Feel obliged to share.  Cool concept, works very well with the music as well (which is also pretty nifty):

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Xposted from Nate's fancy blog, A Progress in Work....

So it’s been awhile and I’ve got a few assignments built up to share.  These are getting more fun, and harder too…

First, the side-step!

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Trying to be most concerned with showing weight, this was pretty difficult and involved a lot of embarassing hip swivel practice in front of the mirror.

Next, my walk cycle….

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For anyone who can tell, that’s Cael from leveL.  The hair was actually the easiest part.  He kinda bobs a bit too much…I wish the hands were smoother too :\

Aaaaaand for the grant finale, my ridiculous run cycle!

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It’s my ode to Richard William’s ridiculous obsession with animating big boobed women (seriously, have you seen his book?)  Our professor used to work for him and she always thought it was insane how kinda sexist those designs were….I was doing it just to be funny to her, and was glad she didn’t take it the wrong way and fail me, haha.  Originally I was going to turn her into a running overly-enthusiastic Nun but I ran outta time.

Alright, just one more assigment to go for the quarter: acting!  I’m very excited about this but scared that I only have two weeks to pull it off o_o;;  Wish me luck!

Xposted from Nate's fancy blog, A Progress in Work....

Yet more animation exercises.  First off, I decided to re-do my swoon assignment…took out the acting and just concentrated on the sway and fall (which *gasp!*  was the assignment to begin with!)

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Much happier with how that came out.  NEXT, our ‘overlapping action’ assignment.  We were asked to either do a piece of seaweed on a rock that’s moving back and forth, or a pendulum rocking from side to side and coming to a rest.  Well, I asked the prof if it’d be OK if I did someone throwing a fishing line to make it fun, and she agreed.  200 drawings later, here are the results:

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So many drawings because I drew the person, the fishing pole and the line all on their own separate layers….I did this so I could mess with the timing of each element individually, but then came to realize that, since they are all connected and moving at the same time, I had to have a drawing of all 3 for every frame (i.e. I couldn’t use the same drawing of the figure twice with two separate frames of the fishing line at the same time to make it look like it was moving faster.)  This stunk because I ended up with 3 times as many drawings as I would have had if I’d just done them all on one layer, which isn’t terrible until you think about having to film each individual frame, so it took close to 20 minutes every time I wanted to test it.  So.  Annoying.   …I am very happy with the outcome though, I think the little fisher dude is cute ^_^

Apart from Animation nonsense, going to see Where the Wild Things Are this evening.  I am incredibly amped for this film, but I think it might just be cause I love the trailer so much….that Arcade Fire song never ceases to make me cry, and I totally tear up whenever I see the preview   Ahhhh, nostalgia.

I shall report back my thoughts.  Other than that, not much to report really….life is Savannah is rather slow and uneventful, just me locked in the Animation lab for most of my conscious (and some unconscious) hours…

Xposted from Nate's fancy blog, A Progress in Work....

Incredible.  Haunting.

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Xposted from Nate's fancy blog, A Progress in Work....

Mmmm, more animation practice goodness to share.  This time we had to do a ‘Swoon’, a character swaying to one side then losing consciousness as they fall and pass out.  The excercise was definitely very challenging…keeping up with all those joints and the idea of it the movement was conscious or just a result of gravity after the figure passed out…definitely a fair amount of brain power excreted (yes that is the word I mean).

However, an interesting point came up when I was doing mine and showing it to folks for feedback.  I had decided to give the character a reason to be passing out….well, this resulted in me putting in a bit of acting stuff, and one of my friends told me to be careful not to be too ‘Posey’, and always make sure my character was in constant motion.  This is a bit weird, because I just thought I was putting in ‘Beats’ for the character, like an actor breaks down a script.  Since I have an acting background this seemed the normal way to do it.  I decided to see how it looked with some of the bigger ‘beats’ removed, and while more fluid I found I liked the ‘performance’ better with the beats, that it was funnier.  I showed a friend with an acting background, and just asked which she preferred without any context….she liked the beats more….another friend complained (unprompted) that one version looked ‘choppy, like it kept freezing.’  Since timing is of interest to me in animation, I’m interested to see what my opinion with evolve to about this, but thought it’d also be fun to see what others think.

So below I am posting both versions…if you’ve any opinion at all I’d love to hear them and why…help fuel my education!!

Poses:

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Pose-lite:

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Xposted from Nate's fancy blog, A Progress in Work....

