Its funny how I hung onto my nokia 6010 for so long. I loved that thing and wouldn’t trade it for the world. I’ve been pushed into several pools with it in my pocket dropped from two stories down even threw it in a fit of rage at a wall and it kept on ticking. It funny how when I upgraded from that phone I wasn’t worried about durability. I switched to the most annoyingly easy to break phone. An iPhone. Of course the first thing I bought was a scratch protector and a rubber case so I could keep my keys in the same pocket and encase I dropped it or something. Now don’t get me wrong iPhones are an amazing piece of technology they’re just not the same durable brick that Nokia makes.

A couple of my friends just got the new 3G S and it’s surprising to me how many people yearn for Apple products and makes me wonder what feature they’ve been holding out for. I mean I waited for the 3G for the 2.0 update to have apps other than Apples and the little speed increase but looking at the most used apps it seems like the standard and most basic ones reach the top for me.

While the 3G S is fancy and new, I really don’t think there’s enough new features or a big enough speed increase for me to want to cancel the retarded 2 year contract I already have with my 3G. I sure however when they release another one next year when my contract is up I’ll change my mind.

The Transforming USB Flash Memory looks pretty sweet but for $42.99 you only get 2gb! That’s pretty crazy. either way its still pretty neat.

So I started playing Mirrors Edge for PS3 that I borrowed from a co-worker of mine yesterday. It’s a beautifly game with very vibrant colors, and its pretty good gameplay so far, but its very easy to get lost and confused as to which direction to go to. I’m only in the third Level and I’ve already gotten lost several times. I’ll post more after I’ve finished the game, but I figured due to the fact that I haven’t posted in a while it was about time to.

Sorry for not posting at all this week (or any really works last week) ive been working a lot on the animation recently. So far I’ve got a rough animatic working in Story Board Pro. It doesn’t have any sound, but I’ve got all of the all the dialog written out, and have been working on music a little bit. I’m planning on posting some of the storyboards and versions of the animatic to the site soon. It’s still rough, but I hope you’ll enjoy.

If your a fan of Tower Defense games I strongly suggest Monsterss from PixelJunk. Its puts a great two player spin on the game and is horribly addicting. I also suggest Locks Quest for the DS because it adds a story to the game which tower defense games tend to lack.

self portait at work on iphone using sketches

On Wednesday I went to see an Animation Forum at the ENZIAN theator. The artists who participated where Signe Baumane, Aaron Augenblick, Bill Plympton and Jacqueline Brennan. It was awesome to hear animators in the industry with their different points of view. Signe Baumane had a very existentialist point of view and encouraged everyone to do what makes them feel and to try to make the audience express emotion in through their art even if it makes the audience cringe. Jacqueline Brennan gave advice to keep working and working on your projects and to not give up. To enter in your films in every film festival possible. I had no idea how many film festivals there were and that you can only submit some as world premiers. Aaron Augenblick gave a different point of view as some of his work in Wonder Showzen has been aired on MTV2 and he mainly does commercial work. He gave a more commercial viewpoint and was proud of his artwork being displayed anywhere on the internet even if he didn’t get revenue from it. I talked to Aaron afterward and it was cool to hear how he started up his own studio from doing an episode on Daria and other short films. Bill Plympton was different from all of the others as he seemed more like the grouchy old man that had been in the business too long. He stated he hated it when people posted his work without his consent but still loved the internet from selling DVD’s and artwork on his site. He advised to make films short and sweet so that you don’t waste time on things that don’t need to be wasted on and to cut corners when possible. Even though he gave the appearance that he’d been doing animation too long, he still had a sense of happiness from doing it.
All and all it was an awesome event and I’m glad I got the chance to be there.

random sketch with iPhone at work of a box of tea with a kwala bear.

random quick sketch at work.

so i finally took the time to fix the width issue of the site and extended it a whole 140 px. Look forward to wider images in the future guys.