Monday Nov. 17th – Because I as well as my roommate were at work all weekend, Monday was going to be a chore heavy day. However I also hadn’t done anything for the Isobel brief. I had planned to work through some chores and then work on the environment piece, but that plane quickly devolved into chaos. Firstly, because our neighbors hate us, they once again were blasting music right below our windows. At 2:30AM my roommate who had class the next morning went down to yell at them, while our other roommate (who had work) and I (who had to clean the whole house, do dishes, do laundry, and do DPS work), yelled at them from our windows. They quickly drove off after that and we finally got to sleep. Unfortunately, this meant I woke up at noon, and light was already fading in the sky. I set my laundry on, and sat had some breakfast while sorting emails. The rest of this post didn’t save so I will summarize: Emails took me a lot longer than expected. I tried to make an Instagram post about the freelance project I made, but the video was too big to post and I kept having to adjust it. It wouldn’t post from my computer so I tried on my phone but it doesn’t have enough storage to save the video, so I tried to free up storage by updating. Something went wrong while updating and it corrupted my phone, bricking it. I spent the rest of the day trying to get my phone to work again and this took me right up until midway through the session with Isobel. I didn’t have anything to show, but she said that we could email her with any progress, as well as to ask for any specific tutorials. I was thinking it would be useful to get advice on detailing for filling out a scene, as well as painting and rendering.
Tuesday Nov. 18th – Today we had a session for the ACP Photoshop exam. I’ve been using Ps for over a decade so we didn’t cover anything I didn’t know. I was a bit frustrated because for some reason we decided to move the exam from Friday to Monday, meaning the Isobel session will have to be moved. Tuesday is the only day next week I have off, but it seems like I’ll have to join the character session then… Overall, I’ve been a bit irritated today. I think the combination of being ill, seasonal depression kicking in, and my general intense busy-ness have put me really on edge.
Wednesday Nov. 19th – I was at work.
Thursday Nov. 20th – At 12 we had a meeting about the Purr Point project. We primarily discussed the roles we would take in the production and I also pitched the idea of going out to Brick Lane to collect reference photos and sketches.
I also sent out a few job applications. I’ve decided to fully omit any demographic information they ask for as an experiment to see if this gets me any responses. I also took my pronouns off my CV. I used to fill out all the diversity information, since I am queer, disabled, and an immigrant, I thought this would give me a chance to be a diversity hire since the market is already so over-saturated with people of the same skill level as me. However, since I haven’t been getting any responses, and the government continues to propagate fascist rhetoric, I fear being honest about these things has decreased my chances, at least on paper. Hopefully, this way I’ll at least get some interviews, as I am told that my cover letters and CV are already well done.
In the eveing I worked on Isobel’s brief a little more, just detailing the perspective on the shelves and other regular forms in the scene. I also begam building a logo for my studio in Illustrator.
Friday Nov. 21st – In the morning we had another Photoshop class with Esmeralda. We covered selection and masking as well as retouching tools like spot healing tool and patch tool. These are features I don’t use very often so it was good to get a refresher. We also went over adjustment layers which was back into expert territory for me. After the class I went to the library to put together a little call out for collaborators on my SIPs. Almost instantly I got one reply from Sophia Davies, and I hope to get a few more before the pitch in December.
After sending that out I logged onto GMetrix and kept studying for the Photoshop exam on Monday.
Monday Nov. 10th – In the morning we had the first session of our ACP After Effects course. In honesty I thought this would be a professional level exam, however we covered the barebones basics of After Effects. I think the tutor wasn’t aware that the majority of us were Animation students and I myself, have already extensively used AE. When he began to explain frame rates, or said that we ‘probably didn’t know what the 12 principles of animation were’, I was a bit taken aback. However I do acknowledghe that these exams tend to be hyperspecific and they look for exact ways of doing things, so I will be studying the Gmetrix lessons he provided for us. Essentially, we covered how to open an AE document, make a composition, animate properties, add effects and pre-composing. I’d rather not go into detail because sitting through it was already mind-numbing. nI do want to point out that I do know that not everyone there was an animator or has used AE, but I was just under the impression that this was a professional exam for some reason. It can’t hurt to have the certificate anyway though.