Soo I actually have some work!   Assignments from my Animation I class, they are all verrrrry simple but uberimportant principles to understand  to be able to animate well.  So here we go!

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vimeo Direkt

Bouncing Ball excercise…decided to mix it up by adding perspective.  Demonstrating the principles of consistent shape, gravity and squash and stretch.

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Seaweed!  Had to slow this one down, cause it looked more like grass in its original incarnation.  Demonstrating the principle of overlap.

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A sheet being unfurled.  A second demonstration of overlap, though the sheet ended up being the easiest thing about this animation, haha.

Xposted from Nate's fancy blog, A Progress in Work....

Well, I’ve just finished my third week at SCAD, its crazy to think so much time has past, and that we’re so far through the quarter already.  I’ve always been on Semesters, so the idea of a term  being over in just about 10 weeks is crazy to me, hehe.

Anyhow, some update.

Been keeping rather busy since school started….assignement-wise things are not as demanding as at my last school, but since I’m learning Maya from scratch, there’s really no excuse for me to not be using it every second of the day trying to improve.  Beyond that, there are a lot of lectures, tutorials and student groups to attend that keep me pretty occupied.

I was, however, able to steal a couple days to visit my sister and nephews (my brother’s kids, not hers) in Charlotte, and we all went out to see Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs.  So, some thoughts.  I am a huge huge huge fan of the original book, sooooo I’m gonna have rather biased opinions here.  The style and mood of the movie is decidedly NOT that of the book, but that only took seeing the trailer to recognize.   Instead, this is a zany, kooky, over-the-top comedy.  Admittedly, when we’re talking about food raining from the sky, this isn’t that outlandish of a direction to take the story….so I’ll try and swallow my distaste for abandoning the original tone and look at the movie on its own merits.  Now, I laughed at loud at more than a few moments, and I think that the movie was ridiculously imaginative, especially towards the climax (which I thought I was gonna hate)….that being said, I think this movie went TOO far with the silly.  The characters were too outlandish in their kooky behavior…its really hard to take a conversation seriously at all when the animators are busy proving how many REDICULOUS things they can make the person listening do!  Look how far his face stretches!  Look how kooky and spaghetti-like we can make him walk!  It was just a little too over the top in the end…too gaggy.  I did, however, get the impression that this movie would be one of those ‘the more you watch it the funnier it is’ ones, with a lot of quotes and in-jokes between your friends who’ve seen it, etc etc.  Oh, and I also wasn’t a huge fan of the character design….too big of eyes :\  But like I said, it was overall enjoyable, I laughed, and as long as I put my childhood nostalgia aside I could appreciate it.

My sis and I read our nephews the book before we went to see it, and then afterward talked about what was the same and different about the two, what we liked more and less.  Thankfully the boys said they liked both, and couldn’t choose because they were too different.  I will make animation experts out of these kids if it kills me, mark my words.  Oh, and sister fell in love with the movie, and she was possibly a bigger fan of the book than I am, haha.  So maybe in the end I’m just overly critical?

Xposted from Nate's fancy blog, A Progress in Work....

Wow LJ, long time no chat!

If you didn't yet put it together, I started a new blog recently. I FINALLY figured out wordpress's weird xposting plug-in thing, so that's why there's a ton of posts from me right in a row (on my fl at least all of them are being displayed right in a row even though I back-dated them o_o sorry about that.) I setup the new blog to xpost everything here, since I want to keep up with all my long lost lj buddies...I miss you guys!

The new blog was inspired by my move from Alaska to Savannah. I'm starting Grad School at the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD if you're classy) in Animation...YAY! For anyone who might remember, that was part of my intention on moving to Alaska, hunker down and get materials and portfolio together for grad school application. Exciting news is that it WORKED :D So here I is, all moved in and cozy in hot, humid Savaaaaaaanah Geee-awgia. The program so far is....a bit intense, lol. Up to now I've been a strictly 2D guy, and they've got me learning Maya, so that's a bit intimidating and daunting...though I'm actually having fun with it.

