Animation - II Semester

I have been missing from blogging world for quite a while now. I was busy helping my Mom shift and adjust to a new home in Bangalore. Then it was time to finish off my 2nd semester.

In my last post I shared with you all the way we were taught about different perspectives in 2D drawing.

After the perspective we were taught shading and still life drawing. In shading we had to use different pencils plus we had to spend a lot of time on a single drawing. The more the effort, the better the drawings were. 

The subject of drawing were everyday usage things like our mobile phones, wrist watches, pencil box and so on. For still life drawings, we could draw only one or two drawings every class. Initially I had a feeling that shading and still life drawing were easy, but I hadn't tried my hand at it before. Now that I tried, the result was quite surprising.

Later on we had to do live drawings like different positions and different movement of human body. Each of the students from the class had to give a pose and the other has to draw him and next somebody else had to give the pose. The cycle continued until every student had tried his/her hand at sketching one of the class mate.

Next we were taken outdoors so that we could draw some other people. It was tough task to find someone who is not moving much. At first we felt shy to stare at people and make their sketches, but later on people themselves got interested and few went ahead and asked us to draw them. 

It was quite a unique and funny experience for all the animation students.

 After the live drawings we had to start with human anatomy, which wasn't an easy task. We had to sketch the same figure of the human body with exact proportion from different angles. Shading is very important in this type of drawing, because it gives the dept to the body. We took lot of time to do the anatomy drawings, than we did in creating characters; as in cartoon we can draw anything and get away with it, but in human it should be perfect.

 After initial struggle and a little bit of practice, I could draw better and by the end of the session, I was good enough to clear the course with good grades, yet I know I can improve a lot if I work hard on it. There is no limit to how much we can improve over our work. 

My First Month In Animation...

My Mom and my Uncle left no stone unturned at gathering information about animation before deciding to send me there. Finally it was time for my admission and I went there with my mother and uncle.

At the time of admission I saw the drawings displayed by their students in the college and also watched students working with 3D, Photoshop and other software. It scared me as I felt that I will not be that good in my creations because my drawing was not up to that mark, but then I took refuge in the thought that I will be learning to draw like them here as that was the reason I was joining them, so I shouldn’t be scared about not being good without trying it out. I had choice to take courses which had less drawing and would less of my time and one more which would have lots of drawing to do. I took the higher level course which is a little difficult compared to the others courses, as it has more drawing and we have to make our own 2d short movie. For once in my educational life I felt that I could do it!!

    On the first day my sir asked me to buy a set of different pencils like HB, 2B, 3B, 4B, 6B, etc.  I didn’t know what that meant, later on I learned that with HB we can draw very light and with 6B or 8B we can draw very dark. At first we were given to draw simple circles and other geometrical shapes so our hand could get free. After drawing the basic shapes for while, my sir asked us to draw few characters using the basic shapes. I enjoyed this work and I came up with few good characters.

These are my own characters. They were simple and fun to make.

 I gained confidence and enthusiasm to work harder when I saw that my drawing was quite good compared to my classmates the drawing. The drawing that scared me at the time of admission was done by our seniors.

I was on cloud nine as I gained hope of being one of the top students from my batch with a little more hard work.

Our sir then taught us how to draw perspective drawings, which I felt was quite easy and did pretty well in the class. Here we had to take a point according to the perspective we want to draw from, like - 1 point, 2 point, 3point, and multi-point perspective. In one point perspective, we take 1 vanishing point, in 2 point we take 2 vanishing points and so on. Here are few drawings which I drew; it may give you a little more idea about it. So this was pretty much what I learnt in my first month and enjoyed it a lot!

Characters by me

One Point Perspective

Two Point Perspective

Two Point Perspective

Three Point Perspective

I never felt like I was studying. I felt as though I was enjoying my hobby.  As I loved what I did, I worked more and started showing more interest in studies oooppsss  I mean drawing.  Throughout the time I have spent in my animation course, I never felt like I was studying, because in my mind the idea of studies was reading and writing which was very difficult for me, so I couldn’t imagine the studies could be so easy!

The Diploma Drama

I came back from US after a great trip! I was an amazing experience each day, with different things happening in my life. I met many amazing people who, if I had not met than I would not believe they existed. Also I developed a special bond with Paula aunty,  and also with especially Jay uncle who was very close to my imagination of a perfect man. I will have to create a separate blog about my experience in USA which is something very special and close to my heart.

Once back in India, it was as though I was waking up from a dream. I had to do something about my studies and choose a career. I thought of animation again, but still was scared of that as a career option, and I didn’t want to stay in a hostel or room in the city leaving behind my sister and Mom. There was no good animation college nearby.

 We had spent a lot of time enjoying ourselves in USA therefore now I didn’t have much time to think as the admissions were getting closed. I was in a hurry, and decided diploma will be a good option because it didn’t have languages to study. I had been exposed to automobile passion in USA and I planned on getting into the automobile field because I had discovered that I had passion for automobiles, in addition I had gained a lot of knowledge about automobiles in US with Jay uncle in his garage.

