Friday, February 29, 2008

Lost in Translation

I'm so close that I can touch it. But as soon as I start walking, I am SO FAR away! My vision, my world is like beyond the clouds...My Universe.
I'm not alone, There are others like me. I sleepwalk with my eyes wide open. I stumble more often than not.
However, I don't have no doubts I'm sure the Sun will rise again
And everyone will be swept away, such is the world of my Dreams.

I have a million wings to fly, and the whole blue sky to soar
And to move forward, I have MY world.

And that was my stupid interpretation of some of the lines from the song 'Mera Jahan' from Taare Zameen Par.

And I showed this to mickey, and he gave me a really interesting interpretation of the 'translation'. I wish I was recording all that he just said. Because even I can't summarize it. He did say that he felt I was trying to write a poem. The lines seemed like poetry to him, and he was pretty spot on about that.

Please leave a comment and tell me how you would interpret the lines I wrote.

Thursday, February 28, 2008

Some drawings that didn't make it

WoW! So my blog has silently crossed 300 posts and I've achieved my triple century. And I didn't want the blog to start getting stagnant now. I figured I had enough time to make a new blog post so here goes!

These are some of the drawings that didn't make it to my portfolio. I was recommended against using them.

gesture drawing photo1 by ~yashrg on deviantART

many of you might think this should never have been a candidate for the portfolio, but it was actually a semi finalist. It got kicked out in the second last round of picking drawings for the portfolio. And I had gotten it photographed before then. So I can post it here.



Grizzly Bear again by ~yashrg on deviantART



Goat by ~yashrg on deviantART

Monday, February 25, 2008

Sheridan Portfolio Submission

Portfolio submission finally done! I'm so relieved! I feel like blogging the whole incident. I was pretty zoned out in the beginning, because I was still sleepy, but then Oliver just comes up to me and he's really hyper because he's high on energy drinks. "HEY! Where are the Instructor guys?" And it was only 8:15 or something back then, so they were in the classroom talking/discussing. I pointed him to it, and he walks, really fast, like roadrunner, to the door, and looks in, then comes back out and says "This one girl saw me and pointed (doing action). I was like, UH, OK!" And just does the roadrunner walk again. It was SO HILARIOUS! That thing woke me up good. Even after a couple seconds, I was still thinking about it and going, "what just happened?"
Mickey was with me there. He was with me throughout the night. He helped me put together my portfolio. He said He'd wake me up in the morning, make sure I didn't sleep through the portfolio submission. But I had set alarms and so I actually woke up before him. I didn't even have anything to eat, I have this thing on my tongue since the last couple of days that just burns whenever it touches any other surface. So I just had a glass of water, and we walked to the college at around 7:50 am. This was the earliest I've been outside in a LONG LONG TIME. Anyways, it was beautiful to see the morning sun. The sun close to and during spring and summer is really beautiful. Anyways, because I was talking with Mik, time really flew by. We weren't the first ones there, but the number of people quickly grew after we arrived.
As they started collecting the photos, we went to the back of the queue. I saw Ben after a really long time.

We didn't talk for long, because I noticed Alex Zimmer. It was really exciting to see him after such a long time. Because in my head, there had always been a curiosity whether I had gotten better than him. And as he showed his portfolio to us, I realized that my portfolio does show more clearly the skills that the portfolio review people are looking for. And I was feeling a little more confident. I think I need to thank alex for this. LOL. He had put in a LOT of personal pieces. He thinks, the portfolio requirement sheet says minimum 5 personal pieces. I doubt that. Also, He put in the giant foot drawing we did in life drawing class in second semester art fundamentals. I remember Brenda had specifically told us the animation portfolio review guys don't like this drawing. So I want to wish him good luck because he'll need it.

When I got to the desk to hand in my portfolio, Harsh said he couldn't find my name. I thought he was kidding. But in a few seconds, I realized that he was actually searching for my name on the list and was unable to find it. I panicked! This could not be happening! I tried staying cool by laughing it off... yeah, like Boman Irani in munnabhai mbbs. ;) Eventually, he found my name, but he said that I hadn't registered. OMG! this would mean that I could even come back tomorrow and drop off my portfolio! But I didn't want to take a chance with that and I just wanted it to get over with. So I handed it in. My  portfolio number was 333. Well, someone had to get three threes, but I was really excited that it was me. I talked to lisa I think and she was telling me in china, 444 is considered an unlucky number, as it stands for death!

Saturday, February 23, 2008

oakville transit has the most ridiculous schedule

The day started out absolutely wrong! I totally forgot about the 19 bus that passes from oakmead at around 8 am when going to the Go station. As I was walking to the stop for number 13, I thought I was late and I decided to go to the college because I remember there is one bus that gets to the go station just in time for the 8:30 train to toronto.

But the schedule on display showed the schedule of bus 24, which is supposed to leave the sheridan stop at 8:35 and reach the go station at 8:50. That's ridiculous! Why would they schedule a bus to get there, after the connecting train-that most passengers take- has left? I hoped that it would come early and we'd make it there in time, but it didn't. I talked to the driver, and he told me its always been like this. That's when I realized the bus that I'd take was the number 20.

Well, my bad luck didn't stop there. As I put 50 cents in the fare collection thing, and started to look for my go train ticket, which I thought I had in my backpack, I had a flash. The backpack I took to the museum on tuesday, was my blue jansport. I had the go train ticket in that. Fuck! This meant I'd have to pay 2 more dollars for the bus, and buy a new ticket for today!