In other news, for anyone who hasn't seen posted elsewhere, I'm overhauling leveL, both website-wise and character design. I'm gonna kick back up (where I left off) with a new look to the comic that's a bit my own style. We'll see how much time Grad School affords me, but the situation down here in Savannah is much different than it was when I was in art school in Ohio in that I don't have to work 3 jobs while I'm in school. YAY. This has thus far afforded me the time to devote to this pet project...I dunno how intense things are gonna get down the line but I'm hoping to keep the leveL dream alive....the new character designs are really invigorating and inspiring to me and make me want to work on the comic more :D I'm excited to take people places with it again :3

On top of the new blog entries, I'll probably still post personal content here separately (I'm trying to keep the other place mostly professional). So keep an eye out for your local Nate to be hangin around more :D

So how is everyone here I haven't spoken to in months? :O

Well, week one at SCAD is officially over, and I am now diving into my second, more intensive week. So far the biggest thing I have noticed is that Animation is really a double major here, you’re expected to be versed in both 2D and 3D. While this isn’t a giant surprise to me, I have only had experience as a 2D, hand-drawn animator and wasn’t sure what to expect from the realm of 3D and Maya (the program used to make 3D animation). Well, so far they are VERY different in approach. I do feel like I go into a totally different way of thinking from one to the other…I’ve only scratched the surface of the surface of 3D, but so far it makes me wish I was an experienced sculptor, cause it seems those skills would be quite useful. That being said, I AM getting the hang of the software rather quickly, thanks to some help from more well versed friends and putting in a lot of extra hours in the Grad Lab (Oh, Graduate students have their own computer lab, btw. It’s nothing special, sadly, but I do love having it as I feel more important and hoity-toity. I think it should come with a better meal and have a Foosball table in it, hehehe)

So, my first 2D animation project is due in class on Wednesday. We had to do the classic assignment, animate a bouncing ball! Actually we had to do two, a tennis ball and a bowling ball, showing we can depict different weights. I’ve done this assignment before, so my teach allowed me to take the assignment a little further so I wasn’t bored I had meant to upload movie files of I have so far here, but I forgot to upload the files from school, oops. I shall post them tomorrow so everyone can have a look at my (semi) progress. Our next assignment in an ‘S’ curve, we have to show something moving with part of it lagging behind (ex. seaweed waving in water or a flag blowing in the wind). I’ve not done this assignment before, so I’m interested to see how difficult it is….right now I’m considering animating a person fluffing out a big sheet, but that might be too ambitious….

Until those movies get uploaded, I’ll hold you over with some concept sketches I’ve been doing for leveL (my webcomic, for the uninitiated).   Click below to see!

( New leveL-y Goodness Within! )

Xposted from Nate's fancy blog, A Progress in Work....

Well, I am finally arrive-ed in Savannah and officially moved in to my apartment. Nice place, centrally located, high ceilings, my own bathroom….I’m pretty pleased with the whole setup.

Savannah is, so far, incredibly beautiful. The people seem friendly, and after a very whirlwind-y orientation I’ve met most of the other MFA animation students and they seem like a cool, mixed crowd Updates to follow.

As moving out and moving in and orienting have taken up most my time I’ve no sketches to share today, so INSTEAD I will share a really incredible fan-made music video I found the other day. The song is Two Weeks by Grizzly Bear (if you don’t know them, they are awesome), and I recommend this video head over heels over their official one for the song:

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vimeo DirektTwo Weeks - Grizzly Bear - Dave Askew

The entire video is CG, no stop motion (!!), and the guy (Gabe Askew) made it in about 4 months by himself just for fun. Guh, I am so inspired!!

Is all for now, I’m off to buy all the things I forgot to bring (trashcan, what?) before classes start tomorrow!

Xposted from Nate's fancy blog, A Progress in Work....

Well here we go. I’ve not had a sketch blog in quite sometime, but as the stars are aligning for a new chapter in the world of Nate Swinehart, I figure its high time a keep a record of this stuff (with only slight personal musings on the side).

Contained within you will find:
~Many sketches and studies, analog and digital, observational and creative. Don’t look for patterns or trends, I never have.
~Updates and angsting of my experiences at Grad School, one Savannah College of Art and Design.
~Discussion and debate on current events in the ‘art world’, so defined as to allow me to basically post about whatever I like

WARNING: Repeated exposure to this blog may result in increased levels of understanding of the Nate, severe breakouts of unidentifiable creative works and a mild loss of skin tissue in the eyes. For best results, view blog while pregnant.

Let’s start off with a primer of some of my pictuars. All images are shrunk to fit the template, just right-click and hit ‘View Image’ to see them full-size.

Next entry guaranteed to contain actual content!

Xposted from Nate's fancy blog, A Progress in Work....

