Long time no post...I'm sorry for not being as active as I'd like here but well, a lot has happened in the last 6 weeks (however I have not missed a single workout)!!!
So back on Monday February 27th I made the 2 hour drive into work, worked a 6 hour day and then was called into the conference room by the studio art director. Sitting there was the HR director...well I've been told I have the most upbeat and positive attitude of anyone by numerous peoples, and I don't wantonly run around violating HR policies, this could mean only one thing. Separation. With THQ cancelling 3 of our projects it was deemed that the work we did have could get wrangled by our animation outsourcing director and the couple of outsourcing teams we use. I was sent home. Now I'm very grateful to Pipeworks Software, for not only believing in me to tackle a job that I didn't have enough industry experience for (they brought me in as an animation lead and my first project was art lead on uDraw: Instant Artist) but for also giving me a huge opportunity to contribute to the games industry and increase my skills as an artist and team collaborator. I will be forever thankful to the art team and leadership there.
So that meant it was time to start cracking on my reel, well from the discussions I've had it seems to be all too common that an animator who works in a smaller studio for a year and a half leaves with pretty much nothing but resume accomplishments to show for it. Having worked on eight titles plus being responsible for completely designing and rebuilding the internal animation library means that I definitely had a quantity over quality requirement to fill. Being the sole in house animator meant I was always extremely busy. So this led to not having anything concrete to put on my reel from the last year and a half of work I did...I'd definitely use pieces from the internal library I built but sadly I am not allowed to, nor do I have access to the scene files I did that with a little polish would be reel worth - so back to my own personal work!!!
For the first 3 weeks of my 'time off' I only left my computer to eat, sleep and go to the gym. Then the wife took a job to pick up my slack and I found myself being a full time chauffeur to my three beautiful daughter - they all have different school schedules, one has track twice a week, the other track everyday plus soccer twice a week and on weekends. Reel work gets interrupted a bit more now. :D
If y'all know anyone looking for an animator - hit me up! :P Ideally in Seattle area!
Big changes at home...now for changes at the gym!!!
Three weeks ago was the last week of our drop set rotation - saw some good gains and actually did some flat bench pressing, first time in about a year, shoulders still a bit sore, but it doesn't hurt like it used to, however not going to push that exercise too much - BUT here's the kicker, I suffered my first real in gym injury.
On my second rep of said flat bench my finger got in the way of a meeting between a 60lb and 75lb dumbbell - I thought I had just smashed my finger...shook it out for a quick second and picked up the 50's to finish my set. When I was done, my wife asked where the blood was coming from. Hmmm blood, not much a couple spots on my hand, but more than this little cut under my nail...turn my hand over and I completely split the finger down into the dermis - didn't look to see if it went into the subq fat as I'm not all that strong of stomach when it comes to my own injuries. :D I hit the locker room washed it out best I could, hit the front desk for a first aid kit. They didn't have one. A 24HR fitness super sport with no first aid kit...found that odd. How bout an old towel and some duct tape than? Maintenance got me squared with that. So this is what I did to finish up my workout, after all this was only the first exercise, couldn't waste the day!
After pulling this off to properly clean and wrap it this is what it looked like:
It bled for about 4 hours - go go gadget gauze wrap!!! So the cut was about 5/8" long and again deep enough into the dermis to warrant continued urging from the wife to go get it stitched up. Well it's on a knuckle and without my studio position no benefits...so um...no, it can heal on it's own, I'll keep it clean and just wrap it twice a day. Looks pretty good now, almost completely healed and I can almost roll a complete fist with zero pain.
OK - enough of the long sob story (sorry guys and gals) on with the real CHANGE UP - went from 3 drops to 20's and 5's - this is a great way to get some growth. 2 set exercises, first set medium weight, medium speed 20 reps - second set, heavy weight, slow speed, 5 reps (sometimes I end up gauging too low and have to do 8 or even 12 if I didn't give myself enough credit OR the machine does not have enough weight on the stack).
Yesterday was back -
Seated freeweight rows (this is a machine that uses plates, weight is per arm)
70 x 20
180 x 5
Iso freeweight pulldowns
70 x 20
135 x 5
Stiff arm pulldown or Notorious pulldown
80 x 20
140 x 5
Widegrip standing cable rows
80 x 20
200 x 5
Cable christmas trees or hyperback extention
60 x 20
180 x 5
Solid workout - music was overhead and bad. :D
