A Couple Animations :)

Hey Everyone,

Here are a couple of animations I've done recently.  I hope you like them!

 Walk Sequence with Personality

 Frog Jump

Poor Jake

Here's a sad story about my boyfriend.

Jake and I had plans to hang out in his hometown this weekend and to go to the Johnny Appleseed festival in Fort Wayne. All these plans were changed today though. Jake and I were planning on leaving at 8:00am, so when I got a call early this morning, when I was still in bed, I thought it was him calling to make sure I didn't sleep through my alarm. I answered and said "Hey, what time is it?" and he said "Hey, oh, its early. I'm not feeling too good." and I thought, oh he must be cancelling the plans, okay. and then he continued, "I think I need to go the the hospital." Without question, I got dressed and told him I'd pick him up in 5 minutes. We drove to the hospital, and he told me that he just had felt really sick all night and thought it would be better to be safe than sorry. His parents met us there. Jake went in with his mom to get checked out. He texted me later to tell me that he needed bloodwork, and about 15 minutes later he sent another text to say that they ordered a CT scan and an x-ray. I started to get nervous. His mom came out and said the bloodwork said his white blood cell count was high and that they thought he might have appendicitis. The CT scan confirmed this, and they cancelled the x-ray and just moved ahead. They contacted the on-call surgeon who came in after about 4 hours. As soon as he was in it was a quick turnaround to get him into the OR. I was concerned. I didn't (and don't) want anything to happen to him. The procedure lasted about 50 minutes, and then it took a little while to help him recover from the anesthesia. When we first saw him, he was white as a ghost with bruised looking eyelids. He slept for the first time since he got up yesterday morning. While he was resting, Jake's dad, Jim, the twins and I went back to HU to get the things that we needed, since we both had to leave so fast this morning. When we got back, he was feeling a little more chipper but was still in a lot of pain, so they decided to keep him overnight. After we got back to the hospital, I wanted to be right there with him, so I pulled up a chair and sat with him all afternoon and up until I left tonight. It looks like he'll be down for about a week. Luckily his house is about 2 minutes away from the hospital, and he'll be able to recover there at home. Things are looking better now, but please pray that he heals well. Thanks everyone! I love you!

Remember, remember the... end of September

Hello All!

As usual, my week has been busy, but not too busy to keep you all updated. Like last time, I'll address some housekeeping stuff up front, and then we'll get to the good stuff. I heard that you all were unable to comment on the blog itself. Worry not, I fixed the problem. For inquiring minds, blogger automatically defaults to only allowing registered blogger users to comment, but I opened it up to the public (i.e., you) so that you all can just read and respond. Okay? Okay.


Alright, lets start with classes. After the first few weeks I am settling right back into my student routine, with some improvements with time management and organization (insert pat on back here.) Animation II has proven itself to be the hardest of my classes right now, because it is animation bootcamp right now. Leeper (the professor and also just plain cool) said that he knows its tedious work, so he is going to try to inject some fun back into the class. His plan? Create a replacement animation of frogs leaping, in honor of World Animation Day. (October 28th, mark your calendars!) The look we're going for is similar to what Tom Gasek (a well known stop-motion animator) was able to achieve in this Sony Bravia ad with the jumping bunnies. Our animation will probably be a lot simpler but still very fun. I'll keep you posted on the frog plague :)

My favorite class right now is Storyboard and Concept. I feel that I have a knack for planning stories and making words into images, so I am well suited for this class. You can see my comic journal here: darahcj.blogspot.com. It is updated every Monday. I really like the pre-production process and like planning things out and playing with ideas. I also like the concept art that goes in to animation. If I was to end up doing pre-production stuff for my career, I think I would be very happy.

That's all for now!

River Fall Comic

Here is a comic I made for my Storyboard class. I chose the hilarious event to illustrate. I took a little artistic license here, but I hope you like it :)

Animation II Exercises

Head Turn


Character Splat

and so it begins

Hello to all of you who wish me well. It is I, Darah, here to update you on my life at my home away from home, Huntington University. Before I get into some stories about my first week and vacation, I would like to address some administrative information. My updates will no longer be coming to you via e-mail, for a variety of reasons, including but not limited to: small storage space on my school e-mail account, loss of many e-mail addresses, as well as limited multimedia enhancements to my wonderful stories :) So from now on, come check me out at darahmorin.blogspot.com. Feel free to comment or e-mail me, its a great way to stay in touch with everyone.

