Little update!

I found out recently where I'm going to be living in Japan! The place is...

Sakai City, Osaka prefecture!

It's a pretty big town just south of Osaka which apparently acted as a very important seaport in Japanese history. The guy I'm replacing already sent me a video tour of the apartment and its AWESOME. Here's a little view of the surrounding area I'll be living in:



Woo! next step is registering for for visas and planes and then getting ready to GO!

April is here, but May is not quite yet

Some new stuff that's been happening around here!:

I changed the layout of the blog and cleaned some stuff up a bit. Got rid of that amazing picture of George Clooney as well. It just didn't make any sense any more. I'm keeping the name though, because I like it and it references an old inside joke I had with my roommates, so yeah I'm keeping it. It works as a blog title too, because you are investigating (stalking) me, kinda. I'm not totally sure about the color scheme yet, as it is the default, so I'm sure I will mess around with that on a later date :D

Also I just found out yesterday that I was accepted to become an assistant English teacher in Japan starting in July. I'm really excited about that and feel really fortunate that I was given the opportunity. Hopefully the things we get to talk about here will become a little more interesting in the coming months.

Until then!

Animation Mentor: Class 2

I'm in week 2 now of the second term of Animation Mentor, which is titled "The Psychology of Body Mechanics." Its going to be a great class I think, but unlike last term, there is going to be a lot fewer animations. In the span of the whole 12-week class, it looks like we're only going to be doing 3 or 4 animations. Good news since that means better more fun stuff for you all to watch! Bad news in that it gives me much less info to update on. I'll just have to find other interesting things to talk about here, which has been my goal for this blog since I created it. Which, by the way, we are nearing its 1 year anniversary!

I'm working on a couple character design and drawing projects, I hope I get to post those soon. Otherwise, have a wonderful day!

Animation Mentor: Class 1 Progress Reel

I have finished class 1 at animation mentor, which means I am currently 1/6 done with the program, which is a pretty cool feeling. All in all its a really great program with a lot of focus in making connections in the industry, which I'm finding out more and more is one of the most important things you can do.

So, next Monday already the next term starts. I'm really excited to get into more advanced animation stuff, so it should be a good experience. And I intend to put even more time and energy into the program this time around as well! Wish me luck!

Oh yeah, here's the reel:


Animation Mentor: Class 1 Progress Reel from Alex Harms on Vimeo.

spring!! :D

Both yesterday and today the weather has been so nice that we've been able to open the windows and the patio door. Provided of course we have the screen up, since we have cats



Anyways the weather has been so nice that in the past 2 days I've been able to go outside and go jogging. It's been wonderful!

Animation Mentor Update!

So, here's what I've been doing the last 2 weeks in Animation Mentor! First, we have the walk cycle that they gave us two weeks to work on. Week 1 was strictly blocking, while this past week was more timing and clean up work. I learned that walks like this are called vanilla walks, because they are pretty boring and have really no defining characteristics:


Animation Mentor: Class 1 Week 9 Vanilla walk from Alex Harms on Vimeo.

And next here is some sketches I did. First is for physical strength, which I had to kind of rush out, and the second is concerned:





And then finally, some posed and rendered images showing both physical strength and concerned, respectively :D





Talk to again soon!

March in Minnesota!

It just recently turned into March, which is kind of nice. It feels like the closer I get to spring and summer the better. I'm not sure what's going to be going on this month, but I'm hoping it will be interesting....next week I'm going to be going to New York City to see my sister in a play, which is a week I'm looking forward to. Anyways, I didn't upload anything for last weeks Animation Mentor assignment because I didn't really have anything to upload...the assignment takes two weeks so I'll be uploading it this weekend!

Anyways, not much point to me writing here, just wanted to check in...

:D