As some people already know, I’m enrolled in Animation Mentor, an online school for Character Animation. It’s only been 3 days and I haven’t met my Mentor quite just yet, but I’m already addicted to the place. This week there isn’t really an assignment. Just looking around and learning where things are. The people there are so crazy and friendly, its great.

Meanwhile back on the ranch, I’m ever so slowly modeling Hambie, the Zombster mascot. I just realized yesterday that I don’t like the way I simplified his feet and will be redoing them. I hope to have him modeled and ready to be rigged by February, which is when the Griffith Animation Society back at the University will be running the Advanced Rigging Workshop with Darren. I’m actually looking forward to it, which of course crazy because I despise rigging. I hoping the workshop will help though. I’ll get some WIPs up once I finish the model, feet and all.

There are some other things milling around the ranch, which I’m not at liberty to talk about at the moment - all very exciting. The first half of the year is actually going to be very busy for me. Hopefully not to stressful and a whole lot of fun. You’ll be hearing about it here, you’ll be hearing about it there, you’ll be hearing about it everywhere.

** By ranch of course I mean the store. There is no ranch. The ranch is a lie.

The Awards and Industry night was last night, which means we’ve finished the last of the Animation and Film events at university. In a couple of weeks we will graduate and may never see each other again. Somehow I doubt that. The Animation Industry is quite large, but it won’t mean that we won’t come across each other at one point or another.

Come January I’ll be starting Animation Mentor Online while still working for Zombster, in my spare time. I’m looking forward to AM. I’ll finally be able to concentrate on animation and animation alone. In my spare time, I’ll be modeling and rigging the mascot for Zombster, our resident zombie hambster. He will eventually be starring in his own cinema advertisement.

So while the excitement of university is over, it is definitely not dull over here.

It has been ages since the last update. A lot of university work has been done since I last posted. Plus we’ve started up a little business (zombster.com.au).

Things are moving around on the website as I set up the site as a portfolio. Please do not be alarmed.

Soon all of this university work will be done and I will be much happier. I’m sick of the bureaucracy of the university and welcome change.

My final year is picking up. Mightily busy at the moment. I have a 30-minute presentation next week in which I have to pitch a hypothetical TV animated series with complete Series Bible and Budget Plan. We don’t have budget constraints so very little number crunching. (I even managed to give myself a $150k…) I’m a bit worried about filling up 30 minutes. I’m fine with 15 minutes, but I feel 30 minutes is a bit extreme. (Real pitches are only meant to be 5 minutes anyway so what gives?)

Our final year project is coming along, a bit slower than I would have liked, but lecturers love to give assignments. I’m a bit peeved because the Maya scene of my fish model corrupted during transfer. Never bodes well. (Self Promotion: We have a blog for the production of the project! Down the Line)

Meanwhile outside of my studies I’m having needs to work on my personal projects, but forced to put them aside for now. It always happens towards the end of each semester. Never when I have free time. Also, Kithal is looking to start a business and as much as I want to help him, I don’t think I have the mental capacity for it at the moment.

Keeping an eye out for a lot of productions at the moment. There are a lot of interesting new television series in the works. Also there’s an abnormally large number of animated features coming out in the next twelve months. As happy as this makes me, I worry about the quality.

There have been a number of people registering as users. While I appreciate people reading the site, the site does suffer from a lot of spam. I’d appreciate it if new users could put more info into their profiles so I know you’re human. I’ll work on making the registration a bit better. Alas, university.