Burned out.
I've been working alone for a few months now and have been looking at the same 32-seconds of movie. I have been working and getting schooled in the Russian Language. I was given a side project away from this one. Now I've resumed working out and am trying to get my fitter body back again.
I'm on shading and after effects now. But working alone is a slow, slow, slow process. I've paid careful attention to each and every individual one of the 437 drawings I did and have been commended for achieving a modest level of fluidity and consistency at 12 frames-per-second by friends and fellow animators alike. Many days and nights spent looking at my computer screen. Everything is on me and nobody else. I get lonely. I get restless. And I find my progess slowing because I'm just exhausted. I've done so damn much for this one, changed its tone many times along the way. Its been a marathon for such a small result.
I'm nearing the end of this animation piece and hopefully the fruits of my efforts show in its quality, despite it's length. I am alone in the production process and every detail, every movement, everything on-screen needed to be drawn by me.
I really do not know why I'm writing this.
 

Schools over for me! Now I'm all on the animation!

I am so freaking tired of school.
I'm 21 years old and have consistently gotten A's and B's thru high school and college so far, and will soon get into a University to further pursue my goals. But when it comes to doing classes I didn't want in the 1st place... I dunno, its gotten to me. I'm worn out.
If my goddang counselor hadn't legitimately SCREWED me and made a mistake that kept me in Community College and delayed my University schooling for a year, I'd be in a totally different position right now.
Oh well. Still animating as often as I can and am happy that a good video is forming, despite it's length. If what I am seeing gives me a sweeping feeling and gives me that little extra push to keep drawing,  something is going well.

Gunna keep going and do it right by me, no matter how long it takes.

 

Decided to quickly color one frame. This is rough, but at least I'm at the point I can consider colors now!

I am slaving away as often as humanly possible trying to get this aniamtion done. But frame-by-frame is far more daunting then I had anticipated. It's going to take me months to get this project done. I am going to do my absolute damndest to make sure it's worth the time I'm putting into it.
It'll last about a minute and a half or 2 minutes at most. It's going to have a small prolouge, a slide-show esque introduction, and then the actual animation with Katyusha herself. It's a teaser of sorts with it's own ministory within.
But again, this is so much time spent. But I'm confident I'll get it done. I've made good progress and won't turn back now! And at the end of it I'm sure going to have something to show off to friends, family, and hopefully would have a plus mark for any interships I apply for.

I know I'm not talking to anyone in particular, but it feels nice to vent my feeling somewhere :)

A Screenshot WOP. About 127 Drawings down, about 300 more to go.

 

Moved out and living life at the new home, the new job, and working the new routine.
Next step is going to a new school in State College! Hoping to get a Bachelors in Graphic Design, then (someday) moving onto new education in Business and Character Animation.

That's a long ways off :P

Been animating a 30 second scene for my story "I Am the Caucasus" which I will likely rename "The Dividing Line". Started off with the storyboard concept which I completed but instead thought I'd do a fully animated teaser using the first scene. I read an animation textbook (over 350 pages on my own time) by Richard Williams and have put my sole focus on making a motion that is 3-demensional, believable, smooth, and organic. Been working on nearly every spare moment (and day off) that I have, into the LATE hours of the night, and even endured ridicule one night from a couple of dumb kids for being on my comp nearly every night (the can see me on the street :P)

But it's coming along VERY well, it's incredibly useful practice for Toon Boom, and I can already tell it will be a superior animation than my first Toon Boom attempt "Portrait" or anything I did in Anime Studio.

Learning and gettin' a lot of dinero! I got a new as a jeweler/pawnbroker and I'm finally moving out fo my parents house! Independence HAHA!!

As for the animation front, I have met a lot of people in my time away from the keyboard and am actually knee-deep in several things! I'm learning figure drawing with VAST improvments to drawing the human body and am designing backgrounds for an animation about a bird. Fun stuff!

As for my own projects... I wrote 2 projects earlier this year and scrapped them both.
Both starred an OC I have carefully molded over the years named Katyusha... but each story I wrote didn't really feel like it represented who she is. In the beginning she was a hardened nomad with little to live for. Then she was a caring and inexperienced gangmember who is losing her innocence.
But maybe... just maybe... I found a story I can move forward with.
But I'm going to try something: I'm going to storyboard it in video form with full audio effects and (unfortunately) rough backgrounds and character movements.

I want to make something stellar. So for now I'll start here and see where that leads me.

 

I animate because I enjoy it.
In the words of Walter White: "I did it for me. I did it because I enjoyed it. When I did it I felt... I felt alive."
Except instead of cooking meth (thankfully) I'm into something a little more legal: creating life. And not the kind of life that forces me to pay child support and buy diapers. Just the act of turning a simple drawing into something that looks like it has a personality and a heart, like it still thinks even once the animation ends.
I love that sensation. Perhaps you call it a God complex. I call it something I want to be great at.

From now on, if someone asks me what I'm going to school for, I will say just that. I want to be a cartoonist and an animator. When they give me a confused condescending look and ask why, I will reply that it's because I enjoy the practice. It's something I can do which many who surround me can't and when I do it, I feel like I'm worth a damn.

End rant.

Still workin'! Its nearly complete and looks like this throughout. I will add some more detail in the background. Gunna get up some more drawings as well soon, get some more backstories and practice in!