Class 2 coming to an end!

Well, summer's officially over and my 2nd class at Animation Mentor is coming to an end (coincidence? I think not). I've learned a lot about body mechanics and realized how hard it is to convince your audience what you want to show with your animation. For my final assignment I chose the baseball pitch option, to tie into my first turn around assignment with the Yankee outfielder turning around to watch the ball go over the fence for a homerun. I have a new found appreciation for all animation now, I was pretty naive before not realizing how much work actually went into it. I feel like I'm grasping the concepts that I'm learning this quarter, the lectures are very intense and insightful and there's a lot to digest in each one. In the past I would watch the lecture twice in the week, one of the times taking notes on it and the 2nd time was just to pick up what I missed from watching it the first time. My new technique is to watch the lecture early in the week and take notes on it, then go back and watch the lecture from the prior week as well as review the notes. That seems to help not ingest soooo much in one week and make for a nice review after applying the lecture to the current assignment. I feel like as all I want to do is practice, practice practice animation. The lack of patience that I have makes it really hard to want to become a great animator right NOW! I know that it's going to take a lot of time, and it's something that I'm never going to master (back to my whole golf comparison). Every great animator till the day they die always talk about how they're always learning something new, or how they always struggle with their shots. It's kind of intimidating and exciting to know that I picked a career that will always challenge me and will always have new obstacles to overcome. Anyway, this post is all over the place, I'm not a very good writer, I'm just sort of writing as thoughts enter my mind. My pitch animation final is due on Sunday this week and then next week is a short one, basically making a progress reel of my body mechanics animations. So I'm going to have to go back in and adjust/revise my animations that I've already turned in, but with more of the knowledge that I've gained this class, hopefully it's not going to be too bad.... who knows though. Then light 'em and render 'em off..... sounds like a nice final week... Let's hope it is!!