Okay, now that that is taken care of, let's get to the good stuff. As most of you know, on the 23rd my dad and I set out for Indiana, with much less in the trunk of my car this time, than when I came home in the spring (funny how you pack less the second time around.) It was a good trip full of singing and funny stories, and my envy at how my brother would get to see the Red Sox play, and as it turned out, win the game against the Chicago White Sox, atop the Green Monster at Fenway Park. Once my skin faded back from green, the trip was enjoyable again. :) We got to Huntington at 1:30am and slept. I moved my stuff in the next day with help from my dad and my boyfriend, Jake. (For inquiring minds, there is more about him later in the post, so patience my dears, patience :) I am living in one of the best dorms on campus Meadows Hall (just one of the perks of being an upperclassman) I am rooming with my hand-picked roommate from last year, Colleen King, and we adjusted to being roomies again in like, 30 seconds. She is a great kid and I love her to pieces. This year, we went with an IKEA theme. If any of you are unfamiliar, IKEA is a swedish based home furnishings store that is ideal for young people and college students who need furniature that is durable and cool, without costing a fortune. We have some cool globe lights and brightly colored bedspreads and a cool rug. I will include some pics in my next post, once we've had time to vacuum...

Classes are great this year, here is my schedule:

Monday: 8:00-8:50am Biblical Archaeology

11:00-11:50am Intro to Editing and Media Management

6:00-9:00pm Storyboard and Concept

Tuesday: 9:00-9:50am Intro to Art

10:00-10:50am Chapel (its not a class, but I go anyway)

1:00-1:50pm Beginning Tennis (1/2 semester course, I will be done in October)

2:00-4:50pm Animation II

6:00-9:00pm 3D Computer Foundations

Wednesday: 8:00-8:50am Biblical Archaeology

6:00-9:00pm Storyboard and Concept

Thursday: Same as Tuesday

Friday: 8:00-8:50am Biblical Archaeology

9:00-9:50am Beginning Modern Dance



Yep, that's the spread. Not too shabby if you ask me. The most challenging one will likely be Modern Dance because I am not coordinated, nor am I good at recording how my daily movements fit into my "dance lifestyle." Um, I'm just taking this class for credit, not to acquire a dance lifestyle. Thanks though. :)

Okay, I know what you are all thinking "When is she going to tell us more about this boy?"

Well, when I was in West Virginia this summer visiting my friends, including Jake, he invited me to this Labor Day weekend trip to Gatlinburg with his family. I gladly accepted. We rented a cabin in the Smokies. Here is the link for the cabin that we stayed in, Black Bear Lodge: http://www.jacksonmountain.com/content/house/su/3blackb

We were there with Jake's whole family: his parents, Jim and Cindy and his twin siblings Ben and Megan who are high school freshmen this year. His Aunt Cheri and Uncle Stan were there too, with their 4 year old son, Trent. Jake's Grandma Bonnie was also there. So, it was a full house, both in occupancy and laughs. They are very warm and welcoming people and loved poking fun and playing games. Some highlights of the trip: Ben's bio project where he needed to collect insects, so we all spotted and help capture these critters. I pointed them out and freaked out a little. Me no touchy bugs. We saw a waterfall, had a picnic lunch near a river, the same river that Jake fell in to. Yep, that part was real funny. We went to a pottery place, watched some Illini football and went go carting. We saw a bear and then quickly ran to the cars whenever we left, after that sighting. Jake and I went on our first back to school date, and we took the skylift to see Gatlinburg from the top of the mountain.

Jake is a really great guy. We have been dating for 4 months and everyone thinks we are a good match. He is a born and raised Hoosier, though he is an Illini fan. He's a youth ministry major who is very involved at his church in hometown Decatur, The Bridge. He frequently leads worship for the elementary aged kids. If you could not infer from the previous statement, he is a good singer. Many of you have heard his rewrite of the Plain White Ts "Hey There Delilah" to his cell phone voicemail message. He's a big disney fan and is very creative. He designed the "bio badge" that is above. He loves animation and does a lot with Adobe flash. He hopes that he will be able to merge both his calling for youth ministry and his passion and skills for animation in his future career. Jake and I have lots of fun together. He treats me well and loves me a lot. We're really excited to see where this relationship is headed, but thoroughly enjoying being here and now. We are both really happy and lucky :)

Thanks for reading guys! Stay in touch. OH! Also, feel free to write me via snail mail. Nice notes are way nicer to get than bills :)

My address at school is:

Darah Morin

Huntington University

2303 College Ave.

Drawer# 340

Huntington, IN 46750

Okay, here are the pictures! Love you guys!

Jake after falling into the river, pictured with his Uncle StanJake's dad Jim, picking a turtle up off the trail. Between the turtles and the massive amounts of bugs he picked up for Ben's project, he got the nickname "Jim Dundee."

Gatlinburg TN