Shreyasi Das | Student Artist

oldies.

2011-12-04T07:21:00.000-08:00

Old piece of animation I dug up from last year's school files.

I have a problem with making things too pose-to-pose.

Lighting Class Updates

2011-11-13T20:49:00.000-08:00

Final composite project. Each CG lighting student had to pair up with a photography student, come up with a concept, go on a photoshoot and then composite a CG object into the photo. If anything, I learned a lot about studio-lighting itself from this project, more than I did about lighting in Maya.

Updates!

2011-11-13T19:41:00.000-08:00

Thesis character turnaround:

Snippets of work from my Summer internship at Pixar Animation Studios:

Compositing!

2011-10-10T18:51:00.000-07:00

This is for my lighting class. We had to do an exercise by pairing up with a photo student in our school and going on a photoshoot. We then had to bring the photo into Maya and place a simple CG object into the scene, lighting it to match the photograph.

Primitive Still Life

2011-09-10T10:46:00.000-07:00

I finally got into a lighting class and I love it!!

Here's our first assignment- we were told to light a still life using primitive shapes, a white lambert shader, spot & ambient lights, and direct illumination with Maya Software. I decided to find a painting use it to influence how my still life looked. Here it is!

Reference:

And then I decided to do another render with some white blinn and phong shaders just to add some specular highlights.

I'm baack!

2011-09-01T14:34:00.000-07:00

Couldn't have asked for a better summer! Back to school this weekend and hopefully back to posting more on here and on my thesis blog.

summer!

2011-06-04T15:22:00.000-07:00

So summer plans- got into the Technical Undergraduate Program internship at Pixar! So will be in California for the summer and working on thesis prep during my free time.. As well as enjoying Cali of course.

And here's a quick test I did using TV Paint- I'm trying to familiarize myself with it. A lot of beautiful films were made using this program so I wanted to explore.. I used the watercolor brushes for these. (You can't really see the textures of the brushes I used thanks to the horrible upload quality..)

new figure drawings!

2011-05-13T20:32:00.000-07:00

I updated my Life Drawings page with some figure drawings from this quarter:

Check them out here

Some of them were done with the opposite of the dominant hand and turned out better than the others!

It's the end of the quarter and I'm busy with tiny little things I need to finish up before leaving RIT. Will update later!!

dialogue_school of rock

2011-05-01T16:30:00.000-07:00

First spline pass for our last animation assignment - dialogue. I also blocked out the jaw movement and mouth corners (ins and outs) for the lip synching.

monologue progress

2011-04-16T14:34:00.000-07:00

WIP so far for my monologue. I started blocking out the lips. I haven't messed with the teeth and tongue yet. Just the jaws and the lip corner ins and outs. This is only my second time lip-synching in 3D and I know it's not perfect yet. So any feedback would be appreciated. I guess it doesn't help that Blogger unsynched the sound for me though =/

Dissonance Rochester Premiere

2011-04-12T20:04:00.000-07:00

Dissonance officially premieres to the people of Rochester this April 30 at the SoFA Emerging Filmmakers Series, a segment of the 360|365 Film Festival.

Humble, but it's a start!

you can just call me yoshi!

2011-04-06T21:50:00.001-07:00

Next animation assigment: monologue with the Morpheus rig!! Woo! I got used to the controls pretty quickly actually. So for the assignment, I decided to do an intro of how pronounce Shreyasi. If I can get a nice animation out of it, I'll put it with my intro slate in my reel and that way people will know how to say my name!! And there'll be a little bit of my personality in there too. So here's the first pass at blocking: (She doesn't look like me, no)

Update 04/08/2011: Body Spline, first pass-

latest

2011-04-02T07:37:00.000-07:00

Latest playblast of my Jekyll-Hyde (shift of thought) animation assignment.

on-the-side creepy-crawlies

2011-03-26T11:59:00.000-07:00

So I've been working on the very talented Gayane Bagdasaryan's thesis and it's an honor working for such an awesome animator. I'm animating a supporting spider character for her, and she's kindly given me the permission to share it on my blog.

I'm doing this in ToonBoom Animate Pro 2, which I've never used before, so it's a learning experience for me. However, I'm only just using the software for the basic frame-by-frame drawn animation, so it's pretty much like Flash.

This is one of my favorite shots that I've animated:

They're all quick shots, but really fun to work with.

it kicked!

2011-03-22T19:08:00.000-07:00

First pass at blocking for our Jekyll and Hyde animation showing a shift of thought. The timing needs a lot of work. The total time has to be less than 10 seconds so everything is rushed now. So any feedback would be welcome!

heavy things

2011-03-19T14:47:00.000-07:00

Final render for Weight project. Not the best- there are some elbow snaps and the torso floats around a bit.

weight

2011-03-15T08:36:00.000-07:00

Blocking for my first 3D character animation assignment- expressing weight

animation reel, finally!

2011-02-21T17:04:00.000-08:00

I've finally put together an animation reel now that my student film, Dissonance, is done. This is my first edit, including shots from both Dissonance and Bhava Raga Tala, that my teachers liked the best.

Although, both my teachers have suggested that I should just send in my complete films for internships instead of chopping them off into a reel. Either way, comments are welcome!

the winter swan song

2011-02-01T19:51:00.000-08:00

Two weeks until Dissonance is officially due. I have three small shots left to animate, and then all I need to do is fix the flickering from Final Gathering and get the final soundtrack from my sound designer.

I uploaded a more recent version of my Technical Direction Demoreel to Vimeo. You could also just look two posts down to take a look at it. Feedback is welcome! I'm not too proud of the Mr. Bean caricature, but without that, I don't have any deformable models to show, since the robot character is not really a "traditional" character model.

Also, just to update on other school stuff, here's my rough animation on 4's for a class:

The lip synch is not in there yet.

Dissonance Trailer

2011-01-15T12:50:00.000-08:00

Will be done in 4 weeks! Aa!

render party!

2010-11-15T21:24:00.000-08:00

Modeling, Shading and Rigging Reel 2010-2011 from Shreyasi Das on Vimeo.

Quickly threw this together today. Well not so quickly, but finished it in one day, compared to my first reel that took me half my academic quarter to compile.

I want to refine it further, and re-render some things that our Renderfarm messed up. Also wish I knew better last year than to smooth my typewriter model. It's not the best reel, I admit. Either way, I at least have something right now, so I don't have to panic near deadlines. I want to focus more on working towards an animation reel in the coming months.

Ohkay, good night!

lighting tests, cntd.

2010-11-13T10:03:00.000-08:00

Shot001_LightTest_11.10.10 from Shreyasi Das on Vimeo.

Re-did some lighting tests, with the character textured correctly this time. It's not bad, but it still feels flat to me. Going to play around with the lights more before break starts and I don't have the privilege of rendering in the lab anymore.. Rim lights should help break out the flatness a little, and probably a little more contrast. Other than that, I don't want to get carried away with lighting and texturing. Animating the clocks from shot-to-shot is going to take some meticulous thought, and that's next on my list to tackle before I start animating next quarter.

I also plan on thumbnailing most of my shots over break.

Shot010_LightTest_11.10.10 from Shreyasi Das on Vimeo.

Also, working title has been changed to "Dissonance".

enter protagonist

2010-11-09T20:34:00.000-08:00

Here's my bot for my upcoming student film, almost done!! These are two renders I did for my Advanced modeling class.

And here's proof that my rig actually works so far! The poses should be familiar from Richard William's book of awesomeness. I slapped in the extreme poses for the character for this quick test animation. At first, I was going to animate something for a shot in my film, but I decided to do something more "cartoony" with broader movements to really push the rig. In actuality, the acting in my film will be subtler, but I wanted to make sure my rig was capable.

I can't wait till I can start animating!! But for now, on to more lighting tests!!

sneaky peaky

2010-11-04T12:32:00.000-07:00

These tests took about 11 hours to do. The character isn't done texturing yet. Now that he's in the set, I have a better idea of how to texture him so he doesn't blend in with the background so much. Till now, I've been using the Norman rig in my 3D animatic, so now I have a better sense of where I should be going.

Also, rigging is still as terrifying. But I have to thank my self from the past for making life easier for me in the present by practicing rigging all of summer =)

^ I goofed up on the timing of the light for this one.

digging out some modeling

2010-11-03T09:58:00.000-07:00

Here's something I forgot to post last time.. It's my first project from Advanced modeling. We had to find a common, everyday object, make an efficient "rigid" model of it (^above) and then a "soft" deformable/animateable model with more edge loops, etc. I should post more pictures with my edgeloops on them.

Here're some of my reference images...

And here's my final animation of the soft model. There are a few things in the animation I want to go back and fix- like the snappiness that happens when it jumps up, etc.

And this is the first rig test I did for the headphones. Animating the wires was quite difficult!

"from one clock animator, to another"

2010-10-25T15:05:00.001-07:00

Just came back from a weekend at the Ottawa International Animation Festival, and that string of words from the mouth of Dean Wellins, the director of Tick Tock Tale, was the highlight of my weekend. Teddy Newton spelling my name wrong on the Day & Night poster was pretty awesome too. As was eating delicious Lebanese food, treating myself to beautiful Czech surrealism and films from the rest of the world. Even some of the weirdness was wonderful, especially with friends to watch them with. Not to forget the environment- I felt like I was back in Edinburgh again.

Have to go back.

Mr.Bean, done.

2010-10-19T17:55:00.000-07:00

Final render. I realize the blend shapes at the end are just mushed up in the animation. We had to make a clip under 10 seconds and I have a million blend shapes. I'll go back and make a better clip of it.

But for now, here he is! I'm not too happy with how he turned out, but it went somewhere.

Mr. Bean Caricature Bust from Shreyasi Das on Vimeo.

mr. bean in color!

2010-10-09T19:55:00.000-07:00

Still have to rig and animate!

caricature

2010-10-06T19:14:00.001-07:00

Rowan Atkinson/Mr. Bean caricature in progress (ignore obnoxious grid running through his face). I'm so scared it's not going to end up looking like him. Here's what I started with

post production intern project

2010-09-30T19:23:00.000-07:00

Shore Nice to Meet You! from Danica Parry on Vimeo.

Here's what a couple of talented interns and I worked on during our Summer internship at Humble TV. I'm yet to get the original copy, but one of the interns, Danica Parry, has posted it online.

I contributed to the 2D animation (water, clouds, shadows), 3D animation (1st, 4th and last shot of the octopus), visual effects, rotoscoping, compositing and early audio/video edits (and a bit of rendering)

This was fun!!

Newton's Cradle

2010-09-26T19:31:00.000-07:00

Been really sick this past week, and trying my best to motivate myself to accomplish things.

expression. music. rhythm.

2010-09-20T13:16:00.000-07:00

Bhava Raga Tala from Shreyasi Das on Vimeo.

My one quarter film from sophomore year! Finally! Took me 10 weeks to do- I based it off of Bharatanatyam, a classical Indian dance form that makes use of sculpturesque poses. Natyam means dance, and Bharata is derived from the Sanskrit words, bhava, raga and tala which literally means expression, music and rhythm. The film was screened at the High Street Film Festival in Rochester.

