Rebekah Gamin

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I'm going to subject line this anything but "I'm still alive!"
I haven't posted in a while, so let's just do a general update! I haven't updated in a few months because, let's be honest, my life has just been an ongoing job search highlighted with a family wedding in Philly (very fun) and Thanksgiving (yummmm... tofurkey). I did get a part time job, though, at the Aquarium of the Bay at Pier 39 in San Francisco which has been a lot of fun and a huge learning experience. I get to do a lot of the "guest interaction" (i.e. talking to strangers from around the globe) that I loved so much working at Walt Disney World, so that's a huge plus. Also, I've learned so much about fish in the past two months, my brain might explode in a good way. The seas never fail to amaze and fascinate me! It's December 11th and I have most of my Christmas shopping done! queue patting myself on the back This year I had a pretty limited budget, which forced me to be fairly creative, but I'm pretty happy with what I've got stirring up in my magical Christmas proverbial pot this year! In other news, I want to continue on with the Flux (no promises that it will appear every week, life happens) but I realized after reading Gala Darling and Nubby Twiglet's blogs, it was just a poorly titled imitation of "Things I Love Thursday" and "Link Love". I've decided to rename the posts "Droplets of Joy" as it's in keeping with the water theme and says what the post is like Gala and Nubby's titles. This brings me to the age old question of whether I should return to all my older posts and rename them retroactively but I'm trying to limit my "retroactive blogging" in an effort to keep myself sane and this blog less painstakingly perfect. Perfectionism is a disease. (note to self: write a whole post blathering about perfectionism and its benefits/drawbacks) Well, that's all for now. ♫ Becky PS - the guy at Starbucks wrote "Vicky" on my gingerbread latte cup. So today, call me Vicky. ♫ Vicky
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By Starfish on December 11, 2008 at 9:19pm EST	Add Comment

Flux ( Sept 22nd - 26th )
♫ Tributes - This is a bit morbid but I think it's actually a great idea. It's just online obituaries, but it made me think: "wow... seems like that took too long to arrive to the interweb" ♫ Moka caffe - I finally got one of these Italian style stove-top espresso makers, and I wish I would have gotten it long ago! It was really reasonably priced. You throw the espresso into a mug of warm milk, and it's heaven! ♫ Kayak - really good searching engine for cheap flights. Tons of options for your search and it searches all the other low-priced flights websites. Quite handy. ♫ Amanita Design - This Flash animator, artist, and game designer team is just fantastic. They're producing a full fledged game for downloadable content on a next-gen system but I've come across their educational point-and-click adventure before and they've found a way to make very simple game design both charming and beautiful with their artwork. Their little creatures tend to remind me of fraggles. Queue squeeing with delight.
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By Starfish on September 28, 2008 at 12:26am EDT	Add Comment

Flux (Sept 15 - 19)
♫ Lisa Lichtenfels - This woman does the craziest realistic figures using nylons (like stocking nylons) over batting. A friend of Joe's owns the mermaid, and supposedly up close it's incredible, especially the facial expression. I love all her wing work, too. ♫ Emiliana Torrini - I've been really into Emiliana lately. I was wondering for a while who sang the end theme from The Two Towers and I finally found her. Originally it was supposed to be Bjork but she had to drop out so they got Emiliana to do it. I love Bjork but Emiliana's voice is so much more accessible but still has that haunting, unusual quality. This video for "Heartstopper" is great, I love marionettes. ♫ Gretel Parker - I love needle felting, and when I saw the goose playing cricket that Gretel recently made, I totally fell in love!! It has such a strange personality and dynamism for a soft sculpture. LOVE! ♫ Scott Pilgrim - I'm falling in love with this manga-style comic about a kinda hip losery dude from Toronto who lives with a gay guy, but he's straight, and who starts dating a high school girl. It's all very strange and funny and irreverent, I am hungry for more.
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By Starfish on September 20, 2008 at 5:24pm EDT	Add Comment

