COVID Dystopia: Wanna Watch the MFers

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This shot from COVID Dystopia, was fist created when bars and restaurants first reopened after the “lock-down”. America was never really locked down. People found every excuse to get out and about.

Numbers are low right now though in America the baseline is always higher than any where else in the world. I always mask indoors with a n–95 or KN-95 and I sill refuse to pack into a tight indoor crowd.

In England, a new variant, called KP-2 is taking over from JN-1. The spike in cases is astonishing. It is the single largest rise in COVID positivity in over two years. This last week saw 2 54% rise in cases. If that continues the following week then this will be the largest wave in over two years.

The variant is being found to be very immune and vaccine evasive. It will be hopping the pond soon and no one is watching. this one effects the lungs and heart. So by late May or early June expect that wave to be hitting America. I will refrain from indoor dining for some time.

In this shot the animation consists of the masked hazmat wearing bartender leaning forward and placing a drink on the bar. With that action and all the flames, I think there is plenty of action in the shot.

In the following weeks I am putting lots of time into painting the Orlando Shakes posters for next season, so animation is on hold. I had an evening off this week, and thought about going out to do a sketch on location, but I couldn’t stop myself from working on the posters.

SELF

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SELF presented by ARTiko Espacio Creativo was performed in the black box theater at the Orlando Family Stage, 1001 E Princeton St, Orlando, FL. Actor, producer, Stephen Lewis told me about the amazing work this dance company is doing. He put me in touch with producer Alexander Rivero and we arranged for me to get in and do a sketch.

I arrived a touch early and a line had already formed to get into the lobby of the theater. I remained unmasked but kept 22 feet of distance from the crush of the crowd. It was heart warming to watch hugs as friends and family met.

Since I was keeping a distance, I was the last to enter the lobby. My mask went on just before entering.  when the doors opened. The crowd completely filled the lobby. I was luck because a portable air conditioner had been set up to try and cool the air. It blew right on my at 62 degrees. The doors behind me opened several times as late comers pressed in. Finally a woman with huge sun glasses in a white dress and clear raincoat slapped her hands against the glass entry door. This was dancer Scarlet Sans. People turned to look and hushed one another. On man in the crowd worked his way to the door to open it for her. This was unrehearsed since the stage hand next to me started to laugh. He was just being a gentleman. I suspect she would have spent much more time struggling to get in if it weren’t for him. Ah, the joy of live theater.

Raincoat woman entered and started exploring the floor with her umbrella. She now had everyone attention. She then pushed through the crowd which parted to make way for her. I lost sight of her from that moment on. There was a large monitor in the back of the lobby and an opportunity was lost by not projecting her performance in the monitor. I tried to see what she was doing by looking at iPhones which were raised high above peoples heads to take video. I couldn’t see much on the postage stamp sized screens but she was at a canvas. The entrance to the theater was covered with thin clear plastic and I started to fear that the whole show might happen in this tight confined lobby. The CO2 levels had to be skyrocketing.

Eventually the plastic was ripped away from the entrance to the theater and people started pressing forward. Since I was press, I was told to stand behind the bleachers. I was considering the sketch opportunities of sketching the show at butt level through a gap between two people when the director Carlos Dimas found me and ushered me to a much better view on the side lines of the theater.

The show was in Spanish. I picked up just a few phrases from my study on Duolingo. So rather than trying to understand the show through words, I had to trust the movement and raw emotions expressed to flavor the lines I put on the screen.  There was much angst with dancers curled up as in pain or huddled together as if comforting each other. Mauricio Vega opened the show lying on top of a box and then rolling onto the floor and coming to life. Dancer Katherine Dalis had a long moment where she stood motionless with the tassels hanging from her costume waving is the breeze.   Alexia Palacios caught my eye because she resembled Pocahontas and moved with the same stealth pride. There was an unbridled sensuality about the show with an underlying dark foreboding tone.

In the final scene the dancers knelled before water bowls and splashed water on their faces. I took this to mean they were washing away some of the angst and looking toward the future with hope.

COVID Dystopia: Watch the MFers Explode

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This shot from COVID Dystopia has flames that were hand animated. I layered some after Effects textures over the larger flames to add more movement to the painted effects. I was pleases with how the animation turned out on the torch flame. The ex-president also raises his arms a bit. His animation was always rather limited.

The waves do distort and move a bit but they are not fully animated. If I were to go back in and animate anything it would be the flags waving. I don’t want that motion to distract from the audience looking at the sinking ex-president.

Today I am off from teaching so I plan to spend the day painting Shakes Theater posters. For each poster I also have to paint a horizontal format version. I want to make sure all the vertical format posters are approved before I start that process which will double the amount of work I need to do.

 

 

Eye Doctor

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I have been having trouble seeing out of my left eye. When looking straight ahead I see a warped second image that arcs downward. When I look at something like a roof line, I see one as straight across and then a second that scoops down. My binocular vision then combines those two images to come up with a sort of jagged edge.

As a freelancer I pay for Ambetter Heath insurance. About a year ago I got glasses from an ophthalmologist on Michigan Street. That doctor no longer takes my insurance. My general practitioner dropped my insurance as well.

