time for sleep, though not the sleep of the dead

Ohh my eyes. I can't stay up like I used to. Though this is brain power stay up.

SO CLOSE! But my mind can't take it anymore. I'd really be loathed to disappoint Odd Owl, but damn After Effects is a lot of work. Finessing is work. Building scenes is work. Holy crap how do people do this for a living!

I like my job as is. I show up, there is stuff to do. There is a variety of stuff. There is problem solving, but not "WHY IS ADOBE DOING THIS THING????" problem solving. We ran a discharge job, and a 8 color back. Now that we have spec sheets, rerunning jobs is going to be a lot easier. There is more of a system for keeping things and people in the loop.

Worked a nice 38 hours this week, which is exactly what I wanted to do while also doing a music video. Can you point out the sarcasm? Still, hours are good. I remember when I started work, there were a couple long vacations that happened, so that lost me some hours right at the start. Now after many months of solid work and that raise, I'm getting nicely ahead in a way that was hard to do for many months.

Next Friday is Neil Gaiman! AHHH!

At home I worked. It's stupid how little movements can take SO MUCH work.

Bleerrghhhble.

seeing the end, almost maybe

I feel like I'm in a pretty good place with the animation, but I don't want to sleep just yet. Have some more tweaking to do, but I got a few more scenes done. Saving the big one though...I still have a few more assets to draw. I always realize a few after I've done a big batch.

My Adagio teas came and I had a cup of both blends. One was a chestnutty smelling tasty cup, the other was Earl Grey fantastic. Mmm. I'm very happy with my blend choices! I also bought some candy to see me through the night.

Work was work. Jimbo P. picked up some shirts at the studio, that was cool.

Let it be know: those re-useable bags made from recycled plastic bags are a PAIN to print on. Lots of specific heat settings (the material will shrink if it gets too hot, and you have to put additives in the ink to make it cure at a lower temp). We did it, but it took a lot of time to do it.

So yeah. At home I had tea and candy and worked on the animation. I swear, editing the pieces takes longer than it does to animate them.

Took a little break from blogging to do more animating. Just touching up the different scenes, replacing different parts of footage.

Still got the big stump scene to animate, but I still have tomorrah. It's coming together!! Waaah! Jeeze.

waaaaah crunch time

It's 2:37am. I'm going to get a few more animations in, nothing final but just a touch of something so that it is there.

I'm REALLY happy with how the ladder and clouds are looking. Less so with the walks. But with all of them touched on today, I can spend tomorrow drawing the rest of the assets, trying some more walks, and just working on tweaks. Only four more...ahg no, I'm going to sleep after this. My eyes are bugging.

Okay. I've rendered all the scenes as they are. Thats good. I think. Tomorrow is already Thursday! So okay goal will be to have all the assets drawn. Then I can start finalizing. I really need a better looking quail. Hmm.

I really wish work would let me out earlier, but it's been a full week. Today I cut and weeded vinyl, burned and taped, caught a bit, did a banner. It went by pretty fast, though damn does it ever take up a lot of time.

And I can't exactly pull an all nighter to work on this project. Work is important!

Carmen's backgrounds look so good.

you're a turkey lance

1am and still working. But that is good. Things are looking good. Sorta. I'm at a point where I'm wondering what the best option is to take OH that is a better option. Erm. Yeah. Anyway.

Work was hectic and all over the place. Catching towels! Cleaning squeegees for the discharge job! Oh now I'm burning and then cleaning and reclaiming, but oh I have to clean the screens from the discharge job because we can't leave the ink in the screen, and omg why are there so many screens???? By the end I was quite waterlogged and cross eyed.

I had a very nice shower when I got off work. Had so much risidual ink. Straight into jammies! And then straight to work.

Wheeee. Okay blogging break over.

and it is only Monday, but things can still go wrong

The part of the night where my eyes sorta wanna fall out of my sockets. Too much computer looking at. But hey!! I got 5 segments animated! Out of 23. Okay they were easier segments, but it got me feeling really good. And I got out of work late too. Just gotta keep plugging away. Five a night will get me done by the deadline. But hopefully I can do it faster than that. Booyah.

Work was busy and all over the place. Burning screens! Pressing hats! Unboxing bags and reboxing pressed bags! Taping screens! Double coating screens & hardening them for discharge! Cleaning out a discharge screen! It was a chock full day.

