First Post

Like OMG I have a blog! Now I can fill you in on every mundane detail of my life!!!

Actually not...

This blog is dedicated to my Animation endeavors. I am a first semester student of Animation Mentor. I will be update you, my cyber-friends, with my weekly projects and some of my art and whatever else I feel like blogging about. (Blogging. I hate that word.)

Anyway. A little about me.

My name is John. I am 20 years old and live in NW Arkansas. I have a cat and live with my 2 other roommates who have 3 more cats between them. I work at a coffee shop and was going to school for graphic design but decided to put it on hold and see where AniMentor takes me.
(I'm still taking one class a semester just to stay enrolled. This semester it's Art History. Blah!)

I've loved animation my whole life (see left). From watching my favorite shows as a kid (Wallace and Gromit, Rocko's modern life, Ren and Stimpy) to making movies out of Legos or Flash, I've grown up with animation. I think my first taste of 3d was with Toy Story. Every great animated film I've seen has inspired me to try to master this wonderful art form.

Some of my favorite animated films include: Miyazaki films like Howl's Moving Castle and Spirited away, Afro Samuri, Paprika, Pixar things like Bugs Life and Monsters Inc. (looking forward to Toy Story 3!), Shrek movies, Toy Soldiers and The Wall's animated bits. My shows are Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law, Aqua Teen, Futurama, Mr. Show, Arrested Development, and of course Family Guy, South Park and The Simpson's.

That's a lot of shows you might be thinking. What do you do all day aside from watching TV? Well I also like to be outdoor enjoying nature. I live in the city but finding somewhere to explore is never far away. I like going longboarding and caving. Hiking and camping are nice too.

Oh yeah, one last thing. Blogs are for gripping so here goes mine: As of now Snow Leopard does not run well/at all with Maya. My Maya opens but there's some buggy stuff with my graph editor so I'll probably have to downgrade back to Leopard, which isn't really a big deal. Just kind of a drag. My roommate (we bought the family pack) said he had to manually take every file and tuck it into it's proper place. So that's going to be fun.

Well over and out.