Masochism - MITAH

A post in which I exclaim why I am both insane and a potential genius.

As you may or may not know depending or not if you're me, I started an animation project a while back on my Youtube channel called 'The Man in the Ant Hill', which I envisioned as a series of animated shorts based on the 1960's comic story of the same name (The origin story of Marvel's Ant-Man if you're interested). My plan of action for this idea of mine was to animate the various stages, record my progress and then stick it onto Youtube, in practice so that potential employers will take note of my initiative and masochism.

Why masochism you ask? Well, a masochist is defined as somebody who feels some kind of weird gratification from being punished, and I think the fact that I chose to use the animation method I find the most difficult is definitely masochistic. Namely that doing frame by frame animation on a graphics tablet is about an exact a science as doing a life drawing with an icicle onto some bedrock. And never planning on letting up shows that I seem to derive some kind of glee in deliberately punishing myself.

Now, what I COULD have done when writing up this project was to, say perhaps, animate using a pre-existing rig of some kind or create one at my own pace. Things which, while comfortable with using, am definitely no Richard Williams at just quite yet, but instead I chose the method where I have to draw each individual frame in the long continuous sequence with no breaks because there are no camera alterations (Fun fact, the average drawing time of one frame is 10 minutes).

My original reason for punishing myself so was because I was using the 'Original series Goku from Dragonball' endurance test method of practicing at something. That is to say, rather than building up skill and endurance with steadily escalating smaller challenges, instead master the hardest method first and becoming virtually godlike in the easier methods because nothing feels quite so sweet after the back breaking pain that is trying frame by frame animation with little skill.

I would just give up, except I know that my punishingly low level of self esteem demands that I get just this one victory out of the way before settling for lesser victories, which ironically makes me more confident in myself and determined to work, which is always a plus. 

Clarification: In the original series of Dragonball, Goku exercises
with a several ton turtle shell on his back for six months and becomes
virtually unstoppable with his prodigious strength despite
having no formal martial arts training. The origin of my awfully phrased
metaphor.

Nonsense

Haven't posted about my life here in over a year, blimey Kris, do the words "Decent speed for a glacier" mean anything to you? Not really, also stop stealing dialogue from Zero Punctuation. Ah well, I guess I'll let you know what I've been up to.

Previous Course!
First of all I've finished that Animation course that I loved so much around this time a year ago, I got a Distinction + Merit Merit, which is pretty hefty spoils to say I didn't like lots of my work, though my Final Project which you can view here is quite simply magnificent, not without errors of course but nothing is unless you're Sherlock Holmes. I'm going to miss that course because it changed my life in ways I couldn't describe.

Current Course and also Animation!
After finishing College I went back to College to do a different course, instead of Animation it's a more generalised Art and Design course, it's not REALLY going how I wanted but I've managed to teach myself how to be a better drawer, which has slightly rubbed off onto my Animation skills, not that I've Animated much recently, unless you count my clever idea MITAH where I'm working on a larger project but showing you all of the smaller elements because it'll take too bloody long otherwise.

University Applications!
In similar Animator-y news, I've sent off my University Applications about two months ago, all for Animation related courses naturally, I shan't give any details as to the identity of the Universities however I'll wait until I've properly been accepted to share such a detail, because it's best not to show bias at this stage, but rest assured I'll be in good hands for almost whichever one I go to.

Health!
I have not been as healthy as I used to be for this past year, I've had a fair few unusual stress attacks that four doctors can't agree on the exact nature of, I'm better now and that's all I'm really gonna say on that matter.

Current Work!
As said previously, at the present time, I'm on and off working on a small animation project entitled "The Man in the Ant Hill", it's a short story originally written by Marvel, being the origin of the character Ant-Man, and I've decided to adapt it into an animated feature because really, it's just dying to. I upload the various stages of the process onto Youtube for the pleasure of all, I'mma gonna link to it a second time for luck.

I'm notorious for starting personal projects and then not completing them due to lack of interest on my part and the part of whoever finds out about them, so I've decided to simplify the project making process and remind myself repeatedly how much I wanted to make it in the first place. This inspiration coming from of course the excellent Jack Howard, a guy on the internet who makes funny videos I'm a fan of, you ought to check him out.

I want to frame this and put it on a wall.

Well, that's all for now, I should really get into the swing of this again, it'd be nice to talk about my life stuff in greater detail, almost like a real blogger.