On day one, he made a squishy ball become something else.

First day of proper, traditional animation.

I originally tried using Maya, that 3D thing, but epic failed. I sort of created a pointy robot with a paralyzed neck; It had bones and I could bend it manually, but it couldn't bend in the timeline for some reason.

To be fair, it's a lot different to the last 3D software I used, which was cheapy free thing. All I managed to make was a helmet for a model of Samus for Metroid DREAD....very optimized and pointy.

I'm gonna need a bit more practice with 3D methinks.

However, after about an hour or two of fail'd modeling, I moved on to the 2-D assignment, which I knew I'd have better luck with.

The task was to morph a ball (using only 12 frames) into something else. ANYTHING else! Me being the exobiology geek I am, I chose one of Wayne Barlowe's aliens, the ARROWTONGUE!


(Me riding an arrowtongue)

(Barlowe's painting of an Arrowtongue)

I'm quite proud of the result (as you shall see below), but using a lightbox and pencil as opposed to tablet and Flash was a strange, but refreshing difference.so BOOM...well, spppleooorggg (the smoothness of the morph) there was a ball becoming an arrowtongue...

...sorry, a REPRESENTATION of a ball becoming a REPRESENTATION of an arrowtongue.

Our first proper lecture about art's deeper messages and representations was intense... A complete and utter mind-f**k, but I loved the deep, philosophical nature of the discussion. An amazing variety of ideas and expression. See, artists are smart, too

That's all for now, Up next...stuff!

It's a bit jumpy, but that's only because it was lined up inconstantly with the camera.

(I spent hours trying to work out the HTML for the links and images etc...totally worth it, though)