Dorian James

I’m going to be working on the Bat project with Brian and Alex. It seems like it will be a lot of fun. We seem to work well enough together and have a lot of ideas going around. I haven’t worked with Brian before, but I have no doubt they do good work. Alex is working on the animatic for us, while Brian revises the storyboard and I put together the write-up side of the planning. All seems functional enough. Aside from write ups, I need to make sure to grab some materials together for next class. As far as I understand it, we’ll be using the next class to get some set and character work together. That’ll be fun. Outside of class, I’m going to still try to build a steampunk set with some more basic materials. I have a number of ideas for how to make a realistic sort of world, so with some luck, I can plan them out and fulfill the ideas I have. I think I’m going to need to budget my time carefully to do all that I want.

Heyo, so we worked on character walk cycles again. This time we got to use our own puppets, which was nice. I think I’m getting the hang of it. Zoe and I worked together to make a gesture with the two puppets doing a sort of handshake thing. Zoe kind of took the reins on that one, but I don’t really have any complaints. Communication could have been better, but it all worked out in the end so. I don’t know, things to keep in mind for next time? I’m going to add sounds for them, and it shouldn’t be a problem. Then there’s just planning for the final, so yeah. Wild times.

Hey hey hey, I made a something. Not entirely sure, but yeah! I changed their hair and simplified more than I wanted to, but it should still be a character that I can use for class tomorrow. I can also change the puppet some later if I really need to. The hands are probably going to be a little delicate, but overall they should be ok as long as I grab the forearm in order to bend and move the arms. Which shouldn’t be too much of an issue for a short-ish project?

Heyo, I got to spend some time making my puppet. I got the basic armature for underneath the puppet set up, so hopefully I can drape clothes over it and have it formed well. I got the feet shaped down a bit so that they won't seem too out of proportion, as well. I still need to make a face and hands, which I'm planning to use some air dry clay type stuff for, which I can paint tonight. I'll have more time for that to fight after my life drawing class though, so no worries!

Life has gotten really hectic this past week, so for the moment I’m doing my best to get through all the videos and design a character for tomorrow. I’m still planning to do a basic walk, though I may not be able to tie after class tomorrow or on Saturday. The basic walk video seems to be about what I expected. It’s good to see a couple examples of how the basic walks can be done. It looks like it won’t be too much trouble with the right equipment, aside from the whole balance situation. For character design: I have a base set up for a little old lady. She has curly hair, and its wonderful. I also have a smaller drawing for a different character, which I may decide in the morning I like better. In which case, I’ll be sure to get the set up done before class. I’m slightly worried they’d be top heavy, but I think that could be adjusted so I’m not too worried? For now, I have that step done so I should be able to work in the morning. I’m going to try to sleep some now.

Today was just straight up working. I was a little stressed because of other plans, but the work itself went nicely. Alex and I ended up working pretty well and were able to keep our project moving. We got all of the photographs done, and we have sounds recorded so now it’s just a matter of putting it together. Alex is planning on doing that this weekend, so that’s good. We did a pretty good job bouncing ideas off each other I think? It was a pretty good experience, even if I’m stressed (when am I not stressed?)

21 Sept 17 >> 10 pm - 1 am Alright, so this week has been something. And I ended up just now getting around to finishing up what I can for this project. I have the fencing glued together, and put on the box that we’ll be using for most of our set up. I also got the faces colored in to match (roughly) the flowers they’ll be with. I tried to make some variety so that it’s not just cookie-cutter colors. They have unique expressions, so I mean, it was only natural. I’m almost certain that there are things I’m forgetting, but between painting the final fence pieces, gluing things together, and coloring a ton of tiny faces, I think I’ve done all I can tonight. Also I’m fairly certain I’ve just lost ten minutes here or there from being too tired to function precisely. So, it’s time for sleeping. Any details I’ve missed can be made up early tomorrow morning. Though I feel like I got most stuff set up well enough? Man I think so at least. Side note: I still need to record myself saying the line for the ending, that’s what it is. I can do that pretty quickly in the morning, and since I need dragon frame software to set up the lip sync details anyway, that shouldn’t be too much of an issue.

We’ve got some stuff set up. I think the rest can be done separately. Alex got the basic garden set up, and the fence is almost done (I need to finish gluing it together, but we’re just about there). I got a bunch of the faces we needed set up, and I’ll just need to add some color to them a little bit later on. We talked out the story a bit more, and I think we’re doing alright for Friday.

As for our next project, Alex and I have a fairly good idea of what we want to do. We have most of the materials, and anything else we need, we can get for a couple bucks at Family Dollar. Otherwise, it’s just some time to set things up together and make what we need for next Friday.

This is the ball bounce we made! Working with Zoe and Brendan went pretty well. It took a little while for us all to warm up to each other I guess, but after a while we seemed to do pretty well working together and staying entertained and engaged while working. And, overall, we managed to make the ball bounce! So, that’s counted as a success in my book.

The Pixellation project from a couple weeks ago! I forgot to upload the video itself, I guess. I think it came out pretty well, considering Greg and I had one less person than the other teams? The timing could have been better, which would have helped our frame rate. I think we just barely had the minimum number of slides, but it was a good experiment overall. Definitely worth trying again, since it’s so easy to set up and start trying out effects on-camera.

There was also a minor debate (I got worried I forgot something) over whether we needed to make a “head” to go with the mouths? I couldn’t really remember, so I just made a quick slug that more or less fits the size of the mouths I’ve made. If I don’t need them, oh well, I know I have the mouths, which we needed for sure.

I still have to get the mouths done, but I should have time for that Wednesday morning. I'd say things are going alright.

Everyone did such different and amazing stuff for the last project! It’s honestly just cool to see how the groups differ in style and set up. Also, I actually remember Dragon Frame a little. Though it honestly makes a lot more sense now. I think my group did pretty well with getting the basics of it. We worked pretty well together, and got a decent amount of the work done before class ended. Everything’s making sense and we have a good plan of “what comes next” type stuff. At the moment, we’ve got photos to edit, and it looks like we’ll be meeting up on Sunday to finish up with sound and post-production.