In the Evening I then had a 1-2-1 tutorial with Isobel. Before the meeting I quickly sketched out some alternate roughs as the first one wasn’t working proportinately. The left vanishing point was too close to the canvas and it was warping the whole image when I tried to add in more details on the left and I widened it up. I’ve settled on the bottom composition pictured below.
She gave me some general advice to fill out some of the space and draw the eye toewards the desk area as seen in my notes below.
Immediately afterwards, my roommates and I went to go see ‘Be More Chill’ in concert. It was incredible and so funny and my 13 year old self would have had been so jealous.
Tuesday Nov. 11th – I attended a course rep session in the morning. The other DPS rep wasn’t there when we had to discuss the feed back we got but we didn’t have much to say anyway. Below is an image of the debrief I sent the rest of the cohort.
Afterwards I went to digital space at LCC to finish off the video for the ECR project. Because my process is very effects heavy it took a while to finish the edits because playback was quite slow. When it came to rendering I started at the digital space, but it took too long (3 hours) so I had to stop it and restart at home. My GPU is worse than those at uni so I had to leave it rendering overnight, but it finished fine and I was able to send it off in the morning.
Wednesday Nov. 12th – In the morning we had a short meeting about our SIPs where we got to pitch them to Maliha and the rest of the group. I talked about my studio idea and it seemed quite well recieved. I would like to come up with a short mission statement and send it out to the DPS group and see if any one would like to produce their projects under the Sawtooth name. This would give me an opportunity to gather members as well as begin a portfolio of work.
In the afternoon I worked on studying for the After Effects exam on GMetrix.
Thursday Nov. 13th – During the day I worked through more of the GMetrix After Effects course. I didn’t manage to finish the last domain but I felt confident enough that I could pass on Friday. Later, in the evening my roommates and I went down to Brixton to see my brother’s show, with the animation I did projected. He performed very well and I was proud. My mom even came over from Switzerland and got to see him playing on stage with my work there as well. Lot’s of people in the crowd as well as from his label complimented both of us on the work and performance. While I’d love to work in TV animation, I also enjoy doing visuals for music and would enjoy this type of work as well.
Friday Nov. 14th – In the morning I took the After Effects test. It was a little harder than I expected but I still passed with a 94%. It seems like the majority of the class did not pass so I think my extensive experience in AE definitely put me at an advantage. I spent the rest of the day with my mom and had dinner with my cousins.
Monday Nov. 3rd – Last week had been incredibly insane for me and I was honestly still trying to recover today. I’ve been feeling really burnt out with work, uni and conventions. I’m hoping that once I get this freelance project done I’ll be able to re-establish a pace that works better for me. I also got a rejection from the Lego internship which was unfortunate. I haven’t been applying to much recently, just because I haven’t had any time, but I’ve been rejected from everything I was waiting on now, other than a few unpaid indie projects, so I really need to get back on top of that. Anyway, today I worked on Isobel brief until we found out it was moved to Wedensday. As soon as I saw this message I switched to my freelance project for ECR. I scanned in more of the assets I had made and then spent some time playing in After Effects. I had planned to take more screenshots and pictures, but the process gets away from my sometimes, especially when I am working on so many projects at once.
Tuesday Nov. 4th – Today we had a meeting for Purr Point Productions where we went through some of the initial game ideas. The majority of us are animators / visdev artists so we didn’t have the necessary experience to know what genre game would be feasible to produce. We ended up playing with the ideas of an endless runner style game or some sort of collector or territory capture, in the vein of Temple Run and Subway surfers or Splatoon or Jet Set Radio. The idea for a platformer came up as well as we have a lot of Sonic the Hedgehog fans on the team. The devs said this might be more difficult to get right because the physics need to be super polished, but ultimately I think it’d be best for the two devs to have the final say in the game mechanics. As for style, we all seemed very set on a Y2K aesthetic with lowpoly models, saturated colors and flat textures. For the next meeting I want to put together some moodboards for environments, characters, graphics and props. I also want to talk to Maliha about possibly taking on a production role on the project, as it is something I’d like to learn about and I feel like I have strengths in leadership and organization.
