Halloween at Smiley Guy Studios!

Here are the pumpkins we carved this year.  Left to Right credit: "Michael Jackson" by Aaron Hong, "Jackolantern" by Humphrey Erm, "Jack" by Julie Otten.  Front Row: "Motley Crew" by Stephanie Ramon

Julie Otten as a Ninja Turtle, Al Jerek Torrijas as Odd Job Jack, and Stephanie Ramon as Robin Thicke

Internal Musings from Lucas

Bloggedy Bloggers? Yes, That was the only contents of an email I just received from Julie. Sometimes I feel she’s too nice. Ill be just about to carry on with my Friday night when I get such an email. I almost feel as though she should just let me forget. Then I would have to deal with the consequences of not putting up a blog. I couldn't imagine what it would be though. I'm sure the people at SGS would find some form of hilarious punishment. Make me wear a dunce hat or something like that. 

      This week to be honest has been fairly uneventful. I've been having to do an obscene amount of writing for school. Essays, reflection papers and yes... blogs. I find that Smiley Guy is a nice break from that though. Not that its a break! I still do work! Just the change in environment is relaxing. Instead of running from class to class stressed about the work that is due or the quiz coming up. I just get to sit down and immerse myself in something for a few hours. The best is I walk away and on the streetcar I have a sort of revelation. I tend to say to myself "Huh, I know something that I didn't know two hours ago." I find that this doesn't tend to happen often in every day life. Its a nice feeling. Also I get strange looks from people wondering why I'm talking to myself. 

Anyways, next week is Halloween so I'm sure there will be more to talk about. Just a heads up though, my costume is going to be awesome.

Humphrey Takes to Flash

Been animating now for the last two weeks and boy oh boy do I love it!

Animating in Flash is a pure delight, something I know a lot of my classmates and colleagues would disagree with.  While it certainly isn't as hands on or immediate as traditional animation or computer animation it allows me to focus on the timing and posing of the characters rather than whether the characters are drawn on model and whatnot.  Notes from the director also tend to be easy to implement since it doesn't require me to erase and redraw a character from scratch.  That along with Flash skipping the cleanup phase makes it a joy to work with.

Hoping to get to work on the other show being worked on here at some point since it has more complex Flash builds that I wish to try out.

Lucas Switches Focus and Discuss' Eye Strain

Something about this week seems shorter. It may be because is was...

      Near the end of last week I had been working a bit on some java code and really enjoyed it. So that is what I have devoted this week to. Java, Java, and more java. I even took up drinking coffee for the occasion. On Tuesday a friend of mine sent me a program that he was having troubles with. In between some of the strangest conversation I have ever witnesses, Brad was able to help me to correct it. It was my first "bug-fixing" experience and I can fairly say that it was quite satisfying when the program worked. All it did was calculate interest in a bank account for a certain amount of years, but it's a start. 

 

      On a side note; since its the beginning of the year, my co-op instructor has had a plethora of questions concerning our workplace. Every time we are asked about the conditions, I am ever so tempted to start rambling about how they "let me out of the cage every now and then" and how "The slave labor isn't as bad as it's made out to seem." Of course that would cause other problems so I'm forced to bite my lip and answer honestly. believe me, It's difficult. We had to fill out a sheet on safety in our workplace and little to none of it applied to me since I sit at a desk for the majority of my placement. I don't see myself getting injured unless I get a compulsive urge to put my head through one of the brick walls. Anyways, I got all ready to write about all the fire-breathing dragon in the back room of Smiley Guy Studios when Mr. Rowell pointed out that this was for legitimate marks. So instead I spoke about the dangers of carpal tunnel and eye strain. The power of good posture and taking small breaks to make sure your eyes don't explode. There may have been a few lines thrown in about how steep the stairs are too.

Flash and Toronto Grow on Humphrey

I've been busy setting up several characters in Flash, something I have done before but never at this scale or level of quality.  The short time being here (ending the third week today) has led me to learning incredible skills regarding the software, be it basic or mere novelty.  Slowly but surely I have understood some key concepts to keep in mind when transforming a conceptual drawing into a ready to animate Flash figure.

I've grown to really like the city of Toronto as well, not seeing it as merely a place of temporary residency but rather a fine place to move about in.  I take the streetcar every morning to make sure I arrive on time at the studio but I always walk home, observing the culture and diversity present here.  Its quite a treat and I'm really enjoying the cultural exchange as part of my internship.

Three weeks down, ten more to go.  Hopefully it won't be too quick!

Introducing Lucas, Our Newest Highschool Student

Wooh! First blog!

For those of you who are reading this; I am Lucas Tennen the Smiley Guy Studio Co-op student for the year. I enjoy Adele and long walks on the beach. Not really, although I find it's usually a good ice breaker. 

    

So you could sort of say that this was like my first full week at SGS, although it was a bit of a rocky start. Last weekend my computer went through a series of crashes (both physical and software related) which resulted in some programs and files being unable to reach in my computer. One of them was flash. When I tried re-installing I was greeted with the ever so frustrating "Unable to download software." So I did my best to not let my time go to waste by reading about and watching many flash tutorials as I could. Although I haven't actually gotten into the program, I do feel well informed.

On a side note; I got a desk! It may not seem like a big deal, but it's my first so I'm pretty exited. It's relatively plain so I want to bring in a figurine or something somewhat representing of me. Now this next bit may need some explanation: I have a bit of an odd uncle. For my bar-mitzvah he gave me a figure of a dancing Jewish man. I keep it on a shelf near my bed. It seemed harmless at first, but it's starting to freak me out. I swear it's eyes follow me sometimes. So, I figured my desk would be a perfect place for it. It may not be well received, but if one person walks by and gets a kick out of it then it will have served a better purpose then it does in my room. Which pretty much is watching me sleep.

Thanks (sorry about the lack of animation I'm able to upload this week)

Welcome Humphrey! Our First International Intern!

Alright, here's my blog entry:

Humphrey Erm here, I'm a Swedish animation student from The Animation Workshop in Denmark.  From what I have understood I am the first international intern that Smiley Guy Studios has ever had, so I have by nature of my geographic location made history here.

I've been here a workweek now and am so far simply impressed and pleased with my internship.  The studio itself is nice and large, capable of housing quite a few professionals.  There's a comfortable meeting room and even a rec room with a ping pong table and table football which I'm looking forward to trying out.  I even get my own desk and computer to do all my work at which is much appreciated.

The people here are also really cool.  Everyone is working hard on separate tasks but they have all had time to give me some pointers or simply showing me what they're up to.  They have done a good job making me feel welcome in this studio and I for one appreciate that.

The work so far has been manageable, starting off with a tutorial on how to create a Flash puppet.  Working through that I got many great tips from Joe Lague regarding how to better organize the symbols as well as subtle changes to the design that makes the character look more dimensional and volumetric without sacrificing the ease of use for animation.  I'm now placed on Flashifying (taking a bitmap picture and translating it into Flash vectors and symbols) character concepts for the online show Teleporting Fat Guy.  It's working out really well so far thanks to the amazing feedback I've gotten previously, though there are still improvements here and there that I can do.

That's it for now I think, I'm looking forward to 12 more weeks of this in the beautiful city of Toronto!  Have a good one everyone!

~Humphrey Erm