I like how it turned out, but it wasn't as challenging as I would have liked it to be. (Hail the two-quarter!)

But here's what Bharatanatyam is actually like, so you can see what exactly I experimented with. I used the poses to match up with a different kind of music not traditionally used for this kind of a dance.

inspiration tests

2010-09-12T19:39:00.000-07:00

Trying to figure out visual styles, etc. etc.

I was pretty much drifting in the air when I sat down to work and plan things out. So I started with doodles and sketches. I have a secret crush on animating credit sequences so I started sketching possible backgrounds for my credit sequence animation (I know, I'm more excited about the credits than the actual film- which kind of got me thinking... but now's not the time to explain that)

So I started with these:

And got inspired to do these...

This is just lambert with occlusion. Initially, when I didn't even have an idea, I thought of this style for simplicity's sake because I had seen one or two student films in this style that weren't super-immaculate with textures and all. But maybe I won't use it.. I just wanted to try it out.

As far as layout, I'm taking inspiration from German Expressionism...

Over summer I had something like this, but now I feel like it doesn't go well with the mood and the personality of my character.

So now I'm going for something more like this:

And now I'm super excited about the film!

a new beginning

2010-09-03T12:19:00.000-07:00

The safety instruction monologues by airplane stewardesses are ringing in my head in all languages right now. I'm off for a ride, and I don't know what it's going to be like and it's shamelessly frightening!!

I like, at the end of of a period of time, or seasons in this case, to say that I've accomplished something. So by the end of the summer, I think I can safely say I've got a better grasp at the concept of rigging than I did before. On my second go, I think I made a decent rig for a really rough representation of my character for my next film.

There were a bunch of crazy problems that got me all frustrated and then I figured out solutions to them and felt elated, but then it lead to other problems, which I fixed again, messed up again, yadeyada.. But in the end, I think it turned out to work well. I mean, I was able to animate a really quick walk cycle with it without facing any problems (except for the shape and dimensions of the character which was very distracting and got in the way). And it also helped me learn how a rig that I build works, in comparison to the rigs I am used to working with.

And lookit that mustache test!!

Hopefully, now that I've gone through this, the process will be much smoother when I finally do it on the final character.

Wish me luck!! I have homework already!

aja

2010-09-01T18:49:00.000-07:00

School will start in a few days and I figured I won't get to play around with my tablet as much, since I won't really need it for drawing. Thus...

It's Shiva btw. A very feminine Shiva. He has a million names, and apparently one of them is Aja. Which I love. It means unborn.

good music and a sleepy head.

2010-08-07T21:51:00.001-07:00

on a side note.

2010-07-29T17:01:00.000-07:00

"The Domestic Abuse Helpline for Men and Women (DAHMW) is a volunteer directed national non profit agency that offers supportive services to and public awareness about under served victims of intimate partner violence.

We have submitted an idea to the Pepsi Refresh Project www.refresheverything.com Pepsi is giving away millions to fund great ideas. Ideas are chosen for funding through public voting on submissions.

We are looking for volunteers to spread the word about our project idea and encourage people to vote for us daily(voting starts August 1st). Ideally you will enlist your social networking friends to vote daily for our idea as well. Voting begins August 1st and ends August 31st.

Skills: Social Networking: Must be creative and knowledgeable about social media sites, blogs and group lists.

Requirements: Access to a computer and the internet for at least one hour a day.
Contact: Jan Brown at nefaatall@yahoo.com"

DO IT!

headed somewhere

2010-07-24T08:44:00.000-07:00

So I've finally decided to make a 3D film for my next school project, thanks to a little encouragement from my professor. I was pretty hesitant about making the decision because I've no experience in rigging or cinematography. I can figure out ways to simplify texture and lighting, and even cinematography for that matter. But the thought of rigging makes me nervous.

I'm planning on a robotic, mechanical character to save time on rigging, but I still have very little knowledge on how I'd go about it. So I'm redoing this rigging assignment we did in class from the Modeling and Animation Handbook, and hoping I'll be able to figure things out.

Here's a little something I quickly doodled as "early concept art" while waiting for Final Cut Pro to render an edit I did for a small intern project. The mustache was a new addition to the character design I had in mind, but I don't know how I'd animate it quite yet. I've never worked with clusters and stuff.

I'm hoping I'll be able to learn something from one of my supervisors here at Humble. I finally got to meddle with some 3D stuff yesterday. I modeled this 2D paper cut-out-ish character using poly planes and used tools like the Sculpt Geometry tool, nonlinear deformers and a few others. It might be how South Park characters are modeled, I'm not sure. I read an article about it once. But I'm pretty sure I took a long round-about method because the texturing and stuff wasn't working as easily as it should've. Anyway, so this character has a mustache and I asked my supervisor if I could shadow him while he animates it. It probably won't get animated while I'm still here though.

Anyway, and here's another random thing I did in Flash while waiting to be assigned a project. It goes by a little faster than I wanted it to but didn't get the time to fix it. I wish these players would let you frame-by-frame the videos.

Also, I found a grey hair on my head today :( And I finally watched Despicable Me! It was awesome of course, except I felt like I missed out on a lot of gags at times cause sometimes there'd be so many going on at once, right after another, and there's a soundtrack playing practically all through out the film. But so entertaining and fun characters!

people jumping off buildings

2010-07-18T20:26:00.000-07:00

So just a quick note thingy about my amazing discovery while adventuring with my friends in Madison Square Park.

Statues of the same bare man on the roof of super-high-rise buildings standing super-close to the edge! It's hauntingly beautiful. Gives me the goose-bumps, and is a temporary installation work by the amazing sculptor Antony Gormley. It's a self-portrait I believe, and very effective in it's purpose, if you read the article:

The project name is called Event Horizon.

This guy has really awesome sculptures that focus on the human body, and some pretty intriguing drawings too. Check it out.

dabble dabble

2010-07-16T15:11:00.001-07:00

Blah. Just playing around with the tablet.

I realized I like working with tangible things more. I prefer a pencil and paper over digital stuff.

rudiments

2010-07-13T16:27:00.001-07:00

I started experimenting with using my tablet and ToonBoom. This took me the entire day! The landing is kindof awkward, I know.

There's obviously a lot of cool features I haven't figured out yet, so it's fairly elementary. But I'm glad I got something done today while being put on hold by Verizon high speed internet agents the entire day and teaching a parent how to use a computer :D

the bong update

2010-07-12T19:32:00.000-07:00

Just came back from a wonderful weekend at Atlantic City. Every year, Bengalis from all over North America get together for the North American Bengali Conference (NABC), also called the "Bongo Sommelon" in Bengali. This year, it was held at Atlantic City. It’s basically a huge get-together of Bongs from all over, with live performances from local and famous artists, cultural exhibitions, and super-expensive food. To be honest, I wasn’t too excited about it.

Yes, I’m a cultural person, and I love being a Bengali. But I never quite enjoyed Bengali music, film, literature, etc. I appreciated the fact that we Bengalis are an artistic lot, but never engaged myself in it. I was pretty much a Westernized child while I lived in Calcutta. And I liked Hindi films and music more than Bengali…

But now I’ve come back an almost-die-hard fan of percussionist, Bickram Ghosh (there’s something about live percussion performances that make you feel good about life), bought two of his albums, and a bunch of films by Bengali directors, Anjan Dutt and Aparna Sen. I even considered buying some translated Tagore and Satyajit Ray shorts, but they were pretty expensive compared to its original price in Rupees. But that’s what you get for leaving your country and wanting things from there! Definitely check Bickram Ghosh out though.

Speaking of Bengalis, last month’s 11 Second Club winner was a Bengali from my hometown! I took a look at his other entries and he has track record of high-rated submissions. It’s nice knowing that you don’t necessarily have to come all the way to the US, despite the slew of opportunities you get here, to be awesome at animation. In fact, there are so many opportunities now in India.. even in Calcutta.

And speaking of the 11 Second Club, I tried my hand at last month’s competition. I wasn’t too proud of what I did but it was my first time and just an attempt to make sure I keep at this animation thing. I think most people didn’t like it cause I didn’t have a creative scenario going on. I read all the instructions about how you shouldn’t spend too much time on the looks and modeling, and went ahead and assumed you can’t be creative with it, which was rather silly of me. But anyways…I made some changes to it. It’s still not perfect obviously. But I’ve a lot on my plate now, and I think I should start off with simpler exercises- like with body dynamics and stuff- before diving into dialogue and acting. I haven’t even formally learned how to lip-sync yet.

Redone Entry

I recently bought a tablet (Intuos4 Small) and downloaded a trial version of ToonBoom. There’s a lot I want to do in whatever’s left of Summer, but I don’t have too much time. Nevertheless, I’m going to try. I’ve never used a tablet before so I have to get used to sketching on that, and also, animating with it. I realized a few days back that I’m really not equipped to do any one thing. Yeah, I made a traditional hand drawn film that got a lot of recognition, but apart from drawing on paper, I really don’t know how to do much of anything else. I know bits of different things, but not comprehensively. The last few days I’ve been pretty demotivated about the skill-set RIT’s given me so far and about the fact that I haven’t really had much responsibility given to me at my internship because I don’t know anything extensively yet.

Train Doodles

I think I just need to get back to the workflow to start feeling good about myself again.

So, the past few weeks while I was rotoscoping mindlessly, I got myself hooked onto the Animation Podcasts, Spline Casts and Animation Mentor Webinars. While all the talk of CalArts being The Place to go for animation kinda got me disconcerted, I learned SO much about the industry just by listening to all these people speak. It’s awesome, really. Really inspiring.

Train Doodles II

Anyway, looong post! So the next few weeks, I really need to get started on translating footage. There’s about 160 Gigs of it that I got from the filmmaker last week. Now that my exam’s over, I can spend time on it. But at the same time, I also have to practice animating with a tablet, brainstorm viable ideas for my next film (and decide between 2D or 3D!) and complete at least ONE polished 3D animation exercise good enough for a reel. Because believe it or not, I’m already worrying about next Summer. I've already kindof started thumbnailing an idea, but I think the idea's still too ambitious right now.

Nritya

And just so you know- if you ever have one of those days when you feel negative about your work and feel kindof worthless- donate to charity. Sounds clichéd, but at least you’re doing something. It really does make you feel good.

Enjoy the 100 degrees!!

it was written

2010-07-04T16:54:00.000-07:00

Slumdog Millionaire was on last night and I was in the mood for some quick doodles. I forgot how much I enjoyed the movie. And the music.

And here's a random Aunti-ji of course.

Happy 4th of July!

Nuances on the Train

2010-06-26T16:37:00.000-07:00

-Some people, during idle moments in their conversations, will tap their fingers rhythmically, even if they’re not listening to music.

-People sitting next to each other on a train rarely make eye contact while conversing, especially if close friends. Obviously, cause it’s awkward to have your head turned sideways the entire time. They’ll usually stare at an angle toward the other person. And if they’re lovers, they’ll gaze downwards rather than straight ahead. Strangers are more likely to glance at each other more often (unless of course you’re absolutely threatened by that person. In that case, you’d probably face the opposite direction)

-Some people will shake their heads when talking- even when they’re not negating anything or talking about something objectionable.

