But not in a Klingon sense.
This morning, I got the results from one of the scholarships that I applied to back in the Fall and, as the Klingons might say: Qapla'! (success!) It's the more valuable of the two scholarships so I'm quite happy about that.
Of course, the best part of this means that I won't have to TA if I don't want to (and I probably won't want to)!
Freak Out,
-TFitC
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Under My Thumb
I just noticed that I forgot to commemorate my 111th post. Fortunately, since it was my previous post, it served to point out something suitably bizarre for such an auspicious occasion.
The point of this post, however, is not to dwell on interesting numbers. As I have mentioned previously, my PhD research is related to comics and, as such, it seems that trying my hand at making a comic would be a useful experience. I wrote up a short script back over reading week and this week I have undertaken the first step on that journey - namely, creating the layout thumbnails. Here are the results:
Basically, thumbnails are meant to be rough sketches showing the layout of the panels and also of what will go into said panels. The level of detail in the thumbnails seems to vary widely from artist to artist. The above page of thumbnails shows four comic pages. I hope the division between pages is relatively clear, otherwise the image might seem a bit confusing. (Top left is page 1, top right is page 2, bottom left is page 3 and bottom right is page 4.)
The thumbnails don't include (much) dialogue, so it probably won't be immediately obvious exactly what's going on, though I have sketched in where I think the speech balloons will go. Each page took about an hour to create the thumbnails.
As might be obvious from the thumbnails, the characters look a bit generic at the moment. That is by intent since I haven't actually gone and done any character design yet. I didn't want to be tempted to put too much detail into the thumbnails. So my next step will be coming up with some actual character designs, which I'll post about when they're done (hopefully in a week or so).
So far I'm enjoying this little project. I haven't really done much drawing since when I was doing my Master's degree and it's nice to have something to motivate me to do some drawing again.
Until next time.
Freak Out,
-TFitC
The point of this post, however, is not to dwell on interesting numbers. As I have mentioned previously, my PhD research is related to comics and, as such, it seems that trying my hand at making a comic would be a useful experience. I wrote up a short script back over reading week and this week I have undertaken the first step on that journey - namely, creating the layout thumbnails. Here are the results:
Basically, thumbnails are meant to be rough sketches showing the layout of the panels and also of what will go into said panels. The level of detail in the thumbnails seems to vary widely from artist to artist. The above page of thumbnails shows four comic pages. I hope the division between pages is relatively clear, otherwise the image might seem a bit confusing. (Top left is page 1, top right is page 2, bottom left is page 3 and bottom right is page 4.)The thumbnails don't include (much) dialogue, so it probably won't be immediately obvious exactly what's going on, though I have sketched in where I think the speech balloons will go. Each page took about an hour to create the thumbnails.
As might be obvious from the thumbnails, the characters look a bit generic at the moment. That is by intent since I haven't actually gone and done any character design yet. I didn't want to be tempted to put too much detail into the thumbnails. So my next step will be coming up with some actual character designs, which I'll post about when they're done (hopefully in a week or so).
So far I'm enjoying this little project. I haven't really done much drawing since when I was doing my Master's degree and it's nice to have something to motivate me to do some drawing again.
Until next time.
Freak Out,
-TFitC
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Batman Goes Insane
I follow the blog of comic artist Scott McCloud (who has written Understanding Comics, Reinventing Comics and Making Comics, amongst other things) and yesterday he had a link to a review/analysis of the first half of what appears to be a recent Batman comic. And O.M.G! It is soooo weird. I just had to share the link with my readers: here it is.
I think it kind of blew my mind.
Freak Out,
-TFitC
I think it kind of blew my mind.
Freak Out,
-TFitC
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Marking Still Sucks (Mostly)
First, this week has been, shall I say.. annoying. Gyah. First, Monday night, I had to proctor for the first year course I'm TAing this term. As my readers know (and which they will no doubt be reminded multiple times over the course of my degree) I hate proctoring. Two hours of watching people write exams is worse than watching paint dry because at least with paint watching, you can leave and do something else when you get bored.
Proctoring is also usually accompanied by marking. Yesterday I spent all day marking. ALL DAY! From 9:00 AM to about 4:30 PM, with a short break for lunch. This is horrible! When I mark assignments, I usually only mark for about and hour or so in one go, not nearly eight. Brain... leaking... out of... ear... Gyah...
Ranting out of the way, about two weeks ago we marked assignment 3 for the undergrad graphics course, which I am also TAing this term. This is much more fun than marking stupid first year courses. Assignment 3 is the "puppet" assignment in which students have the opportunity to make interesting character models. This terms models have been posted up on the course website which can be located here. Go take a look! There's some nice puppets this term (most recent are at the top of the page).
Anyway, that is all for the present. Until next time.
Freak Out,
-TFitC
Proctoring is also usually accompanied by marking. Yesterday I spent all day marking. ALL DAY! From 9:00 AM to about 4:30 PM, with a short break for lunch. This is horrible! When I mark assignments, I usually only mark for about and hour or so in one go, not nearly eight. Brain... leaking... out of... ear... Gyah...
Ranting out of the way, about two weeks ago we marked assignment 3 for the undergrad graphics course, which I am also TAing this term. This is much more fun than marking stupid first year courses. Assignment 3 is the "puppet" assignment in which students have the opportunity to make interesting character models. This terms models have been posted up on the course website which can be located here. Go take a look! There's some nice puppets this term (most recent are at the top of the page).
Anyway, that is all for the present. Until next time.
Freak Out,
-TFitC
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