One Ends, Another Begins

Exciting times, we have here!! Last day of school was today; I stayed up until 4am this past morning to finish my demo reel, to be included in the 2nd year DMT's Open House. It looks pretty good, for a beginner :3 I'm very proud of myself!

Check it out here http://vimeo.com/23064256

As well, I keep hearing about how we're going to need to register for our own domain and hosting next school year, so I decided to take the plunge into retrieving my old site: RubyDragon.net :3 I'm pleased to announce, that I plan to work the WordPress side of this throughout the next school year...as it's something we're going to have to create for a 2nd year major project!

I love writing, so I'm excited to get my old site back!! Yaay!

Frame 99 / 108 ...

...I can hear my bed hissing at me, as I type. ...No, was that a cat? ...I'll bet my DS is was the toilet.

WAITAMINUTE!!!!?...I can edit the HTML in Blogger?! 8D

...This shouldn't excite me, but....

• Get out of my head!


• Maybe I just spelt "maybe" wrong?!


• This would be a great time to learn how to use that bread maker...

Frame 103 / 108
Soon...



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Quit locking your Rim Light!!


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This is officially the worst list I've ever seen in my life...

Heeeelp meeee! I'm stuck in a Div, and I can't get out!!

* * * //Post HTML

Nearly finished with this one render. ...The lighting in the turntable currently looks like a pile of donkey crap. Blasted shame, it is. Waitwaitwaitwait WHY are you rendering through frames 110?! O_o; I asked you to go to 108????? ..... This is going to get ugly, mega fast! GOOD GOD STOP RENDERING!!!!...........

Quit Harassing Facebook Friends!

...And I shall do so, by BLOG RANTING!....Which technically is much the same...except for the fact that folks can much more easily chose to ignore this.

So, the toilet's broken and the tub gargles every time it flushes...#($%^&*( great.

The cats keep knocking crap off of the desk, while I'm sucluded in the inner sanctum I call "the bathroom." *sigh* ...Once I get a REAL apartment, I can at least call a "bedroom" an "office." In other news, my spelling has gotten WORSE as the night progresses...Wait, it's morning, is it not?

Good morning, Vietnam!! That's precisely what's going on inside my laptop right now!! The poor fan's spent the better part of two hours belting out the most wretched tune...sounds as if it's going to launch into orbit at any given point in time.

...Where are we sitting? --> Frame 85 / 108. On a lighter note, even when Maya CRASHES, the rendering process continues. FTW!

...I'm going to create a sign while I wait...the bathroom will now officially be known as "the Bat Cave..." and this laptop kinda' sounds like a Batmobile...although it's kind of taking me places, only too bloody slowly to acknowledge X|

Happy Camper

The modeling portion of my demo reel project is finished; I also decided to incorporate some of my best work over the past year. Although the crate was modeled by my instructor, Brett McLaughlin, I created the texture for it. The reel will showcase, in turntable format, my best models, finishing off with an adorable animated short, of my happy little camper!

Good Morning Vietna----aaaah I Mean College <:3

Back at the big house, another day. Exciting news to report on, as per public transit. Apparently, if you're listening to harmonica on your iPod, today's your lucky day! Crank up that volume so all your fellow passengers can hear the joyous sounds of the your music. ...If nothing else, this was a refreshing change from hearing rap music :3

Mildly distracted today ... Tummy's feeling a mild tickle. X3

Progress & Parents

Groovy day at the big house! I thought my kiddie book was done ... until I had it printed; everything was too dark! Recoloured every page, re-exported it (or as I'd like to call it "Losing an argument with InDesign) X| ...Someday, we'll see eye-to-eye, ID and I.

All that's left on this rock star plate is ... music video? Yes! It is true >:3 ... I assure it to be my most derpy vid yet. So grab some popcorn, sit back and wait for the link to materialize ..... waaaaaait for iiiiiiit ....

Took the opportunity to visit more with Mom & Eric while they're in the city. Fab night; I'm always happy to see them.

Nothing too newsy on the job bank home front ... many entrance level pharmaceutical positions available...Want me touching your drugs?? Didn't think so. Dream summer job: McNally Robinson. Why? It's four blocks from here, and the place reeks of coffee and BOOKS!!! <3

Bend is My Friend

So the tail mission was a great success.....I sure wish I knew what I was actually doing -- then this piece won't pop up as a polygonal embarrassment.

If all else fails, I want an entire army of these!!

3D Cat - Fake Rigging

Seeing as we won't be learning how to rig a model for some time, I decided to put my my MacGuyver cap on to come up with a way for my 3D cat to still move around.

