Catching Up!

Ok, so it's been a long time since my last blog and I don't have a lot of time to keep it up to date, so I'm gonna have to speed through what I've been up to, hold on tight!

1. Back at Uni now! Had a chilled week with friends watching movies, playing games, etc, etc. Finally getting back into the swing of things but I'm already spending too much money! Cinema trips are just so expensive!

2. Watched Sherlock Holmes with my sister at the cinema. Awesome movie and although it's got lots of action and pretty dark plot, I've been told it's actually very accurate to the book, which makes me want to read it... But the film had great acting especially the interaction between Holmes and Watson, the English accents were pretty good, the story was interesting and surprisingly intelligent and it was overall entertaining and laugh out loud hilarious.

3. Completed Assassin's Creed II!!! All I can say is that this game is epic. Ezio starts a bit of a loser but then everything changes when his family is victim to a rather nasty conspiracy and your character grows into one hot badass! Ok, so I'm a little biased, but it was a great game with many improvements from the first (I completed this one 100% which I'm quite proud of! =] ) and I absolutely cannot wait until the next game! The ending (without spoiling it) was immense! I've heard they will be making it a trilogy, which I will be happy with, but they can do A LOT more with the storyline and I'm looking forward to seeing it unfold. I'd love to see a female assassin for the next game! :D

4. Received the project for my next animation brief and it is so much more exciting then my last one! I have to design an original character and a four-legged animal to use to animate a series of exercises over the next 12 weeks. I'm really enjoying creating my character at the moment, (her name is Danielle) and there will be development artwork coming soon for her and her "pet"! ^__^
We have to use the same character for every exercise so everyone is working hard on creating somebody that we will want to animate and love to draw. More on this on the weekend!

Only issue is the tight deadlines; we are gonna be worked to the bone this semester, but it will be so worth it!

5. Princess and the Frog!!! Finally saw this film today after months of waiting and was blown away! The art and animation was top-notch and was accompanied by a lovely story and excellent music. This is worth seeing at the cinema if just for the sound, which was incredible. The power of the songs was spine-tingling--well done again Randy Newman! I was a little disappointed with the design of Princess Tiana as a frog, it was pretty weak in comparison to Prince Naveen's frog design, and similarities to the Swan Princess was somewhat distracting at times.
Nevertheless, this is a superb film and will hopefully mark the return of 2D animation in feature films, which was sorely missed on my part. The production quality was excellent throughout, I believe that it proves itself at least as equal as 3D counterparts! With luck, other animation studios will think likewise!

6. Had an awesome time last night at a Comedy Central night in my Uni. I wasn't expecting anything hugely fantastic, but was pretty entertained by the first comedian who presented everyone. The second was good, but a bit of a Noel Fielding knock-off and had a tendency to lose audiences on long and rambling jokes. But the last... WOW! We had the absolutely fabulous Mitch Benn who came on with a little guitar and Thin Lizzy shirt and brought us all to tears with laughter. He interacted with (read as; make fun of) the crowd, made Star Wars sound effects, sang songs about killing James Blunt and a love song translation of men's dirty habits.
He was so good, Rob, Paul, Dale, Alex and I chipped in to buy one of his CDs afterwards. I have yet to listen to it yet, but will be burning it tomorrow! :D

7. Almost forgot! Got my grades and assessment back with good marks! I basically got the equivalent of an A minus for everything that I did last semester. Yay! ^__^
I had one of the best lectures ever the other morning too, I'll update with what happened another day as it will be a part of my homework to update my progress from the lessons!

So, yes! Having a great time, but don't expect to be hearing from me very often! This animation work is going to be occupying a lot of my time, but I'll post up my progress every now and then. =]
I also got FFIV for the DS to play at last, I've heard good things about it so looking forward to playing it!

Ta-Ta for now!
Love Gemma xxx