Again my choice was in bad luck as someone told my dad that computers are in fashion and I should opt for it. Mom was not there with us to help me out. I was not good enough to explain that working with computers and studying them were two different things to my dad who decided as I was good in applied computer science, I should study it.

I still can very well recall how my dad said that he didn’t want me to work in garage with all the oil on my cloths as his friend told him that automobile engineering was not a good field. I explained to him that it not going to be like, but it had no effect. Sadly the luck was not on my side also as in the college there were no admission open for automobile. Dad did not ask whether they could do something, but I am sure if Mom was there with us she would have changed my career course. So I was in computer science diploma before I knew what was happening.

            The different seasons of roads

Burning hot in summer                                  Dusty in winter                           Filled with muddy pot holes in rainy season

I had to travel a lot for Diploma College which was in Murudeshwar which is nearly 40 kms from Byndoor. Everyday spent 2-3 hours for travelling itself and many times we had to stand in the bus, in addition the roads were full of pot holes which made the travel very tiring. I would be dead tired by the time I came back home and would have tough time sitting down to study.            

Somehow I did pretty well in my first year with 

subjects like maths and science, and also managed first class in Second semester. But in the second year, I had problem with one of the main subject with was c programming. It was a programming language which was very important but the concept didn't go in my head however hard I tried. I again had problem with symbols and language and as a result I failed in it. Later on in the next sem we had C++ which was continuation on C. Since I didn't understand C I couldn't understand C++ and then Java which was another programming language and it went on getting harder and harder as my mind failed to understand the symbols involved in them. I didn't know the basics; therefore I couldn't understand the higher languages. Struggling hard I completed the course but could not clear all subjects. I was glad to get the C.C. (course complete certificate).

   I did not want to go for BE because I found diploma to be too difficult for me, so I discussed with my mom and decided that I should go for animation which was something I always wanted to do and also I had done pretty good editing work and drawing as my hobby.

Few of my friends from diploma where joining animation course in Arena, Jayanagar; so, I was not going there alone. I was a little sad that I had leave behind my Mom and sister back at home, but this time I had to! So this is how I end up in the animation course and finally started doing what I really enjoy.

The PUC Tragedy

 According to my Dad’s wishes I was finally in PUC college called Govt. Junior College, Byndoor, because it was in our village itself and my dad wanted me to make some friends in our native village. I have seldom been in Byndoor in my childhood, as I stayed in Bangalore and when I shifted there, I was in school which was located in another village called Gangolli. Most of my friends were from outside Byndoor. Therefore I did not have many friends in our village and my dad wanted me to make more friends in Byndoor. I did not have much option. I thought of joining the college for all the wrong reasons like it was nearby to our home and thought I could study in the time I saved by travelling,  but I was wrong. I couldn’t study well there as the school I studied earlier was quite different and we used to speak in English or Urdu. But here everyone used to speak in Kannada which I could not understand properly, especially the local dialect which was different from the Kannada in Bangalore. There was no proper place to sit the class room as it was over crowded, and most the good place was occupied by kids who could flex their muscles. I felt like being in some complete different world and couldn’t make many friends because of the language barrier. They used to joke which I never understood and that was another joke for them. Sometimes they made fun of me and I dint understand, so I used to laugh with them, which in a way I was laughing at myself. Sigh!

As for the lessons and classes, I didn’t understand what the teacher was teaching because they used to teach in Kannada as many students didn’t understand English. I did not like going there and every day I spent there was kind of torture for me. I would reach there just on time for the class to start and leave as soon as the class was over. I did not want to spend a minute more there then it was required, with that attitude I did not do well in my studies either. As for the languages, I didn’t have an option for Urdu, so I had to choose between Kannada and Hindi. As for Kannada, It was already proven that I was not good at it and it was very difficult in PUC. So I had to opt for Hindi. When all my classmates were studying and writing the notes, the teacher gave me all the basic alphabets to learn like A,B,C,D... . I used to sit in the first bench, right in front of the Hindi ma’am learning basics. It was very awkward feeling I felt back then, but I got used to it as I had in my school. Whatever effort I put, it was of no use and I couldn’t learn Hindi well. Mom gave me tuitions at home lecturer tried her best to help me out, yet I couldn’t not cope with the new language in my life. As for other subjects most of the things were taught in Kannada, as a result I didn’t understand anything. Sometimes I used to get lost in my own imagination of being a superhero, swimming in a flooded streets, a monster destroying the college etc but later on I used to study the subjects from my textbook in home but not much as I was not interested in the college or its studies anymore. The biggest problem was Hindi. I couldn’t even study that subject in home and clearing PUC looked hopeless to me no matter how hard I tried. I decided I couldn’t pass and I didn’t want to go through all the tension I had been through for SSLC. Somewhere down the year I gave up, and did not put much effort for the exams. I somehow wrote the exams and as soon as I finished my final exam, we left to USA.  There I could meet Paula aunty and Jay uncle, with whom I spent very nice time for four months. As for the result, it didn’t turn out good as expected and I had to choose for some other career.