-When women read books, they’ll usually start with their heads tilted and then sit erect with their necks straight when they feel uncomfortable- never the other way round. Maybe men too, but I’ve only noticed women doing it.

-Sometimes, when people have conversations on the phone while sitting between strangers on a train, they’ll stare evilly out the nearest window and mutter. Like they’re performing the Confundus charm or something (yes, a Harry Potter reference).

-When you can’t find a seat on the train and you have to stand, and you’re standing close behind a seated passenger, they will give you at least 3 furtive glances per minute, and won’t stop. [It’s true. I might have terrorized an adorable lanky old man (with a cute little satchel) just by standing so close behind him].

-Some people will fiddle with the hair on their eyebrows when they’re idle (I know, ew.)

-When people are really really sleepy while traveling seated, they will sleep in the most awkward and uncomfortable positions- compared to moderately sleepy people, who’ll just tilt their heads against something. [I know this to be true. I’ve had exhausting trips to and from India lately. And by the third flight (which is usually the shortest- like 2 hours at most), I can’t take it anymore and I will creep out the passenger next to me if I have to in order to get my sleep.]

-A lot can be said from the back of people’s heads.
__

A lot of these seem obvious and I probably knew it all along. But noticing something and having a subconscious knowledge of it are two vastly different concepts.

I’ve been commuting for three weeks now, to and from NYC. Long commutes after long days of work. And I usually only have the energy to plop onto the window seat (IF I can get a seat, that is) and plug into music and tune out the flurry of people around me.

It wasn’t until yesterday that I realized, and smacked myself on the head for realizing so late. There are PEOPLE around me. Even if I can’t bring myself to take out my sketchpad in the crowd (although I did yesterday), I can at least put my people-observing skills into practice.
Apart from honing my ability to pay attention to details, all the endless rotoscoping is hopefully giving me a subconscious sense of how athletes move, although recently, I’ve been outlining quite a lot of blur. But still, there’s a lot to learn!

Looking at ordinary people do ordinary things can sometimes surprise you too. A lot of the things you’ll notice are obvious things, like I said. But really, if you think about it, they’re the essence of human behavior. Something like tapping your finger on your coffee-to-go can communicate much more than waving your hand violently when giving a political speech (Don’t ask- I spent 3 hours of my life I will never get back watching a Bollywood film about politicians, and subtextually, about bad acting. Anyways…)

I don’t think there’s a better place than stations of to really look at these subtleties come into play. They should make an Encyclopedia of human idiosyncrasies. Maybe it does exist, and maybe I’ll look for it when I can get a hold of something more advanced than dial up Internet.

But for now, I shall feed myself with my own list of nuances.

festivities

2010-06-14T14:27:00.001-07:00

This weekend I was back at Rochester for my first film festival! Bhava Raga Tala got selected for The High Street Film Festival that was held this June 12 at the Dryden Theater in George Eastman House.

This is the first time the festival is being held, and it was started by Matthew and Kate Murphy. Here's an article about it (read it! I'm featured in it too!).

My film was the only animation out of the 11 films that were screened, but it was a great experience. I got to talk to other student filmmakers and some professionals, and my film was received well!

I also started my internship last Wednesday at Humble TV. I know I'll be learning a lot during my time here, but at this moment, I am very intimidated because I am new to some of the software and techniques and I need to self-teach a lot of these things to give these people the right output in the right amount of time. My first three days, I rotoscoped. This is my first time rotoscoping and I think I'm getting the hang of it. Humble TV is working on motion graphics for the 2010 ESPY's right now so it involves rotoscoping athletes and putting them in different environments. My first rotoscoping was Shaun White doing one of his tricks. I'm excited to get my feet wet in some compositing, and hopefully, a lot of new 3D stuff.

Apart from that, my summer's been pretty static. Doing some animating in Maya and hoping to be able to write at least one more children's poem like I did last summer. Maybe it'll inspire me for my 2-quarter too.

Also, I have an IMDb page now for Bhava Raga Tala. :)

looking and listening

2010-05-23T11:44:00.003-07:00

I took American Sign Language and Deaf Art & Cinema this past quarter and was taught the importance of visual communication both in terms of everyday communication itself, as well as in terms of cinema.

I also took Audio Concepts for Animation, where the importance of sound being the life and soul of a film couldn't be stressed enough.

I haven't had the time to properly reflect on this.

But here's my final project for the audio class.. I did NOT animate this. Two guys in our class did for the purpose of the assignment.

AUDIO for Animation from Shreyasi Das on Vimeo.

The audio quality has deteriorated a little after uploading. Make sure to wear good quality stereo headphones to experience the truest product of my efforts!! I worked on this with my partner and did the first half of it till the "hell" sequence, while she did the soundscape for the hell scenes. We then looked over, or listened to rather, each others' segments and gave each other feedback. We both recorded sounds in the foley room using a variety of objects not limited to fruits, vegetables, chocolate pudding, mayo, whole punchers, forks and knives, wet t-shirts, rice crispies and so on and so forth.

I think it came out rather nicely!

Also, this quarter, I did all the sound design for my junior friend, Robyn Stanford, (who was also my partner in Audio). She was working on her one-quarter involving dragons and a tea-party and I did all the sound mixing for her. It was received well at screenings, audio-wise as well, and even made it to the Honor's Show! She's given me the kind permission to embed the link to her film here (and forewarns that the colors are slightly off!)

Tea Party from Robyn Stanford on Vimeo.

spring, a few words about

2010-05-23T11:22:00.000-07:00

Another year has come to an end, and as always, there's been a flurry of activities. It seems to be a trend at the closing of every Spring quarter.

So, to back up a little- my 10-week animation project, popularly known as the "one-quarter", was completed, screened with good feedback from the faculty at the quarterly screenings, and selected for the School of Film & Animation's (SoFA) Honor's Show to be taking place in Fall next year.

Two days ago, I turned 19 and took charge of my own decisions. I had received an e-mail from the chairperson of SoFA informing me that the faculty members had decided to nominate me to be the undergraduate representative for the National Princess Grace Foundation Award in the Film category. I was tremendously excited. On further research, found out that this award award was meant for thesis films, and furthermore, the deadline for sending DVDs, treatments & proposals, script summaries, pre-production samples, bios, and other paperworks was in 10 days.

I emailed the chair about it and he informed me that the award could be applicable for any advanced project I would be doing next year (not just for a thesis) and that I should let him know immediately if I wished to decline. Had I been doing a thesis next year, it would have been an ideal opportunity, because by that time, I would have had a solid idea at hand, the pre-planning stage would have been rolling, and I would have a lot more samples to send exemplifying my work under my belt.

But next year, I will be working on my "two-quarter" (20-week project), and unlike my thesis, I do not have an entire academic quarter before this project is to be started, to seriously mull on the ideas being catapulted around my head, polishing the idea, etc. Instead, I have 10 days, if I am to apply for this award. As I've mentioned before I think, pre-production and ideation is the most important and most difficult part for me, and unless I can completely marry myself to my idea, I cannot work with it- be it 10 weeks, 20 weeks or an entire year.

If I were to come up with a 2-quarter idea in 10 days, send all the supporting materials and possibly win the award, I would have to be committed to this idea for the next 20 weeks that I would be spending working on it. I would have run the risk of hating an idea I spewed out in that small span of time and jeopardizing one of my three important projects during my time in college. The quality of my work is important to me and I didn't want to potentially sacrifice that by applying for the award. I wasn't afraid of the deadline. I was afraid of what the outcome of winning the award would be.

It was an especially hard decision for me to make, saying no, because my parents and my friends who knew about it were quite vocally against it. But I thought long and hard about it, and decided to forego the opportunity. It was a privilege being presented with the choice, and for me, all that matters is that I am recognized in my school as being capable.

I must say, making huge decisions like these in such short time can drain you of a lot of energy. Especially when you have to spend the rest of the day packing all your belongings and all the junk that accumulated in your room over the year and move out.

This quarter has been amazing. I've met new people, shared new ideas, earned an interview with Pixar at such an early stage in my career (even though it didn't work out in the end) and got many other valuable interview experiences.. I'm excited about what's to come.

Now I'm home, aching from lugging heavy things around. Will take a day or two off before diving into more work. Film festivals. Scholarships. CLEP. Internship. Translating. Animation practice. And ruminating over ideas for my next film. It has to be twice as good, now that I've made such a big deal about spending time on pre-planning.

Happy summer!

Swan Song

2010-04-29T19:08:00.000-07:00

Another ending drawing near. My animation project has been coming along swimmingly I should say. One of the problems of finishing things earlier than planned is that you get tempted to get really finicky with what you have. At this point, I can do a lot of things to my work, and I'm tempted to, but it's time to wrap things up. I won't be posting any more WIP's for the time being for personal reasons. But the final product is soon to come. I'm hoping to be able to apply for film festivals with it. I don't know if my film would be good enough for festivals, but it's worth trying.

In other news, I just got a fancy mail in the post from the National Society of Collegiate Scholars saying I've been nominated to become a member. And I've decided to accept.

Also got into two internships in NYC- one administrative, one hands-on. Still waiting to hear back from others. I think, by this point, I have applied to more than 30 places.

Another project that needs to be done by the end of the quarter is a live-action film relating to the Deaf experience for my Deaf Art & Cinema class. I'm working with 4 other people. One of my weaknesses, apart from obsessing constantly over tiny details, is the fact that I always feel the need to take charge over things. Not dictate things- but just constantly nag people till they do what they should be doing, trying to get the best out of them. I trust people to do their work (for the most part), but just not to their best of abilities. I feel it should be different out in the real world, where everyone's as dedicated as I am. Right now though, all I want is for my team members to reply to my e-mails :)

I am also going to be returning to my translating job again. My friend who went to Croatia for a study abroad last Spring, met Shawn Convey, a photography student who graduated from RIT and lives in Bosnia with his dance activist girlfriend, Ashley Fargnoli. They both had gone to Kolkata (my hometown in India) and had shot footage at an institution called Kolkata Sanved where they promote Dance Movement Therapy. They have over 60 hours of footage for the documentary they want to make- DMT -, including interviews in Bengali. They need translations. And I'm doing it for them. I had done some last winter. Then things were paused for a bit becuase they've been busy with fundraising and such. Now I'm getting back to it, and I'll be doing more for them. I think I'm probably still the only translator they have.

It's a lot of fun and it brushes up my Bengali, even though it doesn't need brushing up. Being almost tri-lingual is something I'm unashamedly proud of. :)

Quote of the Day: "The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page".

I really wanted to say "Well-behaved women seldom make history", but that barely applies ...

Good night.

Some Ancient Updates

2010-04-20T11:34:00.000-07:00

So this is something I never ended up posting last quarter because I was concerned about whether or not I was allowed to. It was my final project for Intro to 2D computer animation. We had to take 90 seconds (or more if we wished) of a song and make a music video to it. This video was solely for the class and I do not own the rights to the music (You Love Me by Kimya Dawson).

We had to use a combination of Flash and After Effects to make this movie.

It was a fairly new experience for me, because I had never experimented with a minimalistic style. I kept being drawn towards making the movements more realistic.

