Im on the road, car is packed to bursting with fuzzy stuff.

If any of you are at the con, i look forward to seeing you there!

Well, FC was brilliant. I got to hang with many awesome people and nearly kill myself as a referee in the critter Olympics. Thanks to Zotcoon, Henrike and Karpour I also got to see quite a bit more of the USA, actually making it to the grand canyon. Which was grand.

As in previous years, I find myself back home and exclaiming “Its cold!”, but ill be keeping myself busy at least. I’m now in the fursuit business and taking commissions, with three suits on the books so far. I’m still waiting on decent photos of the otter I made before Christmas; as soon as I get some, ill post it up.

Animation is ticking along too. There will be new stuff, as ever, it takes however long as it takes. But one of the reasons I’m making suits is so I get time to animate, so it would be silly if I didn’t get around to any.

That is all for now.
I'll keep updating this journal as time goes on...

..or maybe not so much, net is somewhat irratic on the upper floors. Ive managed to suit a fair bit and met a bunch of people. The multiple floors and towers do make it easy to miss people here though. So far though, rather a good con.

Im getting ready to head off to California. Its been a mad couple of weeks, with a brutal headcold, bunch of costume stuff to finish and a computer that refused to run in anything but power saving mode.

This has put me waaaay behind on any kind of animation for FNL, and wether I do something is depndant upon if I spend the next week sat at the computer or hanging out with friends.

Im resolute to have fun though. So long as I don't go down with another cold FC is packed with people im looking forward to meeting.

Oh, and for better or worse im now in the fursuit making business, so keep an eye out for my creations..

I guess this is a last ditch attempt to see who I know whose going to be around either side of FC, and if they want to hang out...

Im pretty disorganised here - I still haven't booked my flights to California as I don't know entirely how long I should spend there.

Usually its three weeks with FC at the end, but a airline strike means I have to fly out a week later than I would, and im wondering if I should stick around after FC.

Ill be mainly around the bay area, but I had planned to go to Vegas for a few days, as the subsidised trips there are great value, but as yet I haven't found anyone to go with, and I don't fancy wandering there on my own =OP

So, anyone about? Any ideas? =O)

Just a quick note to let you all know the new delux length ferret dance is now uploaded.

You'll find it in just the same place as the old one.

(Deezlberries)

Well, by some combined alchemy of myself, Jill.C and the moog cookbook, the tuberats seem to be catching on. Im hearing nothing but good things, with people commenting that they keep watching it over and over.

Of course, this means I've got to do more. The video must be taken to the full 1:45 that I originally trimmed the song down to.

Its all I've been working on for the past three days, and I dare say it'll be a couple more before Im done. These tuberats are high maintenance.

What has to be a surreal high point was the funday pawpet crew showing the video, then re-enacting their own ferret dance last Sunday. Thanks guys. That really made my evening. =O)

Meanwhile, Jill has gone weasel crazy, putting her tuberat design up for possable immortalisation in plastic: http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/1020818/

So take the time to register and vote her up.
The ferrets command it.

I’m currently finishing up an otter suit as a commission, and I’m very happy with the body shape. So much so I may well adapt it to my own ends.

Meerkat art on FA, thanks to Disney, is blessed with a distinctly cartoony disposition. Maybe its this, coupled with some rather excellent artists, and the general weasilyness of the critters, that has me pondering a meerkat for my next personal fursuit project.

Much as a love the fursuit of Deez, its hard to reconsile the character I animate with what can be performed in the suit. I’d like to build a character from the fursuit up, rather than trying to adapt a character into a fursuit. So, over the past few weeks, a crazed and kooky meerkat has been formulating in my head, and over the last few days, I’ve actually bought the fur to start work.

So in the coming years they may be yet another meerkat going around cons.
And I'm not even French ;OP

It occurs to me that people might think I’ve vanished. This isn’t true (In fact, wherever I go, there I am) but I realise that from my fur affinity account, it sure looks like it.

I’ve been busy fiddling with fursuit type stuff, making an otter fursuit for a comission. Lately though I’ve got the itch to get some anims finished - There’s a whole heap of unfinished stuff around, but its been so ambitious that there’s hours and hours of work to get even one of em done.

Far better to get some stuff out quickly I guess, so lets see what happens. I figured id at least start updating my journal again to get a dialogue going.

Just a note to say I'm off to Confuzzled. It should be a good con, a lot of my friends have put a hyooge lot of work into it. If any of you lot are there I look forward to seeing you. Watch out for me in fursuit too, pics will undoubtedly follow. =O)

I haven’t been doing much animation for pleasure recently. These things go in phases and right now, whenever I start animating something for FA I cant shake the feeling I should be working on stuff for my show reel instead (which is already packed with fuzzy stuff and needs some run and gun to balance).

