As you probably know, NATA is over now, and after a close final round, Emrox has emerged victorious, and the guy deserves it. Here's his video:
http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/604323

...and, in case you're interested, here was mine.
http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/604251

I guess because so much has changed since the start of NATA, I should probably take a paragraph to reflect. The other day, I edited a new showreel for myself to include all the stuff I've done since last December, when I uploaded my last showreel:

It's not the greatest, but when you compare it with my showreel from last year, you can see that it's improved a fair amount. If there's one thing I definitely got from my experience this year, it's that I experimented a lot with my animations. That never hurts, right? Also, I have a vastly different work ethic since I started NATA. Due to the nature of the competition, I got used to having almost constant work. I think I'm able to completely focus on things for extended periods of time (six months, in this case) because I feel like it's good for me and also that it will make relaxing afterwards feel even better. I can now say that yes, being able to focus and work is a really good skill to have, and yes, last night was the first night in months when I did nothing (with the exception of editing that demo reel, but it didn't take too much time or effort so that doesn't count) and it was glorious.

So anyway, what now?

I don't have a shiny new demo reel for no reason. I think I mentioned in an earlier news post that I'm going to be making a music video next, and I think that maybe this will start the ball rolling for some more commissioned animations in the year to come. Or at least until the next NATA.

You may or may not know that I do web design work, so that will resume again now as well.

I also have been learning 3D animation on the side for a while now. Don't go looking for a 3D video of mine yet, because all my previous ones aren't very good. If an opportunity arises, maybe you'll see a new, improved, fully 3D animation from me. Who knows.

Lastly, I also want to spend some time programming. Although I spend so much time doing animation, I don't actually think it's the career path I want to go into. I am definitely not giving up animation, because I love it; however, I think animation will just remain a hobby of mine. Instead, I will probably be going to university for computer science or software engineering or something like that. (Side note: Although I don't have to apply to university for another year, I am starting to look. If anyone has any advice or insight about Canadian universities with programs that I might be interested in, I'm all ears!) So this past weekend, I programmed a game for the Game Jam. I'm pretty proud of how it turned out, since I initially wasn't sure if I'd be able to be any good at making games so quickly. It was definitely a fun experience and I hope to participate in the next one, too.

Although, I might not be doing game programming. In one round of NATA, I programmed a simple little program to take your progress on an animation and project how much you need to do to finish on time. It's neat making things that actually are useful. Sometime in the future, I plan to make a more advanced adaptation of that program that lets you make storyboards, and then check off your progress from there. I'm not sure when I'll have the time, though, since I guess I'm a pretty busy guy, but it'll happen eventually.

//DAVE OUT