And a full night. But I feel really good about it. Yay.

contact munchies

Opted to sleep in. And everything was hunky dory on the computer for most of the day. Got the animatic resorted with some notes and I started setting up the different scenes. 23 in all. Well 23 different animated segments. A few use the same background and many have limited movement. So! Time to get cracking.

I did my usual grocery run. Lovely day.

My neighborhood smells like herb, if ya know what I mean. Went outside to gt my laundry and WHEW could I smell it.

When Alana came home she asked to see my animatic, so that was really nice.

Happy Papas Day!

secondary concerns

It took me all day to do something that should have just taken till the afternoon, at the latest. Those installs take time. Damn you Adobe. But it worked. It managed to edit and render.

I got up early even! Good thing, because it wasn't set to go till later. I worked a bit. Then I took a break to get a nice pot for my jade plant, and some proper soil to repot it in. I spoil my plant, I really do.

Headed down to Pro Build which had an awesome plant center. Well it had lots of plants, everything smelled nice, the pots were really good, and everyone was friendly. So that was awesome in my books. Maybe it didn't have the immense variety that some of the Pacific Northwest nurserys have, but it was still nice. There was a $34.99 pot that was beautiful but I just couldn't justify buying, so I went with an orange one. Most of my decor is in primary colors, but a green plant should be in an orange pot. It's just common sense...and I can a smaller red pot for a cutting. So there is still some primary. It was a lovely warm day, so I'm glad I got outside for at least a little bit.

Back at home I got to work and I worked worked worked and it went really well. Got all the bits where they needed to be and ... well I had to do one more reinstall. So I did that, ate dinner, got some candy for my efforts. I just need to make sure that the reinstalls, when they happen, happen during times when I can afford to take a break. Next week will be crazy busy, gotta get a lot of bits done. Thankfully Carmen is doing the coloring.

Speaking of which, her colors look GREAT thus far. Like holy cow. Love it. This video will look great, I'm sure.

Got the animatic all done, and the schedule says that I am to wrap up the animatic on Saturday, so hey. On schedule, that is good!

Tomorrow I will figure out how exactly to attack the next part of the game. The end game. The final animation. Though lots of the shots are short, and some just have a couple bits of animations. Either way. Waaaahhh!!!

arrgggghhh

Uhg. Adobe started having problem after problem and I've spent the last 2 hours just about trying to resolve them. I was being super productive on my animation animatic too! I got all the objects placed in the different scenes, I just had to connect the dots a bit.

Now I am just waiting to see if Adobe connects...come on. COME ON.

Bleh.

Okay so at work I burnt and taped and cleaned a bit. I also unboxed and reboxed bags for heat presses. It got really hot, so by the end I was sweating.

I tried repotting my Jade, but I don't think the soil is good enough. I'll have to find a small bag of good rich soil for my baby.

Argh. So frustrated right now. I NEED THESE PROGRAMS TO WORK!

Talkin' to Nate about it.

quartermaster

Today at work felt really productive. The seps that were burned in the morning were taped and lined up and printed by the end of the day. That is a really good turn around! And it was a badass design too, and well designed to go on shirts.

I weeded vinyl and Andrew showed me a really awesome way to paper it. Couldn't thank him enough as it worked really well. Papering vinyl is low on my "things I like to do at work" list.

Did some cleaning as well, but yeah. Pretty awesome full day of stuff.

At home I made the walk loops a little neater, but there were some glitches in the program that took most of the night to resolve. Hate loosing time. Ah oh well.

Joey is chillin' on my bed like a cute doggie.

Oh I also ordered some tea from Adagio. They allow you to make custom blends and put them up for anyone to sample, you don't get paid for it you just get credit to put towards more tea. It's a nice system. I didn't make any blends, I just have been wanting to try it for a little while. There are lots of nerdy blends, made in mind of nerdy things. Did I order a Q from Skyfall blend? Maaaaaybe.

Also a year ago was my first day of work! June 13th. Time flies!

just do what you are supposed to do AE!

Going to be working late trying to figure out these walk cycles. Hopefully not LATE late.

Had a nice day at work. Coated screens, cleaned stuff, caught a little bit, did some banners. Finished Abhorsen, started The Shadow of the Torturer, but something about the narrative style didn't quite catch me, so I started Insurgent. I don't really like the writing style in it either (it needs some editing, it's really all over the place though it has some good qualities). It's hard to find really good stories sometimes.

Got out of work a bit early, so it gave me time to redraw some assets and work on the animation. It's slow going. I was feeling really confident last night, but tonight not so much. I really wish I remembered more about After Effects...