I searched through the few eye doctors who do take my insurance and decided on Dr. Sandra Mauro. I researched her education, and she has been in the eye business her whole life. She website also stressed how the office is run with COVID precautions in mind. That however was old news. I was the only one masked. Her office is a small concrete block building with parking behind it. All the parking spots were taken but I was lucky that someone pulled out. It seems like everyone is loosing their sight.

The waiting room was full of moms and their kids. After filling out some paperwork I got my eye pressure checked and a doctors assistant used a bright light to view the inside of my eye. Doctor Mauro had me look through a series of lenses. I was shocked when I found my left eye could not read any of the letters she showed me. I explained that the letters arced downward and were blurry. I wore my mask through most of the procedure but at one point the mask was fogging up the lens, so I pulled it down for that procedure.  She put drops in my eyes to dilate my pupils. When she left I sketched some of the equipment in her office.

She asked me to look at a grid and I could see the whole grid which was good she said. At least I don’t have cataracts. Then she repeated the procedure of s shining a bright light into my eye. Her assessment is that I have a swollen macula.  Essentially the back of my eyeball is caving inwards. There is also a “floater” in my left eye and I was surprised to find out my right cornea has a scar. She didn’t have the equipment needed to do any more tests, so she refereed me to a retina specialist.

My eyes are a mess. Possible treatments include pills to reduce the swelling, shots into the eye, laser or scalpel surgery to remove the swollen tissue. I am fascinated at the thought of having fluorescent dye shot into my veins to see how the blood flows into my eye. The thought of someone coming at my eye with a knife is terrifying. I am thinking a pirate patch might be enough. Even a cyclops can be an artist.

COVID Dystopia: I Can’t Let It Go

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This scene from COVID Dystopia has been reworked multiple times.I might animate the guy in the foreground who is walking screen left. The rest of the crowd has subtle movement just because of the depth map.

“I can’t let it go: pretty much sums up where I am at this point in the pandemic. Hospitalizations for those infected by COVID are at the lowest point they have been at in a long time. Despite this I will continue to mask indoors and outdoors if in a crowd.

I am getting my eyes checked tomorrow. My left eye is getting blurry and distorting my view. With both eyes open I get a secondary image that distorts downwards. Since I am an artist, the vision is kind of important.

I know there is a new variant on the horizon but it hasn’t stepped in to fill the shows of JN1 yet. Talking to a student last weekend I found she has been infected 4 times so far and might have been exposed again by a friend. She was quite cavalier about being sick so often.

I follow people who are suffering from Long COVID and would like to take any steps necessary to not have to experience the way the virus destroys the immune system and can debilitate for months or years. There is no treatment and there is no cure. So I take basic precautions. I don’t mind a side wards glance. I have no need to fit in.

Is there a COVID cautious community in Orlando? If there is I haven’t seen any evidence of it.

COVID and the Brain

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I know I have written about this before but there are new studies that confirm the damage that even a mild COVID infection can cause to the brain.

A new study published in Nature Microbiology found that a COVID infection is associated with short and long term neurological complications.

Cultures were collected and compared, from people without COVID and postmortem samples from people with COVID. COVID is known to cause multi organ damage.

In another study brain autopsies were done on 44 unvaccinated individuals who died from COVID-19. The goal was to map the cell structure damage. The virus was found to replicate in respiratory and multiple non-respiratory organs including the brain. The virus was found to be replicating in the brain as much as 230 days after infection. In some patients the virus can cause systemic infection and persist in the body for months.

COVID can cause multi organ failure and shock. Some who survive, suffer from Long COVID for months or years.

COVID can cause severe neurological symptoms. COVID causes neurons in the brain to fuse. Every neuron that fused with any of the cells that hold nerve cells in place, presented a complete loss in neuronal activity. This fusion is a progressive event. Symptoms can consist of headache, fever, confusion, epileptic seizures, and a loss of taste or smell. Long-term and chronic neurological manifestations derived from viral neuroinfections are finally gaining attention five years into the pandemic. However this is an election year so there will be little talk about COVID. Hospitalizations are down to about 6000 COVID patients per week, which is the lowest it has been for years. However I am waiting for the shoe to drop on another wave.

The illustration consists of MRI scans of my brain. I am fascinated at how it interconnects with the eyes and nose. If you ever wonder why I mask indoors, it is because I value this squishy little organ that throws so many random thoughts around each day. When neurons fire, I can see things vividly. Feeling the need to fit in with the crowd is not my strong suit. Crowded restaurants and social events no longer hold any appeal. Traveling to film festivals, promoting COVID Dystopia are my one exception, but I remain masked from start to finish. Perhaps in my health’s favor, many festivals are not willing to screen the film.

COVID Dystopia: But I Can’t Let It Go

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This shot from COVID Dystopia just has a depth map applied right now. It follows the wacky wacky tube men shot which is highly active.

I now realize that I need to add more animation to this shot. I can make the girl and all the demons look like they are walking by just moving them left to right and adding some up and down motion. By altering the strides of each they can move independently without much effort.