My news, in short, is that I have decided to apply for Graduate school in Animation, I'm taking the semester off from CCAD, and I'm going to be in Alaska until May to work and save money.

( Anyone interested in the reasons why, click here and read on... )

Deep breath. Here I go.

So I frequent Cracked. Ever since the Internet Party video, I was sold that whoever runs that place is awesome.

For anyone not familiar, the site basically consists of cynical, extremely well written rants, generally in the form of lists (Top 5 Lies you were Taught in History Class, Top 5 Scariest Insects that Must be Stopped, etc.), the site is good for a laugh but never really anything more. Moreover, I always got the impression the site was run by horny (albeit well spoken) straight guys who do a lot of talking about how hot boobs are. However, they recently ran this article:

Orson Scott Card wants YOU (To Rise Up Against the Gay Menace)

Now let me start by saying that I love Ender's Game. LOVE it. The book is one of my favorites, definitely a sci fi classic. I had heard OSC wasn't too fond of gay people, but I didn't know how deep the sentiment ran. I was pretty sad to find that out such a brilliant author could have views so skewed as to suggest over-throwing the Government over the issue of gay rights. Makes me upset that people can be so short sighted, but I am the first to understand that when religious beliefs get intertwined into issues like this it's best not to even invest the emotions to react to it, it's a waste of time.


That said, what I WAS afraid of was the witty writers at Cracked would comment on this issue with indifference at best, or defending the author at worst.

Boy was I wrong.

KUDOS to the author for expressing the viewpoint that I still feel should be the status quo for a reaction to something like this. It's nice to know that even the snarky and boob-obsessed who have no investment in such issues can still come forward with a decent, supportive reaction. This humble cynic just gained a bit more hope for the human race, and he's pretty happy about it. :)

I will continue reading Cracked and pimping it even harder than I did before. Bravo.

Well, as promised, here is a gallery of the Best-Of photos from Patrick (shaggy brown-haired skinny kid), Bronwynn (pretty blonde classy girl) and Nate's (humble and swoop-haired narrator) summer's venture to Valdez, AK:

The Land that Refused To Allow in the Night EVER!!! (....until August)


Sorry, no captions since it's a web gallery >_> if ya want sidenotes, check out my Facebook page, plus an added bonus of the gallery of pics from Valdez in wintertime to compare! :D (If you do have facebook, those galleries are probably a bit more satisfying to check out...the commentary does do a bit to explain what we are actually doing in the photos and at what level of 'I want to kill Patrick for getting us in over our heads' I am at at any particular moment ^_^;;;)

I hope these pics do something to get across the amazing beauty of the land and the incredible stupidity of the adventures we undertook trying not to die while adventuring within it. Getting lost on a glacier for three hours? Less fun than it sounds...

34 - 35 - 36 - 37

Four new pages of leveL background-less goodness! The plot thickens with every limb our fearless hero loses! ^_^

Enjoy the update, and for those who are missing the environments, fear not! The next update should satiate....mwahahaha

WELL. Bronwynn, Patrick and I are all safely arrived in Anchorage after 12 hours of flying (uuuuuuugh).

We are currently figuring out how to get to the guy's house we are spending the night at, then leaving for the 6 hour drive to Valdez tomorrow morning. Rawk.

Details to follow as the happen, but as a first impression: Alaska looks totally different than over New Years...somebody put green all over the place O_o

Aight, I gotta go catch a cab. Lates.

Finally finished some new Little Nates for the leveL update rants.

( A complete psychological profile of this humble journal-er resides within. )

And P.S. this song is so awesome o_o Highly recommend this band. Good summer=happy music ^_^

THREE NEW PAGES OF REAGAN DOING WHAT SHE DO BEST!

Thus ends the talky section of this episode! Prepare for rising action and a lot of disturbing imagry! :D

A few things to point out:

I am halfway through Sigur Ros's new album, Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust. So far it's different than the others. It most reminds me of Takk, but whereas that album was a joyous, childlike outpouring, this one is a more reserved happy. Warm. I dunno, the point is there is new Sigur Ros and I am sooooooooooo happy :D



Speaking of media intake, I finished the latest Battelstar Galactica episode.
Ho. Ly. Shit.

( Spoil'd-ness Review! )

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I have also recently been on an exercise kick. Been running 4-5 miles a day for about two weeks (and boy do my joints hurt!). I haven't worked out this much since I was a Freshman at Miami....it feels really good, I'd forgotten how fun it is to run a trail multiple times and kinda get to know the lay of the land. Hopefully I can keep it up.