All character and props were drawn and created by me. Except for the backgrounds which were images taken from the internet and edited in Photoshop.

Blogspot butchered the video quality here...

As far as my one-quarter animation is concerned, I am done animating everything. Now I have to go back and fix some of the animations, add some inbetweens to places where I animated on 2's, get rid of distracting scan-lines, etc. Then I'll start editing and have it all done by the 10th week.

Summore Drawrings

2010-04-15T19:54:00.001-07:00

They're a little skewed because of the way I photographed them...

We focused on the head today. I think I got better as I went along...

The weeks are going by so fast. Before I know it, college will be over.

energies

2010-04-12T19:37:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I put stuff from my figure drawing class up here. Last week we had a model with really dynamic poses. These were all 1 minute poses.

And although I know a lot of things aren't perfect about these two drawings, I really like them for some reason.

Probably the way they're so disproportionate.

what if i did THIS...

2010-04-05T19:21:00.000-07:00

Still animating. My plan now is to finish the remaining 20 seconds in the next two weekends. Then spend the rest of the time (3 weeks) fixing all the animations that need to be fixed and editing the thing.

So here's the new stuff:

And I was just experimenting with editing styles with the last clip, so it saves me some time when I actually formally start editing:

brilliance

2010-04-02T21:49:00.000-07:00

I happened to stumble upon the making of the title sequence for Taare Zameen Par, an awesome Bollywood film. The title sequence is a really charming series of frame-by-frame animations, and it's wonderful to look at the working environment of these people and the products they come up with... and comparing it to the working environment of animators everywhere else in the world.

How many people know his name? And the names of those sculptors meticulously handcrafting the characters...They're not graduates from well-known universities... I doubt half of them have any formal education in art either.

And look at how they time their shots!!

These things just make me really happy and inspire me in ways I can't properly express.

News!

2010-03-31T19:39:00.000-07:00

1) I'm a member of this recently created association of filmmakers called Student Filmmakers of India (www.studentfilmmakersofindia.com). I uploaded two of my animated films on there and now I've been selected as Best Director of the Month for April 2010 for my film Trails. It's a small community right now so it isn't that competitive. But it still means something.

2) I have my first big interview day after tomorrow.

3)My parents moved back to America yesterday and I get to reunite with my dog this weekend after so many months.

:)

(update: 04/27

I realized that the link for the Student Director of the Month won't be working after April 2010, so here are some screenshots from their website:

This is along with 2 other people, whose names are there when you scroll down. This is all that my window could fit!

And when you click on my name you get....!

Summore Tests!

2010-03-23T13:51:00.000-07:00

And some more!! This is just me testing my animation and at the same time trying out different things with editing and composition and style and what not. I'll have more than just mirroring effects in the final piece, I promise.

So I tried animating with pastels and boy it's messy. I had my production class today where I showed my tests and people pretty much like it the way it is right now. I still want to try and go back and refine the lines a little with crayons, so they're not just of even thickness. Especially the stick figured characters.

So much more animating left to do!

And on a side note, I no longer have flu!! Yay.

Floo

2010-03-19T09:37:00.000-07:00

So I guess I can say that I have officially started animating for this project. Am I happy with what I am animating? No. I've been really sick with some sort of viral flu for the past 4 or 5 days and now is not the time. People are out frolicking in the apparently warm weather and I am still parading around in my winter jacket.

I really hope that I develop a proper style quickly in the process of animating this. I can make beautiful individual abstract drawings of Bharata Natyam dancers, but once I start animating and get a couple of frames into it, the figures start to resemble "beautiful and abstract" less. It's one of the challenges I have to overcome for this project, I suppose.

I really like the drawing style I have in my Figure Drawing class, and it's probably because I'm using charcoal, and also maybe because I'm drawing big. I don't know if I would be able to animate with something like charcoal/pastels, but I really want to try. The thing is, I don't know if I have the time to experiment anymore. Right now, literally whatever I animate has to be in the final film. I guess this is one of the problems of making a complete film from pre- to post- production in 10 weeks. There is so much scope for learning, but not much for going back and perfecting from what you learn.

But anyway, what I have above is what I've done since the last update, quickly put together. It isn't exactly what the final film will look like, but it hints heavily at it.

We'll see..

Hello Hello, Testing Testing...

2010-03-13T18:22:00.001-08:00

I figured I'd start experimenting. It's better if I figure out potential problems with animating at this stage rather than later.

This is a quick AfterEffects test I did. It wasn't shot properly because I need someone to teach me how to use the scanner in our lab. The drawings I did today were supposed to be rough and for experimenting, but I might end up using it in the end. So I didn't want to risk batch scanning the papers without any training with the scanner and having it eat all the paper up.

Not sure how I feel about the animation though.

Will post more details about the project later.

Firsts

2010-03-11T18:06:00.001-08:00

First times are the scariest. First week of school, first class, first big project, first time with a new language, firsts, firsts firsts.

So my first week is over. Relief? I'm not sure yet. Nine weeks left to finish my one-quarter project. Treatments and storyboards/visual displays due next week. Then the animation begins I suppose. It's scary to think that one week's gone from the 10 weeks we get. And it's technically not even 10 weeks. Because by weeks, what I really mean is weekends- how much can you get done during the weekday with classes? Films are due for screenings Friday of Week 10. So for all practical purposes, we get 9 weekends to work on this, one of which is almost over. 8 weekends. Heh.

But the ideating is the most important step (and the hardest step for me). I realized that. I struggle during the pre-planning stage. I set realistic goals after all that's done. But the planning bit gives me a heart attack, and it takes me a while to start believing in my idea. That's just the really self-critical side of me. I just need to make it a point to not make it self-deprecating.

I had figure drawing today, and I'm so glad I'm taking it. It's going to help me a lot with my gesture drawings for my project first of all, and secondly, it's relaxing.

We started out with quick poses and then went on to longer ones. The first 3 or 4 weeks will be mostly gesture drawing, so I'm really happy about that.

I have a really bad head ache. Paint fumes in the hallway. Blegh.

Blog entries look so awkward with pictures lined up like this =/

Warm Up

2010-03-05T15:47:00.000-08:00

About time I did. It took me an hour to warm up, and another to stop feeling negative about my drawings. My proportions are so off today.

Models from posemaniac.com. Great source for artists.

And Other Updates

2010-03-03T19:10:00.000-08:00

Here's the product of many weeks of trial & error and meticulous work and rendering and re-rendering and burning and re-burning DVDs and this and that and other fun stuff :

Modeling Demo Reel from Shreyasi Das on Vimeo.

And here's my final project for my intro to 3D Animation class which I got a full score on! The sound quality is a little bad. It is taken from Singing in the Rain.

Monologue Acting from Shreyasi Das on Vimeo.

And my first 3D walk cycle:

3D Walk Cycle from Shreyasi Das on Vimeo.

Enjoy.. and more to come.

Classes I am taking next quarter:

Animation Production - that's where we spend the entire academic quarter making an independently produced animated film.

Audio Concepts for Animation - I am really really excited for this course, because I'm a physics lover and sound waves and motion are my favoritest topics!

Deaf Art and Cinema- this should be really interesting..

Beginner's American Sign Language - this will be scary but fun. The class is taught by a hard-of-hearing or completely deaf teacher without an interpreter so that we are forced to learn the language by struggling. I'm sure there is a specific pedagogic term for it, but you get my drift. It's intense learning, basically.

I'm also thinking of auditing a drawing course. The only reason I am "auditing" is because it might become a heavy course load. But drawing is something I want to be doing continuously and consistently under the guidance of a teacher.

Oh which reminds me, here's the final composition with typography (theme: self-portrait) I did for my 2D design class. I'm not too impressed with it, but the teacher really liked it.

Starry Eyed

2010-03-03T18:56:00.001-08:00

Just got back to Rochester from my short vacation in L.A. And it was great! I was feeling rather guilty about it, thinking I'd be better off doing something productive during break, even though I am not really required to do anything productive.

I sent off all of my important summer internship applications before leaving. I guess it is sort of a weight off of my shoulders, but then there is the weight of waiting (ooh wordplay!).

So the whole idea of going to Santa Monica, LA was to tag along with my friend who will be graduating soon with an MFA. She attended a Documentary Workshop hosted by the International Documentary Association, and took me and another friend along with her.

And of course, since I was in L.A., I wanted to see everything. And by see everything, I mean, visit at least one animation production studio for the first time in my life. I contacted the studios a little too late, since I really had no time to prepare for the trip until right before our flight (which got canceled by the way due to distasteful Rochester weather. Had to take the bus to D.C. then fly out of Dulles instead.. 'Twas a bad bad day).

Anyway, I wasn't too hopeful about being able to visit the studios, and so I am more than grateful for having been able to visit Klasky Csupo, while walking aimlessly toward Hollywood, and getting to talk to Arlene Klasky and say hi to Gabor Csupo. I was starry eyed. Not because I was in Hollywood, but because I was in a studio. Talking to people passionate about what I am passionate about.

I also got to visit a small studio called Ring of Fire, a few 18 blocks away from the hostel we were staying in. Out of the 18 blocks, I ran 7, since buses were slowing down during the rush hour. It was an equally nice experience.

And the trip was worthwhile =) I even got a call from Nickelodeon agreeing to meet me for an informational meeting. But unfortunately, I had already left L.A.

Lesson learned: Plan ahead!! I knew that already, but we all need refreshers.

Now I need to plan ahead for my next quarter.

Wrap Wrap Wrap

2010-02-15T08:23:00.000-08:00

This week right here, so cunningly called week 10... It means it's time to take a deep breath and spew out your best (hopefully) one last time before crashing.

Projects I have to get done by the end of this week include finishing a 90 second music video- of which I have 70 not-so-brilliant seconds done. It's just that I'm trying to experiment with a fairly minimalistic style, but I keep getting pulled back by my urge to make things look realistic. I still haven't learned to let go in one direction and... push it. Oh, and I have to use both Flash and After Effects together for it.

Then there's my 2D design project which involves lots and lots of Bengali writing practice for me :) I'm making a composition of a very significant bridge in my life out of Bengali script in various sizes. And all of the text is taken from letters I've got from my parents and gramma since college started. It's supposed to be a self-portrait.

And then there's 3D -acting to a monologue without lip sync. I'm done for the most part with that, just need some critique on it before I submit.

And then there's Ethics. And running after teachers for recommendation letters, begging some of them to return artwork from previous quarters, &c &c.

This is going to be my first school break away from home. But I don't think it should be that bad considering the amount of work I have to get done towards my internship applications (read: FINISH!) and then plan for my first big project next quarter. It's intimidating!

Anywho, I don't have works in progress right now, but here's my first 2D design project dealing with lines, which I finally managed to get back from my teacher.

I believe the dimensions are 10"x40". We had to make a "drawing" out of wire then take pictures of it from different angles and print them out. This was followed by 3 weeks of meticulous cutting with X-Acto knives. And exploring of ideas. And "getting lost and found". And whatnot. We had to cut out the pictures of the wires, for the most part getting rid of the negative spaces, but in some cases keeping them (like for the ones at the bottom of my piece). I had two wire structures I worked from. I had all my cut outs in those transparent folder envelope thingies and it wasn't until much later that I realized how beautiful the pieces looked just overlapped and lying randomly on top of each other in the folders. So I decided to go on with that and keep cutting and cutting until I got this. I struggled on it, but it turned out nice..