Even though the arms and legs are solid objects, a quick manipulation to each pivot point will allow for basic movement. Of course, limbs bend and fold as they're contorting...that's where my new best friend comes in. Can you guess? It starts with "Blend" and ends with me jigging happily, while [real] cats look on in wonderment. "Why is she doing that?!" I can hear them meow. "Our eyes are bleeding!!"

I fully realize this model isn't of any high quality standard -- in fact, I've just started using Maya September 2010. With that being said, I'm quite pleased with how this has come to fruition. The final animation may not even happen prior to Open House, but I'd like to continue working with this little guy through out the summer. Heck, maybe even try to learn rigging on my own?! lol .... Yah, wish me luck ... 8}

Still Needs Work

...But I've imported him into the scene I created for "Hogan" [DMT Anim2 Assignment].

3D Cat Model

With tunes like this, how can I lose?! http://bit.ly/gZzM7k [Chrono Trigger].
(My heart just fluttered looking at the renders #nerd....yup, that's my kitty!)

Click to view full size image!...I think I've earned me some breakfast!

Animation for Reel

I had a groovy idea when I woke up this morning ... I couldn't shake it, even after such little sleep!! X3 Going to model the cats from my kiddie book and add them to the tropical island scene I modeled for my last project!

WIP


Only half, but looking like a kitty cat none the less!!

There...Book Cover Complete!

It took some convincing on my part at first...I didn't want to keep the same "look" of the characters on the cover. Why? Once readers hit the "About the Author" part, they'll understand: that's a real cat on the cover! X3 He's one of many of my inspirations.
...Alright, instead of breaking out into a "Chicago" tune, here's the final cover.

Successful Fail

...I think I just took the award for Most Dork-Off-ery in the past hour .... Looks like it's time for bed.

Final Web Site Finished!

Finally submitted tonight; excellent code party at the school :3 That was much cooler than sitting around here, working...much.

Here's a groovy snippet of the final home page - also spliced and finished the "Music" and "Events" pages.

Happy Easter!

This Easter weekend's being happily spent working! I'm near completion on the children's book project, I'm very excited for it to be done!! :D Not on account of finishing a project; the original "Let's Pretend" book was written and illustrated close to ten years ago, this one's got a special place in my heart.

It's been updated to showcase my two cats, as well as the Love Bird and Basset Hound they each grew up with :3

Web Dev Final Project

Updated the logo; stuck with the moon theme from their original logo.
...I'm having way too much fun with logo design, back to coding!

My Favorite White

When I was younger, it was nothing more than "white & black..." or to be more descriptive, #fff & #000. Lucky for me, a few years back, I discovered (what I like to call) my favorite white.

#e3e3e3 -- It's not as sharp a hit to the eyes when reading this over a black background.

Productive Day

Spent the day working from home -- what a great day! I've gotten everything entered onto our Class Trip group site, finished doing my taxes, finished my banking and have successfully started my final web site project! My knowledge has grown quite nicely in HTML & CSS ... I very much enjoy coding!

Back to work! ... If the cats let me X3

Progress Tastes Like Coffee!

It's been a great weekend so far on the work front. Here are a few screen shots of the children's book as it progresses.

Not Sleepy Enough?

I barely slept last night; enjoyed my time at the 2nd year DMT's fund raising social. They're good cats, they is. Unfortunately for my sanity, I didn't go to bed until 4am...and then early to rise after 7am, to get my butt over to the big house for a marketing test [#WritingForTheWeb] and to hand in hard copies of an assignment. Perseverance + Coffee = Holy cats, I'm still awake!

To the King's Head Pub after 2pm; we had a good class of socializing. It's mighty important to network. I didn't drink much more, I was so tired this morning I think I was still a wee bit loopy. I rarely party on a week-night, but it was for a good cause: giving my fellow peeps money, to help raise the funds for the expense of their Open House event.

We're going to be there next year, ourselves. Why not help out where we can, eh?

...Still not sleepy...Going to colour the children's book a wee bit more, I've been looking forward to the colouring process for some time.

In closing, I've successfully burnt my tongue about four times in the past 24 hours.
...And this is still my all-time favorite colour palette! 83

Doing My Taxes Online

Yes, it is a fun thing. I adore paperwork and taking care of my own affairs, so this year I've decided yet again to do my own taxes.

This little gem comes highly recommended by myself! H&R Block's free-to-try online software is a user friendly experience that helps you along the way to get your yearly tax return completed.

Try it free and it's just shy of $20.00 to file a single return.

Now go forth! Embrace this new year of taxable income! :3

DMT Open House...We're Invited!

I'm super excited about this year's DMT Open House for the 2nd year students...primarily because we're invited as well! I'm looking forward to viewing their works, as well as meeting people in the industry!

For the next month, I plan on getting together my best work for a reel, but I'm going to challenge myself to model a new character -- something that will set me apart from the rest of the reels -- something that we haven't worked on as a school project.

