Saturday, December 31, 2016

Poetry: In Reference to Philosophy as an Artist

Poetry In Reference to Philosophy as an Artist:

DeviantArt Version

In the new year of 2016,
It was decided FOR ME,
That I attend University,
And further my education....

And, whom decided this for me?
No, 'twas not I,
'Twas my spouse...

So many years had I spent,
At my desk, with my computer,
Or smartphone in hand,
Researching, contemplating, learning...

Philosophy had become a major part of my life,
More so than previously ever!
Yet, as this new year began,
Due to my philosophy,

I'd become more filled with a desire to return to my Art anew...

You must enroll as a Philosophy major,
Said my spouse.
You may NOT ARGUE.
That is FINAL.

Yet, my spouse was enrolled for the past several years as what?
A Fine Art Major?

I love philosophy.
I cannot live without Philosophy.
I live philosophy!
My life is Philosophy!

Yet, ART is the color of my heart!

As the months tick by,
The desire to create, and do my art,
Began to pour from me,
Fighting it causes me PAIN.

When I am in the room,
I feel pain.
I leave the room,
But I still feel pain.

I go outside,
Pain is still there.
Pain is there because I am there!

I cannot escape myself!

I leave the room,
But I am still with me,
I go into another room,
But I am still with myself,

I cannot escape myself!

Every day, once classes began,
Was pain,
The commute is pain,
My back is pain,
My legs are pain,
My mind is pain,
My mind is stress,

Why am I here?
If I am not here for me,
Then who am I here for?
My spouse?

Does this compute?

It's determined for me, by many,
That a Degree in Philosophy will polish me as a Statesman,
Government jobs,
Community work,
Benefits,
Job opportunities,
Career prospects,

That this will suit me...

Yet, I managed to talk my way into a video class....
Among artists....
Since my major wasn't art,
Other artists had disdain for me,
Or snideness...

Among academics,
And other philosophers,
Since I was an artist,
And had an art degree,
I was viewed as:

Insane,
Crazy,
Stupid,
Something wrong with me...
A cause to look down upon me for....

(Did you know that Hellenistic Greeks & Philosophers viewed art AS SCIENCE?)


Each day I commute to school,
Each day the sadness wells up inside me,
I feel the sadness,
I feel the pain.

How can I NOT be an artist?
I AM AN ARTIST.

The thoughts are frightening,
What is THE POINT of my life?
What is my purpose?
I CANNOT be a philosopher WITHOUT MY ART.
I CANNOT be a philosopher at THE EXPENSE OF MY ART.

I CANNOT FIGHT MY HEART.
IT CANNOT BE KEPT INSIDE.

The thoughts are frightening,
The pain is real.

I sit in the courtyard,
Fellow students pass,
They are significantly younger than I,
So many persons!
Yet, among SO MANY individuals,
I feel MORE ALONE,
And more lonely,
Than I do by myself at home. 

I cannot sleep,
I cannot eat.
I feel discontentment.


Should I hate the world,
Or myself for not fitting it?

In death, perhaps, I will feel nothing.

The thoughts are frightening.

Pressure,
Obligation,
Responsibility.

My daughter constantly close to death,
EVERY WEEK!

Do better!
Be better!
Get better!
Work harder!

I can't keep up!

I'm not 19 anymore!
I'm 37!



Is this why people self harm?
Is this why my mother often attempted suicide?

Pressure.
Pressure.
PRESSURE!

There's something wrong with my SPINE!
My health insurance won't pay for anymore chiropractic visits!
I have to go to Physical Therapy,
But, I can't fit in the time because my commute is TOO LONG!

Pressure!

They don't know what's wrong with her!

She needs a blood transfusion!

Pressure!

I can't do this anymore!
I could do better!
I AM BETTER!
But, I don't have the time to do the level of quality I need!

I DON'T WANT TO FAIL!

PRESSURE!

I WANT TO DIE!



I cannot remove my art from me,
Art is the color of my heart! 

Trying to REMOVE the Art from me,
Is like destroying a BEAUTIFUL SHOE! 

Trying to strip the Art from me,
Is like stripping off the SOLE,
And as it's pulled from it,
I feel my SOUL being ripped & shredded! 

Trying to strip the Art from me,
Is like removing the beautiful HEEL,
And as it's plucked off from it,
I feel I cannot HEAL! 