And as I am waiting at the go station for the 9:30 train, I wonder what else can go wrong...

Friday, February 22, 2008

Sheridan Animation portfolio

Ok, a quick quick update, before I get back to work. Oliver just drove me back to my place. I really appreciate that. I hate walking in the cold. I wish all the snow would just go away already! Spring break is not much fun without the 'spring.' hehe

I am really close to finishing my room drawings, I did a clean version of the view of the person, and showed it to oliver, and he pointed out a glitch with the laptop. I don't know how I didn't see it. I don't know what I'd do without him. I am done with my hand drawings and my expression sheet. I already have one action pose drawn out, and I am pretty confident about the other one too.

And I just realized, I hadn't mentioned this before, but I'm handing in my portfolio on monday, about 54 or so hours from now. wish me luck!

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

drawing animals from royal ontario museum

There's always something to write about when you're actually doing stuff. All I did on sunday was waste time and thus I didn't have anything to write about except "I feel like shit." That's gotta stop.

Today, after I got back from shopping, I was having second thoughts about going to the museum. I was thinking I could go to life drawing today and study for my mythology test (which is tomorrow!) if I don't waste so much time going all the way to toronto and back. As I was sitting in front of the computer listening to music, I saw Sujata was online.

I really wish I could post the chat here. It was really interesting. She had recently read my blog and asked how my back was doing.. I told her the truth about the recent realization I had.. Eventually I made up my mind about going and as we were saying bye, she says "you seemed weird today." Lol!

Now, I don't know what she was talking about, but I know exactly how weird it is to be writing notes to oneself on the sketchbook or drawings one's working on. Not talking about some funny comments/dialogue that relate to your drawing/illustration. I'm talking about stuff that you'd normally ask a third person or a remark someone else would make on your drawing. I say this is the result of extreme loneliness. Well, its not like I don't have ANYONE to talk to, and that's why, thankfully, I'm not writing "hey yash, how are you doing?" to myself and then responding to it. (Uh.. Do I have to?) laugh prompt- ha ha.

I really need someone who draws with me. (ok wait. I Have to say that I didn't need to put the ha ha. If you know me well enough, you'd know my sense of humor by now and know that I'm just joking. ;) ) I don't have someone who works on animation stuff with me. And me working in the pit 'around' or in front of someone isn't the same thing. There has to be an interaction, talking, etc. and I don't mean "bugger off, don't bother me!" kind. All mickey does when he comes over is sit in front of the computer and watch stuff, download stuff and eat stuff.

and yeah, I'm on my way to the museum. Will let you know how it went.

Monday, February 18, 2008

Kinkos bad. Digital camera good.

I told my dad that it would have been so much better if I had a digital camera to take pictures of my drawings... Because scanning these large format 18x24 drawings isn't easy. There aren't a lot of places that have the right kind of hardware for this task. And even when you find a place that has the equipment, it doesn't always work right. Then there's dealing with arrogant people and shelling out a bucketload of money. And I am about to tell you guys about my sad experience at Kinkos this morning. 

First, The place is in missisauga, a pretty long drive away from home. But it took me a good 2 hours to get there, because vironica had some other tasks on her to-do list. As we got there, I was in for a shock, because the prices were way, WAY higher than the 50 cents per sheet that people at the workshop had mentioned. Even then, I said, might as well do it since I came all the way. Thinking that the cost for color scanning would be even more, I just went for the black and white one. But before scanning could begin, I had to sign a waiver, saying that if anything happens to my drawings in the scanner, it's not their responsibility. I was REALLY scared for a moment there. But as they assured me that the likeliness of that happening was very low, I relaxed and signed the thing.

I proceeded to scan all the 'picked' drawings. I didn't do the other extra ones, because the total was already going to be around 50 dollars. at 5.99 for first one, and 1.99 for each one after that! But when I went to check all my scans, a lot of them were totally washed out. The brightness/exposure of the scanner was too much! Plus, they were being saved in pdf format instead of an image format like jpeg or tiff. On the plus side, the file size was considerably smaller. After going through all the 19 scans, I found only 9 of them to be usable. I figured I might as well scan some other drawings while I'm here. So I scanned some of the rejects... the ones that Gerard asked me to trash. And I actually trashed two of the life drawings right there because I saw that the leg in one was giant and the other one had some weird stuff going on with the hands. 

But this time, the scans didn't go through to their computer! WTF! I just wasted so much time feeding each document to the scanner while my heart was pounding against my ribs scared that the scanner will eat my drawings. I asked her to take a look at it and she said she will have to turn off the computer and turn it back on again. I waited for the whole process to complete on their ancient computer. And waited... and waited... and waited. Finally, she asked me to try one document and see if it was working. Hurray! The document showed up in their computer! So I rescanned the rejects, and as she transferred the last document into my usb key, I heaved a sigh of relief that its FINALLY DONE!

I didn't like it in there one bit! The girl who was helping me out wasn't really a people person. Even though she was trying to be nice, she wasn't trying hard enough. At one point, she said 'try to sketch harder next time.' And I just snickered pretending she was trying to be funny. She was so disrespectful! One of my scans showed the other side of the page which happened to be one of my warm up pages. And she says "that's one of those scribbly pages" WTF?!!! Then while I was paying, she asked to see my SPC card, and as I was trying to find it, she reached into my wallet and pulled out a card. I was so furious! I was gonna yell out, "Get outta my wallet you do that fugly bitch!"