Im certainly not disappearing, the creative urge is still there, its just being channeled into other things, why only this weekend I made three giant foam rubber cookies…

It simply wouldn’t do to leave the FC journal hanging around for weeks, so here I am, back in the UK.

FC was wonderful, inspirational and energising. I got to meet some great people for the first time, even though I missed a dozen more I would of loved to meet up with.

There’s so many ideas I could be working on, but I really need to knuckle down on finding a job, my financial situation is fast approaching unfunny right now.

Anyway, I’m likely to be a bit quiet on the new content while I find and settle into employment, but we’ll see what the coming year will bring.

I'll be keeping this journal up all convention and adding to it as time goes on. Latest posts at the top, blog style.
If your at the con and you want to meet up, or just want to say hi, post here.

Saturday

16:00 So yeah, as you might guess from the gap there. I met up with people and ive been having a great time. Even got to suit up in the parade, which was awesome, obviously. =O)

Friday
12:00 Not spotted anyone I know for a bit. So Im cracking on with the animation. Soo much to do, and I might as well do it now, while im little Johnny no-mates. =OP

10:00 Sleepy. But I have coffee. I'm in the lobbey and making great progress with animatoratoringaning.

Thursday.
00:00 Always a pleasure to see Vin in action. I may not be wearing the Deez suit this con, but Utlah is giving it large, for Weasel kind.

22:45 Met up with a bunch more people and seen a bunch more suits. Tomorrow is going to have to be a big animation day as FNL are getting nervous. But please, say hi! I want to meet, hug and generally weasel everyone =O)

17:20 Taken a couple of strolls around the con line. Met Tym, Nikkon, Kiroo and a bunch of other UK furs. Nipped back to finish my coffee and animate a little more.

16:00 I slapped together a "Deezlberries is animating" Sign on the back of my laptop out of old cookie bags. Otherwise, sit with an open laptop and the amount of snarky comments you get about "Hanging online when your at a con" gets old real fast...

12:30 Arrived at the con. Probably going to get my head down and try to finish off the FNL animations while people are still arriving.

The countdown has begun for me, I fly out on the 8th and will be hanging around the bay area before the con. So if you fancy meeting up, drop me a line.

Well, tomorrow is my birthday, and things seem to be pattering along nicely.

I've got a month working for a toy inventor, making a one minute animaton based on his creation, Which i have to confess is pretty close to my ideal job. Only draw back of course is it means less time to do anims on FA, and the animation I do make will be top secret.

I finally managed to score myself a beta key for Little Big Planet, and its been a source of constant joy. Its enthused with a whimsical creativity that’s infectious. I just hope it doesn’t get flooded with griefers when it goes on sale.

The job pretty much means I'll be able to afford going to further confusion in January, so that’s looking a definite. So, all in all, yeay.

Thanks to everyone for the input on Deez's size. Its given me a better image of how people see him - Which seems to be somewhere between 2ft to 4ft.

Some have asked why he has to have a size? Well its down to the scale of his model in 3ds max. Its tricky to rescale him when he's all rigged up. So when I add him alongside another of my character models he has a 'default size', and up to now thats left him looking at most characters ankles.

Since re-scaling is a chore I figured I'd get a definitive opinion before I did it. =O)

I've been playing around with Deezlberries. Giving him props and having him interact with other characters I've modeled, and I can't quite seem to decide on his size.

So I figured I'd ask around. What size should Deez be?

Weasel sized (About 1ft or 30cm) - The size favoured by wizecracking sidekicks such as Timon, Daxter and Mushu. I have to confess this is how Deez has started out, but it makes using just about every object you can come up with an issue.

Anthro sized (5.5ft or 160cm) - Most furries hover around this size and it makes using everyday props easy. But Deez seems huge and out of proportion when that big. Maybe its something I need to get used to. After all the Deez fursuit will be that big (as, regretably, I have to fit myself inside ;O).

Toon sized (About 3ft 0r 90cm) - Roughly the average size of most cartoon characters, and a compramise between the two above options. It leaves Deez small but big enough to use most everyday props, but doesnt solve everything - he still looks a little odd next to anthro sized characters.

So, what do you lot think?

[Edit] Toon sized is looking like the popular choice, but I guess im curious if it changes how people would percieve Deez.

Just thought I should make it known that I wont be at EF this year. I am technically booked (a non refundable attendance ticket without a room) but I couldn’t really afford to go, being betwixt jobs.

If you do see a big red weasel, that’s probably (http://www.bigbluefox-media.com/gal.....amp;amp;page=1) my cousin Vinny. ;OP

One con I will be at is further confusion - With a bit of luck I should be weasily spotted…

And so I've finished my contract. The little girls of the western world have kittens on their DS to play with and I'm once again a free agent. What this means is more time to dedicate to animating, so expect to see more stuff here soon. I'll probably be doing some unfuzzy stuff too - I need to balance out the portfolio, which is a little heavy on the cute critters right now. Not sure weather ill post that up on' FA, I might just stick it on Youtube and link from my journal.

