lineofaction

Wherein Ryan almost loses his job but has a good time at FETC…

I haven’t been updating because a lot of stuff has been going down lately and I haven’t had the time or the drive to write about it. First off, as some of you might have known, I was in a bit of a pickle at work, as the undisclosed project I have been working on for a year suddenly retracted from a team of 70 to a team of about 8, which left all of us scrambling to find new positions at the studio. Luckily, after a few harrowing days of not knowing if I was going to have to make another cross-country move, things worked out and I still have a place at Rainbow. I can’t really discuss this sort of thing here, so I’ll leave it at that for now.
FETC has come and gone for yet another year. This was a good one, to be sure. I arrived in Orlando at 2 am to find not only a room for me to stay in (I had expected to be sitting in the lobby for several hours) but we got *really* nice rooms this year, suites in the Rosen Plaza. I was in a king-size bed all to myself. Awesome. We got gift certificates, each of us for $50 dollars, to our favorite restaurant in Orlando, Vito’s Chop House. We spent...well it was a lot more than $50 a piece, that’s for sure. Oh man. This whole trip I felt like a non-stop eatting machine. I managed to find time to work-out though, just once, early in the week. The rest of the time was working at the conference of course, which is always rewarding. In my off time I managed to make a lot of head-way on the Brendon Small 3d model.

The texture maps are not made yet, so his hair isn’t the right color. I still have to lay out the all the UVs. The face is set up in edge loops and I will be applying the old faithful Jason Osipa method of facial rigging next. And for those of you curious as to the wireframe, check out those tastey tastey edge loops.

Jeremy celebrated his birthday during FETC this year. (and boy did he celebrate it) and Brett celebrated his birthday yesterday, the 27th of March. My father also had a birthday on the 21st, and I’d like to add that he did this diet called Nutrisystem and lost upwards of 30 pounds. Now he weighs less than me...which is personally alarming.

Wherein Ryan makes a plasticine model, prepares for FETC and does the unthinkable…

I’ve been looking for a character to convert to 3d so I can have a fun model to animate after I finish my thesis. Well it never occured to me until last week to look no further than my favorite cartoon television show, “Home Movies” for the inspiration. Last week I did a whole bunch of sketches of the main character, Brendon Small, and converted him to a 3d sculpture for visualization before i make him in Maya. Here he is in all his glory…

as always, click for a bigger image.

I’ve been making the video for the FETC dance this year. Every year at the conference they host a dance at House of Blues in Citywalk and they have a video running the whole time showcasing the logos of all the sponsors. This year I’m doing it up fancy, rendering all the logos in 3d space and doing some fun...spinning...stuff. I dunno, this is kind of thing they like for these videos. I’ll be leaving for Orlando on the 18th and returning on the 26th.

Lastly, I posted a profile on match.com. Well...just see where that leads.

Wherein Ryan starts playing Warcraft…

My only excuse for not updating is that I started playing World of Warcraft, and I’m finding it difficult to stop for any reason at all. Life in Arizona is still good. I’ve had my first paycheck, received my fetc check, made the downpayment on my car and started settling into the apartment. I filled up the fish tank yesterday and I’m waiting for the cholrine smell to go away before I start putting fish in it. I got my first hair cut, and it looks pretty good in my opinion. My barber is from Russia, how cool is that? He yammers on to his fellow barbers in Russian while he cuts my hair. It’s great. The end of next week marks my first month working here, and all my benefits kick in. I’m going to schedule an appointment to an eye exam and get new lenses for my glasses. This perscription is definitely off. What else...oh I bought plane tickets to go to my mother’s wedding in April, which I’m definitely excited about. Wish I could bring my car to show it off! Well, they’ll see it in August. Oh and in case anyone is curious, this is week three with the car, I’ve driven 240 miles, and I still have half a tank gas from the original fill-up. :D Anyway, that’s just about it I think. Until later!