Later, I went to a screening of Guillermo Del Toro’s new Frabkenstein film at Soho House. Netflix invited 15 UAL students to watch the movie and it was really quite good. I am a big fan of the original book and the film made some changes I didn’t like much, but it was definitely by far the best film adapation of the novel. I especially liked the costumes and the color grading, as well as the re-characterization of Elizabeth. She was much more interesting and it definitely made her appeal more for modern audiences without erasing her original characterization. I did not enjoy the re-imagining of Victor and Henry’s relationship because they had a completely different dynamic to the book, and I think it detracted from the necessary juxtaposition between Victor’s isolation in his obsession with playing god, and the rest of humanity. I did like the new story when the creature goes out alone and meets the old blind man who is ultimately killed. It was definitely updated for a modern audience, but for me it was one of the most impactful plotpoints. While I think the creature saving the girl from the river is a pivotal moment in the book, Del Toro’s execution of the creature’s development was spot-on for the character. I also liked that the movie replaced the somewhat rapey and vaguely sexist motivation for the creature to have a wife, with a simple desire for companionship, “We can be monsters together.” Overall, it was a great watch and I am always enamoured by Del Toro’s artistic skill.
Finally, when I came home I began to add some of those references to the Miro board and created a little section for visdev.
Wednesday Nov. 5th – In the morning we had a session with Zoe Tynan-Campbell on ‘Charting Your Vaues’. Personal Values are something that is at the forefront, and completely intrinsic not only to my practice but to the way I conduct my entire life. After contextualizing the session a bit, we began with an activity listing our personal values.
I found this quite easy because of my dedication to authenticity and activism. I spent a lot of my time discussing and analyzing my personal ethics. I subconsciously bolded the word that felt most important to me, and came up with my own 3 Fs. They helped me boil my moral mantra down to ‘Being able to do the things we want to do, with the people we want to do them with.’ What I want out of my life, and subsequently my career is to do things I enjoy, and provide joy to those around me. Politically, I am a self-declared anarcho-communist, but I refuse to hold myself to any code defined by someone else, anarchist theory just alignes strongly with my navigation of the world.
After that we did an activity where in five minutes we we’re to draw ourselves as some sort of archetype reflective of how we see ourselves within our creative practice.
Initially I thought of myself as a rock, a sturdy base to uplift my team members with a solid foundation of skills, but this felt too passive. I am someone who trys to encourage others, but myself as well. I considered the title ‘genie’ but I didn’t like the mysticism of just granting wishes. I feel my skills lie in the consistent effort I make to allow myself and other to achieve our goals. So, I went with the enabler. That word has a bit of a negative connotation, but I see it as ‘one who allows a person to make the things they want happen.’ The last thing I want is to be a restrictive force upon myself or others, thus I put my best efforts into doing the things that need to be done to make things happen. Now that I think about it, maybe ‘The Catalyst’ is a cooler name for it.
Finally, in groups, we charted skills we thought we possessed, both soft and hard. The activity made me realize that I believe that every single person posesses every single skill that can be fathomed. Or at least the potential for it. Even when thinking of my weaknesses, there are situations in my life where I still demonstracted proficiency in said skills. For example, time-management is an area I feel particularly weak in. However, my group helped me realize that whether I feel I am managing my time poorly or not, I have rarely missed a deadline. My time-management process might not be the most efficient or comprehensible, but somehow, my time does get managed. I believe this can be true for any skill. Furthermore, this emphasized the importance of collaboration and community. If a certain skill comes easier to your friend than it does to you… work with your friend!
Zoe also mentioned introspecting on your NEEDS. Rather than focusing solely on what you can bring to your practice or to a company, thinking about what you want to gain from it/them. We didn’t have time to chart these out, but it made me realize that for my SIPS project (Sawtooth) I want to make sure I remember to put emphasis on worker’s needs (it is a socialist endeavor afterall). I wrote down “Focus on worker’s NEEDS in order to serve client needs.” If the needs of everyone working are not met, then how can a client expect us to serve their needs. This is also a refection of one of the core failures of capitalism.
She finished of with suggesting a 3x3x3 reflective task. I believe I covered the first two 3s in my reflections above (3 things that resonated with me oin the session, 3 things/values central to my practice). The third however, was 3 small actions I can take immenently for my practice. I think the first thing I can do is chart a list of my personal needs as described in the last paragraph. Secondly, I’d like to create a research plan to really kickstart this Pitch project. Basically finding out what I need to find out, and what kind of team I need to build. In all honesty, the last thing I feel I need to do is finish the freelance project I’m working on. In order to shift my focus to the other things I need to get done, I need to get this project off my back. I’m not being paid very much for it, and it is just a supplementary piece for a music event, it is not the main focus, and I need to let myself stop at ‘good enough’ rather than stewing in the pressure of producing something perfect.
