Late Night Inspiration

What inspires me?

I of course am inspired by greatness, just like anyone else.  To see someone blow away the confines of normality.  An artist, that effortlessly paints a masterpiece, with you just sitting there unbelieving of how easy it is.  But I think that I am more inspired to see how those same people screw up.  To see how it wasn’t smooth and how they are just like the rest of us.  To see the way they work is how I work and that I am NOT doing it all wrong.  To see that when you constantly redo the same gesture over and over again, amassing a pile of papers next to your desk, that the greats do the same thing.  That is truly inspiring.

It instills the confidence needed to do great things.  To push boundaries of convention.  You are no longer focused on the technique of your task.  You are now focused on your task and how to drive it forward.  The technique means nothing if the outcome is right.  This very concept is so important for any artist, whether they are a writer, painter, sculptor, or director.  There is no right way to do it.  There is only a right outcome and even then that gets a bit hazy.

I am a firm believer that when it comes down to your goals, it is your journey that makes the person.  Again there is no right or wrong answer to this.  Its what you get out of it.  Can you learn from your mistakes?  It is how comfortable you are with your path.  YOU only have YOU to answer to.  You can look for inspiration in all the greats, and yes that is a good place to start, but it comes down to you.  YOU make it happen.  YOU make the choices.  YOU are the director of your masterpiece.  We sometimes forget that, but those truly are words to live by.

Relics

My friend, Kristin, tonight was asking about the projects that I have worked on, and I stumbled upon my old production blog.  We had to keep blogs for some of our classes in college so we could easily communicate with our mentors and view our progress.  This was mine:

http://jgrossmann.blogspot.com/

Brought back a lot of memories and shows how far I have come.  This of course led to me going through my friend’s sites as well and seeing how far they have come.  Good times!

AnimSchool

So two weeks ago I started a beta program for a new online school that is starting up in January.  I am in the character modeling course with a lot of other really talented people, so the entire experience is pretty fantastic.  It also is getting me back into modeling.  I have been focusing a lot of learning new technologies and working on motion graphics.  So this is a very welcome addition to my life.

This class is only going on for four weeks and I figure this will end up being a GREAT portfolio piece at some point.  I am also coming up on our third meeting this Tuesday and figured I should post some progress.

Week 1:

ABOMINATION!

So this is from week 1.  I probably spent about 2 to 3 hours on it, resizing an old model.  That week had been pretty busy….so…yeah… I swear I have excuses.

Week 2:

ABOMINATION2!

This is where I stand tonight.  I have till Tuesday and this is about another hour or so of work on the model.  A lot of my focus is just get down my shape and then adjusting topology for shape.  As far as edge flow, that is another matter and will come in due time.  The basis is there, which is important and it makes moving forward much easier.

Now to send off an email, read and then to bed.  😀