Bendix Has a Scare and Eats Some Haggis, the Two of Which Are Unrelated.

Hullo!

Outside of work, this week has been rather uneventful. I'm enjoying my daily updates from Cherry and her adventures across the sea and I try to live vicariously through her. I've also figured that I've been here for quite a long while, as the lovely people at Central know what kind of coffee I want before I even get to say it.

As always, work is awesome and a great motivator to get up in the morning, and I only need one more shot until I've cleared my queue of Clean up and Tie-down shots, so I can move unto the next stage!

In other news, today the power suddenly went out and we were left in a very dark lunch room for a few scary seconds...

And to end the last week of September with a bang, we're going to a Scottish bar after work, almost celebrating Oktoberfest, but mostly just enjoying ourselves. I'm looking forward to haggis and good company :)

Until next week! 

- Bendix

Inna 'Meets' Norma and Foosball

Norma Kassi

We finally heard from Norma about Mandala Designs that she liked most -out of six options Norma picked #6, the spacious one! So cool to get feedback from Norma herself!

I was so excited to know that Norma is a real person, so I just Googled her name and found out that she is actually Chief of the Vuntut Gwitchin!! She was elected in 2010 and she has also been vice chair of the International Gwich'in Steering Committee.

Norma Kassi devoted her life to activism and served as an elected tribal spokesperson for the protection of the Porcupine Caribou as well as director of Indigenous Collaboration at Arctic Institute of Community Based Research. Here’s some more information about Norma.

Here Norma Kassi speaking about climate change and presenting the film she was on of the producers on: Our Changing Homelands Our ChangingLives.  Here's the film trailer and film.

I found this article while reading about Porcupine Caribou activism.

The more I work on First Hand Stories, the more I learn about Canadian First Nations. It’s such a beautiful and meaningful project!

So back to Mandala designs, they are here: 

Norma's Choice

Here’s some of my research on Mandalas and some sketchbook drawings for First Hand stories designs:

I will post some animation tests in July when I jump onto Mandala animation. I tried rotation in Flash two weeks ago and it’s so nice, it looks like kaleidoscope if the timing is set right:)

As for our studio’s life, it’s awesome. Every Tuesday we have Cartoon Lunches and Joel brings us cool animated shows to watch. Last time we saw Steven Universe, Adventure time and today it’s gonna be Gravity Falls. Awesome-awesome. It’s great to see different styles of animation and be updated on the industry new shows.

Last week we were invited for celebration of the official Canadian launch of Warren United, funny animated show about about a soccer fan Warren and his family. I enjoyed watching the show on a big screen, it was fun! My Sheridan groupmates David and Jordan who did their internship with Smiley’s last year and got to work on Warren, were also invited, it was great to see them :)

Smiley Guy Studios made super high quality animation for the show. UK partners were happy with the result and it seems like the second season is coming soon into production.

 

We also had to watch FIFA : the England Vs Uruguay game, there was lots of fun. Uruguay guys won, they were crazily intense. Carol introduced me to foosball and now my adrenaline level is pumping every time I see any game:) that’s awesome, now I can help my husband watch his NFL games:)

David's Stages of Design Grief

Dear diary, 

The past week I've been doing the design thing still. While one might complain that it seems I do this a lot and is thus repetitive, I'm finding it pretty interesting.  Each new task in designing an object or character always starts with how the hell am I going to do this, then it's followed by despair with a bit of bargaining thrown in. Eventually it is followed by acceptance, and then I get to work.  It definitely keeps me on my toes. This past week I've been struggling with the task of when to keep or let go of design elements on a prop that have been previously worked on by someone else. It's tricky, as when you design something on your own you start from a blank slate, with a redesign you have a precedent to work from which can colour your approach to the object. Not something I ever thought could happen, but that's why this internship has been helpful. I'm learning how to deal with situations they can't quite show you in school because it's more of an individual experience thing. Pretty cool

David

P.S. here is a wet cat because its been raining a lot the past week. ( I only made him look wet, I didn't do the overall design of the cat)

David Does Design

Hey everyone David again,

I can't believe that its almost been 2 months since my first day interning at Smiley Guy. Time definitely flies by! So this past week I've still been designing props, but have also been given the chance to design some characters as well! I was super excited about getting a chance to do this ever since I got to spend time here. A week into do this I'm still excited! Even despite another learning curve I'm going through with it. There's a lot of little things you need to keep track of while doing character design for flash animation that my brain was just not looking for when I started out.  Luckily Joel and Joe (who are the design crew here at Smiley Guy) have been kindly setting me straight at each pass on a character I take. So thanks to their patience I'm getting better....slowly. 

Also at this moment the the National is interviewing people about Captain Canuck behind me. Maybe if I'm luck the back of my head will get on camera and I can finally do my mom proud!

I mustache you a question...

David Updates His Bucket List

Hey it's David again,

Well the past week or so have been fun. I recently did some graphic design work on a new I.P being develop by Smiley Guy Studios, while I just did work on a pitch book; the I.P itself looks really cool. I'm excited to see how the project develops. It was really cool to be able to work on something like that.

I've also started on prop design! This stuff is really fun, I like the researching and then designing random objects that will some how make it on to a T.V show. I have on my list of props to do a pot and spoon, a bicycle and a picture of a cock fight. Yeah! I have to draw a picture of a cock fight. I'm going to add that to the list things I never thought I'd do in my life.

Also, to appease the picture gods here is a picture the a pot and spoon I'm currently working on. Look at it in all its majestic glory:

An offering to the picture gods

David Takes Out the Internet Then Saves the Office

Hey its David again.

This past week while short because of the long weekend was still full of interesting events. For starters we really got into animating on some scenes for a Beethoven short. With the help of Chris shepherding us from chaos on daily basis, its been a really fun experience. Also on Wednesday while trying to fix my internet, the internet for the whole studio went out. I probably made a few enemies In that moment.... I'll have to try my best to smooth things over the next few days. 

Then while on my lunch break the Beer Store next to us had a gas leak. I really don't think the two are co-related, well...at least I hope not. We then had to evacuate the building and the whole street was closed off for more than an hour while the fire department dealt with the gas leak. After that it was business as usual.

The lesson of the week is working at Smiley Guy definitely keeps you on your toes.

We Had David at the Door Buzzer

Hi my name's David Schut, I'll be writing on this blog on a bi-weekly basis.  Let's start off with I have no idea how to write a blog, so bare with me and I'll try my best to make this entertaining for everyone.

Okay lets do a quick recap of my first week of being an intern at Smiley Guy Studios:  The first day was fun getting shown around the place (I enjoy the door buzzer, it makes me feel like I'm part of a secret organization) and meeting everyone was really fun.  The next few days is when the learning curve came....We were give a chance to do a walk cycle test. My first crack at the walk cycle was spectacular mess of a thing. If anyone ever said puppet animation is easy, they lied. Lied through their teeth. It is hard stuff. Though luckily everyone at Smiley Guy has been really kind and helpful throughout the week, because of their patience, I'm starting to figure it out the subtle trickery that is flash.

At the end of the week we started to do small animation scenes on Beethoven's Kids. I'm excited to see what I can learn from the scenes I get.

Well that's one week down.