Goodbye Class 1!!!

Well, I am officially done with Class 1 at Animation Mentor and have compiled all my work from the term into my progress reel. It's not great, but I am still learning. I am super excited to push myself to become a better animator as I go through Class 2. I found out today that my Class 2 mentor is Jeremy Cantor, an animator currently at Industrial Lights and Magic and his film credits include Transformers 2, Avatar, Rango, I Am Number 4, Super 8, Starship Troopers, Hollow Man, Harry Potter & The Sorcerers Stone, and Evolution. I am incredibly excited to learn animation from him and gain whatever knowledge I can from him. This is going to be an amazing term, I just know it.

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I PASSED!

Yep, I found out today that I passed Class 1: Basic Foundations and will be starting Class 2: Phycology of Body Mechanics next week! Woohoo! It's exciting to know that I did it and will be progressing in my animation learning experience. I can't wait till Monday to figure out who my class 2 mentor will be. I don't plan on getting much sleep over the next 12 weeks, er...the next 60 weeks. From this point on, it will get harder and require a lot more of my time, and I am so ready for it! Bring it!!! =) Good thing i'm a night owl, as I don't mind staying up till early hours of the morning animating.

Since it has been forever since I have posted on here, I wanted to share a few more additions to my animator drawings and autograph collection that I have gotten in the mail recently.

This is a Disney Limited Release Commemorative lithograph of Tangled numbered 1008 of 5000 autographed by the directors of the film, Nathan Greno and Byron Howard and the producer, Roy Conli! Both Nathan and Byron added a small sketch and Roy added some words of encouragement saying "Follow your dreams!" and boy am I ever doing that! =) Maybe one day I'll have the opportunity to work at Disney as an animator, that would be amazing.

I got this HUGE 27"x40" Toy Story 3 poster in the mail last week from the director of the film, Lee Unkrich, and he was awesome enough to sign it for me! Now I just need to get this framed and up on my wall!

I'm still alive and kicking!

Sorry for not posting anything for so long. My intent was to post updates weekly throughout class 1 at AM, buuut, I guess that didn't happen as planned. Between AM and work, I was kept plenty busy but that is no excuse, I will make an effort to update this blog more often! I am in week 12 of my first term at AM, and I have learned SO much and it has been a blast! It has been a huge challenge for me so far, but it has pushed me to grow as an animator, and I am so excited to see where this school takes me as I progress and become better and better. This next term is going to be very challenging, from what I hear, but I am super excited about it and can't wait to start and jump into some more advanced animation! =) During this week, my last week of class 1, I am going to compile all my work from this term into a progress reel and when I get that done, I will post it here on my blog for you to see so you can see everything I have done up to this point. Don't expect to see brilliant animation, because most of it stinks pretty bad as I am still learning here, but it will get better as I push on and challenge myself. I am going to the best animation school in the world, being taught by the best animators in the industry, so I know if I put forth the time and effort as I go through this school, then I will get better and one day, hopefully that will take me places I can only dream of now. I have much more I could share with you, but I have to go to work, so for now, I will leave you with this awesome drawing that Eric Goldberg drew for me. Hope you like it!