Oh, such a waste!

But, it CANNOT BE DONE!



To loose my Art is to loose MYSELF!

Without it,
Who am I?

I would be NOT ME.

I value my sanity,
I value my soul,
I value peace of mind,
I value a feeling of well being.

So, I decided to drop out....
No, it was decided for me...
By my spouse...

Yet, on a strange twist,
I kept my video class,
ONLY THAT CLASS,
My teacher suggested I switch my major,
TO ART.


I instantly felt better!
I could SLEEP!


Altho' I felt sad about not being physically, and mentally, able to continue philosophy,
I still love philosophy.
I have NOT EVER discontinued my own interests in philosophy.
I engage in philosophy virtually every day.

I have found I prefer to go about it on my own time,
With my own limits,
No pressures,
At my own pace.

I shall NEVER discontinue philosophy.
But, my motive for doing philosophy,
Much like yoga,
Is for THE DOING OF THE THING,
And NOT for the GRADES, pedigrees,
Nor the leveling up of meritocracies.

The semblance of Meritocracy can often lead to Mediocrity.

Socrates had no papers, books, classrooms.
He wore an old cloak,
Learned from fools & laymen,
He learned almost nothing from the establishment after a while.

I do not have beef with my instructors,
I was rather fond of them.

I am content to remain an Artist.

I was always an artist.
I was born an artist.
I live as an artist.
I will die an artist.

All human beings die,
But, do all human beings truly live?

There is no reason why philosophy should have no place in my life.
It always did.

Philosophy was my savior MANY TIMES OVER. 

But, this time,
Art was my deliverance!



Wednesday, December 28, 2016

UMASS Finals Film Project: Smattering Thoughts Also Flow

Scroll down to watch the film: Smattering Thoughts Also Flow


There's a number of things I actually DID NOT get to do with this film, animation wise, that i would have lived and wanted VERY BADLY.

I COULD NOT find ANYONE to actually help me with the new version of Adobe After Effects to get the 3D animation stuff done for animating a simple butterfly. NOT A SINGLE PERSON would help me, nor did they understand the NEW version of After Effects.

I actually composed this whole ambient song JUST for a specific part of my film:


I also shot a LOT of footage to go with it which I wanted to incorporate the 3D animation of  butterfly with. there was LOTS of symbolism happening.

But, there was at least 15 individuals that would NOT answer my messages because they had some petty beef with me for being registered Green Party (AKA "Green Rainbow Party" in MA) and NOT voting for HRC on informed principle, or they mistook my messages to mean something else politics related when I was asking about programing coding for the video program. virtually EVERT allegedly teacher or guru on YouTube that published tutorials online claiming to answer any and all questions about After Effects would NOT REPLY to me on YouTube and Twitter. NOT A SINGLE REPLY since October. 1 of my good friends from WAY back, to this day, still has NOT even opened my FB message since I sent it in November. That NEVER HAPPENS if u knew who I was talking about, who's like The Godfather of tech help especially all things animation and graphics. OUCH!

Murphy's Law is a SERIOUSLY REAL THING. So I DID have a number of set-backs with producing my film.

My stress level was THROUGH THE ROOF trying to get it done.

A photo posted by Kandice Kathleen Zimbleman 任思麒 (@blackunigryphon) on

A photo posted by Kandice Kathleen Zimbleman 任思麒 (@blackunigryphon) on

I can't even tell you HOW MUCH TIME I LOST due to persons' own private pet political baggage. I really felt that I deserved a lot more time to work on my final which I DID NOT RECEIVE. There were TOO MANY setbacks, no-shows, people being late or not showing up, computer problems were a MAJOR PROBLEM. Things would work, then NOT WORK. this often happened due to Adobe updates. It was THE WORST. But, other times, videos would render out fine, then stop working.

There's also QUITE A BIT OF ARTWORK that DID NOT make it into the film... I had to cut so much stuff out, and re-cut and re-edit stuff. A major reason I couldn't include this artwork was due to the lack of knowledge and help with Adobe After Effects.

I also had a an entire video shoot, that I booked, that was completely fucked up because my kid kept also dying every week of blood issues. EVERY FRIGGIN' WEEK! at least TWICE a week since September. And, LITERALLY as soon as finals were DONE she was FINE. WTF!?

