I'm surprised I haven't posted these...

Ever since the beginning of time, I, Kathy, have been in love with cats. I love them. Really. And there is this guy named Simon Tofield who makes these amazing animated shorts that perfectly encapsulate some of the most hilarious cat moments that I'm sure just about every cat owner has been through. So, without further ado, here are the videos to the entire Simon's Cat series, because I love them.











I've got to admit - I'm in love with the line quality of this next one:


Ta!

Ugly blog

Hi Blogworld!

So I get headaches when even thinking about my blogger layout. The ones that they offer either have an aspect ratio that cuts off all of my pictures and videos, or they're butt-ugly. So I've decided to design my own layout. I'm in the process of teaching myself a little CSS in order to organize the site correctly and such, but if anyone out there has tips or links that'll help me out, I will love you forever. Though, let's be honest, I'll love you forever anyway.

Recent Work!

I'm blowing off the dust of this thing! I've been able to do a lot of fun work lately for classes, and I want to show it off. I've also resurrected my deviantart account, so I'm just going to use the embed links from that, rather than up them to something else. Click on the picture to go to the page, then click on THAT picture to get a closer look at things! If you DO want to cruise my deviantart page, be warned that I post a lot of my figure drawings. Yes they're naked. That is all.

I'm going to be making a 3D animation! I'm surprised that I haven't posted this before, BUT here is the animatic version of it. An animatic is an animation without all of the 'tweens' in the movement. And yes, I did all the voices:


For the class I'm in this term, we're making our main character from the animatic in 3D! For any one who's curious, I sculpted the base mesh in ZBrush, topologized him in 3DCoat, and tweaked him in Maya.


Billy Front by ~bowtothetallone on deviantART


Billy Quarter-front by ~bowtothetallone on deviantART


Billy Side by ~bowtothetallone on deviantART


Billy Quarter-back View by ~bowtothetallone on deviantART


Billy Back by ~bowtothetallone on deviantART


Billy Wireframe by ~bowtothetallone on deviantART

I rendered this sucker for my Creative Industry Techniques class. We've been working with a way to render a scene using what are called mentalray nodes. Our assignment was to take a scene that we had textured in Texture and Lighting 1, and place the character that we modeled in Modeling 1 into the scene. Here are my results!


Jiggly Puff at the Bar Wide Shot by ~bowtothetallone on deviantART


Jiggly Puff at the Bar Close-Up by ~bowtothetallone on deviantART

Then in the other half of this class, we've been learning MEL scripting, which means that instead of using Maya's user interface directly (like clicking the buttons, moving everything with the tools, etc etc), I can go under the hood and program Maya to do the same things. What makes this cool is that I can have this code affect an unlimited number of objects at the same time, where if I did it by hand it would take ages. This next video was a lot of fun, and a lot of headaches to put together. If you want a little of the explanation about it, go directly to the youtube page and you'll find it in the video description. I like making things go boom!

I do cool things on the weekends.

I did some cool things on the weekends this month that I meant to blog about at the time, but am finally going to get to now. First, I went sailing on a boat! It was amazing!!! It was a 19th century sailboat. I'll tell the best part in a glorious mix of words and pictures.

We:
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pulled on these:


to lift these:


That's right - I, wimpy Kathy of Coloradian suburbia, proved my radness by helping to hoist sails on a 19th century skiffer. Suhwheet.

The next weekend I did more cool things. I hung out with these people at this place:


and this place:


and other places I don't have pictures of. My favorite part of the trip was seeing this girl:


I got to watch her for a couple hours and it was AMAZINGLY fun. She's such a cute little babeh.

Then the NEXT weekend, I went with a lot of these crazies:


to this place:


for this YSA conference:


which was super happy fun times.

My work so far

I'm FINALLY posting more of my work! I hope you're excited.


My first assignment from Intro to Animation. We were supposed to make it feel like a bowling ball.


A wave cycle


Walk cycle 1


Walk cycle 2. His arms are crazy. Next time I'll be more careful.


An exercise with squash and stretch. I love that little guy!


This is a project I worked on with a group. Hooray for Pixellation, AKA Stopmotion!

That's it for Intro to Animation. Now for Animation 1!


This was our 2nd assignment. The goal was to have the lamp do a 'take' - AKA change from one emotion to another. I chose from curious to scared.


For this one, we had to have Norman sit in a chair in an interesting way - AKA with some emotion. I chose intrigued.

If you haven't seen it, you can check out my final for Animation 1 in the previous post.

Now for Texture and Lighting 1!


This was my environment I chose for my midterm. What do you think?


And this was my project for my final. My goal was to make her Steam Punk.

Wah Waaaaaaah

I was about to harp on Harry Potter 6 with my third item, but I don't want to leave this post with such a Debbie Downer, so watch this and impress all your friends! And definitely watch the Debbie Downer link -- so hilarious! It's my favorite when the actors crack up.

Finally...a post!

So I'm bored, and it's been a while, so here's my final project for my beginning animation class! Well, at least the current version. I sent it in to my professor to see what I can improve on and I'm waiting on the changes.



And I saw this on someone else's blog, and thought it'd be a fun waste of a few minutes.

Kathy's ABCs

A - Age: 25

B - Bed size: Tall Twin

C - Chore you hate: Eek. Dishes.

D - Dog(s) name: Chip's my roommate's dog. He's a sweetie. Then Norm's my Aunt's dog, and he's a little scamp and cracks me up!

E - Essential start your day item: Phone. I really can't go anywhere without it.

F - Favorite color: Red

G - Gold or Silver: I look good in both, but I prefer silver

H - Height: 6'2" but I typically tell people 6'3". It just sounds better.

I - Instrument: Tons. Guitar, Baritone, Trumpet, Tuba, Trombone, Pinano....and more that I'm not as proficient at...

J - Job title: Student! Hooray! Hopefully future animator. :D

K - Kid(s): Someday :D

L - Living arrangements: I live with 4 roommates in the hills of El Cerrito. And there's a doggie, Chip, who's 14, and a SWEET kitty, Squeaky, who's...not 14. Probably younger, but I haven't asked yet. He's amazing though...he gives me lovings.

M - Mom's name: Eileen. She's amazing. You should meet her.

N - Nicknames: Kitty, Kit, Kathy, Hey you tall girl...

O - Overnight hospital stay other than birth of child: Not yet. Knock on wood.

P - Pet Peeve: Acne. I hates it.

Q - Quotes you like:
We have it within our power to speak to hundreds of millions of people, two hours at a time, in the dark. No single person before has ever had that power: no emperor, no saint, and no individual, however powerful. So we have a tremendous responsibility in what we say...As artists, we have a wonderful tool...to do away with hate, bigotry and war, and work for the brotherhood of man.
- Frank Capra, Director, "It's a Wonderful Life"

R - Right or left handed: Right

S - Siblings: 1 brother and 1 sister

T - Time to wake up: Eek it's been super late lately. Like 12. It's ridiculous. I'm on a weird schedule.

U- Underwear: Yes, I wear them.

V - Vegetable you dislike: Buk Choy. I want to like it so badly, but it's just gross.

W - Ways you run late: Sleeping in. Surprise, surprise.

X - X-rays you've had: Hrm...most recently my wrist. I fractured it back in January.

Y - Yummy food you make- Zebra Brownies. They're divine.

Z - Zoo favorite: I loves me some tigers.