So after a lay in and an hour or two playing video games im at at my desk animating, headphones strapped on and coffee flowing through my veins.

12:20 - Taken a good look through what I have. It's in a pretty good state, only needs the voice stuff, but hey, Im all geared up, might as well be a little more ambitious...

12:40 - I like this anim, its stretching my abilities. Theres a lot of rythm to the key events. Its slapstick, so that rythm is tightly linked to how funny it is. The trick is to set up a rythm and then emphasise the funny moments by having them come a beat too soon or too late. Knowing which key to put the emphasis on, and getting the character to flow with nice weight AND hit key poses in rythm is tricky.

12:43 - First crash of the day.... *ping!* Max is gone! Backup was taken 5 minutes beforehand. Have to spend a few minutes getting the texture routes repointed.

13:40 -Lots and lots of "Hmmmm..." Trying to get the poses right is slow work and theres a lot of pacing around going on as I stare at preview renders. The anim has increased to 600 frames, 20 seconds, which is quite a lot for hand keyed stuff.

13:50 - It's a good job im alone here. I'm acting out a lot of the poses in my room =OP

15:30 - Lunch break and its all coming together. I have the poses now its a matter of getting them in the right timing and making them flow. Im really happy with this, I may well stick it in my showreel. Although its crazy how short it is, considering all the work.

16:15 - Looking good, now comes the interesting bit.. sound. usually id just record the soundtrack and animate to it, but here i have to do the sound to the animation.... then do the animation to the sound... back and forth. No idea how long this is going to take.

17:40 - Found a good place to get foley from. The impacts really do add a lot. Ive discovered that my laundry basket makes an excelent place to record voice stuff. It muffles the noise nicely.

19:00 - Egad, its 7 already.. well sound effects take a while but dang, it's making a big difference. =O)

20:15 - Back on the animating. Adding in the eyeblinks and syching the mouth to the speech. Audio still needs a little more attention, gotta add some paw thud slappy kind of noises but my mic set up isnt good enough.

23:40 - Right, well the sounds pretty much done, the renderer is all set up and I've set it rendering. Im sure theres all kinds of things ive missed, but for now, im done. =O)

Deezlberries, signing off...

Once again I've turned down invitations and decided to spend the weekend (well, as much of it as seems fun) with you lot, animating. =O)
I've got a Deez animation that I started way back in January (started, sitting in the lobbey at FC, as it happens) and its high time I finished it off.
My current Job is winding down, so I hope to be doing more anims on here in the near future, as well as working on a couple more ambitious shorts.
Financially I'm not quite out of the red, and if I get another contract I can't afford to turn it down, but while im a free agent I have high hopes to be mixin' up a mess of fun, as a philospher once wrote...

Saturday

8:30am - Well yesterday was successful. The animation is all posted up and people seem to like it. Now lets see how far I can push this animating streak =OP

8:35am - Geez, saturday morning and im up and working at eight thirty. I feel so virtuous =OP

8:40am - Max is loaded, I got a full mug of latte and a subscription to last fm. Lets roll..

8:41am - http://www.last.fm/listen/user/Dzepherus/loved if you want to listen to the random kibble I listen to... I love last.fm me... anyway.. animation...

9:04am - I've animated deez's walk too fast. If this was my own rig I could just scale the timings in the motion curve editor. But im using biped, and if I try to do that, it crashes. Nice.

9:10am - Wow, seems an awful lot of things crash biped workbench.. like, trying to use it. Yes, welcome to the 'Deezlberries grumbles about 3dsMax' blog, ahem =OP

10:01am - You can tell the animating is getting serious, I've pulled out Richard Williams' "Animators survival kit" =OP

10:11am - Ironically the reference I was after was in Preston Blairs' "How to animate".. which is really going back a bit. Nice breakdown of a baseball pitch...

10:12am - Found my old copy of Filler bunny #2 - "Revenge of the Fillerbunny" between the pages too. Glee!

11:45am - Ok, technically i havent been animating for the past hour or so. On the spur of the moment i dug out my old degree short. Chopped out incriminating titles and posted it up to scraps =OP

2:00pm - Well im calling it. Animation has ground to a hault, im doing chores and ive a friend popping around. That wraps it up for this bit. Ill see if i can get back on animating later.

Friday.

9am: So to work! Time to finish off the meerkat transformation anim that certain people have been waiting for since before christmas.

9.20am: Next time I decide to animate clothing by hand, will somone noogie me till i come to my sences?

9:40am: Now the biped skeleton is misbehaving. Its freaking out because it didn't start off on the ground plain. Eeesh, its no wonder its taken me so long to get around to this.

