Eighteen*2

37. (COMPLETE) Replace laptop battery.

My insurance claim for my Macbook battery came through a while ago now and I cashed it in and bought a replacement battery. It's excellent! It means I can take my laptop places again without having to worry about dragging the power adapter along as well and the best thing is it was covered under my insurance so I didn't have to shell out $200 for it - which was basically why I was putting up with it in the first place.


9. (COMPLETE) Update folio site.

This particular item will be completed over and over I think. I think I was meaning for a new template to go up before I crossed this off but decided against a complete redesign for now - it's something I've got to stop doing every 6 months. That said, I have changed the design slightly - but the most important change is the content. The Design and Illustration sections have been overhauled, Motion remains the same, my About has been completely reworked, CV updated and the background changed as well. Comparison above (the scale difference is due to different resolutions/monitors).


3. (PROGRESS!) Lose 5kgs.


Started a new diet on the 4th. Basically it includes actually eating 3 meals in a day, smaller portions, healthier meals (more veg), next to no soft drink, more water and juice, bit more walking etc, next to no snacks and what snacks I have are nuts and eating slower. It seems to be working! My weight as of the 4th was 74kgs. My weight as of today (18th) is 71.5kgs. That's an average of basically 1kg a week just by eating better! That was pretty much the problem mind you - so, pretty happy about this!


16. (PROGRESS!) Obtain new dvd shelving unit.


My parents are currently painting and rearranging our house in Young for the first time that I can remember! This means some new furniture is moving in and some old is moving out! Dad has had these white bookshelves in the study... Well, forever! And he's swapping them out for something else. Not one to throw things out he's trying to figure out a use for the shelves - so I asked if I could have at least one of them (there are two) for my dvds. They're roomy so there will be no issues with box sets and metal tins not fitting AND it provides me with more space to put dvds and strangely enough will not take up more space than my current set up. Less Even! So when I move I will be getting those!


17. (PROGRESS!) Own a 100 year old book.


I had forgotten that as a graduation present to myself I picked up an 'antique classic' version of Robinson Crusoe from a second-hand book shop in Fitzmaurice St in Wagga last year. I checked out the publishing date the other day whilst sorting through my books the other day and it was published in 1911! so that means next year it will be 100 years old! It's crazy how long books can last if they are cared for appropriately.


18. (PROGRESS!) Watch 3 'alternate' films.


Two down one to go. I have watched Just Add Water and The Life Aquatic with Steve Sizzou.


23. (PROGRESS!) Read 1 chapter per day of a book for a month.


Starting today!


35. Camp in the Blue Mountains.


Possibly stealing one of dad's tents while in Young next week to go camping on the upcoming long weekend.

Seventeen*2

Current WIP.

For several purposes. More concept art for my MAP project, as well as expanding my illustration folio and also possibly serving a purpose in another project as well. It's called multi-tasking kids! At the moment everything that I do I try to tie into my MAP work as well because I need to do as much as I can on that while I have the time. Doing freelance since the end of June up until the start of this week chewed up a ridonculous amount of my time and has left me with some catching up to do before the October assessment.

Finger crossed!

I had a frustrating time doing the lineart for old Jack (above). So much so that I lost it at one point and almost gave up but as you can see that didn't stick. I just took a different approach - pink! I think it's cool... don't you?

Nine*7

Portfolio site V8.5 has been online for almost a week now. Go and check it out at www.dkirkland.com. With this complete and fully functional I have finally been able to move on from that (revisiting for the occasional update) to working on some vfx for my new showreel. You know, the sort of stuff that I have saying and been meaning to do for the past 4 years whilst at uni but when it comes to doing it my inspiration wavers to the point of non-existance. Uni Holidays will do that to you. So I spent a bit of time scouring through old backups of projects, both uni and personal - looking for things that need starting/finishing/touching up. One that I am focusing on at the moment is a re-envisioning of Nick and my zombie short film disaster 'Perennial' from first semester 3rd Year (2008). I was abysmally disappointed by the project, possibly due to a combination of my not taking charge as I possibly should have and letting Nick take the reigns. Mind you, I am equally at fault as he is. So you could call what I am now doing MY version of one of the scenes. Mind you, the footage isn't the ideal for this sort of work. Nor are the actor's non-existant makeup.

A brief history; Perennial originnaly appeared as a rotoscoped piece with digital backgrounds insterted and lighting added later on. It turned out ok, but not fantastic in my books. So here I am nearly 2 years later attempting something that may or may not work with the footage. I am still going to attempt digital backgrounds - which in itself makes my job harder, despite the fact that we filmed in the blue/greenscreen studio down in TV Land at CSU Wagga we were making use of the space opposed to the bluescreen itself. Thus my first hurdle - keying out the background manually using masks is a hug task, and as is attempting to get the optimum "key" from the background as is possible.

Original Footage:


Masked Footage:


So you can see there that I am getting a decent result, but I have no hope of handling that hair better than I have in the above shot. But I think once it's all blended in it may be reasonable. The major issue that I have is that obviously the actors are lacking in the appropriate makeup - due to the rotoscoping there was no reason for us to worry about makeup - time saving back then, painful now. I have a number of options however - go for the 80's Dawn of the Dead style zombies which could be achieved very easily by playing with the saturation and colour balance, or of course there is a bigger transformation that would require essentially frame by frame edits of the actors into zombies via photoshop and some motion tracking. It's not the worst idea in the world, but time-consuming and my aim is to have this completed somewhere in the week of the 11th - 17th of January. Which is also something that may or may not happen with me moving to Sydney on this coming Tuesday. We'll see. I am hoping that the masking of at least these 3 actors will be done before I move - hard push but it could be possible. After that it is a bit more straight forward (in regards to the masking). For those interested here is what the original styling looked like;

This is just one of the things that I am doing in attempts to improve on both my skills and the work that will be shown to potential employers. I am slowly making my way through the VideoCopilot tutes as well, which are great for learning and relearning quickly. We'll see how I go.

Nine*4

I am working on Version 8.3 of my portfolio as we speak. The current site was always meant to be a placeholder until i finished uni and found the time to create one with my entire portfolio available. That time has come. I actually bought a template and am customising it to suit my needs, which is so much faster than created one from scratch - and right now I just need something up there. Looking back about a year when I had completed Version 1 (which was quickly superseded by consequent versions) it's come a pretty long way. All that there is left to do now is fill out the site with content, which I am in the process of right this moment - it just takes a bit of time sorting through a few years worth of work, making it web friendly and creating some sort of blurb to accompany it. Not that the latter really requires too much anyway.

The plan (as it stands) is to have this site active and online by the end of next week, which is a very attainable goal. The only thing that is really going to slow it down is my moving from Wagga to Young on Monday. So basically I won't be working on the site Sunday/Monday, but there is a reasonable chance that depending on what I am doing in between now and then that it may be completed by then anyway.

AGDA Poster Annual

Received the weekly update from AGDA (Australian Graphic Design Association) today which had a link to their annual poster competition, deadline is the 5th June and I have decided that I should most definitely do something for it. If nothing else it will provide me with a new portfolio piece – something that displays my passion for the area in which I will soon be seeking employment. Because I do get very excited about design and animation and as my lecturers having been mentioning of late – the majority of students portfolios (especially those coming out of CSU) display ‘student’ works which are undertaken as assessment items (non-negotiable) and no works undertaken as a personal endeavour and therefore do not display you interest and passion. And of course if i was actually short-listed or anything as amazing as that it would look fantastic in a portfolio/in a cv!

So my work for this poster will be a passion piece, I shall place updates on this blog and you can check out the brief here.