What inspired this running gig? Well, the impending Alaska trip, mostly. It's gonna be entirely different than when I went in Winter. Mostly due to the 20 hours of daylight. Meaning lots of outdoor activity....hiking, rafting, climbing, camping.....and I wanna kinda be able to enjoy it without being really tired or anything. Oh man, I am so pumped. LESS THAN TWO WEEKS AWAY!!!

And for the leveL readers out there, the update is nearing completion. There was a bit of a hiccup due to a couple things. I took a trip down to CIncinnati, Patrick's family came to visit, AND Photoshop decided to be a bitch and freeze on me not once but TWICE while trying to ink the most difficult panel in the update. I had to redraw it three times, and it took a lot longer than it should have ._. But fear not! We will have new pages soon...

Well. Hi there.

I know it's been awhile...for those of you unsure of what's going on; I'm Nate :)

I'm happy to say life has finally slowed down enough that I actually have time to reflect and write an entry. With any luck the first of many....

So art school boot camp is over! I successfully made it through the Foundation Program at CCAD, and whoa was it a kick in the pants. The program is kind of (in)famous for swallowing people's lives whole, and more than a few don't make it through. On the plus side it's also considered one of the best foundation programs in the country, so making it out alive was definitely rewarding. Not only that, but I was able to come out with a 4.0 average for the entire year....first time that's ever happened, haha, but I definitely worked hard to deserve it. Without question I did more work in this one year than in the entire time it took me to get my first degree o_o yah.

As well as getting straight As, I also got a lot of work featured in the Student Exhibition....so if anyone finds themself in Columbus at any point this summer, head over to CCAD and see if you can pick out some of my stuff X)

Seriously though, I might sound a bit 'tooting my own horn', but this year was incredibly important for me. Until now art was always just a self-taught hobby, I had no idea if I would crash or burn in the 'training to be a professional' art world. It was incredibly satisfying and encouraging to do so well. I feel like I am definitely headed in the right direction with my career. Confidence in myself is something I don't normally run across...

So now I'm out of school for 4 months, which is still surreal even just a few weeks in. Most importantly, I have been able to jump-start leveL, which was a huge thing missing in my life during school (oh, and for anyone worried that I will go AWOL again in September, no chance. The first year is the intense-kill-you-with-work year. Next semester I will have the free time to pursue side projects such a certain webcomics XD)

At this point my second job (the high school lighting design gig) is also on break for the summer. I am only working at the pub now....which I hate, btw. Looking desperately for a replacement job, but I think it looks like I'm gonna be stuck there for the summer. Why is that? Well....

...I am planning to go back to Alaska in July :D!!! The 5th to the 21st, to be exact. Coupled with that a possible week-long gig as a camera operator at a summer camp, I don't have the ability to approach employers and say 'hire me! ps, seeya in a month :D' Much as I hate the pub, it is at this point a necessary evil.

But yes, Alaska should be much fun and a good reward for the year. Going with Patrick (Tenebrous to any who may know him by that name), to stay with his family again. Also we were able to talk our good friend Bronwynn into tagging along. The three of us are going to have a huge blast. White water rafting, kayaking, hiking, bouldering. I. CAN'T. WAIT.

Beyond that? Not a lot to report, haha. Am currently trying to figure out exactly what my living situation will be for the next school year.....more on that topic as I find out :\

Oh. Another thing I am seriously considering is what I am going to do post-art-school. It is looking more and more like I am going to have to relocate. I like Columbus and all, but the scenery isn't much. The biggest plus it has is my family living here....I am weird in that I like to have them within arm's reach, heh. Meaning moving will be a hard thing to do again.

But moving seems it's going to have to happen in order to get any job close to what I'd like to do. The west coast is pretty much where it all happens. However, I really don't know that I could do L.A......nothing against it, I just don't think I want to live there. The area of the country I really want to live is the Northwest. Currently high on my list of thoughts are Portland, Seattle and San Francisco. My sister is saying she's down with the idea of moving there with me...that would be in a year, cause she has to finish her internship in Charlotte. If that were to work out it would do a lot to help me adjust to being permanently on the other side of the continent as the rest of my family. We'll see, we'll see.

So yeah.

That's about it. Consider yourself updated on my life X) Hopefully the next entry will be a bit less life-summary, haha.



Anyhow, what have YOU been up to?