Yeah so..imuna get back to wrapping up this quarter now.

*dives*

Wee Hours

2010-01-21T10:00:00.000-08:00

Trails from Shreyasi Das on Vimeo.

It is DONE! Finished it in less than a week. I agree that it's kind of slow, and too long. And I also just noticed that the flower got scaled up somewhere in the process so it's really close to the edges of the frames. So I have to go back and fix that, and a few other things.

But this is what it looks like right now, and I am really, really tired. Froot Loops for dinner. 2 consecutive days. Looking forward to lunch right now.

And also very nervous about showing this in class today. I'm not afraid of critiquing. It's just that... everyone else's is 30 seconds. :S

Froot Loops for dinner!

2010-01-19T19:37:00.000-08:00

Quick post about my amazing amazing discovery. I went to the library again today. This time for my 2D design class- to look at old artwork or archival photographs for our next project.

And... I found... a mini world of animation. One whole shelf dedicated to the brilliance of Hanna Barbera, Disney, Tex Avery, Chuck Jones, Pixar stuff... There were books ranging from Illusion of Life to books that were just lists of good animated films to watch. All they did was list out short films in small print for a good 200 or so pages. There was a book dedicated to listing out all the "uncensored" animated films that have been made. Books about the animation style of the 50's. It was lovely. I was a happy child huddled in front of the stacks of books. And inevitably, my 2D design project will be heavily influenced by it. (Although I did spend a considerable amount of time browsing through a book about old French poster artists).

It was time well spent.

And I returned with a book on Chuck Jones : A Flurry of Drawings. And a book about the silent live-action (with a little animation mixed in) films made by Disney, especially the Alice comedies. And a book about the previz art of Disney animated films. They are amazing.

And I am definitely going back to the library and going through more of this once I have more breathing space.

P.S. I'm starting to hate living right across the "social lounge" in the dorms.

Dare I say Inspired?

2010-01-18T22:02:00.000-08:00

Third assignment from Intro to 3d Modeling- Standing and waving. And the reference video for it.

I've had a million thoughts going through my head. A million disconnected thoughts. Euphoric, skeptic, relentless, homesick, etc. etc.

(It's still hard to fathom that those I love are oceans away from me. It's not a depressing thought or anything. Just sometimes overwhelming. I miss my dog.)

Anyways. As far as I, as an artist, am concerned, I am sorry to say that my challenge with myself of making one drawing everyday has to be modified a little. :P There just isn't the time. With all the school work, dealing with my parents' mails that are now forwarded to my school address, and general college stuff. When I do get the free time, I need to work on my internship applications. And if not, get some sleep. Or take some time out to eat... you know...food.

But it's still in the back of my head. Creative outlet. Must happen.

So, my new crush - AfterEffects!! I'm working on a film made entirely in AfterEffects right now. It's our first assignment using the software in my 2D Computer Animation class, and it is, dare I say, coming out quite nicely! Of course, having just come out of 5 weeks of work on Flash, I can't help but be hesitant and nervous that something absurd will happen to my animation and I will feel like hiding under my covers. But so far so good. Knock on wood! And I'm excited that it is going to be an actual film. Not making a character dance across the screen without its limbs flying in the opposite direction (that's Flash for you! Or for me rather). Those assignments are nice. But I've felt so...deprived... not having made a proper film in a long long time. Since last Spring actually.

It's the time of the quarter when the syllabi wrench your lungs (ok, maybe I'm exaggerating), but honestly honestly- I have a lot to get accomplished this week.

I'm thinking of concentrating in American Sign Language now. Before it was Archaeology. And before that it was Writing Studies. And way before that it was Mathematics.

=) SO many opportunities in college.

Oh! And my typewriter from modeling class is actually going to be in a film! In a senior thesis! I don't know how much screenspace my lovely sanskrit typewriter (although I'm pretty sure they'll change the sanskrit trait of it) will get in the movie, but it is exciting enough for me that it will exist in real time. =)

Okay. Ethics and then good night.

Until then, gaze at the main character of my soon to be finished AfterEffects film:

Fly

2010-01-12T19:07:00.000-08:00

This was when I let my hand do whatever it wanted with the pen.

This was when I came back to my room from class and wanted to fly a kite.

I love sharpies.

Resolute

2010-01-11T20:04:00.000-08:00

So I've decided that from now on, I'm going to do at least ONE drawing everyday. Quick, laborious, colored, not colored, between classes, before bed, whatever. Whatever comes to my mind. Just has to be something NOT for class.

I might not be able to post them everyday, but I'll draw it.

So, this is my first...

Inky Pinky Ponky

2010-01-11T15:13:00.000-08:00

Finally, the gesture drawings I promised myself I would put up:

And doggies!... The first one and some of the second are of Joey, my 2 year old Pomeranian. The rest are my teacher's dogs.
I did some while I was in Kolkata, in preparation for what would potentially be my one-quarter project here at R.I.T. I've yet to scan them. I really want to do something gestural and cultural. Going back to India twice in 3 months might've been a driving force :P

My original idea was to have the animations on a hand-made paper texture... All traditional. But as I think more about it, I want to do more to it... Add backgrounds with watercolors, etc... I went to the souvenir shop in Kolkata, because I wanted to take back memories of my city, no matter how tourist-y that seems. And I found beautiful postcard collections of watercolor and ink paintings of just ordinary scenes of Kolkata. It was called Portraits of Kolkata and the paintings were by Samir Biswas. They were really inspiring in their simpicity. It wasn't displaying the (stereotypical) "rich culture" of India to tourists- with colors and well-known festivals or anything like that. I'm not denying India has a rich culture or is monochromatic or anything. But sometimes one needs to stop and look. At the chai shops propped under a Banyan tree. The little hand-made mandirs on the side of the road.

I'm trying to find some website reference to his work as I type this. It's amazing how little known some great illustrators are. Samir Biswas probably isn't that obscure, at least not in Kolkata. I just found out he did the drawing for the restaurant, Oh Calcutta!

Speaking of which, I bought a few beginner's Bengali books from Kolkata for my friend who wants to learn to write Bengali script. It had little drawings next to the alphabets.. Like in an English book you would have the drawing of a cat next to the letter "C". And we were both talking about how these illustrators are overlooked. They're just so amazing and simple and expressive. You should walk into a crowded book fair in the fields one day and step into the children's educational book stalls. Awesome. I wish I appreciated all this before when I had such easy access to them.

Here are some stuff.. Not exactly what I'm talking about, but stuff I find to be great nonetheless:

Some of them (not these ones in particular) remind me of the John and Faith Hubley styles...And I absolutely love their works. I watched The Tender Game today on CartoonBrew and it made me tremendously happy.

Anyway, I'm going off on tangents. My point is, looking at those paintings by Samir Biswas, I want my film to have similar backgrounds. There's too much inspiration around me to let me settle with one idea and be satisfied with it. I guess my ideas are still amorphous at the moment.

Another one of my inspirations was a short film called Madagascar, carnet de voyage, which we saw in the Animation Show of Shows conducted by Ron Diamond at our school last quarter. I absolutely fell in love with it.

Speaking of inspiration, I finally decided to motivate myself to find time to start reading again. I went to the library today after class and got a book. Jhumpa Lahiri's Unaccustomed Earth. It's a collection of short stories. Might be a little too serious/deep seeing as what I really wanted was light reading. But I'm gonna do this. Finish it before it's due.

I should go back to studying Ethics now.

Business and Resolutions

2009-12-24T09:09:00.000-08:00

Here's my preliminary idea for my business card. Using two of my gesture drawings:

New Year's Resolutions:

Read more animation blogs and maybe start networking so I actually have some followers :P
Draw more.
Reduce stress level by 1%.
Make awesome films.

Let's see how that goes. It's a relatively modest list to an outsider. For the past I don't know how many years, I had gain weight on my list. Yes gain weight. I'm still 45kgs. Since I don't know how many years ago.

I need to feel better. And get some work done.

3D Animation Update

2009-12-24T08:58:00.000-08:00

So here's what I've done so far in my intro to 3D animation class.

Ball Bounce:

I am currently in India for Winter vacation, and it is exhausting. Still sick from the long flight and jetlagged of course. It is severely getting in the way of all the work I have to do.

Summer internship search in process. So hard to do with such slow internet here.

I have more stuff. More updates later.

Milo's Book

2009-11-21T21:10:00.000-08:00

Here's my final animatic for my first animation pre-production class:

Milo's Book- Animatic from Shreyasi Das on Vimeo.

Not too happy with the sounds, even though it's a scratch track and even though it expresses the moods and ideas well, and even though the teacher loved it.

It's probably because I still can't grasp the notion of rough, unfinished sound. Sound is just so important to me.

It's all hand drawn, because I still haven't learned to use After Effects (that's next quarter) but I put together a layered animation in there - really quickly done - using Final Cut, Photoshop, and the drawings on my index cards :)

Gesture drawings to come soon!

Maya Update Cont'd

2009-11-21T21:00:00.000-08:00

And here's a lab assignment that our professor didn't really stress too much on- just wanted us to complete it. It was a tutorial for Maya 6.0. But but but, it was doing it a really complicated manner and ended up with n-gons and more than 6 edges converging to a point, which were left unaddressed. I had a copy of the book with the tutorial CD, and when I opened up their finished work sample, I was thoroughly disappointed. The feet looked like octopodi, the fingers were not knuckle-y..Just...The whole body they modeled looked unrealistic. And unlike other stylized projects, this was meant to be realistic. So I tried to follow as much of the tutorial as possible, but deviated from it often when it started leading to redundant and complicated geometry. I don't know how efficiently I did it, but... here it is.

Anyway, the body I modeled is probably not the most perfect body in the world, but I'm satisfied with it, having done in just a week and a half with the machine project at hand. I wish I had a wireframed image with me right now. I'll have to get one when I get back to school.

And here he is, no longer beheaded!! The head too was a quick assignment. The purpose was to make us learn to model a body through extrusions. The method, not the accuracy. A preparation for our final character project, which would have to be accurate. But of course, it was to be stylized.

Well! I think that's all the modeling I have for now!!

Maya Update!

2009-11-21T20:31:00.000-08:00

So here is all the other modeling work that I promised.

The bedroom project was our first "major project". We had a choice between a bedroom and a living room. I chose to make a little girl's stylized bedroom. And by stylized, I mean using less realistic proportions, to show that it's a little girl's world in a normal sized room. I'm really proud of this work. Of course, the light from the lamp could be perfected and made conical. Also, the lighting could have been better done to make a better circular composition- perhaps show less of the ceiling? Turn off the fan light and put in a night light on the the right so there's only the moonlight, the lamplight, and the nightlight?

Perhaps fix the curtain rings, and lessen the scale of the curtain rail?

One of the critiques I had was that the ceiling was too high. It was supposed to be like that, like in Britain? But I can see how it might look odd.

Here's a jpeg showing off my moonlight, which took a long time to reach his stage. Of course, it could always be perfected...

