Pixar Master class.

Lets start by saying yesterday was one of the most exciting days ever.

It wasnt that exciting in terms of the fact that i still had to go to work and had a pretty boring day.

However after work a friend and I where sitting around at work for an hour waiting for  the IGDA Presentation that was on at 7:30 by Warren Spector about the making of Disney's Epic mickey.
It was an amazing lecture and warren not only talked about the development of the game but talked about the history of Disney. He also delved into a bit about the animations and the characters which I found particularly interesting.

But then If that wasnt exciting enough While we where waiting around for the event the start i figured hey maybe I should check to see if there are any good animation events coming up in Montreal.
When I discovered that there was going to be a pixar 2 day masterclass in Montreal focusing on storytelling, story boarding and character animation With a $500 price tag it was a bit pricey but being from Australia this is such a rare opportunity as something like this would never come over there.
Luckilly my loving and supporting wife allowed me to spend the money and  so now I'm going to  the 2 day master class  on July 29th and 30th

A link to the event for anyone interested in going or just finding out more information is below
http://www.vanarts.com/events/pixar-artists-masterclass-2011-montreal-quebec

But it gets even better I happen to be taking 3 weeks off work in July as the studio is taking a bit of a break. So it ties in perfectly as it gives me even more time to improve my work and learn more before the big event so I can hopefully get the most out of it.

I'm so pumped and excited like you wouldnt believe. only 10 weeks before the event. I worked out if I continue at my current average of 50 hrs of animation theory and animation each week while working  for the next 7 weeks and then put in 3 weeks of 100 + the 3 public holidays coming up :P I should average about 650 hrs in before then :P. Id really love to get my basic drawing skills up so i can do gesture drawings and thumbnails better because thats one of my weak points and I wanna get fully back into character animation again but to do that I think I still have another week or 2 left practicing the basics and as much as balls and things arent that exciting I'm hoping it will pay off in the end.

I also realized that I really need to get more active on some community sites. I have been lurking around on 11 second club http://www.11secondclub.com for the last few weeks so thinking of becoming a bit more active and seeing if i can get some critique and maybe some actual followers of my blog so I dont feel like im talking to myself everytime i write one :P