A photo posted by Kandice Kathleen Zimbleman 任思麒 (@blackunigryphon) on

Anyways, the film has quite a lot of Taoism in it, and philosophy. It's an art film.

There's a lot of puns & word play on Chinese words either by the way the sound, or the way they are written. Etymology stuff. This sort of thing is very common with Taoists, philosophers, zen practicing persons, and sometimes Confucianism. An entire video shoot done in the shooting room had to be completely scrapped, and the calligraphy part was re-shot so many times, on different days and locations that I lost count. Much of the Chinese Etymology won;t make sense if you're not bilingual in English & Chinese. Altho' I felt adding subtitles IMMENSELY detracted from the performance of the calligraphy story, I HAD TO INCLUDE the subtitles because it otherwise would NOT make any sense to an English speaking person with no knowledge of Chinese.

There's so much actual information IN THAT part that will MOSTLY be over the heads of MOST people whom have not studied philosophy, Taoism, Zen, or are at least unfamiliar with figures like Bruce Lee, or Alan Watts. It's literally about 5 years of thorough self study into these toppics at home, and I've barely scratched the surface.

I actually enrolled at  UMASS Boston majoring in Philosophy, and I almost TOTALLY dropped out for medical reasons, including physical injuries, pain, and stress related problems. But, I stayed enrolled to finish my Video class, and my instructor actually encouraged me to stay in school, switch my major back to art, and also invited me personally to attend a brand new class he made which included animation. I am also going to work on an animation project for him and the school next semester.

Here's the film:


There are SO MANY layers of meaning and meanings in this film.

"Flow" is a big symbolism for me, and also in Taoism. It mentions the flow of Fire, Air, Water, Earth (elements). I believe that MOST people ONLY exclusively think of WATER regarding flow, and SOMETIMES air. AIR is a BIG ONE for me. The BLACK FEATHERS FALSE EYELASHES are especially meaningful for me. They not only represent AIR, but they are also BLACK which is YIN (From the Toaist concept of Yin-Yang). Yin is the feminine symbol generally. the way you KNOW THIS is that it had THE WHITE DOT or "Moon" on it. Moon is a feminine symbol. The WHITE side is the YANG or generally Male side with the BLACK DOT on it.

But, usually when you go on Deviant Art they get it COMPLETELY backwards in Western art and depict the White side as female. 

See?: A, B, C, D

Don't feel bad if you didn't know this because I also didn't even learn this until about 2004-ish.

Batting the eyelashes also represents the fanning of air, or the movement of AIR, hence air flow.
My Fursona is the Black UniGryphon, which is also a shape-shifter. Shape-shifting is also called "morphing" or "meta morphing" which involves changing from 1 form or shape into another, like a butterfly.

There is a Christina Aguilera video called "Fighter" in which she uses this kind of symbolism to change, transform, etc. including butterflies/silk-worm moths, feather eyelashes, and black to white cycling transition as character motif. It also incorporates a dance motif. The lyrics of the song also tell about overcoming hardships, and especially overcoming a psychopath abuser, or perhaps the cruelty of the world.


The cellphone bit part was actually an homage to 1 of my dance teachers who's band created an INCREDIBLE music video which was paid for by crowd funding of the fans. I wanted mine to be more awkward with the long extended pauses, but I had to cut it down a lot. The song/video is called "Revival" which is full of all kinds of beautiful art, symbolisms galore, and the doll/puppet dancer is my dance teacher, Zoe.

I actually made a number of butterflies, but I could ONLY USE 2 of them for the film.


Each butterfly was hand made using markers in my sketchbook. The actual sketchbook I used was a throw away sketchbook from drawing classes at UMASS Boston when The Art Department was seen by students as a way of getting credits and NOT taken seriously, which greatly offended the Art Faculty Teachers. They all revolted in around 2015-2016 and forced the changes for art classes being for serious Art Majors only, and creating Workshops for art for anyone else. Since there was a number of stacks of sketchbooks strewn throughout the Art department in various drawing classrooms, and they were about to be dumped, my spouse was tipped off by some art teachers to take his fill of as many as he wanted. So, during the summer, I made a trip there myself, and filled my backpack with discarded sketchbooks which were FULL of blank pages. Many of the sketchbooks were of high quality EXPENSIVE paper. I needed sketchbooks to practice my Croquis gesture life drawings. But, since many of the books were of such high quality paper I saved some for my own personal use.