Ah oh well, I have the weekend to work. All..damn...weekend. Maybe I'll buy myself a pizza.

Also a firework went off and set several car alarms going. Nuisance.

walking loops and the jitters within

Whoo, got a little animation loop done, but I figured it out and that makes me happy. Drew a bunch of assets too, for the video, and worked on the animatics. Next couple days will be all animatics, so I have a sense of the timing of things. Not a bad night, in terms of work.

Looking at my bank account post-raise is weird. It's like. "I have that much money? Really? And this is AFTER my rent check?". So I put more money in my savings. Like I said before, I want to get a good chunk in there in case of...well any old emergency that comes up! Work on savings before I start buying things. Though I did buy a couple used books...but those are books. Books don't count.

It was a cleaning day. 20 screens cleaned and reclaimed. The exposure room is really filling up! It was quite empty a few weeks ago, so that is good. Being on top of having screens on hand to print is a good thing. Now I just have to clean the squeegees and floodbars for future jobs. Did a bit of catching but not much. This week is far less brutal than that week...though I may have just jinxed myself with that.

But I've said plenty of jinxy things.

Almost done with Abhorsen. Ma, you must read this series, it's really nifty. "Sabriel" by Garth Nix is the first one.

mmm mochi

Printing on wetsuits is a pain! Thankfully I didn't have to do the pulling, but yeah... they really smell when they come through the dryer after being heat set. And since they are used all sorts of things are getting flash heated up to 340 degrees. Bleehhg. So we printed the wet suits, then Jeff and I set about heat pressing things. I did the front and back and inside and outside on these jerseys, and he did these bags. I finished first and helped him finish the bags. We got one load into the van, though there are still more boxes.

All in all, a nice start to the week. I did some grocery shopping. My Palladiums arrived from Zappos and THEY FIT! Huzzah! Can't wait to break them in a little bit.

Then I got to working on the video. Drew a bunch of assets and scanned them in and pieced them out. Hard to say how minimal I should do the drawings, but once I get them in, it should be easier.

My neck feels really tweaked. I'm going to rest early, last night was a late night.

davos 4 ever

It feels so nice sometimes, to be back in that bed that I slept in for a month and a half while I looked for work. It's been a year!

Carmen made tasty scones, which I noshed on through the day while I worked on the video. I had some problems with After Effects, which took a good chunk of time to figure out, but I did get it sorted eventually and by the end of the day we worked out a calendar for the process, and I got the backgrounds into the video where the storyboard originally went, so now it looks more complete. Had exactly enough storyboards! Hurray! It was a lot of putting heads together. The next two weeks will be just...work work work. Well less that, because I want to get the finished animations to them on Friday. I'm not editing the whole video, Carmen is doing the final bits, I'm just producing the animated half. Thank Douglas it is not a FULL video, that would have been insaaaane.

Carmen and I took a little walk in the middle, to chat and clear heads. That was nice. Walked down to this store and she bought some ribbon to put the buttons on. She is really focusing on making all the Kickstarter rewards look reaaaally nice.

Had a nice drive back, not a lot of traffic. Chilled a bit, and worked on the video some more. Watched Game of Thrones. Ate dinner.

Crazy week 1 begins!

let the animation games commence

Had a pretty productive day all around.

Got up at 10ish, did my morning thing. Got to drawing and nailed out a few awesome backgrounds in less time than I was expecting! Booyah. I scanned them, backed and overnight bag, grabbed a snack, checked my tire pressure (my front tires look low but they both say 36, which the front is supposed to be at, right?). Then up I went to San Francisco. There was a lot of traffic...in the other direction. I've had some good luck on 17 lately, it always seems to be dense in the other direction.

Josh showed me some After Effects trickery as a refresher. I'll probably still need to look up some tutorials, but I think I have enough to go on. Carmen worked on editing the video, as it is a combination of live action and animation, and it does seem like less animation that I was originally expecting to do, which is nice. It's still a lot of tight animation with lots of little things, but I can do it! Just a lot of evenings. Hopefully work won't deck me out too much. I'll try to get a lot of drawing done tomorrow, so I can just focus on the program stuff during the week. Drawing and color. Whooee it's a lot, but it'll be cool.

I got to play around on Josh's Wacom Cintiq. The draw on the screen thing that is really cool.

We had take out India food for dinner. Mmm tasty. Josh and I played some Forza 4. A nice evening. Lots of work ahead, but it'll be cool!

