My Trip to LA - Day 3

Wednesday March 7

Wednesday was a fantastic day!  It was probably my favorite day of the whole trip, it certainly is the day I took the most pictures.  That was the day we went to Dreamworks!  It would be a fantastic place to work.  They have a nice campus with plenty of sunshine, and free lunch and breakfast for the employees!  They let us take pictures outside the buildings, so here a few.

While we were at Dreamworks we saw Anthony Holden, a BYU alumni and storyboard artist.  He talked about how he came to work at Dreamworks and the process he went through to decide his career path.  He compared his work to the story of the Brother of Jared in the Book of Mormon (Ether 3:1-6) where he brings 16 stones to the Lord because the Lord gave him the task of deciding how the boats he built should be lit.  The Brother of Jared came up with the idea of the stones because they couldn't have fire, so he came to the Lord with the stones and asked him to touch the stones and make them give light.  The Lord did so and The Brother of Jared then proceeded to have a very spiritual and enlightening experience.  Anthony said that the Brother of Jared was like, "Lord, I have these 16 stones.  I know it's not the greatest idea, but it's the best I can come up with, please make it work?"  And that he's all like, "Lord, here are my cartoons.  I know their not very good, but they're all I can do, so would You please make them shine so I can support my family?"  I thought it was a good comparison.  It's a good humble view a good artist should have.

Then Dreamworks fed us lunch!  It was tasty good food.  After lunch we went to The Huntington Library and wandered around the gardens and museums there.  I didn't go in any of the museums, but I wandered around the gardens and tried to take some good reference pictures to draw from later.

Shortly after I took this picture my camera got dropped.  It still works fine, but the outside casing is all crunched up on one corner and the top piece is a bit out of alignment.

After the Huntington Gardens we went to visit Cliff Nielsen in his home in downtown LA.  The guy lives in a warehouse!  It was so amazing!  Lookit!

I tried to take pictures inside, but it was too dark since it was so late in the day.  He has an amazing set up!  His house is built into the front of it and then he has a huge space to use for his photography.  It was mind blowing.  He gave some really good advice as well.  He spoke out strongly for using your own reference, you can't steal stuff from other people and it's just better to make or get your own anyway.  Also, he said that you need to think of yourself first as a storyteller.  Doing that will make you a much better illustrator.

And there was a Goodyear blimp flying around.  I hadn't seen one in a while, so I documented it.  I think the picture was well timed.

After Cliff we were supposed to go to visit the Whitemoon Dreams game studio, but the car I was in got very lost.  We wandered around Chinatown for a bit before accidentally finding the highway and decided we were half-way back to the hotel already, so we might as well just go the rest of the way.  From what I heard Whitemoon Dreams was nice and a good experience, but of all the things on the trip to miss, it was the one to miss.  I'm glad that was the case, because I really enjoyed catching up on the internet that day before going to bed before everyone else got back.

My Trip to LA - Day 2

Tuesday March 6
Tuesday was a very early morning.  We had to be up and ready to go by 7:45.  We went to the studio of Jeremy Lipking first.  It was a nice little studio and he had a ton of art books around.  The two key pieces of advice I took away from him was to not overwork yourself, and to get good at what you like to do.

Then we went to California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks to see Tony Pro who teaches there.  He had a lot to say and his paintings were pretty cool.  I took a lot away from his lecture.  He said to always be thinking about art.  That will help you improve even if you can't work on it.  So, always be thinking about how you would paint or draw something, even if you don't have the time or materials to do so.  You should also multitask.  When you go to do something kind of mindless, do something to help you with your art at the same time.  Draw while you're watching TV, read while you're in the bathroom.  It will help.  You need to have different creative outlets so you can take a break from your art when it's driving you crazy or you reach a block.  It can help you de-stress and find inspiration.  You need to know how light works and how color is mixed.  He also believes there are three levels of learning to art.  The first is learning how to do it, the second is learning your own style, and the third is learning what it is you want to say with your art.  Tony was super helpful.