I don;t always like using inks for drawing. But, i do enjoy using professional graphic art markers. I'd contemplated dropping out of UMASS in October and almost completely did. But, I'd decided to participate in #Inktober for the first time ever in hopes of using the artwork to experiment with at UMASS for my video class. I's originally created the Forbearance/Endurance Butterfly which has Chinese calligraphy in it.  This character comes from Confucianism which usually is NOT my favorite. I prefer Taoism ideology by Laozi (Lao Tsu). However, I DO like this concept, and it's popular with Japanese Zen people.


The 2nd Butterfly is Task/Duty and they are both called "Ren". "Ren" is my Chinese surname in my Ming Zi.

This is also hand made with vintage professional graphic art markers from 1999.

"Ren" sounding words became a huge theme in the project, but i also noticed several similarities in how the words were written.

Anyways, It would've been different had I been able to do the 3D animation bit. But, oh well! I had a whole lantern video set that was perfect for it! But, whatever!

Why the ripple?

Well, several reasons. Is does fit well WITH the whole Taoism and FLOW. In Western thought "Air" symbolizes "thoughts, ideas, the mind, etc." and "Water" represents "emotions & feelings". But, in Chinese Water can actually mean an number of things, and especially money. Why? I have no idea. But, in Chinese "Air" can mean anything from nothingness, emptiness, energy, qi, a number of other meanings I don't even know. At the bottom of the character for endurance/Forbearance is the character for "heart" (which also has other meanings, including referring to the mind in old Chinese) and Traditional Chinese medicine uses the art of checking the pulse of the patient. At the top of the character is the symbol for blade which is different from the character for knife because blade refers to  part of the tool which cuts.

I could go on and on about these symbolisms. But, the reason I chose to experiment with RIPPLES on BUTTERFLIES is a VERY specific one.

In 2001 I went to a concert in Atlantic City at, believe it or not, THE TRUMP TAJ MAHAL. Not even making it up! The concert was of Kelly Chen, whom was a favorite of mine at the time.

Kelly Chen Concert Ticket 2001

During this show, there was this incredible video art of butterflies using Adobe After Effects ripples, and I'd always wanted to create my own version. It just looks really weird! I didn't ant the butterflies to look like real actual butterflies, which was WHY I used markers. I wanted them to LOOK LIKE ART. The ironic thing was that no matter how stylized I made them look, a number people thought they were REAL butterflies when I was working on it!

I got SO many compliments on the butterfly animations I made.


When I was doing the arrangement for the ambient song, I was originally planning on making it be a 303 Acid song. FOR REAL. But, when I took out the beats, and slowed the tempo, and just ended up with the ambient sound it worked a lot better, and despite my stubborn ego, I threw out the techno and went full ambient.

It would've ended up more along these lines, only different:

You can hear how it sounds kind of like water ripples, or a flowing river, or brook.... Very 1980s-1990s vibe...

I programmed and modulated the music myself.

But, scrapped it for my butterfly animation. There's some 303 Acid at the end tho'.


As for my motivation for the actual FLOW of the ambient composition, I have a few. I wanted something eerie and weird, sort of like X-FILES, but I'd lost all of my old stock audio this year due to a malware virus. So, i fell back onto some old stuff that i knew worked, to save time trying to experiment too much n force stuff to work. Time wasn't something I had a lot of, especially if ur kid keeps almost bleeding to death.

So, I went with sonar and heartbeats.

It's 1 of those things I find always works. It's not anything new, and I've seen it done over & over. But, if you want some of my favorite examples, then strait from the 1990s here they are:





BTW, the English versions DO NOT mean the same things in the lyrics as the original German.

And, since we're already on the topic, of all things inter connecting... since I already had a Trump connection in here, weirdly... let's double down and go with more Butterflies connected to this, since we're on a weird etymology, and word plays:




About 50 seconds into the video after she's talking about butterfly motifs " ein Schmetterling" she starts the song.

As for the Philosophical reference to Heraclitus, it was a kind of Zen joke of sorts, since if you've ever attended zen gatherings in person in which u do nothing but sit and breathe, before hand they/we often blabber on about DEATH in words that seem rather morbid, but are actually almost like a joke, and much of zen end up becoming a jokes, nonsense on purpose, and abstract things. I have no way to explain any of this, because it's not explainable. Heraclitus was the pre-socratic philosopher whom came up with the first version of Monism and the line about "You can't step into the same river twice". There are so many things which Heraclitus came up with, philosophically, that is so many ways it sounds almost exactly like what Laozi described in the Dao De Jing (Tao Te Ching) book about Taoism. Only, the weird thing was Heraclitus concluded that everything was made of FIRE! XD Oh, man, that's SOOOOOO ZEN!