Again, here, the night light on the right would've made it look better, and drawn the eye around the composition.

Here are some random snapshots I took for myself-- not composed.

AND HERE is my second project- the machine project!!

It's an ancient, wonky, sanskrit typewriter. This jpeg here is a little messed up. A lot actually. I spent a lot of time on the modeling and texturing, and then, for some reason, my Maya file got corrupted and the shadows were rendering awfully or not rendering at all. The highlights are speckly, and all sorts of things. Basically, my textures weren't rendering true.

It was my problem partly. I'm not too happy with my texturing. Yes, it gives the old ancient look to it. But firstly, it isn't accurately what I envisioned. Secondly, it's just too much texturing.
I'm pretty sure most people will not know without me telling them that the main body is made out of rusty bronze and not wood. The textures on the two sides, and the modeling of the lever on the top doesn't look too good to me either. All in all, I'm not happy with this particular rendering.

Here's another one... With the wonkiness more clear! I'm quite pleased with the keys and the sankrit script, and the typebars on top with the subtle wonkiness to them.

And THAT is my favoritest image! :D I like the way the paper fold along the paper feed, how you can see the scale on the platen, the wonky look of the typebars... The ribbon spools look a little out of place and "unrealistic" here though..

Anyhow, it was all well received in class and by the teacher. And I got an overall score of 99% in the class!!!

More to come!!

In India now, and extremely exhausted.

Asymptote

2009-11-12T21:26:00.001-08:00

Almost done with the quarter.

So here's what I've been spending a lot of time on and finally finished. Well not finished. You never finish. As someone once said- (artworks) aren't finished, they're just abandoned.

Anyways. I've been devoting equally great amounts of time to all my projects in class, but considering the number of renders I've had to do until finally getting the lighting almost right and solving unexpected merged vertices problems in sneaky corners of the mouths making it look like there's a tiny hourglass lodged in there...and all that great stuff, this deserves to be put up first. Woo.

It's a pretty simple looking character. The clothing is not so elaborate. But I chose to design it that way because I knew the face, the rough look of the hair and the hands would easily take up the time allotted for the assignment (1 week, excluding designing the character) plus a little bit more :)

Here's the stuff I drew in prep for it (I have some satisfactory looking gesture drawings of Anya too but don't have them scanned with me so will post later): I modeled the head separately from the body, which is why the heads aren't so accurate in the first set of turnaround drawings. I realized issues with drawing the front view of a nose based on the side view and vice versa. And getting 3 dimensional eye sockets to work from two 2D drawings. Heh.

I'm still not entirely happy with the backlight. It makes the sleeves look really exposed and washed out during parts of the turnaround,

So her name is Anya. I don't know why her name is Anya. But I felt it was fitting. It's not even a British name, I don't think. But anyway, she's a British schoolgirl. Lofty yet mysterious. Rather, mysterious yet lofty. Yes, there's a difference. She's sort of based on a character (with a few major and a few minor differences of course) in a movie I want to make at some point in my life. The younger version of an older woman if you will. But anyway. I have a background story for Anya. I'm just not in a state of mind (aka. state of awakeness) to pen it down now.

And here....is something I got out of playblast by mistake. But here it is anyway.

Good night.

and once again.

2009-10-04T09:51:00.000-07:00

I figured since I have time now, I'll get the gesture drawing stuff up here as well. I LOVE gesture drawing!!!

And environments!

3D Update

2009-10-04T09:30:00.001-07:00

It's been a while since I updated my 3D modeling stuff. So THAT up there is my final still life composition. 'Twas received well. But my exposure's too high. You can't see all the texture of the fruits I worked so hard on :S

The helicopter and pig were tutorials.. They'd probably be better if I didn't have to follow the tutorial. But I learnt processes, which was the main aim I think.

And THIS over here is the start of a major project we just started. We had to choose to model either a bedroom or living room. I'm doing a little girl's bedroom. You know, the kind with white wood detailed furniture and linen and all that lacey stuff. I'm excited about it- we have to put in walls and ceiling and windows and doors. I still have to model a dresser, a chest, a bed table and pillows, along with the walls and things. Then texturing and lighting! I don't know if I'm off to a good start or not- there's so much left to do!! It's due Tuesday after next. I think I may have focused on too much detail than I should've from the start. I had to work on the chair more than once. I've been having unlucky days. I'm just hoping when I go to texture everything the modeling doesn't go haywire. I feel like it'll happen anyway. wood wood wood.

I've started working on storyboards for Milo, the Firefighter. The teacher liked my first draft. I have to go over it and refine things now. I don't think it visually tells the story without me explaining it yet. The thought of making a scratch track for it is worrying me..

Anyway, apple picking time.

Milo, the Firefighter

2009-09-23T12:14:00.000-07:00

So for my animation pre-production class, I'll be making the animatic for Milo, the Firefighter. It's about the imaginations of a 4 year old boy who aspires to be a firefighter.

This is my first time doing character sketches. These are just preliminary sketches I'm doing ahead of time. I'm not too satisfied with them, but they're up for comparison with later sketches and model sheets.

The main character is Milo.
The secondary ones are Dan (big bro), Tiffany (big bro's annoying girlfriend), Ella (Mom) and James (Dad). I really like the sketch of James with Milo on his lap. I don't know why, but I just felt like drawing it.

I still feel woozy and flu-y, but it's getting better. Touchwood.

More art stuff to come!

Flu!

2009-09-20T13:52:00.000-07:00

I've been sick all of yesterday and most of today :( Now is not the time for it!! Not when I have to do that for homework! I was in the 3D Lab from 10 in the morning to 6.30 in the evening, and it'd have been far more easier had my eyes and ears not been burning and had I not been shivering constantly.

Oh well. The one on top is my final composition, due Tuesday by noon. I think I'm gonna have to tweak it a little Monday night. That's the problem with finishing work early. You want to go back to it and do more.

Anyway, here are the other random snapshots I took to get closer looks of the modeling and texture and all that...

Okay for a beginner right? The glass bowl seems a little...unglassy to me though.

*sigh*

I hate being sick.

Kumbaya!

2009-09-17T08:00:00.000-07:00

I'm starting to get the hang of gesture drawing! And even if I can't do it right until a couple of hours into practicing, I love it! And I've actually gained the courage to draw as life happens, instead of wishing to pause life for me.

It's an awesome feeling! I wish I had gesture drawing classes more than once a week.

As for 3D modeling, I'm getting the hang of it too, I think. But it's too soon to say. I modeled a candle on a candle stand (with wax and all!) and then a bowl of fruit. I did the candle twice. First time I did it, I felt satisfied with it. But after days of thinking over it, I realized it probably wasn't the most "efficient" candle. If you clicked on it, you'd get a heart-attack with the number of isoparms and CVs (it feels so good to know what those words are!! >.<

I'm reading The Diving Bell and the Butterfly by Jean-Dominique Bauby. It's... for lack of better words- sad. And the thoughts he has are thoughts I can relate to, even if anything that drastic has never ever happened to me, and hopefully never will. But being able to recognize what he means, the small things that come up in his mind, made me moist-eyed. It's just the way I am- I know emotional complexities without ever experiencing them. My scriptwriting teacher told me I have an "ability of delving into the human condition in a way that is older than my years". I'm not showing off, just saying.

Dog Dilemma

2009-09-10T07:14:00.000-07:00

Waaiiiit. I'm starting to doubt my notion that dog's can't scratch themselves with their hind legs without sitting down. I feel like I've seen dogs scratch themselves standing. Anyhow, HOW is this related? (if you don't know what I'm talking about, read the previous post)

Anyway. So courses I'm taking this quarter:

Intro to 3D Modeling: All so new and Greek to me. It's so hard to read instructions for a software when you haven't actually used it. Defies the purpose of instructions. Cause almost all the authors have this background knowledge lurking in their minds when they write the tutorials/instructions. NOW I know how hard it is for my mom to decipher the iTunes tutorials I write out for her, no matter how hard I try to simplify it for her. Anyway. Let's hope I can learn Maya faster than my mom can learn iTunes. =) i miss her.

Gesture Drawing for Animators: Haven't started drawing in class yet, but tried dabbling with it a few days ago (wait, what did I do all of summer??) and I don't think I'll ever feel like I'll get it right. Once again. When you're drawing the scribbles, you KNOW what you're drawing. The knowledge lurks in your mind. But does someone else who wasn't there when you were looking and drawing know what you were looking at? I can tell what action my drawings are doing, but can others? Thank god for school and critiques, although it hasn't started yet. Anyway! I get to read Drawn to Life, for freeee! Except it's not called Drawn to Life.

Fine Arts Visual Arts: A helpful course to have. But erm..

Animation Pre-Production: haven't had the class yet, but Yikes!

Wellness Course- Stress Management: No comment..... Except that it was the only wellness course fitting my schedule!!!! Everything else was either full or conflicting with my classes. I wanted to take Yoga but... See, my logic is this. In this class, I don't just learn Yoga, but also massage therapy and breathing techniques and everything. So it's an all encompassing course. Instead of taking Yoga separately and Massage Therapy separately. It's justified! It's just the course name that makes me uncomfy! Trust me! My stress is not debilitating!

Eh.

Small Things.

2009-09-07T20:31:00.000-07:00

First day of classes of sophomore year and I'm already overwhelmed! But it all looks like fun...

What did I learn in school today?

That I should take down notes wherever and whenever I realize something random and obvious yet important for animating. Watching daily life. A seemingly unimportant epiphany!

So here's mine for today:

When dogs scratch themselves with either of their hind legs, they can't do so without sitting down. I think...

Tada!

Posing Paints

2009-08-09T16:46:00.000-07:00

So I was practicing quick sketches a few days ago from pictures of people posing, and thought, why not use paint? At first, I wanted them to look like the gesture drawings people do with paint- quick strokes representing so much dynamics.

But you know what it's like with paint. You may not actually be good at it at all (as in my case), but it won't stop you from painting on and on. So that's what happened here- I didn't want to stop with just lines, although maybe I should've and asked others if I did a satisfactory job with the "gesture drawing". Or "action drawing". I need to fix my definitions. But instead, I wanted to go ahead and do something different with it. It was difficult to stop. And it's so easy to make mistakes with paint, at least for me. I always tried to avoid working with paint, and even in my Foundation Drawing class (which, to be honest, was my first ever proper art course, unless you count the stuff in junior and middle school, where we weren't really taught anything. So, really, my first drawing course was in college. It's a frightening truth, but I wish people would disagree to it)... Anyway, even in the drawing class, when the teacher would ask us to do "loose paintings" of teddy bears and porcelain dolls, I'd be so hesitant. "It's supposed to look loose and quick". But you can never resist concentrating on details, slowing down the brush strokes, keeping a tight grip over your paintbrush. The teacher liked what I did, but I honestly didn't get what was so appealing. Same goes here, I tried loose, but I honestly don't know- is it good? Is it even loose? I probably spent 5 minutes on each.