9:45am: Turn music off.. need full concentration.... no.. need coffee more...

9:58am: I am, technically, experienced in Autodesk character studio. Thats what it says on my CV. But it still has the ability to totally fuck up my animation at a moments notice. And I can't for the life of me figure out why =OP

10:10am: Have link-constrained the bipeds feet to helper objects. This is like duct taping a robot to a rollerskate and pulling it around with a piece of string. Call me old fashioned but I like the stuff I animate to do what I tell it to, not what it thinks is best.

10:18am: Haha! That got the little bugger doing what he was told! You can see the feet fighting their constraints in places but I can hide that with a little finness.

10:48am: Wow, time goes fast. Got all the movements roughed out - what that means is a stiff meerkat teetering around in a single pose from the hips upward. Next comes the key poses, but first im off to the shops to get food.

11:40am: Yeesh, its cold out there..

12:25pm: The biped troubles are biting me In the ass again. Its not holding the poses I set it to, which is a pretty fundamental problem when your trying to animate something. =OP No choice but to hit the books and find out what's up.

12:49pm: Well looks like the IK blend setting is set to a stupid value, but I cant for the life of me figure out why. Im having to fight it every step of the way, but its sort of coming together.

1:20pm: *hammers at animation with mallet* it's coming together. Ive come up with a really messy workaround for the blending issues. Setting the keyframes on another biped then copying em across. It seems to work.

1:32pm: Then, all of a sudden... its behaving itself... Its letting me set poses without a single complaint. I sware I changed nothing =OP

1:35pm: I mean... seriously its working perfectly. Whats with that? =OP

2:25pm: Lunchbreak. Its all looking much nicer now the rig is letting me animate it. Just realised theres no facial expressions for the final head model, so ill have to model those and stick em in the morpher.

2:48pm: Lots and lots and lots of staring at the previews O.O

3:00pm: Looks good to me. Still need to do the facial animation but while im doing that ill fire up SCRAT (My render PC) and do a test render to check for anything the preview renders arn't showing up.

3:01pm: Yes, all my computers are named after cartoon characters.

3:02pm: Coffee time, yeee. =OD

3:45pm: Of course the tricky thing when your animating transformation is that the main character keeps changing shape. This means that for every stage there has to be a whole bunch of new morph targets for opening the mouth, moving the brows etc.

4:10pm: Lots more staring at stuff. SCRAT took 55 mins to render the anim off, showed up a couple of clipping issues, but thats it.

4:30pm: Right, put SCRAT rendering again on what may or may not be the final render. Depends if i spot any other errors =OP

5:05pm: Started work on the next anim. Finishing off a Deezlberries anim I was working on at FC.

5:39pm: *Stares at max screen as the hard drive churns* Pleasedontcrash...Pleasedontcrash...Pleasedontcrash... Bastard...

5:40pm: "Max encountered an error and must close. Would you like to attempt to save your work?"

5:41pm: Yes, of course I want to save!

5:42pm: "Max was unable to save"

5:43pm: Fortunately autobackup is set to every 5 minutes.. and im back in business..

6:40pm: Been rendering off the meerkat multiple times and fixing errors as I see em. Managed to get Deez walking to his mark. Now its time to cook dinner.

8:40pm: Ahh cloth... still rendering and re rendering, stopping the cloth clipping itself.

10:00pm: Right well thats the meerkat finished and posted to my *ahem* transformation art account. That about wraps it up for today I think =O)

Just want to say how great it was meeting everyone at FC. Im back home now and working on kicking the jetlag. I Fell asleep for 18 hours last night, which is a record, even for me.

The con has filled me with lots and lots of ideas, which I hope I can put into practice over the next year. Thanks again to all of you =O)

Well I'm here, having spent 11 days bimbling around the bay. I've still no idea how im going to find everyone. The best approach I can come up with is to write Deezlberries on my bag and laptop as large as I can and hope people say hi. =OP
Hopefully I should be doing some anim stuff as I hang out. So, If you want to meet up and your at the con, send me a message...

Well... I've been busy. Not least with christmas and getting ready to head off to FC, which ill be doing over a week early to hang out with the bay area furs, in particular evilyena. Hopefully we should cook up some kind of collaboration, although what exactly we haven't decided. Sadly, I never did sort out a fursuit for this con - I've been spending most of my time animating, so I've decided that ill wait until this years Eurofurance before giving it a go. At least that way it'll be easier to transport.

FC had a big effect on me last year. Because most of my friends would dissapear into their fursuits, I was left hanging around a lot of the time. Thanks to Mikhail i fell in with the artists, who really made me feel welcome. Though I didn't doodle in the sketchbooks, I'd pull out my laptop and play around with my animations. The interest that everyone took is what convinced me to join up on fur affinity and start posting animation. And needless to say, im very glad i did. =O)