Monism was the ancient Greek version of what Eastern thought often refers to as "Oneness".
"Mono" = "One" + "ism"
So, you could also called it One-ism! LOL! 

It somewhat reminds me of a theory about electrons, which "pop in and out of existence". the theory goes that ALL electrons are ACTUALLY the exact SAME electron simultaneously, and the seeming appearance of "popping in and out of existence" while in motion, is actually it existing everywhere in space simultaneously, but we only perceive it as popping in and out of existence in other places, because space doesn't actually exist, and it's the same actual electron. This kinda makes me rethink the concept of electricity (also a flow) which is a current (a flow term) in which electrons move through a  conductor.

Some of his ideas were wacky n weird, n way out there! But, very fascinating.

Anyways, if you don't know my Monad Migraine story, let's just forget about it. it's a long story.

But, in my several year search for nailing down the truth, and the origins of THE MONAD I finally found it, after years of searching in Heraclitus. Ironically, it reminds me a lot of electrons in an atomic structure. I'm not really an expert in Heraclitus nor Monism, so, don;t take my words too seriously.


Black UniGryphon Logo Rough Animation Concept Art

 I want to eventually animate my Fursona/Logo of my Black UniGryphon character/Trademark. (Vallour Nikee). ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Copyright Kandice Kathleen Zimbleman

So, I gotta keep it 100% real w/you: I could seriously spend ALL YEAR (referring to 2017) working on this, because it seriously is grabbing me, mentally, and emotionally... But, I'm gonna shove this to the back burner pretty soon.

There are 2 reasons for this:

I.) Anatomy:

I want to improve my anatomy and proportions, hence my drawing skills a bit further. I was at first surprised that my ability to draw the wings in foreshortened, dynamic, forced perspective... but, then i realized it was due to the basics of the geometry of it, which i apparently can still "eyeball".

I'm just not happy with my anatomy, nor my proportions which need quite a lot of rigorous practice. I'm VERY self critical, and tend to be a perfectionist. But, I'm glad I at least did the rough concepts. i may actually finish the latest sketch I just did, to a point.

II.) Eyewitness Storyboards:

I kinda just started this on a whim/intense inspired need to do it that was just sort of burting out of me. I'd already made up my mind to at least commit to some rough sketching storyboards for my Eyewitness project/series (written about on my other blog). I was mostly trying to practice drawing foxes to come up with a rough/simple design or at least something workable for the animated short to at least get put into motion.

Why Eyewitness of this? Well, actually the Eyewitness project is actually quite grand for being a simple animated visual short. But, i want to at least commit to creating that FIRST because I'd LITERALLY come into a few circumstances where if I DID actually have the basic storyboards, I actually COULD'VE put a simple PITCH together for REAL ACTUAL FUNDING about 3 times in November, not just from 1 source, but multiple, which if awarded I could've actually gotten multiple funding sources from the 4 digits to 6 digits. I know I mentioned at least "3 times" but each one could've actually been multiple opportunities for funds.

I also had a lack of confidence at first, like oh: this isn't that serious... No! It was... it/they kept also coming up... and when I was starting to become taken seriously, I realized no one understood my vision, then time ran out, plus I had finals, and other obligations. Film making is NOT CHEAP, let alone animation projects.

What I WOULD LIKE to do with this concept project:

I started out with ONE basic concept which I WOULD like to do as an animated logo.

The basics of it include the UniGryphon basically just perching/sitting there, perhaps a few moving head gestures, head held high, giving a feel for the personality of the character, a moving tail animation, perhaps a few flicks of the tail, and then a grand unfurling of the wings, coming forward in a foreshortened animated display of the wings, to showcase my ability to draw in dynamic foreshortening, understanding of motion, timing, and anatomy, and that's it.