#Excitement!

Cold? Flu?

I could give a million reasons as to the logical answer: why I'm feeling this way.
...Or I can just give in to the fact that "I'm coming down with something."

*sigh* ...I still say it's something minimal, like dehydration or ... do your muscles and stomach act up when you've been coding too much? ... *Oh crumbs..*

"All I Have to Do...."

I must have said to myself "apocolypse" at some point before going to bed, because the dream I had last night was -- to say the least -- an adventure that I hope never happens in this lifetime.

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It all started out like a regular day; I was in my apartment in the city, cats were hanging around as they usually are, my buddy Jen was over. For reasons unknown, we were just looking out the window. We'd just finished watching news reports about, either, I can't remember - natural disasters happening or some sort of apocalyptic chaos going on around the world - we deducted that clearly, this wouldn't possibly come to our part of the world.

No sooner having said that, what looked to be large meteors rained down on the city; huge fiery orbs of what was in fact the same terror sweeping over the globe.

It was quite vivid, I remember all my feelings and thoughts: I was frightened and naturally, we didn't know what to do. All I knew was that we needed to pack up what little belongings we needed, and decided to head to Jen's home province of Nova Scotia. Greatly afeared for my two cats, I constructed a double backpack device where I could have each of them on my back; the zippers slightly open, to give them air, so they would be safe with me throughout our journey.

With the city, overcome by this chaos, we packed some food as well, and looked at a map of Canada. For some strange reason, we decided that the best way to approach this journey was to travel westward, along the border of Canada -- the only bizarre thing before; on the map, Nova Scotia was on the far-most west wing of the country and the United States border wasn't there at all, beneath us - it was pure ocean.

While journeying through the obstacles of our homeland, it became clear there were demonic creatures looming around the earth. At one point, Jen and I needed to duck beneath (what looked to be an indoor windowsill) to avoid being spotted. These creatures were massive in size; larger than human beings. They had horns atop their heads, and with some, spikes all over their bodies - frightful creatures roamed the earth, searching for what living populace still struggled for absolution amidst the pandemonium afoot.

After having ducked beneath the sill, assurance that the creature was gone was needed prior to moving forward. I peeked up from the depths of safety, to my dismay, the reflection in the glass was distorting my view; I couldn't see at all, and momentarily anxious that what I was looking at - was this creature staring right at me. Luckily, Jen peeked her head above the sill as well, and the creature was long gone; it'd wandered back off into the distance, diametrical to us.

Moving forward, I recall meeting up with a pile of people from my class. With speculating the area we came to was safe, we started building a room - looked as if it were constructed from cubicle walls - we needed a safe area to "work in.." I'm not certain what we planned to do to help rectify the situation, but [Danielle, who is in my class], found the perfect area beside a river where we would set up this shelter. Someone else had pointed out that it was more accurate to her map - that for reasons unknown, had drawn up for the operation - as the small, meadow was positioned close to the river - and across from a herd of - what looked to be deer (?) but these creatures could have also passed for a more docile looking pack that had been roaming the earth.

After having built, what seemed to be, sturdy enough lodging for our operation, we fell into mild anxiety, with the reality of this one wall being quite open - anything could see us if it peered in through the slots.

At some other point, our journey continued on through the ocean, as planned on the original map (Nova Scotia, directionally reversed.)

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By this point, things were starting to become less vivid; instead of watching this from my own eyes, things were becoming blurry in view. There was some obvious conflict; it seemed as though one of us had a device (maybe it was the map), and we traversed through this great body of water, on nothing more than a small raft. Vague memories of encountering a great sea creature; I cannot recall what happened from then on. To my knowledge, I still had my kitties in tow; safely strapped to the McGuiver-like contraption I carried with me - they were safe and (for a change), strangely quite...they weren't meowing, as they often do.

So many vivid emotions throughout the course of our journey -- all I remember is the nurturing instinct to see that the boys were safe. (Lucky for me, it didn't feel like their weight bothered me).

TGIF!! I love work weekends! :3

Why yes, another weekend is upon us!! 83 Nothing excites me more these days than the aspect of sitting down to a heavy workload of fantastic proportions!! X3 Over achiever? *shrugs* Life could be a lot worse, I suppose. As well, it cuts the loneliness down by about two thirds...and a handful of ju jubes can only make the world go further 'round.

Goodness, I really wish my neighbors below me would stop screaming at each other <:-( Sounds as if there are small children in that apartment. ...... Here's hoping they're just "incredibly loud when happy to see each other?!"

Cute observation: Blogger isn't spellchecking typed l33t speak! What next?! Maybe the headless horsemen of the apocalypse will come in rainbow colours???

Double Apocalypse Rainbow..."What does it mean?!"

Alright, enough buggering around, back to work I go!!