#365daychallenge

Challenge Day 054 of Year 12 Berip was a fast draw. Not to shoot, but in drawing survey layouts.

Challenge Day 053 of Year 12 Boas had long ago deleted it's long term memories of the unimportant moments. I kept where it came from and the moments it was happy about. It kept the quiet peaceful days, and start and end of boring ones. It had been around too long not to need more space for new memories and it tried to appreciate what was important to keep and what wasn't it wasn't an easy task but it let him continue on without losing the times it wanted to keep.

Challenge Day 052 of Year 12 Hiwahn often felt invisible in a crowd. It just didn't know what it could do to stand out.

Challenge Day 051 of Year 12 Pior wasn't sure why his human coworker and friend kept saying to 'hop to it' and at this point was too afraid to ask.

The Goal: 365 days of learning 2D animation, starting with digital drawing and mastering the fundamentals of motion. My target is at least 30 minutes of practice every day.

The First 10 Days: I’ve spent the last week and a half getting comfortable with Blender’s Grease Pencil tools, following along with Grant Abbitt’s Udemy course. There's a lot to learn but it has exciting.

What I've been up to:

Navigating the Grease Pencil Workflow: I learned how to switch effortlessly between Draw, Edit, and Sculpt modes to create and refine 2D art right inside Blender’s 3D viewport.

Expressive Drawing Techniques: I mastered setting up brushes and configuring my graphics tablet for pressure sensitivity, allowing me to create dynamic, hand-drawn lines with natural variation in thickness.

Core Animation Principles: I practiced the fundamentals of timing and spacing by creating a bouncing ball, learning how to use keyframes, interpolation, and onion skinning to make movement feel fluid.

Rigging 2D Characters: I discovered how to add bones to flat drawings to "rig" them, which lets me animate characters like the car and the cat with smooth, stretchy motion instead of redrawing every frame.

Blending 2D and 3D: I learned the unique skill of drawing directly onto 3D objects and placing strokes in 3D space, enabling me to mix hand-drawn animation with 3D environments like the clock tower project.

Polishing and Rendering: I gained experience tidying up my strokes, using modifiers for non-destructive edits, and setting up the final scene with lighting and materials before rendering the animation.

The Plan: I am taking a deep-dive approach. Rather than rushing, I’ll be spending roughly a week (or more) on each of the 12 Principles to ensure I’m building a solid foundation. My roadmap includes courses from Aaron Blaise to help me move from basic shapes to character-driven, anime-style action.

Why this blog? This is my personal lab—a place to log my progress, store my experiments, and track the evolution of my skills over the next year.

Challenge Day 050 of Year 12 Sohin's life was pretty relaxed now that she was retired. She tended her garden, took care of her pets, went for walks and read. It was a lifestyle she enjoyed that she could sustain without any issues.

Challenge Day 049 of Year 12 Blen liked spending his time exploring the city. It just went on and on, so there was always something more to see.

Challenge Day 048 of Year 12 There wasn't a lot to do in the colony in between ship arrivals. Eum spent most of his time going on long walks, exploring the trails around past edge of the site closest to her home, and just thinking. He was pretty accepting of the the situation though, and it kept him felling pretty content with it all. Not that there were a lot of alternatives. He didn't know where else he'd want go if he even ever got off planet.