Here’s one production still from our presentation: Dr. I.M. Square (god that’s funny).

So my figure drawing homework was to copy a “master work”. I asked if I could copy a current illustrator’s work and she said it was fine, so here’s my copy of Jen Wang’s “white day” with her original on the left. It has some obvious issues, in hers the man looks in love whereas in mine he’s just having a pretty good time. And unfortunately the girl’s face is a bit disfigured and she’s put on some weight in mine. Oh well, I think I did a pretty solid job overall. Didn’t spend much time on the leaves, though.

As for professional practices, I’ve sort of neglected this journal so here’s a recap of happenings:

We continued with our interactive storybook for the Dab-a-Dew assignment, this time placing Erik on a mountain. We developed some ideas and I created a mock-up of what it would look like by watercoloring a small background and animating on top of it in flash. I wasn’t that happy about the result, as I didn’t have much time to animate thanks to all the watercoloring. But I felt that it conveyed what it needed to, and I think that our presentation went over fairly well. I have no interest in pursuing the project any further.

After the pitches came our next “client” who wants to create a musically themed animation that educates viewers on caring for their voice. He’s an ENT who works primarily with musicians and has a deep interest in hip-hop. The project seems a lot cooler than the one before, with more clarity as to what is to be done as well as more creativity as to what to do within it. I’m really excited about this one. He seems like a professional guy and he, unlike Dab-A-Dew, actually comes across as passionate about his project. It should be an interesting one.

At the risk of spoilers, here’s a test of just me trying to get things working. mainly, clear buttons (they highlight so I know they’re working right) and the candle.

Enjoy!

Their whole presentation really didn’t impress me. He was very vague about details and I understand that they’re not sure what they want, but they were too in the middle. They either needed to be like, “we need something. think of something.” or “we need exactly this. do it.”

I read their book which I personally thought to be sort of disastrous… there’s no conflict, which if I remember correctly is the most basic form of plot. Erik and his dad want to go fishing, and they just do. Additionally they see some things along the way. I don’t think a marginally intelligent 5 year old could enjoy it… it’s too wordy and the pictures seem to be arbitrarily placed. I’d almost rather re-write and illustrate their book than do an animation for them.

Our group met last night. We’ve decided to create an interactive storybook online. Sort of a choose your own adventure, with problem solving elements. Erik is on a hike up a mountain and, at times, there might be a tree blocking the path or other such obstacles, and erik has to decide how to solve the problem. I think it’s a pretty solid idea.

I feel bad for kind of slamming the dab-a-dew stuff, but I dunno… it just doesn’t feel developed to me.

So far we’ve done some team-building exercises as well as practicing conceptualizing and pitching a project. The team-building/work distributing exercise wasa little bit boring but the project  conceptualization was interesting, and in fact fun to the point that  it sort of reversed the bad mood I had been in that day. I felt we had the strongest idea. After class it was brought  to my attention that a game called “moon tycoon” already exists, but I feel that because two games share a topic that doesn’t mean that they cancel each other  out.

Anyway, as for the readings, something is amiss. We’ve assigned readings  for the class but my book has yet to arrive, though I ordered it a good while ago. Sorry, Teach. I’m going to have to start borrowing other people’s books before I fall even further behind.