But, then, another version also popped into my mind, that persistently WOULD NOT GO AWAY.
IN the other version, I would actually have the primary feathers of the wings articulate even further at a higher level of drawing difficultly. I thought about actually more of a brief musical choreography in which the UniGryphon articulated the wings, with each feather sort of moving around the alicorn (horn), and perhaps a sort of fan dance-like choreo' of the wings, slightly.
This version, of course being very dance inspired (if u'd ever studied dance n were familiar with what I mean) would open up with the UniGryphon much like performers on a stage sort of bowed forward at first, then sitting up.

The first version could easily take me about a year to figure out, and make happen, assuming my drawing skills were more improved. And, the 2nd version could also take me even longer to do provided I'd actually done the first version FIRST.

Also, if I WERE to start it NOW, I think I would actually turn into a kind of bitchy, monster, or jerk ANY TIME anything interrupted me from working on it, because THIS could EASILY CONSUME ME as an artist as a project... but, I have Spring Semester coming up at UMASS, plus a number of other things, and I'm not mentally in a place to start this YET, because it will ruin me. I know how perfectionist I can be, and working on just the concept works REALLY put me in another world.

If, however, circumstances changed, including a number of investments I have, I would still like to pursue working on Eyewitness BEFORE this.

I also need to work on keeping up with going to the Gym right now, keeping my health good, and my workstudy job.



I DON'T know WHY, but everyone on Instagram LOVED this when I was starting it, but as it got further, people hated it:



A photo posted by Kandice Kathleen Zimbleman 任思麒 (@blackunigryphon) on


Other Comments:

I've found that in Massachusetts, working on this style of art, people are so indifferent to it.
I actually worked on one of the sketches a bit (twice while waiting for various whatever) at UMASS, and people could care less.

Online, I've gotten a strange mixed reaction. The first 2 rough sketches I did caused a lot of people to freak out, majorly over it, and at 1 point, my Instagram blew up over a 100 followers in an evening.

But, when it became apparent that my Instagram WAS ABOUT ME AND MY LIFE (which was what it was created for) they unsubscribed because I'm an actual REAL PERSON, and they have ZERO interest with me as a person, as a human being, etc. Oh... and, I'm like kinda getting old....

My friggin' Instagram actually DOES have a well written Bio/Into that's brief n short.

First of all: I do MY ART FOR ME. It's MY ART.

I live MY LIFE the way I WANT, or put up with crap when it comes the best I can, if I can... and sometimes it's NOT all roses n rainbows. Yes, I'm 37 and I go to UMASS, and I have FINALS, and I like TECHNOLOGY (other than per-packaged smartphone bits) , and PHOTOGRAPHY.

THAT is my AUTHENTIC ME.

SO, NOT SORRY if my Instagram doesn't fit ur nano-second vision of how YOU think social media ought to be. 



A photo posted by Kandice Kathleen Zimbleman 任思麒 (@blackunigryphon) on

A photo posted by Kandice Kathleen Zimbleman 任思麒 (@blackunigryphon) on


A photo posted by Kandice Kathleen Zimbleman 任思麒 (@blackunigryphon) on

A video posted by Kandice Kathleen Zimbleman 任思麒 (@blackunigryphon) on







Saturday, December 10, 2016

Black UniGryphon Fursona Animation Idea?

So.... I don't want to put it out there as a sure thing, but it's been on my mind CLEARLY, sometimes obsessively... and it was always SOMETHING I'd  wanted to do anyway...

But, I keep on thinking of TRYING to do an animated logo of my Fursona.
Kinda like this

Only ACTUALLY animated... but just a "held cell".

My drawing ability isn't as good as i would like it to be... but, I am working on it...

I'm known for doing wings, dynamic poses, and HAIR, as well as fantasy stuff such as GRYPHONS, UNICORNS, and DRAGONS...

I've actually been seeing it in my mind, often since the end of last month and the beginning of this month... I could almost thumbnail it out how I want the simple scene to go... ALMOST...



It's an interesting challenge, and I DO HAVE OPEN TOONZ.

OPEN TOONZ seems to be like a mystery, because ever since it came out this year as open source nobody really knew what to do with it, and even now that almost a whole year has passed trying to find so-called tutorials often end up showing that the artists actually doesn;t know the program that well, either, and it's more of a demo than a tutorial. I've also sat through some people live streaming working on stuff, and they often seemed lost as well....

But, at least there ARE resources out there now, because at the beginning of the year, and even middle of the year it was kinda hopeless, and I often felt flustered.