I am also considering having the demon in front raise his hand an put it on the girls shoulder. I already animated a candle flame for the melting Giuliani shot, so I should be able to import that an duplicate it for all the flames.

I haven’t animated a shot in the film for the last week and thought I might be finished, but sometimes when I share a shot here, I realize there is room for improvement. I have started considering the story line of another short animation but I want to take care that the story being developed has heart and is more linear than COVID Dystopia. I also want to start designing the COVID Dystopia book but I am wondering if I should self publish or seek out a publisher. I am at a cross roads and want to be sure COVID Dystopia is locked in as I begin exploring the next phase.

COVID Dystopia: Yea, I should Go

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This was probably the most complex scene to animate in COVID Dystopia. I learned so much about rubber hose animation and overlapping action by doing this shot.

I am sure most people have blocked the fact that on New Year’s Eve in 2021, Times Square had no live spectators. They filled the square with Wacky Wavy Balloon Arm Men so the shots on TV would appear less deserted and more active. This was American ingenuity at work.

Right now the COVID hospitalization have dropped down to a rather high base line. England is seeing a rise in cases and as always I am sure America will follow. Now is a good time to get those medical appointments set up since this is as low as it will go before another spike in cases. We are coming off of the JN1 spike and new variants are jockeying for dominance for the next spike. The Omicron spike was huge,  so each new wave seems small in comparison. People cave been conditioned to accept mass infection.

I have stopped drinking milk because bird flu (h5N1) has infected so many dairy cow herds in America. 33 herds have tested positive so far. The cows were likely infected from chickens. Cow feed is actually laced with chicken droppings.

One in five samples of commercially available milk in stores has been found to test positive for h5N1. The hope is that pasteurization will kill the active virus, but pasteurization temperatures are not standardized. Until there is more testing, and no active virus is found in any samples, I remain cautious.

This morning I tried Almond milk on my cereal and it was actually really good. I am also thinking about making breakfast smoothies in the morning, again with almond milk and fruit like blueberries and bananas. I have made some eggs over the last week but I am making sure I cook them extra well so that they are not runny. I have one small packet of vegan cheese left over and I am thinking of switching over to vegan cheese to see how that tastes.

The primary concern should probably not be the consumption of the virus. I am sure it is airborne and that will be the primary way it spreads. Early reports are that human to human transmission has not yet happened. Then again that is what was being reported in China at the start of the COVID outbreak. Only two proteins are keeping human to human transmission from happening. I have learned to respect viruses. They are tenacious and will find a way to spread. Humans are the best mammalian host to spread the virus world wide. Since h5N1 has a 52% mortality rate, this would be a horrible outbreak if it happens.

Three Point Launch Demo

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This was a demo for one of my Elite Animation Academy online students.We had already covered one pint and two point perspective and this was a lesson in three point perspective.

I always try and convince my students to think a step beyond the basic lesson plan to create something unexpected. In this case the student had chosen to draw a tall skyscraper and I offered the possibility that it could be something other than a building.

Some students are bored by the mechanical nature of graphing out perspective, but I love teaching it and I use the premise in every sketch I do. Some students think it involves too much science and not enough fancy, so I throw some fancy into the mix as I teach it.

Right now I am waiting on about 20 different film festivals to accept or reject COVID Dystopia. I tend to post scenes from the film on this site when the film is about to be shown at a festival and when I suspect judges might check out the site for more information about the film. Since

I am in a holding pattern, I figured I would post more variety. I have started sketching rehearsals and shows again but I tech until 8pm many nights and have to schedule around my teaching schedule. I might get out to about 3 theater sketch opportunists a week. I have been sketching theaters where my film has been shown but that number is rather small.

This week I am pressing hard to refine next season’s Shakespeare posters but after that I am a tumbleweed looking for my next series of sketches to become obsessed about.

A trip to NYC several months ago got me excited about continuing my series of sketches of the 50 oldest churches in the city. I am looking at rents in Brooklyn and there are a few where the rent is less than I am paying here in Orlando. At this point, it doesn’t matter where I live and set up my studio. I really need to think about buying a place however since rent is just wasted money.

Tea Time

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Is there such a thing as an animated horror movie? Tea Time was done as a demo with one of my online art students. She had a definite story she wanted to tell about one sister poisoning her sibling. I did a series of thumbnail sketches to explore how the scene might be staged.

If this was to be pushed towards a finished illustration I would need to research the furniture the dresses, and the type of room that would best set the mood.

I didn’t push this further since my goal was to get my student’s work to shine. I offered multiple suggestions and helped push the student work along.

Students who have definite ideas they would like to pursue are the most fun to work with. Today is Saturday and I will be working six hours with 4 students. Tow of them are working on story ideas they are developing. I will be doing thumbnails like this to help inspire them to consider all the possibilities in staging a shot. The goal isn’t for them to copy what I do, but for them to come up with an idea that works best for them.

Tonight after the classes, I might go to Winter Park’s Knowles Memorial Chapel where Dvořák’s Stabat Mater is being performed. I would sketch the chapel and see if the music is audible as I sketch. I also need to re-paint the background in a Shakespeare Theater poster. I suspect I will be painting the poster until I collapse and go to bed.