Maropeng cradle of humankind Duhdun duuun!

During the holiday season last year we took a trip to Maropeng and the Sterkfontein caves! It's one of the places I've been wanting to check out, they've really vamped it up since my last visit on a primary school trip :) Ahhh the nostalgia...

How awesome is this building? It's like a giant burial mound from Lord of the Rings! Hehe.

They've really gone to lengths convey the history of evolution/beginning of the world - this is the entrance to the ice age! And you go on a boat ride! and get to touch real icicles and stuff!

I'm very impressed with the museum, the information is presented in interesting ways and there are many interactive mini games to engage with children. This is a great place for a school trip or a family with kids.

Some of these could be art installations!

It took us about 2 hours to get through the museum, and we didn't even read through everything, so there is a wealth of information on display there.

After you exit through the back of the building, there is a small play ground with a mini cave for the kids to explore! There is also a restaurant/bar on the roof for the grown ups, with an amazing view.

We also went down to the caves, which is in a separate location to the Maropeng museum. That part of the tour hasn't changed much, but it was nice to go see the real thing after learning about archaeology and fossils and such. Its not a very long tour, and there are some exciting areas where you climb through narrow spaces. It's not the most awesome or beautiful cave, because it been open for so long, plus miners used to harvest the limestone by cutting into and blasting away the cave walls. Still cool to be able to get so deep under ground though! My favorite part is the under ground lake, so mysterious and creepy...it really fires up the imagination!

Kapow! Higher knowledge level achieved!

organic lace painting

This is the second painting of this series I'm doing. I'm quite happy with how it turned out, discovering accidentally that I could sort of shade with the blue ink that I was using. Yes, still pandering to my obsession with lace, this time from a more cellular, organic angle.

This is both pictures living on my wall. You can find the older purple painting here

The rise of Bubble Boy

So I've been absent for the last few weeks, but for once it's because I have been really working my ass off! I reached mental twilight zones unattained since the student days and guzzled coffee like an insane person.

This is my entry for Festival International du cinema et la mer. I found that what I learnt from working at The Deli really helped me pull my project together, so I'm going to go through my process abit - it's pretty standard.

Firstly, after deciding on the story line, I made a story board. This helped me visualize how the action will play out as well as offering reference for how my scene will be framed once I start making elements.

Click for larger view

Then I made an animatic! I was not very good at this, because my timings did change when I started animating, but it's very useful in giving you a rough idea of how long your animation would be. I also gave this to my friend so he could start considering audio for the animation.

And here are some of my final boards!

And have a look at my final animation on vimeo!

I took on this project as an exercise to see just how productive I can be when I really push myself to find time for my personal projects. So no excuses now! It's the first animation I've made that's not work related since graduating, so I'm quite happy with it :)