AT LEAST I actually got OPEN TOONZ to function on my computer.

It's still a back-burner thing tho' because I have reasons for wanting to storyboard my Eyewitness animated short that could actually go somewhere... So, as soon as I'm totally DONE with my film AND this semester at UMASS I want to spent most of my creative effort working towards getting at least some rough storyboards actually sketched out, plus trying to get back into the croquis sketching. because I would REALLY like to try to see what things I could also do with OPEN TOONZ.




I'm hoping to play around with it at some point.

I feel like if I could JUST GET more time into at least 6 months worth of life drawings in quick gesture croquis I could get back to where I was about 2008-ish, or better like 2001-2006-ish.

I notice that people often tend to be like whatever towards me... or, don't know what to make of me...
but, when they actually see my actual artwork, it's this WHOAH, or WOW thing that happens...



This actually recently happened to me recently with a few of my video/animation projects at UMASS.

So, I know I haven't lost my ability, nor my vision.

Not only do I feel there is MORE I WANT to do, but there's so much MORE that I COULD DO.


Like, there's STILL a ZENITH somewhere, out there, and I still want to reach it.


OK, LIFE! Would u please stop being obnoxiously unreasonable n get ur stuff together because i would LIKE to  actually be a LOT more productive! Just knock it off with all these stupid needless setbacks, already! Thanx!

Friday, December 09, 2016

Still Working On & Troubleshooting My Film Issues

Still Working On & Troubleshooting My Film Issues
I have no idea why so many set-backs keep on rolling out, one after the other. It's not as tho' I'm lazy, because I'm on the go CONSTANTLY. I HATE being caught unprepared. if something CAN be better, then it SHOULD JUST BE BETTER, especially when it's something SIMPLE.

A photo posted by Kandice Kathleen Zimbleman 任思麒 (@blackunigryphon) on

And, STILL, my daughter has no end to her bloody literal problems. Today there was the drama of her Niagara nosebleeds.  STOP FRICKIN' CALLING ME IN THE MIDDLE OF CLASS! I've been w/her and the spouse at the hospital TWICE this week already, and NO there is NO REASON why BOTH parents ought to be there.... A fricken NOSE BLEED? It's called WINTER! I get them too! They go away when summer starts. It means ya don't have enough vitamin C, zinc, and antioxidants. DUH! The cure: pomegranates, oranges, pine needle tea, cranberry juice, animal livers.
In fact, I was bleeding in my nose yesterday slightly. It's because of the extreme cold, then going into warm buildings, PLUS heaters make the AIR DRY which makes the skin dry, and after a few days to a few weeks of this the membranes of your nose get thin, especially when ur vitamin C levels are depleted from being in the cold air and breathing it. It's NOT rocket science. My family got this problem, and I'm not the only one.

SO, THIS, had no problem rendering out:





This was the footage I came up with Originally, but I need to re-edit it again and fix it up, because this is a rough cut:


My instructor insisted that I re-shoot it, and he's a really nice guy, and even gave me his own paper... So, I was looking forward to re-shooting it based on his suggestions on Tuesday... even tho' I already liked what I was doing... he's also, kinda  an aloof social butterfly... typical video people...

I missed school on Monday due to A.) having to go early to the hospital to get the kid an ultrasound, then B.) FUCKING SNOW + MIXED WEATHER! DAMMIT!

A photo posted by Kandice Kathleen Zimbleman 任思麒 (@blackunigryphon) on

A photo posted by Kandice Kathleen Zimbleman 任思麒 (@blackunigryphon) on

A photo posted by Kandice Kathleen Zimbleman 任思麒 (@blackunigryphon) on

A photo posted by Kandice Kathleen Zimbleman 任思麒 (@blackunigryphon) on

A photo posted by Kandice Kathleen Zimbleman 任思麒 (@blackunigryphon) on


Then, after going to  the hospital ALL THE WAY IN BOSTON, I couldn't go to the shooting studio which I reserved since last week on time. FEK! So, sentimental kid dude swoops in and takes the studio instead... fine, I can work on my editing... then, he's like: OK, it's all yours, but like EVERYBODY left, so I had to try n shoot the whole stinkin' thing MYSELF...

BUT, 1 of the light bulbs was broken. WTF!