Flux ( Sept 8th - 12th )
I've decided to start a new tradition on my blog. I have so many small things that I discover during the week that I'd like to share, but they're not necessarily about art and animation. To give myself a forum to share these finds, besides Twitter, I'm going to try to put together a short list at the end of every week of great stuff I want to share with everyone else. So here we go! ♫ iFanboy Mini Episodes 128 + 129 – I've been watching iFanboy for a couple months now, the guys are funny, entertaining and not snobs, and its cool to hear about whats new in the comic book world. The show doesn't just cover DC and Marvel, but expands to include all different graphic novels. These mini episodes had me laughing so hard I was crying! The Rainbow Raider?! Seriously?? ♫ Inkscape – Inkscape is an open source vector graphics program that I've been using a lot over the last couple of weeks for some illustrations and I'm really liking it! I didn't expect to get the amount of functionality that there actually is there. Good stuff. I love open source. ♫ Jayme McGowan – Love Jayme's detailed cutout dioramas. She's so talented and has so much patience!! If I attempted something like this I feel like I'd crawl out on the other end covered in tiny paper cuts with pieces of paper stuck to my face! ♫ Dead Like Me – Just found this tv show on Netflix. It's a really concept driven show. Basically, the main character dies and becomes a grim reaper. Hilarity ensues. ♫ Goodbye Chunky Rice – This is a graphic novel unlike any other graphic novels I've read. Craig Thompson has an amazing gift for weaving an emotional journey that almost everyone goes through into a beautiful story about a turtle named Chunky Rice who is leaving town and his best friend, a mouse named Dandel, behind. I've gone through it 4 times so far. ♫ Sewing Stars – Seriously cute homewoven handicrafts. Her plushy yeti makes me do the girly-hand-clap-squee every time. I've gotta get some monies together to order it! SO CUUUTE! That's it for this week. Please comment and let me know what you think about this format. Thanks!
Topic(s): flux
By Starfish on September 14, 2008 at 12:01am EDT	Add/View Comments (1)

SIGGRAPH 08
So I think I've finally recovered from the craziness that was Siggraph 08! Being my second Siggraph, I felt much more comfortable with how the conference worked, and what I wanted to see. The one downside of this year was I wasn't able to get the pricey full-conference pass that included the entire animation festival and extra screenings. However, there was still plenty to see and do. Two RIT teams were represented in the "Iron Animator" Competition called Fjorg! so there was plenty of cheering and Viking-helmet-wearing (the theme is vikings, if you couldn't tell). Also the first day, I got to be in the very first row for Ed Catmull's keynote speech that carried a theme of trust in the creative environment. Ed Catmull is the president if Walt Disney and Pixar Animation Studios and he emphasized how the trusting and risk-taking environment at Pixar is the key to its' success, and how he's trying to bring that energy to Disney. And one of my favorite quotes from his talk was actually regarding Pixar's failures, which the audience has never seen as they had the sense to pull the plug or alter course before these "failures" hit screens. He stated "We keep our failures in house, we call them education." I was able to get my character animation reel graciously reviewed by 2 Disney animators, which was really nice, and I got a lot of great advice. Another highlight of Siggraph this year was seeing a few more minutes of raw footage of Laika's new feature Coraline. It looks incredible, I'm so excited!! After the conference, I was able to visit Disneyland for the first time, which was a BIG deal for me, being such a Disney World fan for my entire life. People told me it's "the same" as the Magic Kingdom in Florida, but it was so different! Space Mountain in Disneyland almost had me sick all over the universe by the end of it. Then even after that, we had some friends from school come to visit San Francisco with us so we did the whole riding-the-trolley, Fisherman's Warf, thing. A marathon 2 weeks, but so much fun. My pics are up on Flickr
Topic(s): siggraph
By Starfish on August 23, 2008 at 2:13am EDT	Add Comment

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