I had the opportunity to play a yangqin and a guzheng tonight. They are both beautiful, but I especially love the guzheng's elegant simplicity and 5-note scale (and the fact that even a dumb beginner like me can make nice sounds with it right away), and I want ooooone ( Read more... )

The erhu is freakin' HARD to play! I haven't sounded this terrible on a string instrument since violin in the 3rd grade. Very little of violin technique carries over, which distresses me. I think I'm going to have to pay for lessons if I'm going to learn this thing properly ( Read more... )

I got an erhu, y'all! In my search for online tutorials, I found this website. Tell me that is not the most amazing photograph of all time. ERHU ACTION SHOT!

There are completely random and bizarre animations on the site, as well. WHAT ARE YOU, website? I am intrigued and confused!

So my cat-sitter's brother started having allergies and now I'm anxious about Maya. I sent out a mass email earlier to see if anyone could take over but all the replies have been a no-go so far. ;_; Gaaaaaah, worried! Stress! I want to go home and hug my cat!

I participated in another lecture today, this time with a smaller group of advanced students (yesterday was with 1st and 2nd years) and going over more technical information. Yesterday's lecture was more broad and covered a lot of visual development elements--how to pay attention to color, value, layout, leading the audience's eye through the ( Read more... )

I gave my lecture today in front of 200 Chinese University students and totally nailed it. I'm pretty sure, that is. I made jokes they laughed at, at the very least. New addition to resume: Work Experience - Made 200 Chinese Students Laugh. Best resume! The thing I like best about writing on LJ late at night is that it really makes sense!

I'm currently in Nanchang, China, preparing a presentation that illustrates my process using Flash for experimentation in 2D animation and my philosophy about animated movement in general. I'll be showing little clips from my FYS piece (what has been completed so far, at least) and a few other exercises I've done that have played around with full ( Read more... )

...But Livejournal isn't, bitches! So I will override the system by writing things here and letting facebook import my LJ posts as notes. And then I will experience facebooks comments vicariously through email updates (my Gmail still works ( Read more... )

In tonight's final VisDev class, I asked Lisa to show us how to paint 3D models as flat images for conceptual and promotional purposes. She had mentioned it in passing a few weeks ago and I really wanted to learn how to do it, but she forgot to bring a model in to show us her process. So I gave her mine ( Read more... )

This morning I went to an exclusive screening for CalArts animation students of The Princess and the Frog in the Disney Feature Animation building. Besides the awesomeness of the event itself (the theater we used is the one where they screen their in-studio tests and dailies, and John Musker and Ron Clement were there to hold a Q&A session ( Read more... )