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so cha folks... this quarter went relatively smooth... that almost concerns me.. stare

for the summer quarter I had:
[MM1] ~ Mechanical Masks I
[AAC] ~ Advanced AutoCADD - Form Z (a 3D rendering program)
[HFX] ~ History of Special Effects
[MMM] ~ Movie Miniature Models
[CNC] ~ CNC Milling (basically a 3D printing class)

for convenience I put three digit codes next to the so I don't need to spell them out...

So people know what the crap I'm talking about, I'll give quick run-downs of the class goals, ya know? [MM1] is a two-part class (thus the "one" wink in which, you guessed it, we make mechanical masks! The finished product is typically awesome, but they don't offer the second part again till the Spring quarter, so it may be a while before I get everything done...

As I said, [AAC] is a 3D modeling class - i.e. - computer rendering n' stuff... If you can't figure out [HFX] on your own I will personally contact Carlos Mencia and tell him to give you a "Dee Dee Dee Award"....

In [MMM] we make sets to be used in movies that would be too costly or ineffective to make full scale.. like, ya know that scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail where they see "Camelot" and the lil' dude says, "It's only a model.." that's it.

3D printing sounds hard and all, but really you just program it to do what you need and the machines do the rest... it's pretty cool... so [CNC] turned out to be one of my least frustrating classes of the quarter. I was supprised...

So the frustration level went like this... [CNC], [HFX], [MM1] and [AAC], [MMM]

In [MM1] I had to first make a full head lifecast of myself first.. usually i like being inside the Alginate you need to be coated in, but this time the girl who was doing it on me couldn't remember what the crap she was doing since she hadn't done one in a looong time.. she kept skipping steps and we kept backtracking, instead of putting my hair through a hole in the back like I asked, she put it in a bun and just went over it so my lifecast looks like I have a huge tumor on the back of my head, and when I was incased in the Alginate and wrapped in plaster bandages, she and this other guy kept knocking on it. In case you don't know what that's like, try putting a giant bell on your head and have someone hit it with a tuna... it'll be close.

Anyway... once i had the lifecast (i ended up screwing up the nose a bit.. it looks like i'm sniffing or something) I had to make a large sculpture over it, making it very thick while allowing it to still blend into my eyes on the lifecast... making a sculpture is hard stuff... keeping that sculpture symmetric is harder... trying to make "Boreas, the North Wind" look real is harder yet...