And the result is this. Some of them I don't like- especially the ones which are just outlines and colored in, like a coloring book. It didn't start out like that, I had subtle shading and stuff, but again, I was trying to be loose! :S I wish I had viewers to tell me what they think of them, to critique and things. That's why I love school. I want to make the most of it. And once again, the same ol' argument- life is so short! Anyway, I did a few quick action sketches (or maybe not so quick- I need to work on that. Probably took a minute or so, but I'll get better), using reference videos. Mostly random YouTube stuff- Eadward Muybridge videos, sports videos, Charlie Chaplin videos, etc., etc. What I did was pause the video every few frames or so and quickly sketch the motion, and then repeat. Is there a better way? I don't know, I just randomly started doing it. I'll post those later. I don't know if it's a good way of keeping track of my progress or not, but I'll post them anyway.

In Color!

2009-08-03T10:52:00.000-07:00

Yay! Finally finished it!! @ 24 fps, on twos. The quality here after uploading is terrible! Grr. I'm not too satisfied with it obviously. It's too stiff...And the head does nothing interesting.But I'm happy with the frills, it's my first time doing details like that in an animation.

I was watching the Dick Van Dyke show yesterday (after I Love Lucy!), and here's a quote I really liked from it: "You can draw a heart with a pen and paper, but you can't measure one"

Hmm.

The Tale of the Boy and the Butterflies

2009-07-29T14:05:00.000-07:00

Hah. A lazy summer day. My attempt at a children's poem.

~

There once was a little boy of marvelous skill
He could conjure pretty butterflies by the strength of his will
Other little boys teased of his unboyish charm
While silly, girly girls squealed in alarm.

Before an unwanted trip to school, every day
Father chewing his breakfast would spray,
“Son, what is this foolish play?
No more butterflies from you, I say!
The neighbors point, the teachers complain;
No more butterflies from you today!”

Little boy with his head held low
Cried to Mother and begged to know,
“Why, oh why, do they not let me show,
Who I am, and what I do?
Daddy is cross and only says no,
Tell me, oh Mommy, do you hate me too?”

Mother said, “Hush now, go to school!
Nobody hates you, you are not a fool!”

Nobody understood how he felt
All they did was scold and yell.
So little boy, still feeling low
Walked to school, upset and alone.

And as he walked he thought of the unfairness
Bitter thoughts had made him restless
He stomped along, so much rage!
And as he did, the insects scurried away.

His anger was so frightening
The butterflies stopped fluttering
Oh the disaster that a heartbreak brings!
His fury took away the power from their wings

Everywhere the wings of butterflies crumbled
But somewhere close by, something tinkled
Out came a fairy from the bushes
She seemed the kind to grant children’s wishes

“I am the queen of the falling butterflies,” she sang
“You’re hurting my family, you’re hurting my clan.
I know what it is that is hurting you child,
You mustn’t let your sadness drive you wild!”

“Look around you, look what you have done
Your disbelief has caused so much harm!”
Little boy sobbed and said to the Queen,
“Everybody hates the butterflies I bring!”

“You are a special boy my child
Use your magic to wipe away their dislike!
Show them what beautiful things you can do
Show them what the butterflies mean to you!”

“Now run quick to school and do your magic
You can do it if you really, truly wish it!
In yourself you must believe
Use your will, all the troubles will leave!”

Little boy cheered up and thanked the Queen
He ran to school and to his teacher he beamed.
The teacher, however, didn’t look too happy
She sent him to the back, where he wouldn’t be distracting.

He sat in a corner facing the wall
Shut his eyes real tight and quietly called
To the flowers, the fruits, the rivers, the bees,
To summon the butterflies from the tallest trees.

And into the classroom, the butterflies flew
Yellow and green and shades of blue
Never before were so many seen
So many colors, the room now gleamed!

With colorful wings and magical things
The butterflies enchanted every being
The children leaped and the teacher cried
Gleeful cries of wonder and surprise

And one by one, as the butterflies came
Little boy no longer felt his shame
Word had spread and wiped all dread
Everywhere everyone called his name.

Such is the will of a little child
Unusual though he was, he didn’t mind
Everyone was delighted and will never forget
Every little boy and girl is of a special kind!

Boggle-dy Boogle-dy!

2009-07-28T21:01:00.000-07:00

Ahh, here is my choicest photo from our weekend trip to St. Louis, MO. I love bathrooms and mind-boggling optics :)

I just watched the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy movie, and I am thoroughly disappointed with every second of it. The images in my brain are absolutely, completely different from those in the movie. Which is why I absolutely, completely hate the fact that I've failed to do my little set of HGTTG illustrations. Sad face.

I've been feeling irrevocably down lately. There's so much I wish I could say.

she's a laydayy!

2009-07-20T09:17:00.000-07:00

With all the in-betweens for the legs. Now on to more! I'm gonna fix the feet now, then add the arms.

Again, excuse the quality. :S

Update

I did the arms and shoes!

continued.

2009-07-19T18:03:00.000-07:00

I started working on a new walk cycle today. This time, I'm following the rules- one body part done accurately at a time. And I hope to add in details later on too. And color for fun.

It's not as feminine as I wanted, and I think it's because I gave her too much up and down movement on the pass pos and extremes. I was trying not to, but I guess even a little bit is too much. There's more leg movement than required too. I'm hoping, when I add the in betweens, and frills it'll look more feminine.

This is the key frames test. (done with my webcam by balancing my lightbox on my chest in front of the computer, so excuse the quality and the shakiness)

lessons

2009-07-19T17:24:00.000-07:00

I bought Christopher Hart's How to Draw Animation a few days ago. Started reading it, and it felt like an easy read. It is an easy read. But then I started drawing with reference to it. And realized I have a long long way to go.

Maybe I just haven't been motivated enough recently.

Face angles:
(it took me a while to get the face-up and face-down positions right. I need more practice)

I've been getting countless brochures from SCAD since I applied there last to last winter, and I keep wondering whether I'm in the right place- I like it at RIT, I feel rather comfortable now, and switching over would be a great expense. I just don't know if I'll be able to live up to my own wishes or not. So far, I've been doing well at school- but is that enough?

I need some morale boosting. And maybe some time away from guilt. Of spending so much of my parents money on this.

I'm so scared.

polar plans

2009-07-06T13:13:00.000-07:00

I've been doing some sketches of polar bears from pictures, evidently. Been trying to get the realistic feel before I make a more creative (or less realistic) character from them. But I realized they're just a bunch of circles and ovals. I mean, yes, I know, all drawings can be broken down into those basic shapes, but the polar bear is seriously amazingly all circles. I'm having a hard time making them look more than just basic!

Also realized they're bodies' are made of rings- so there's more than just two circles for their main bodies.

I had fits while drawing these- they're so adorable!!

Ooh, and almost done with The Animator's Survival Kit. Yay!

provoke, evoke.

2009-07-05T08:31:00.000-07:00

So my mum discovered Big Cinemas yesterday- a cinema hall that shows Hindi movies in the appropriate release dates =P. So we went to watch the newly released New York movie (although I rather would have watched My Sister's Keeper, or Transformers). So anyway, I had a lot to say and discuss about it yesterday, but the movie ended at 2 am and the thoughts I have thereafter usually escape me quickly =/

Anyway, it wasn't as bad as I expected it to be. I mean, John Abraham is okay; Katrina Kaif, I felt, was more of a model than an actress, and the Neil Nitin Mukesh dude was new, and I have a habit of underestimating newcomers in Bollywood =)

But no, they weren't so bad actually. I mean, at first, even when they were gallivanting around New York State University showing off all the happiness and friendship in the world to background music (or song rather) and showcasing how prettily they can smile and laugh in slow motion, I was only slightly put off by it - which is amazing because I give up on Bollywood movies easily these days.

Okay, so back to the point (wait, what point?). The movie was actually enjoyable while I watched it- it wasn't a full on suspense/thriller with exaggerated twists (like in Race, for example...blegh)- but it was sufficiently engaging (in comparison). But I realized after the movie that I was pretty confused. I mean, this seemed to be a movie that would end with a moral, or at least hint on one. Okay, maybe "moral" isn't the right word. More like a message that "things are not the way you think they are", or "things will always be the same". But it gave out mixed messages. Ok, first of all, here's what the movie was about (let me try to google it to save the trouble of writing a synopsis)- ok here's one-

""New York" is a contemporary story of friendship set against the larger than life backdrop of a city often described as the centre of the world. For most of us, larger events in the world are just headlines in the newspapers but these events can change our lives... forever. "New York" is one such story of 3 young friends whose beautiful lives are turned upside down by larger events beyond their control."

"The large event beyond their control" is 9/11. One of the friends, Omar, who lost touch with the other 2 friends (Maya and Sam, who're a couple) due to love triangle issues (again, thank god- it wasn't greatly dramatized) is brought back into their friendship by the FBI because they suspect Sam is a terrorist (which is true) and they want Omar to spy on him while remaining their friend.

Anyway, I'm not gonna rant with the details of the movie, but back to the mixed messages- sometimes they say that foreign nationals are still looked upon dubiously, owing to 9/11 and terrorist attacks and such; other times they say that foreign nationals/brown-skinned people are incorporated as equals in the US and given as much importance as US nationals.

I mean, maybe both is true, but then it was weird because the mixed message was coming out of the same Muslim figure who, I suppose in this case, represented the whole of the FBI. Actually, he was pretty steadfast in his thinking- he was a Muslim representing the FBI in trying to capture Sam, the terrorist, except, he wanted to prevent him from doing what he was going to do instead of hold him in detention again and torture him again (the first time, Sam was tortured because he was suspected as a terrorist when he actually wasn't- they did vile things, and this is actually true- urinate on their faces covered with cloth and keeping the cloth on their faces the rest of the day with their hands tied, tying them up with a dog leash, stripping them naked and hanging them from the ceiling- you wouldn't expect these things in America, but they happened, to innocent victims, and it turned them vile and against the Americans. They were creating their own enemies). The fact that he was a Muslim and he was put on this case gave him faith on equality and human rights and what not. But at the same time, they were the people who put innocent people on detention and they were the ones willing to kill him off at the first chance they got.

It's interesting that the movie is being allowed to play here.

But anyway, if this was supposed to be an open-ended film, it still leaves a strange after-taste.
I don't know how I feel about it myself. I mean, I've had extra security checks in airports compared to other people standing in the same line. And it probably is justified. But at the same time, it's not like that at all. It's so confusing.

Maybe that's why I couldn't interpret the movie properly. I wish there were critiques on these movies to help me find a train of thought. Or maybe I'm still an amateur at these things.

But hey, I cannot deny, there were a couple of continuity errors and technical errors in there- even my mom noticed!

I think, this movie draws a few elements from Crash. It even borrowed on the police-officer-feeling-up-a-foreign-lady-passenger scene. In fact, on looking back, that scene was what triggered the rest of the plots in the movie. It angered the man who was driving the car, who was not yet a terrorist, but put through the same torture as suspected terrorists were put through before. He killed the police officer, and there you go- there's your threat. And that's how everything else started.

It kinda goes in a full circle. Which is why the closure of Guantanámo Bay helps. It should break the circle.

Hopefully?

ho hum

2009-07-03T16:47:00.000-07:00

Heheh. I'm listening to linkin park screaming out of my speakers. It feels like I've been dipped into the past. Reminded me of when I used to listen to them a lot.