So, then, I was blinded by the only bulb left, had to shoot almost totally blind, AND the lens focuses manually. I was SO proud of myself thinking I got it right, but ya never can really tell... I was off by like 2 mm so THE ENTIRE thing was OUT OF FOCUS. Not only that, but I shot EVERYTHING upside down! WTF! There's no other way to shoot it!

AND, the 1 light bulb despite being ULTRA BRIGHT was viewed by the camera components as shadowy... WTF? If It'd shot it with the bulb OFF it would've actually looked better... for lack of a better word... WASTE OF MY DAMN TIME! And, I'm OUT OF PAPER NOW! ALL DONE!

A video posted by Kandice Kathleen Zimbleman 任思麒 (@blackunigryphon) on

I was already mad, and I didn't want to waste more time being mad so... I go to take back the video equipment n fetch tech dude whom wasn't even supposed to leave yet, n told me he was in the photo room, only to be NOWHERE... and the window was CLOSED.

SO, I'm stuck w ALL this thousands of dollars with of EXPENSIVE technology! AND I gotta take it ALL HOME, IN THE RAIN, on the TRAIN... don't even get me started on that... but, it gets worse... Mr. Wang makes me go to work... so, I gotta lug all THIS stuff, plus the stuff I lugged To school like Chinese calligraphy everything, in a luggage thingy because I hurt my back AGAIN. }:-(

I'm so sleep deprived, plus I gotta organize Biographies... lucky me... generally easy.... but my brain is drained...

Anyways, before I went to work, I manged to get some editing in and that's when stuff started not working right.

THIS bugger here went through several renders before it would work right!:


WHY???? I have NO idea! But, it kept squishing to 1444!

TODAY:
Anyways, I am frustrated as Hell w/Adobe because the updates screw stuff up OFTEN.

I figured this week once I was on a roll: hey! I'm slick! I got this stuff down! I'm nearly done, maybe I can still try n figure out that butterfly bit I want to do after all! YAY! :D
Right?

Then, out of nowhere, Adobe doesn't feel like rendering things in the correct size, or sometimes without audio...

I kept assuming IT WAS ME! USER ERROR! WTF AM I DOING WRONG???

So, I grabbed Jon, the tech dude... over an hour later even he can't figure out why it's not working...

I lost so much time trying to trouble shoot, and NOTHING could be done to fix it! Not a single thing!

I started out by fixing up and reprogramming THIS:


It was KINDA amazing because I kinda felt like I WAS IN THE ZONE! Like I had the magic touch! It looked SO BAD before, and I made this version with the faster more liquidy ripple already, but the Butterfly body needed fixing. And, it just all happened like amazingly well! But, I got so caught up in tweaking it n playing with it because I could've done several things with it... this was what i finally settled on. SO, it looks good, I render it out, and all is well....

But, on my other rough cut edit with these butterfly bits strung together with my audio arrangement was missing the original project file, so I found another one similar to it... I had to adjust it because my instructor didn't like  the way the Chinese characters seemed "distorted" as he put it... SO, I did actually fix that yesterday, but I lost some of the resolution quality, which bugged me when I resized the image overlay in Photoshop. That was a simple matter of just creating a new layer, and starting over... so i did. No Biggy...

Once I got to THIS MOFO Everything stopped working right:


See how it's the right size? 1920x1080!

But, I must've rendered a dozen times! This one when imported, even tho' it's the correct size if viewed by Adobe Premiere as a squished video even tho' the file plays correctly when NOT in the program, and the other files work properly also.

It rendered without sound, even tho' I didn't make it do that.

It should've been done BEFORE 3PM. I figured, OK, this looks fine. Let's render, then pop it into the full film sequence to edit it together as a rough cut and screen it to get a feel for the overall flow of the film so far... THEN, I intended to move onto trying, HOPEFULLY, to get the other 3D butterfly thingy I wanted for it. Otherwise, I gotta come up with more stuff like this to re-cut w/this audio.

While it was rendering, I had a tutorial open, and ready to watch hoping to really figure it out, as soon as THIS sucker was done as a place holder...

After 6PM NOTHING was done.

I even switched to a different computer. Then, THIS file started working right on it, just NOT in Premiere.

I HAD planned on going back tomorrow.... but, I'm SO exhausted...

I'll try to go back on Monday.


Today was technically the last class... but we have to come back on the 20th to screen our films.
I was told we were going to play it in the theater... but, now it's just being played in the video room...