The next visit was Disney Animation Studios!  Disney was a fun place to visit.  The studios were nice, and everyone seemed to have plenty of space to work.  We got to see a couple different steps that animated films have to go through and we learned about their trainee program.  Bill Perkins gave a little presentation.  He talked about how you need to do research.  In order to be creative and not tied down to your reference you should do your thumbnails first, then do your research, then make your final piece.  He talked about how he never gets a perfect piece made the first try, it takes many tries.  On the way out we ran into Randy Haycock and he took us to his office and talked to us about his work and his hopes for the future of 2D animation.  He showed us how sometimes pieces of 3D films are animated in 2D first to show the 3D artists what to do or aim for in a shot.  It was really cool to see.  Look him up on YouTube.

They had this big picture-thing up in the lobby from Tangled, and I realized that Rapunzel and I are the same height.  We have the same sized hands and feet, but she seems so much bigger!  It's the head.  It's definitely the head.  It's the only thing inside the building I could squeak a picture of since they had us sign NDAs.  It's the only thing up that was from an already released movie.

After that we took it easy, especially since we managed to stick around at Disney for an hour and a half longer than originally planned.  We went and ate dinner at Big Boy, they have really good burgers there.  Then we went back to the hotel.  It had been a very long day.  I took advantage of getting back earlier than we usually did the whole trip and slept.

My Trip to LA - Day 1

I had the opportunity last week to go to Los Angeles, California on a school trip.  It was a fantastic experience and I'm going to tell you all about it and what I learned!

Monday March 5
Most people flew out with the group, but my husband, me, and two others from the group decided to drive out in order to save money.  We left at midnight Monday morning and started the long ten-ish hour drive from Provo to LA.  I had tried to nap and sleep Sunday afternoon and evening, but was fairly unsuccessful since I was so anxious and excited for the trip.

So!  We drove all the way to LA.  It was dark pretty much until we hit California.  I was awake for most of the way, I dozed off once or twice and only once was even close to an hour.  Anyway, we were headed south on I-15 which means we drive through Las Vegas.  It's about half way on the drive.  The moon had just set, dawn was still an hour or so away, when we came along to Vegas.  We come out of the canyon and there was a SEA of LIGHT!  It was beautiful!  As far as the eye could see there were little lights from horizon to horizon.  There really is nothing else like that view of dark rocks and then suddenly, light!  We had a great time looking at all the fancy casinos and cool buildings as they were all lit up.  It's definitely a sight I recommend experiencing at least once.

We arrived about three hours before everyone else, so we hung out on the California State University Northridge campus for a couple of hours after eating a picnic lunch.  I had big plans to do homework, I have a short story to write for class and it's still not done.  I set up in the library on a couch, started typing, and couldn't keep my eyes open.  I sat there for maybe fifteen minutes half-asleep, unable to open my eyes, with my laptop out on my lap.  I decided that wasn't going to work, so I put my laptop back in my backpack, set my backpack on the couch next to me, curled up on it, and promptly fell asleep for a good hour.  After that I woke back up and typed away for another hour and pretty much wrote myself into a corner.

After the library we met up with the rest of the group and listened to a presentation by Laurel Long.  She talked about the process she goes through to illustrate a book.  The key tidbits I picked up from her were that she paints with cheap little craft brushes and a medium eyeshadow brush from Target, publishers look at competitions, and if you give publishers post cards they will keep them if they like them.  She gave a lot more advice, but those were the most important and new things to me.

After Laurel Long we went to see Nathan Fowkes at the LA Academy of Fine Art.  He talked to us about his work as a lighting designer for Dreamworks.  He gave a lot of advice, but focused on how you need to practice and push yourself artistically at least once a week or else you'll go nowhere.  You need to do the equivalent of gesture drawings with environments, go plein air painting (I don't know how to spell it) because it's the best way to learn about light and color.  It's good to do studies every night.  You don't know what a color does until you put it into context with other colors.  He was a very nice guy and very good at what he does.

