Week 1 - First Q&A! Meet the class, meet the mentor

These last few days have been crazy excitement-wise! After being assigned to the "Tuesday 7AM" class, with John Nguyen - we got to chat for a while and I was really sad about having to change my class, as I considered him as my new master already! But then when I knew where I was reassigned to, it totally made up for it! My mentor is Chad Stewart, the lead animator of one of my very favorite animation movie: Surf's Up! Between others he was also in Tarzan, The Simpsons, Open Season, Stuart Little, etc. Amazing, right? I told him Surf's Up inspired me greatly, both in Animating and Surfing itself, and that me and my brother were big fans, and he said that it was great to animate it, as he's also a surfer! Coool!
It was also very nice to know that Sue, Tom and Yuri are in my class, they're really cool people I've met before starting this adventure!
For this week our assignment is to meet people and get used to the AM system. pretty easy!
I'll leave you with a picture of the Q&A (not me on cam, i totally forgot to take a screenshot! :( - it's Yuri!) and two clips of Chad's Work. Look forward to see the next update, I will have assignments then!
Ciao!

Great Scene
Surf's Up cool scenes
Chad's Reel

And something I've just made :)

Just before AM starts...

I got a little non-animated related CGI task! I was asked to film and edit the info video of an online school, just like Animation Mentor! But in this case it's about the wonders of the brain! Here it is, fully finished. Had to go and play a little with motion graphics! That was an career option when I was younger, I was deciding between Cinema, Design, Animation, Motion Graphics... Animation it is!

One Week Left! - Books and meetings

And finally, the loooong wait I've been submitted to since I first decided to join AM finally turned into a tiny little week!

During those painful months of waiting, I've been feeding my Animation hunger by reading books! I've read Richard Williams' "Animator's Survival Kit" and Kenny Roy's and Eric Luhta's "How To Cheat in Maya 2012" - both great, great books. I've learned a lot, specially in the first one, I already feel like my animation skills started to get a bit better. I'm also pretty sure that as soon as I start doing a bit more complex stuff in AM, the second one will turn incredibly useful. Another thing I've read is Shawn Kelly's "Tips and Tricks" blog, I've printed all it's entries and got them all together with a fancy cover! His skills to motivate are incredible, I've set many personal goals from reading it, it's fantastic, highly recommend it!

Here you have the links:
Animator's Survival Kit
How To Cheat in Maya 2012

I'm currently thinking of buying those, have you read them?
Stop Staring
Ideas for the Animated Short
Timing for Animation

My next step tho, is watching Richard William's DVD lectures.

During this time I've made new friends and connections related to AM and Animation. Eager Beavers, the Facebook group, is great for anyone who is about to start AM. Also, I won't forget soon all the Coffee Talks with Victoria Tripp and the Office Hours with Jay Epperhart! Such good times. I've also arranged the time for a short trip to Porto to meet the other Portuguese who are doing or are about to start AM: Leo Cunha, Sue Alves and the Martins twin bros, Sergio and Edgar! Here's a photo of us:

I'll now leave you with a short test animation I did when I was waiting for my girlfriend to come from work! The course starts in the 26th, expect an update not so far away from then! Greetings, Fonzo