Thursday, July 07, 2005

Eating on the right side of the mouth

A week ago on the weekend I had strong tooth pain when chewing or getting cold stuff on my upper back left tooth (there probably is a name for it). I got an appointment at the dentist who is in the same house that we live in for the following monday after work. Of course through traffic jam and me trying to be smart and walk/run by the standing cars I was hoping to catch a bus that was more ahead than the one I had left. Didn't work out. I saw the bus drive past me and had to take some other time consuming public transportations to get to the dentist. I was 50 minutes late but the dentist still treated me. She said that the tooth that was hurting was a total mess and that she had to take it out.
I was afraid cause I had never had a tooth pulled before ( I mean those that you are supposed to keep for the rest of your life). But the injection was strong enough and I hardly felt anything. Praise God for narcotics.
There was a huge hole inside my tooth... hmm, so that's why I used to call it "my collector tooth" cause I could always get some meat out of it even hours after meals.
The one next to it didn't look to well either so maybe next week I will need to get another filling or a root canal treatment.

For AM I blocked out Stu walking as a kind of dinosaur (some say it looks like a chicken). I really learned from David's (my new mentor) critique. He said that the most important thing is to determine what the character you are animating is thinking throughout the whole shot. Well I didn't consider that but just wanted a funny, silly walk. He also stressed out that each keypose should always have a clear siluette, should always be clear and readable.
I find it quite challenging getting timing, spacing, good arcs AND siluette right. Sometimes it seems like having a certain clear pose destroys a good arc. It's like playing Majjong: You see a fitting pair but need anther pair to be removed before you can get to that and another one for that and so on.
Those challenges in animating are both frustrating (when you can't find a good solution) and also rewarding (when you find one). Who needs Majjong if he animates?