The light at the end of the tunnel (Patreon)

The month is nearly over, and so too, perhaps, is my stay in Michigan! My friend is getting better by the day, and might be able to drive me to the airport within another week or two! Then in the first week of June, I may be heading right back up for the summer, although even that is now undetermined...

Recently one of my former coworkers reached out, to inform me that the new studio he's at is looking for a technical animator. On one hand, I'd hoped to take at least a year off from the industry, and use that time to relax and catch up on so many of the things I've had to push aside over the past couple of years. On the other hand, the industry is in a bad spot right now, so may I should get whatever work I can. That said, I can't picture the interview going too well. I don't have a recent demo reel or any samples. Anything I could show off is either on a backup drive back in Florida, or still under NDA. I'd basically be relying on my former coworker's word that I know what I know. Even if I were home right now, there probably wouldn't be enough time for me to put a reel together.

If I don't get that job, then at least I'll be free to enjoy several camping trips this summer.

Potential work aside, lately my obsession with the "Winds of Change" animated film has reached a new level. I'd resumed the process of attempting to match the Japanese DVD with the American & French versions I'd downloaded from Youtube, but grew frustrated with the low quality and over-compressed nature of those last two videos. The only way around that would be to obtain the tapes and capture them myself, which is exactly what I'm doing. Already I have the American version digitized, but the French version is more difficult. There are two vendors online, but they only ship within France. I've found a way around that, but the shipping will easily cost as much as the tape(s), if not more. And then once I have them, I'll need to locate a multi-format VCR to play them.

I'd been thinking that another part of my film preservation effort would be a Domesday Duplicator - also for preserving my laserdiscs - but the more I read up on that thing, the less user-friendly it sounds. It's not exactly a plug & play solution.

In the meantime, my Patreon remains paused until I'm finally back home and able to focus on drawing more than the occasional thumbnail sketch.