Animation is Awesome

So my last term at university is under-way. I have to make sure I don’t get distracted from work by my birthday. I don’t really have plans though, apart from looking forward to my grandparents visiting and going to see Shrek the Musical.

My flavour of the week is sculpting. By that I mean characters for animation rather than works of art. I was inspired by a show reel I saw in class. The Flynn brothers are twins who went to Glamorgan University and took the animation course together. They have a very impressive stop motion show reel showing elements of the production for their graduation film ‘Opening Night’. It is like a miniature Laika (Coraline and Paranorman) production and just shows you what you can do with talent and hard work (and a double?).  You can see this at www.sculpt-double.co.uk.

I was amused the other day because I have been voting for the NBA All-Stars. If you don’t know what I mean, in Basketball each season they have a game with two teams, made up of the best person that plays each position as voted by the fans. So the fans choose the best two forwards, two guards and centre from the east and west. My amusement was because of an article that said the voting is inaccurate because novices only vote for people they have heard from and girls vote for the players that are smiling, the latter of which I am guilty of.

I like it when DreamWorks release an extra story for fans of their films. I liked Shrek the Halls and Scared Shrekless, this Christmas I got the Kung Fu Panda addition ‘Legends of the Masters’ and one for How to Train your Dragon (HTTYD). The HTTYD one was really good a proper separate story about the Viking Christmas and the dragons having babies, which are adorable, a definite must see if you like the film. The Kung Fu Panda one was not in full blown 3D, and the story was not quite as good as HTTYD but if you like Master Oogway it’s a must. If that makes no sense I am sorry!