After Nathan we went to visit Joseph Todorovich in his studio/apartment.  He had a fantastic set up with plenty of space and working areas.  He had three different easels with in progress paintings, and they were beautiful.  Sadly I fell asleep on one of his antique couches since I was so exhausted from the long day.  I did manage to catch him give the advice of how it's important to be passionate and to always be working before I nodded off.  We got back to the hotel after 10:30, and I did a few things before finally falling asleep sometime before midnight.  I didn't take any pictures the first day.

This is getting to be a long enough post as it is, so I think I'll post this for now and give you the rest of the week later.  I promise there will be pictures!  More exciting stories also!

Lists of Things I've Seen or Read

Anime
.hack//sign
12 Kingdoms
Black Butler
Bleach (most of it)
Blue Exorcist
Cowboy Bebop
Dragon Half
Escaflowne
Fruits Basket
Fullmetal Alchemist
Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood
Ghost in the Shell (1st Season)
Hetalia (currently watching)
Kino's Journey
Mushishi
Natsume Yuujinchou (currently watching)
Outlaw Star
Princess Tutu
Read or Die OVA
Tiger & Bunny
Tsubasa
Ultramaiden Valkarie
Utawaremono

Anime Movies
Blue Submarine 6
Cardcaptor Sakura
Castle in the Sky
Escaflowne
Howl's Moving Castle
Kiki's Delivery Service
Metropolis
Naussica and the Valley of the Wind
Ponyo
Princess Mononoke
Return of the Cat
Spirited Away
Tokyo Godfathers

Manga
Bleach
Blue Exorcist (currently reading)
Dragon Eye
Dragon Half
Eden (1st 2 books.  Don't read.  Bad stuff.)
Escaflowne
Fruits Basket
Fullmetal Alchemist
Kuroshitsuji (currently reading)
Magic Knight Rayearth
Matantei Loki
Natsume Yuujinchou
Tsubasa

Cartoon Series
Avatar the Last Airbender
Kim Possible
Magic School Bus
My Little Pony Friendship is Magic
Star Trek

TV Series
Babylon 5
Big Bang Theory
Crusade
Dr. Who (currently watching)
Farscape
Firefly
Moonlight
Sherlock
Star Trek DS9
Star Trek OS
Star Trek NG
Supernatural (1st 14 episodes, didn't catch my interest.)

Plan on Watching Someday
.hack//G.U.
Battlestar Galactica original
Danny Phantom
Ghost in the Shell Season 2
Kino's Journey Movies 1: Life Goes on, and 2: The Land of Sickness
Legend of Zelda cartoon
Millenium Actress
Naruto?
Paprika
Stargate
Star Trek Voyager
Steins;Gate

Plan on Reading Someday
Dragonball Z
Mushishi
Scott Pilgrim


Please note lists are incomplete and will be updated regularly.  Last update 18 December 2012.

Smash Brawl!

So this weekend I had a party with a couple of friends.  Both of these friends have served missions for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints so were out of the loop on what was going on for 18 months, so we've been watching movies together that they've missed (well, one of them missed, the other was quicker at seeing some of them).  So far we've watched Megamind, Ironman 2, and on Friday we watched Avatar (not the airbender).  We watched the extra-extended one, so that it would have some new stuff for the friend who had already seen it four times.  It was so much fun!  My one friend was already freaking out about how awesome it was when we were only ten minutes in, and during the big battle she said, "Animation is so addicting!   Who needs ecstasy when you have CG!"  We all laughed and decided that was going up on our quote wall.  We put up a large piece of paper in my life drawing class to write our silliness on.  So far it's mostly covered with quotes from me... we need to change that!

We also played Super Smash Brothers Brawl on my Wii.  My one friend hadn't touched it since her mission and thought we would totally beat her... she beat us every brawl.  I decided to practice so I would know what I was doing the next time we play, which will probably be this weekend.  I've gotten to the point now where my husband and I are almost evenly matched.  My favored character is Pitt, although I really want to play Link.  Maybe when I get a bit better I'll try Link out again.  Although, my one friend despises Link and Peach because of how other people used them in the past.  However, for some reason she feels like helping Pitt, which could be to my advantage.  I really stink at flying back up onto the stage if I fall off.

Anyway, just thought I should update this a bit more often.

Odd out