts to get myself back out there. I recently saw Cubic Motion had hired another animator, I was aware of the position but I really need to build up for next time, I wont be caught short again. So I'm cranking out a fair number of rigs, trashing them and restarting a million times, but Its sinking in. Once I've cracked XSI ive got Maya to work on next and with maya comes the programming, which is going to hurt! Ill post pictures of my progress soon.

Buses, Tonsils,Studios and Pets!

Jobs as they say jobs are like buses, wait for one for forever and then two saunter along cheekily begging the question, which one do I take? Well for me it was a no brainer, after my last journey through a circle of hell known as Primark I was left once more without employment and therefore money to live and learn.
So, march rears its head and I find myself trying for any job going whilst trying to squeeze in an opp to have my tonsils out, great timing I know. But sure enough I landed an interview at Pets @ Home, "sounds like fun" I thought! and despite a great interview I wasn't chosen. After sulking for a day or two I was offered another interview for a separate branch. You may think that having been to one previously I would have the upper hand! But then this time, I was going in post opp, heavily dosed on strong pain medication and having trouble standing, talking and all that usual basic stuff. But Victory was at hand! If ozzy Osbourne was a muppet, a very hyper active muppet, then you get an idea of how I came across in that interview, but still I must have done something right!
So finances once again stabilised I had one less worry on my mind. Enter Paraboxy! My university friends having got their office space finally, offered me a space for learning, the one request being that I learn rigging...fair enough here goes nothing!