8mm film projector

So I ordered a 1952 Keystone Sixty 8mm film projector off of ebay. Everything works but the light (which I can replace for $25) (and I get paid tomorrow!). AND it came with an old 8mm copy of a mickey mouse cartoon called "Peg Leg Pete." I'm excited!

My brother and I spent a good hour trying to figure out where the film goes, since it didn't come with a manual, buy we finally got everything working. We loaded the film in, it runs, it rewinds, and everything seems dandy.

The downside here is that I can see this becoming a very expensive hobby.

I have discovered something phenomenal!

3D printing. Someone from the art institute introduced me to it. Basically, you can model something in Maya, send them an .stl file (never heard of it) and their 3D printer will create from that file a perfect model of... whatever you modeled. They ship it to you, it arrives on your doorstep, and you hold your 3D creation in your hands.

Cool, huh? I'm currently modeling a squid that I intend to send to be 3D-printed. That's my project for the day (and by 'day,' I mean "several days.").

The TARZAN Chronicles

I love the Disney production art books. It's one thing to see an amazing movie, but it's a thousand times better to see how the magic happened.

Tarzan is by far one of the best movies in existence. Great story, spectacular animation, and the most gruesome villain death in Disney history. Naturally, I've been longing for this art book since I was a budding wee animator. Unfortunately for me, it's been out of print for quite some time, and the only copies available on Amazon and ebay go for about $150. And when my choices are an art book or grocery money, well, you can guess my priorities.

So I walked into Book-off (for those of you who don't know, a japanese-run used book store that also accepts american books) and sitting there on the shelf, between a book on Monet and a book on Van Gogh, was the TARZAN Chronicles. In a temporary loss of dignity, I did a little dance, paid $15 for it, and left the store waving my treasure in the air and singing a glorious song of victory.

Squidley. The Flying Squid.

I'm finally starting work on a project I've been wanting to do forever. I wrote the concept and did some rough boards about three years ago (before I'd ever done storyboards or took a camera class or anything important like that) and they were AWFUL. But the concept was fun. I spent a day reworking the story, another day reworking the boards, and about four hours last night designing characters - some cute and cartoony, some realistic, and one that was just abstract and weird.

I took the designs around to some of my animation buddies, and with some feedback I settled on a chibi-ish and kind of derpy character. Once I get to a good scanner, I'll upload some of the doodles that didn't make it to the animation board.