i'm thinking about doing an animation for my independent project, and i'm pretty excited about it. i've always been interested in animation, when i was about 11 i made my first sort-of animation set to the song "wouldn't it be nice" by the beach boys. I made it by creating drawings in ms paint, and placing them in succession into windows movie maker, making the clips as short as i could, kind of like the different frames in photoshop animation but not as convenient. i'd really like to find the video and watch it, i think my parents still have it somewhere. I've made several other videos in the same way since then but unfortunately i haven't kept track of them so they're lost within the files of my parents computers. a bit before that i used to play around with power point using hyperlinks, transitions and the default shapes to create little games or just little digital spaces to explore. i remember one i made was a haunted house with an elevator, and each number in the elevator was a hyperlink button going to a different floor, and every floor was some kind of spooky room with a vampire or a ghost or a witch, etc. i'd actually like to find that too, because as i think about i remember how strangely intricate i was actually making it with what was available on the program.

anyways, i've been researching 2D animation a little and i've found some really cool animators and a really helpful blog about 2D and hand drawn animation. animators seem to be really fighting to keep the 2D aesthetic alive. one animator i heard about about a year or so ago is anthony francisco schepperd, and he's fantastic. the first animation of his that i saw was a music video he made for a song called "the music scene". it's pretty much everything i want in an animation. so cool.

the other dude who's work i saw recently is nelson boles. i only came across him the other day, and i was super interested in his style of animation. both of these dudes use after effects to perfect the look of the animation, which is kinda cool. i'd really like to try after effects out.

i'm pretty much decided on the whole animation thing, i'm really glad we have the whole semester for this.

new year, new semester, new ideas

i kind of cant believe its january again already. but alas, it is, and although i really enjoyed the break i'm excited to see what will come of this semester. i have a few ideas of directions in which i want to start taking my work, ideas i want to explore, and limits i'd like to experiment with and exceed. i feel like i've been building towards taking huge steps towards where i really want to be with my art eventually, and i'm really looking forward to continuing that exploration and gaining more and more momentum.

i feel like i'm onto something, and i'm excited to find out what it is.