New book.
So, about a month and a half ago we went into the last Blockbuster that still manages to remain within 30 miles of our home. We were looking for a movie to rent that would be entertaining for the Beastlet that was anything OTHER than Bolt(his favorite movie) or the only 8 episodes of Sponge Bob(the only other thing he'll watch) that we own. We had found a season of Sponge Bob that none of us had seen before and we went with it. Ryan decided he wanted to pick out game for himself so I took Beastlet with me to look at the candy racks and the new but unexplored book rack.
They had quite a few very cute children's books that I thought were a tad bit pricey for what they were worth and how long they could possibly last in the wake of a 19 month old boy. While looking through the books one in particular caught my eye. The Illusion of Life - Disney Animation by Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston. This monster of a book is 575 pages long and I'm betting it weighs AT LEAST 10 lbs. It's cover to cover pure instruction, practices, motivations, ethical and moral structuring, information about the amount of work put into and everything else you could ever possibly want to know about the art of successful, emotional and immersing animation as only Disney can tell. This book has more information in the first chapter than I was taught in 11 weeks of the 'official' Animation class at AIP with Ms. Love. After skimming the rest of the book I'm confident in saying that it has more information on character creation, story telling, drawing and animation than the entire Game Art and Design Major at AIP. It was published in 1981 and had I know that this book had existed back in 2004 I could have saved my self quite a few grand. Guess how much Blockbuster wanted for it! I've seen this book being listed at a value between $40 and $500 online and the recommended price on the sleeve is $60. http://www.amazon.com/Illusion-Life-Disney-Animation/dp/0786860707 Blockbuster only wanted $17.99 for it and there are still 2 copies left in beautiful condition!
I've wanted this book really bad ever since then and every time we went into Blockbuster after that I would go over and just stare at it longingly. Today Ryan came home with it!
For any of you interested in animation, story telling, Disney or art history in general I highly recommend picking up a copy of this book. It's worth every penny, even if you have to pay $40+ for it.
EDIT:
Came back for a quick minute to update everyone on my breaks. I'm up and about now without any braces. The muscles are all still pretty weak and I still have a little pain in my ankle but all in all I'm feeling pretty good.
http://www.clker.com/cliparts/a/3/2/b/12641390181929033490Human_arm_bones_diagram.svg.hi.png
Observe the outer nubby of the "Radius Head" on the diagram's left arm. After the swelling went down and the healing was getting along nicely, my 4 weeks check up X-rays showed that I had cracked the nubby all the way around. Had I put even slightly more weight on my arm, not rolled as quickly or even changed a diaper after the fact when the docs told me not to then I would have broken it off completely and would have had to under go surgery to fix it. I was extremely lucky that this did not happen. As for my ankle, I have a hard time believing that it was broken where the doc pointed out. I saw no bone scarring where he pointed nor have I ever felt any pain there(the top of my foot near the bend of my ankle. All of the pain I've experienced has been back in my heel under my outer ankle nub and pretty much throughout the flat area above the 'carpals' in my foot and where the femur meets them as if some of it had been smashed. Either way, it's healing up nicely so I'm not complaining.
They had quite a few very cute children's books that I thought were a tad bit pricey for what they were worth and how long they could possibly last in the wake of a 19 month old boy. While looking through the books one in particular caught my eye. The Illusion of Life - Disney Animation by Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston. This monster of a book is 575 pages long and I'm betting it weighs AT LEAST 10 lbs. It's cover to cover pure instruction, practices, motivations, ethical and moral structuring, information about the amount of work put into and everything else you could ever possibly want to know about the art of successful, emotional and immersing animation as only Disney can tell. This book has more information in the first chapter than I was taught in 11 weeks of the 'official' Animation class at AIP with Ms. Love. After skimming the rest of the book I'm confident in saying that it has more information on character creation, story telling, drawing and animation than the entire Game Art and Design Major at AIP. It was published in 1981 and had I know that this book had existed back in 2004 I could have saved my self quite a few grand. Guess how much Blockbuster wanted for it! I've seen this book being listed at a value between $40 and $500 online and the recommended price on the sleeve is $60. http://www.amazon.com/Illusion-Life-Disney-Animation/dp/0786860707 Blockbuster only wanted $17.99 for it and there are still 2 copies left in beautiful condition!
I've wanted this book really bad ever since then and every time we went into Blockbuster after that I would go over and just stare at it longingly. Today Ryan came home with it!
For any of you interested in animation, story telling, Disney or art history in general I highly recommend picking up a copy of this book. It's worth every penny, even if you have to pay $40+ for it.
EDIT:
Came back for a quick minute to update everyone on my breaks. I'm up and about now without any braces. The muscles are all still pretty weak and I still have a little pain in my ankle but all in all I'm feeling pretty good.
http://www.clker.com/cliparts/a/3/2/b/12641390181929033490Human_arm_bones_diagram.svg.hi.png
Observe the outer nubby of the "Radius Head" on the diagram's left arm. After the swelling went down and the healing was getting along nicely, my 4 weeks check up X-rays showed that I had cracked the nubby all the way around. Had I put even slightly more weight on my arm, not rolled as quickly or even changed a diaper after the fact when the docs told me not to then I would have broken it off completely and would have had to under go surgery to fix it. I was extremely lucky that this did not happen. As for my ankle, I have a hard time believing that it was broken where the doc pointed out. I saw no bone scarring where he pointed nor have I ever felt any pain there(the top of my foot near the bend of my ankle. All of the pain I've experienced has been back in my heel under my outer ankle nub and pretty much throughout the flat area above the 'carpals' in my foot and where the femur meets them as if some of it had been smashed. Either way, it's healing up nicely so I'm not complaining.