Week 9 (24th Nov.)

Monday Nov. 24th – Monday was a full on ACP day. In the morning we had our first premier Pro session with Oscar. I loved his energy and even through I again, have many years of experience in Premier, he made the class quite engaging, it was like being with my ADHD friends. He also let us know that aside from the three courses that Maliha signed us up for, with the GMetrix codes we have, we are allowed to take any of the other exams as well. Over the next few weeks I am going to study for the Adobe Animate exam, and potentially do Illustrator and InDesign, depending on what time I have. I figure that since I can do them for free I might as well do as many as I can since I’m already familiar with most Adobe programs. After the class I went to the library to do a bit of work on Isobel’s brief. The session did not end up getting moved so I would have to miss it, but I still need to get more work done on this brief, as I’ve been spending all my free time studying.

In the afternoon, I took my Photoshop exam. It was even easier than After Effects and I finished 20 minutes early with a score of 97%. I really wish there was a way to review our exams however, as I am curious to know what mistakes I did make. After that a few of us went up to the animation floor to get some more work done, but the fire alarm went off and we had to evacuate. I got bored of waiting to be let back in so I just went home.


Tuesday Nov. 25th – This was my first day off in the last few weeks, meaning I didn’t have any classes or meetings, and I didn’t have a shift at work either. I had planned to get a lot done but because the extent of my plan was ‘get a lot done’ and no more specific than that, I did not in fact get a lot done. First, I recorded and submitted my auditions for the Hail Mary final project for both ARIS and Ramsey. I love voice acting so much but haven’t found any success so far in auditions I have previously done. But I’ll always take an opportunity to throw my hat in the ring because it’s fun. For the rest of the day when I wasn’t paralyzed by the thought of getting something done, I worked on Isobel’s brief. I feel, I really need to commit a little more time to it than I have been because for the last two weeks I really haven’t made much progress. I’m putting a lot of effort into the layout and perfecting the perspective, but haven’t even looked at how I’m going to color or render the scene. Then I switched to GMetrix to study for Premier Pro. At this point I’m quite confident in how my exams have been going, but the GMetrix courses have been great in helping me focus on exactly what I need to have fresh for the exam, thus I will continue completing the courses.

Tomorrow, after the excursion to Brick Lane, I’m going to once again sit down and look at my calendar for the weeks leading up to the end of Isobel’s brief and make a more detailed plan of what I will be doing. I’ve also decided to give up my shift this Friday, as I don’t think it will be a good idea for me to work 4 days of the week with an exam coming up.


Wednesday Nov. 26th – This morning a few of us from the Purr Point brief met up in brick lane to take pictures and reference. It was a little disorganozed as a few people showed up late and it was a bit chillier out than most people wanted it to be but I feel like we got a good feel for the place. We discussed how we would like to elect an Art Director, despite Maliha initially shooting this down, as we feel there need to be executive decisions made so we can stay on track style-wise. Leila and I will be meeting with Maliha to create a production schedule, so we will bring this up with her then. Another thing we need to consider is that we need to liase with the programming and modeling teams to find out exactly what they need and when, in terms of assets and visual concepts. I’ve never worked on a game before so I don’t know exactly what the pipeline looks like, but I want to make sure no one hits a stagnation because they don’t have the materials they need from someone else.

Brick Lane Reference linked is the folder containing images form the trip.


Thursday Nov. 27th – I was at work.


Friday Nov. 28th – I spent the majority of the day trying to organize a meeting for my SIP and liasing with everyone interested to find a time for us all to meet. While waiting for replies I also applied to be a mentee under the UAL industry mentor program. I had to write 750 words about why I wanted t be in the program and what I could get out of it. I think it would be amazing to have someone who is actively working in 2D animation to learn from as the industry is looking quite bleak right now. I could definitely use the connections they’d be able to provide as well. Then I spent the rest of the time studying for the Premiere Pro exam.


Saturday/Sunday Nov. 29th/30th – I was at work. Upon coming home I spent a few hours studying GMetrix.

Week 8 (17th Nov.)

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.


Saturday Nov. 22nd – I was at work.


Sunday Nov. 23rd – I was at work.