Feeling good about things.

looking back a bit and a long ways

Well, I generated a nice little pile of sketches. Now I'm going to go to sleep and resume working in the morning. I don't want to work late, because I know the quality will start to degrade. Lets get this music video started! I'm sorting out the flat backgrounds, that way we can start rigging the scenes.

Work was a shorter day, blessed be. Ran a job. Cleaned. Coated 3 screens. That was it. Nice way to end the week.

Sorry my blog isn't as exciting as it used to be. June 7th, 2012 was when I interviewed for my job, and the 13th was when I was hired!

PNCA is apparently laying off a ton of the core really cool people and restructuring their whole...system of things. That is some major bullshit. They had a good thing going when I was there, Tom Manley needs to actually know a thing or two about the students and the work they are doing and the faculty that bends over backwards to help them. It just pisses me off. No connection between the decisions and who they affect.

ending the day with punk and pizza

oiyoiyoi I need bed stat. It was a loooong day at work.

Coated a full rack of screens, which was awesome. Burned and taped a bunch more screens. The job was set up but it took a lot of tweaking and it got late by the time we started printing, and the deadline was tonight sooo... but Boss bought us pizza! So that was great. Something to keep us going, and it really hit the spot, as pizza tends to do. I also got a chance to use the wheely thing for under the press action, it was awesome!

Got back late and had enough energy to open a beer and watch Hannibal. Now I sleep. Have a lot to do tomorrow and tomorrow night. So much. But at least staying up on a Friday is easier because hey, it's a Friday! I don't work Saturday!

weeds

Wow, I am super duper tired. Think I'll actually go to bed with plenty of time to sleep tonight, though I generally have been really good about getting to bed at a not truly ridiculous hour. I woke up a bunch in the middle of the night last night. Not fun.

At work, thanks to the new screencleaning system, I cleaned AND reclaimed 22+ screens, and still had time to catch, burn, and clean squeegees and floodbars. Awesome!

I finished Lirael and started Quicksilver. Neal Stephenson is always on the border of "too smart for me". Reamde and Snow Crash are accessibly awesome, but Anathem is a whole lotta whaaaat.

Took a nice hot bath when I got home. Cleaning and reclaiming always leaves me feeling chemically, even though I wear gloves and a repirator. Still, the stuff on my hands and touching my hair and stuff, that probably gets it on me...

The ER35 bottle got knocked into the bramble when I was reclaiming, so I had to awkwardly climb down and fish it out. I'm pretty sure I brushed against some poison oak, but I haven't had any sort of reaction or rash. It's my fear that the bottle will REALLY tumble into the poison oak and then I'll REALLY find out if I am secretly immune to Poison Oak. Actually my fear is tripping and falling into it. The reclaiming area is next to an overzealous ditch full of weeds, poison oak, and other plant life.

Anyhoo. Worked on some commission stuff once my brain had time to relax. Next few nights will be busy, busy, busy!

wheeeeeely thing

Ordered some cute Hannibal & Will Graham themed buttons and stickers from the same artist that did the Bilbo sticker on my sketchbook. Yaaay!

Had a conference call with Josh and Carmen and got the music video schedules and plans and things sorted. We are doing a full meeting on Saturday to review After Effects and discuss the system for things. It's exciting! I feel good about it. It's a joint effort.

The weather has been a bit cool these past few days. What gives?

At work I caught and cleaned and coated. Pretty regular day.

Though we did get a wheely thing.

So that is pretty cool.

monday funday

Zoopity zoop, Odd Owl's Kickstarter went over 9k so now I shall make a music video. AHHHH! Just have to do it one bit at a time. Piece it together. June will be a full month.

Work was a cleaning day, though there was a bit of catching. I reclaimed 6 screens early on, and 10 in the evening. Coated those six. Still have some screens to clean. Also squeegees and floodbars. The day went by surprisingly fast.

Salad for dinner. Watched Mad Men and Bob's Burgers.

Tomorrow there shall be a conference call and it begins. Waaah.

hurray for Odd Owl's success!

Odd Owl is funded and is just $20 away from 9k, so I better figure out how to do that music video. Ahhhh.

Spent the night refining the sketch for the album. Looking nice. Lots of stuff going on. Very San Franciscoy. Waiting for Game of Thrones now. Then I'll go to bed.

Made a grocery run. Then I sat on the back porch reading Gulp by Mary Roach and drinking root beer and working on my freckles. Not a bad Sunday, not a bad Sunday at all. Had a nice chat with Ma and Pa. They don't seem to be having empty nest problems at all. Very active!