In the evening we had our session with Isobel.
Thursday Nov. 6th – I was at work.
Friday/Saturday Nov. 7th/8th – I am going to be completely honest, I cannot remember what I did these days as I obviously did not write about them here until now. I almost certainly spent most of the day doing chores and working on
Monday Oct. 27th – I spent the morning putting together a quick powerpoint to be able to present for Isobel at 5.
Tuesday Oct. 28th – I spent the day working on a freelance project for a live event hosted by Eternal City Records. I am producing 90 seconds of small mixed media animation loops for them to project as the performers play. First I gathered some reference from mixed media artists I already follow, based on a folder of references the client sent me. Then I did some brainstorming and scanning experiments. When doing mixed media work I tend to just play and write down any ideas I have. Once I have a lot of experimental results I pull all of them into After Effects and play until I find something.
Wednesday Oct. 29th – On Wednesday, I spent a lot of the day helping my roommate take photos for her uni work. I also spent time working on new thumbnails for the Isobel Stenhouse brief.
Thursday Oct. 30th – I woke up at 6:30AM to prepare a cake for my roommate’s birthday, before a 7AM voice acting masterclass online with Joe Zieja.
Based on her favorite movie Labyrinth and my favorite review left on the store I work at.
The masterclass was honestly not a ton of new information, and a big portion was more of an ad for Joe’s VA Academy. However, it did inspire me to begin auditioning again as I have a lot of fun voice acting. Once I finish my freelance project I’m going to put together a new demo reel and start applying for VA work again. After the class I spent the rest of the day at work.
Friday Oct. 31st – I worked on a piece of the ECR freelance project as well as chores.
Then because it was Halloween I went out with my friends.
Saturday Nov. 1st – It was Sonic Con so my friends and I went to the convention. It was lots of fun and we got too see a lot of the Sonic music live. However, we were so exhausted from the night before that we went home and passed out basically immediately.
Monday Oct. 20th – In the morning we had a meeting with Sam Beagrie from Purr Point Productions to introduce one of our potential live briefs. This one gives us eight months to develop a game prototype that we can hopefully get funded by the end. We would be collabing with Games Arts and Design students, as well as us on Animation. I think the project sounds exciting and the potential to include cutscenes or a trailer in order to get some more animation for my showreel is what draws me to the project. I’ve been developing a game idea for my studio (Sawtooth, SIPS), as well as using it for the Isobel Stenhouse brief. I very briefly pitched it, but I think the scope might be too ambitious for the timeframe we have. I will however definitely participate in the brief and I’m excited to get started.
In the evening we met with Isobel for the environment pathway brief to discuss initial ideas for our concept pieces. I’ve had some notes as this game idea is something I’ve been toying with for a while.
I explained the concept a bit and Isobel seemed to think it was a good starting point. She wants us to really nail compositional fundamentals to be able to show mastery over basic skills needed for concept design. So, an interior with lots of specific decor and synthetic light sources feels like the right way to go for me.
Tuesday Oct. 21st – I was at work.
Wednesday Oct. 22nd – I spent the day working on more cosplay items for ComicCon.
Thursday Oct. 23rd – I was at work.
Friday Oct. 24th – I was at Comic Con. My roommate and I went in casual cosplays of Dave and Roxy from Homestuck. I also became a patron of the arts by spending entirely too much money at Artist Alley. I do love doing that however, because I know my cash is going straight into the pocket of another artist and I get lots of cool things to hang up in my room. After the con I went to see Black Sabbath: The Ballet with my mom.
Saturday Oct. 25th – I went to Comic Con again and did a cosplay of Commander Karkat from Homestuck. I also went to a Homestuck cosplay meetup where, for the first time, I met so many other Homestuck fans. We took lots of photos and played games. I am now on the Homestuck Cosplayers UK Discord and I hope to be able to meet up with all these lovely people again!
Sunday Oct. 26th – Sunday was a bit of a lazy day. I had tons of chores to do in the house and I also had to pick up my roommate from the train station. I intended to complete some work for the environment design brief, but I didn’t achieve as much as I wanted to.
Now that comic con is over however, I think I’ll have a lot more time to dedicate to DPS work
