yes, some birds are funny when they talk

sometimes a parrot talks.


Speaking of birds, the time came in Polypeptide to animate a couple of crows. Not normal crows, mind you, but hellish hell crows from hell. One that has a skeletal neck and a lizardlike skull and the other with bat wings and lizardlike tail. Both come exploding out of a monk's chest and make their way to something I cant say without spoiling it.

Either way.

It was a rather horrific thing to do.
Earlier this week I animated some bits here and there:

blood splattering on a hand


the monk unzipping his tunic/scapula/cloak thing to let the crows fly free.


however this is different. like alot of animators, when animating a bird in flight I used to take the easy way out and simply animate its wings flapping up and down wildly. and while this looks fine for flocks of little birds (its done in movies all the time) I wanted these birds to sort of lope through the air really showing how their big wings heave them through the air. However something like has to be learned.

So for the last week I have been watching many videos of birds and sketching birds to get myself ready.

Here are some of said sketches. I believe the seagull thing in the middle has some sort of syndrome. Also it appears i got bored and drew a girl, a military guy, and a hideous pickle with a face.


Anyway this was all practice.

I later watched many many videos of birds flying in slow motion so I could understand how their wings work and what exactly is going on as they flap.

Either way it all came to a head today as I animated the first of the two birds taking flight.


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Other than that this week has been spent watching the business I work at slowly morph in a last ditch effort to thwart off bankruptcy by rearranging the entire place and giving us new black uniforms.
It also means alot of the movies we carry are being shipped off.
I have managed to procure some very cheap copies of "BOLT" "KUNG FU PANDA" and "BE KIND, REWIND"

As of late Myself, Mike, and Raphael have been experimenting with various pasta noodles and sauce combinations. Its amazing how cheap pasta is. One dollar of pasta (no matter what shape) is enough food to feed a man for several days.
Normally we take Angel Hair pasta and throw alot of olive oil and diced garlic, basil, and tomatoes all over it and slurp it down.
But we've been a bit more inventive. Which culminated tonight in perhaps the best pasta I have ever feverishly shoved into my mouth. A packet of bow tie pasta and a jar of "4 Cheese Alfredo" with 2 cans of tomatoes made a feast of the best noodles I've ever had.

GOOD SHIT.
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Metrocon and Megacon are coming up soon (again) and Mike decided a while ago that this year he would have a new costume. Last year he and I put together a fantastic rendition of the Merchant from Resident Evil 4. Probably the best thats ever been done (cause I've hunted and have yet to find a better one).

This year however Mike will be going as The Spy from Team Fortress 2. And all the various parts of his costume are here. He looks spot on. A fake collapsible knife, a dark blue ski mask, a blue pinstripe suit, a revolver, black dress shoes, and a blue striped tie all coming together.

Speaking of the spy Valve released (see: leaked)their newest little short film using the games cast. As per usual it was hilarious and incredibly well done especially for a video game cinematic. Meeteth Ye Spye
I don't think the "Medic" has ever looked so badass as he does when the Spy becomes him.
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Speaking of videogames, E3 is coming up in a couple of weeks. One wonders what will happen this year. Especially considered the CLUSTERFUCK OF BULLDICK that was last year's E3. Sony and Nintendo especially have alot to make up for, what with Sony's bragging about their profits using Little Big Planet, and Nintendo's waggling musical cacophony from Dimension X.

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VNV Nation, perhaps my favorite makers of GOOD techno music (i.e. not trance or house) have done the world a great privilege. They have released a 3 disc album of unreleased music, concerts, and remixes AND AND AND have a new album coming out soon.

yesh.

And that's really all I have to say that's of any real importance to anyone other than myself.