School update

I have been fairly busy these past weeks so I have not been able to update regularly. School is still going well. We are already going on to week five; the time seems to be flying already. I am getting used to my classes and my classmates. I am starting to understand who is good at what and how we can all work together. I'll update you on my classes and give my class schedule!

Classical Animation: This class meets on Mondays and Thursdays for three hours each. We have learned the basics of animation and are applying them in simple exercises. Due on Monday is a "whip" assignment in which a simple (very simple) character cracks a whip. Its interesting to draw everything and so rewarding when you see the little guy moving!

Sculpture: This one meets on Monday nights, from 6:00-9:00. Its a very relaxed class where we build a bust of a human (or human like) character out of Super Sculpey. Its great so far. I have my model basically complete. On Monday I will smooth out some texture, add a hat, and continue adding more texture and details. Its really been an interesting class.

Character Design: This class is on Tuesdays from 9:00-12:00. Its exactly what it sounds like. For Tuesday's homework assignment, I had to create a "character line-up". I was just supposed to create characters with with no detail. The teacher wanted each to represent a different archetype. The character lineup is used all the time in pre-production for film and video games. Its helps create a size relationship between the characters. In addition to this assignment, I had to create 5 faces as different as possible. After that, I had to pick one face and draw it with 5 emotions. It was a good exercise.

Life Drawing: This class is on Tuesdays from 1:00-4:00. I feel like I am getting more loose with my drawings. I am taking what I have learned from previous classes and applying it naturally when I draw. I am very pleased with the progress.

3D modeling: I have this classes on Wednesdays and Fridays from 9:00-12:00. I am using software called XSI. It has recently been purchased by Autodesk. Autodesk is apparently trying to monopolize the entire 3D software market. In this class I just finished modeling a dog! Its really fun. We are working on rigging it now. Simply put, we are adding an animateable structure to the dog (bones really).I will post images of it later. After this assignment, I think we will model a toy car.

Texturing: This is a new class from 1:00-4:00 on Wednesdays. It will take us through the basics of applying textures and materials to models we create in our other classes.

History of Animation: 5:00-8:00 on Wednesdays. Basically, we go to a theater on campus and watch cartoons. Our teacher is very passionate about animation and has a lot of knowledge on the subject. It also sounds like a documentary whenever he talks. I found out we will have two assignments. The first will be a quiz, and the second is to draw our teacher. He showed us small collections of drawings that previous students created and they are hilarious. This is going to be such a fun assignment.

Composition: This class is thursdays from 1:00-4:00. Its a fairly boring class in which we draw compositions based off of small paragraphs from stories. The next assignment was a passage from this horribly written amateur action/horror story... Our guidelines are to draw a part of the story and use only two colors (not black and white).

Photoshop: Its a new class this week on Thursdays from 7:00-10:00pm. I dont know what to expect.

3D animation: This class is on Fridays from 1:00-4:00. Here we take the principles of animation we use in 2D, and apply them in 3D. My assignment for next week is to have a simple character (a pair of legs) jump off of a box. Its pretty neat.

So thats all of my classes.