I used to listen to Green Day a lot too. And I'm actually going to their concert! My first ever concert! Although I feel immensely guilty about the money spent on it, and immensely awkward about going with my parents! :/ :S Well I can't help it because I don't know anyone here, and my dad really wants to see a concert. It's only fair. I guess I have the rest of my life to freak out with my friends at concerts.

Incubus is going to come to Chicago too, but I'll spare my dad the expense. Plus, I wouldn't take my parents to see Incubus- they wouldn't like it. At least they're familiar with Green Day. I'm not that crazy a fan of them now, but I was, which kinda puts me in a relationship with them, and hence I must go see them.

Am I blabbering? Yes I am.

Ok, so here's my visual babbling (?) that I spent half of today doing. I got a little carried away :P

I realized I have such a long way to go if I want to be like other well-known animators. And I sort of do want to be like them. Not saying I want to be well-known and crave all the fame and honor. No. What I mean is I want to be able to tell people when I'm old and wise that I spent this many years learning this fundamental lesson and that many years developing that particular technique and what not. I wish I could articulate what I mean. I wish I had the experience by the time I'm old with grandchildren and still animating- but starting at 17 just seems too late. Oh well, one can only hope.

Also realized that my parents still wish I had gone for something "normal" as a career choice. Apparently I still have to prove people wrong.

Hard Work?

2009-07-01T13:41:00.000-07:00

No.

This didn't turn out right at all. I guess the limbs move okay, but the head is still all over the place, and don't get me started with the ears.

The tracing box doesn't give enough light.

I guess if I did it continuously in one go, it would have been better. When I did my first drawn animation, I did about 40 drawing every school day. This is only 24 drawings and I spread it out over god knows how long. I forgot what the movement was each time.

Oh well. It's for practice. I'll be doing more stuff.

Hopefully.

Oh Calcutta!

2009-06-29T16:19:00.001-07:00

So I'm not much of a photographer or a photoshopper, but I've been working on a set of photos taken in Kolkata, an ode to nostalgia :)

They're not that great, but I gave them all an old, filmic, grainy look. Kinda like the pictures on the walls of Oh Calcutta! (the restaurant!! ;P)

SOME of them, however, are all colorful, cause you can't represent India without color! Or without bhel puri!!! Mmm...

LaDiDa

2009-06-26T20:17:00.001-07:00

So I started animating!!! I'm just going to be practicing different walk cycles and actions. Simple stuff. This is just the first 13 frames. The head's all over the place, but I think I fixed it. Haven't tested it yet. Mainly because I need to set up a proper camera- the webcam isn't quite suitable =P Dunno what the black bars are.

Yay, finally doing some stuff. But not enough =(

evaporate.

2009-06-24T09:11:00.000-07:00

No actually, sublimate. It's so hot!! The one thing I was glad about when I left India was that I could finally escape the heat. But noOoOo. I go to college in a place that has the most inexplicably random (redundant wording? I think it's necessary) weather pattern. And when I'm not in college, I'm with my parents at an equally inexplicably randomly weather scheduled place. I blame my ineptitude at writing meaningful sentences on The Heat.

Anyway- I GOT A TRACING BOX AND A PEGBAR!!!! Now I have to wait till my right arm and shoulder and hips and right leg stops hurting, my eyes stop burning, and my head stops feeling dizzy before I can be-gin.

I had work at HSP yesterday and today the organization is organizing, if you will, their Feed the Kids program. Hence, the organizing part had to begin the day before, that is, yesterday, when I was present- and I was part of it.

I'll start again. Today is the Feed the Kids event (which I am not attending as I don't work there on Wednesdays) where select impoverished families come to the Humanitarian Service Project (where I work) to pick up their pack of food (including veggies, fruits, and CANTELOUPES). So yesterday, I had work there and had to help the volunteers prepare the packs and I was in charge of canteloupes. And canteloupes are heavy, if you didn't know that already. And they start getting heavier when you get to carrying about the 50th canteloupe. In total, there were approximately 180 canteloupes to gallivant around the warehouse with- 2 for each of the 90 boxes. On top of that, there was a powercut. So YAY for that. And I was wearing uncomfy business formal shoes.

Yea yea, it was painful. But it feels good to have done this much at least for all those poor people. Indeed, they're not a part of a really poor county. I think we're like the 47th or 48th poor state in the US. And indeed, their poverty pales in comparison to those lying on the streets of India and Africa and such... But it boils down to this, they all need help regardless of what percentage they represent in a town or state or country or continent, or the world.

So it feels good and it's only my fault I get all tired and sick after a day's hard work. I'm feeble like that. God knows how I'll spend the rest of my life animating.

Right now, college money is an issue.

Here's stuff I didn't have space to post last time. I also got a new sketchbook, but it's pristine at the moment because the right arm is dysfuntional as ye all know. Figures I chose not to post them- they're the worst of the lot, but also the first of the lot so I think I can be excused?

static dynamics

2009-06-21T12:38:00.001-07:00

So here's what I've been doing during parts of my spare time- which isn't much considering I have all the spare time in the world. It's not great, but I'm getting better at it.

A little wonky and lop-sided in places, cause I'm saving trees. A very difficult feat for an animator, I say.

Gah! There's no space!

Well ANYWAY. Most of them are not even renderings of live people- they're from pictures. Which, I know, is not the best way to practice drawing. But hey, practice is practice.

Some of them, though, are of my mom, dad and dog. I got a little carried away with my dog and started turning him into a cartoon :P

Those would be the tiny doodles on the last drawing, which don't look like much from a distance, but I really quite like them!

I need to subscribe to some seriously-cool-inadequacy-inducing artist blogs out here. Oh, and I really hope on doing some more Hitchhiker's illustrations. But I think doing this, and getting a driver's license are first priorities.
I'm hungryyy!
Wow this is a messy entry.

Rainy Day.

2009-06-19T17:53:00.000-07:00

It's raining buffaloes and kangaroos here in Wheeling. And I just found my favorite color. I absolutely LOVE the green on a cloudy day. It's like this pastel-y green, and it looks delicious against the sky. I'll take a picture tomorrow morning if it's like that again. Forgot to today. It's something to fall in love with. I like the blue too, but I don't think I would like it without the green.

So the whooptidoo animation up there is my first frame by frame hand drawn animation. Just thought of posting it up here cause it gets all distorted on vimeo, and hence, isn't on there.

Ze link to my vimeo would be ze funky crane room picture with my medusa hair in the corner.

=)

This day was bad, but I've bounced back to a doable mood.

Orientation for Adopt-A-Pet tomorrow. No, I ain't adopting- I've got my hands full with Joey. Or my parents do at least. I'm thinking of volunteering there. A reason to wake up on time!

Just realized the vid here is distorted too. Oh well.

so long...and thanks.

2009-06-17T20:40:00.000-07:00

So, in order to celebrate the fact that I have finally completed reading the Hitchhiker's Guide, I decided to start doing some random illustrations from random chapters of the book. I got the exact feel I wanted- sketchy black ball point pen drawing with watercolors. BUT I didn't wish for it to look THIS amateurish. Oh well.

This particular one is from the 7th chapter of So Long and Thanks for All the Fish, I believe. It's when Arthur Dent finally comes back to his home in England and discovers a mysterious package among all the piled up letters, which contained a fish bowl in it that had inscribed on it, in subtle silver lettering- "So long, and thanks..". There is, however, one error in the concept, which I just realized- he doesn't put the bowl to his ear until MUCH later in the book. I was actually planning to do that particular chapter before I changed my mind.

Silly me.

decisions decisions.

2009-06-17T11:24:00.000-07:00

Ok, so here's the plan.
This blog is going to record my growth (hopefully) as an artist. Hence, all the stuff I do, good or bad, will be up here.

At first I thought I'd be writing about life in general here.

But guess what, I just realized.

Art IS my life.

=)

Glad I got that cleared out.

>> And those random things would be my amateurish pre-cursors to an animation I would like to do sometime in the near future. Inspired by the old couple from UP. I'm gonna work on making them look less scary. I realize it'll take forever to model them. And then animate them!!! Anyway, along with the old man comes a rickety wonky looking typewriter. I see dull yet metallic greens and blues, and lotsof cross hatching. Wait, here is what I see. I'll prolly end up doing a different one for the old man animation. But I do want THIS typewriter somewhere in my works. (It wasn't drawn by me btw)

old leaves.

2009-06-14T14:49:00.000-07:00

So I had set out on a mission to edit some videos I took from our visit to Niagra Falls last month. But it didn't work out so I decided to look through old stuff from India in my hard drive. Pictures, but more effectively, words. Saved conversations on MSN, letters I wrote to people..and weird novels I has started writing. Almost brought tears to my eyes. I miss the past. I think I've almost reached the part of my life where I've learned not to deject but embrace the past. So now, although I never thought I would, I miss my old self. And I care about my old self. I think, maybe, reading through all the conversations may have suddenly stirred up this change in me. Or it was always there and I acknowledged it now. I don't know. Once I've completely reached the so-called "part of my life" when things get sorted out, I'll know everything. But then, on the other hand, maybe it's okay not to know everything.

Anyway, here's the first chapter of my "story". I do remember that I infact didn't have a story. I just got inspired and started writing. I wonder if I continued writing now, what it would lead to? See there's a wide range of things I could be doing now, yet HOW i manage to spend days without accomplishing things, I don't know. I think, partly, it's my parents and their presence. I don't know what I mean by that, but it's my gut feelings. Whatever. Here goes Chapter 1:

I am always the last person, to hang from his last feeble thread of tolerance. Today, I hung again. Challenging the tensile strength. Which was fun. And like always… TWANG. And the sting tore.

Oops. Here we go again…

I sat on the floor, engulfed by a battalion of words of discontent and juvenile frustration. I waited patiently. I seemed to do that often these days. Either wait patiently, or pacify him, or speak the truth. Usually, I start by speaking the truth, then wait patiently, and then pacify. This was my job. And the side-effects of it were beginning to become more prominent, ever since I befriended this rather old, yet verbally active, man. A 68 year old man.

And I’m not bored yet. This man was infinitesimally interesting. But I wasn’t bored. Not just because my job didn’t allow me to be bored. I don’t exactly know why I wasn’t bored yet. But, I wasn’t. Ouf. And I’ve accepted it.

Obviously, things wouldn’t change. Just get worse. And that’s the fun part of it. And I’ve wasted infinite years of my life waiting for something fun to happen. The fun came since I got the job. It came in freakishly horrifying ways. Entertained me, and left me blunt, stupid…and not so much dumbstruck.

However, nothing fun was about to happen now. This was more than just a daily routine of venting. The “cleansing ceremony” as all my other peers call it. This man had advanced in the performance of unbottling his heavy feelings quite well. He learnt it, from his previous melodramatic, hypochondriac ancestors. And even at the age of 68, he was astonishingly good at it.

But today was different.

And unlike other days, I was meant to stop this ritual of harsh abusing, even though I triggered it.

After all, it’s not always easy to tell the recipient of a “thorough rage-management-therapy” (especially if he’s your client) that his only daughter was murdered by his best friend from kindergarten.