In addition

While I'm at it, I figured I'd post some pieces that were created during my stay in John Larison's Materials and Techniques for Sequential Art class.
The first is a work in progress acrylic painting of a mountain range in Utah. The saturation level is still too high, and I feel that two more layers should suffice to tone it down. I will post that image when it's completed.
The second was my way of reflecting upon a negative experience I had in February with a man who was breaking into my roommate's car. Working as a student animator often requires that we keep late hours, and one night, I found myself returning to my apartment at 3 am. Apparently, I wasn't the only one outside. A man, who I so lovingly described as a "crackhead," was there as well. We had a conflict, which mainly involved me yelling at him to leave the premises. I have never been both so grateful for, and so afraid of, my loud New York mouth. Anyway, when it was time to create a 3 panel scratchboard comic, I decided to revolve my story around the characterization of a crackhead. Instead of conveying negativity with text, I chose to include lyrics from the gospel song Farther Along.
The third image is a watercolor, involving a cranky humanesque character, who really wants his toxic piece of toast. Alas, his breakfast manages to escape, yet reaches a sorry end on the kitchen floor. I have to admit that, mixing some of those blues and greens, was absolute torment.
I was oddly obsessed with toast during the quarter, and if you flip through to one of the earlier posts, you will see a simple animation I created in Flash, which also involves a flying piece of toast. Sometimes, I don't even understand my sense of humor.

I love the smell of 928 GB of free space in the morning...

So, I have finally arrived in my home state of New York. I need a job. Pronto. Wish me luck. As of now, I am living on Weight Watchers microwave meals (they're on sale at the grocery store), and watching reruns of The Golden Girls. It really is a well written show. When I'm that old, I'd like to be a combination of Sofia Petrillo and Blanche Devereaux.
Aside from the thrilling existence described above, I have also been making alterations to Transmissions, while as always, listening to Brazilian music. I still have more of it to work on, and am aiming to have it completed enough within the next few days, as I have other projects to get started on. So, here I am posting the new introduction, as well as a still image of what the ending will look like. What am I going to do with all of those buildings? You'll find out sooner than later. The sound isn't quite correct yet in the intro, but what else is new? Enjoy!

And in the end.....

Well, it's done-for now. There are elements of this project that I'm really happy with, and things that I feel need altering. This film is definitely something I want to elaborate upon over the summer.
I ended up editing the last line "He still lives in that city. I wonder if he's still sad...." because, when it really boiled down to it, I was unsure of, well, just unsure of something about it.
I definitely changed some of these scenes, and eliminated the idea of using stop motion photography for the time being.
Basically, I ended up referring to my project as "fun with Photoshop." When I go back into it, I would like to add the stop motion photography, as well as incorporate frame-by-frame animation. Syncing sound in After Effects is an awkward process, and Premiere seems a bit rudimentary. Needless to say, my sound clip isn't perfectly aligned at the moment, but I'll fix that as soon as I can.
When beginning this piece, I realized that I was going to have to make some edits, as my original ideas were too ambitious. I thought about how much fun I'd had cutting up photographs for the walk cycle, and decided that manipulating photos was the way to go. I even wanted to make jaw flapping dialogue, and I'll tell you now that that part is going when I rework this.
My friend Jose recorded me reciting something I wrote, and I was fortunate enough to stumble upon the Kid Koala track that I did.