Computers are awesome!

No wait, what's the opposite? Oh yeah, complete bastards.
Seriously, what is it with computers that makes them think "Hey this project's going entirely too well for my liking. What can I do to fuck it up for you?"? For every thing that goes right, there will be at least three that go wrong. In the last week, as well as my laptop dying, I've lost my phone (suddenly decided not to switch on anymore), half a printer and my external HD takes forever to be recognised when I plug it in. Just this evening I wasted about 2 hours trying to get After Effects to reinstall properly after it decided that it wasn't going to open anymore (something to do with duplicated plug-ins even though it was fine yesterday).
And I swear to God, if anyone says it's because I'm using a PC, I will brain them.

Anyway, I finally got it to work (amid numerous four-letter expletives) and spent the rest of the day making this:


A few kinks to smooth out with this one, mainly down to the way the character's hair, cloak and shadow move (gave them a bone structure in Anime Studio rather than doing it frame by frame). All of them require a few more keyframes and could also do with slowing down.
I also want to make the ripples in the lake smaller and if I have some time to spare, get some birds flying overhead.
I quite like the perspective in this one though, which I actually thought would be the most difficult part to get right.

In other news, my Joshua Radin CD came today, which made me happy. Go and check out his site if you like really mellow acoustic stuff. You can stream some clips from the "We Were Here" album in the music section (he's had quite a few songs featured in Scrubs if anyone's a fan).

I'm hoping the next three scenes will be easier to tackle, especially since I'll be dealing with silhouettes. Right now though, it's late, I'm tired and I'd rather not end up falling asleep at 4.00 am again : P

TTFN