For a normal person at the end of a normal work week, realizing it's a Friday should bring happiness, joy, and maybe even relief that the weekend is just hours away. For me, Fridays are a way of looking back and thinking, "Where did all the time go???"

We are deep in week 10 at AnimationMentor.com (Intro to Walks with Character), and I have not entered a single keyframe in Maya. I have about five sheets of 8.5x11 office bond paper filled with thumbnails, rough sketches, and pose drawings of what I want my Ballie rig to do. Now to just transfer those ideas into the computer.

Easier said than done.

For me, trying to find a good, healthy, routine balancing AM class work, with a full-time job, a personal life has been tough. I was so excited to start; it was a bit overwhelming. But after week 06 the initial "Christmas Morning" euphoria settled in, and I realized the importance of prioritizing and scheduling.

From M-F, I spend an average of two hours a day on AM class work, and one hour cruising the campus and forums. It can be more or less, depending on what else is going on in my life. But I do make it a point to strictly keep to that timeframe. M-W is mostly planning sketches and thinking real hard what to do before jumping on Maya and going at it. Thursday and Friday, is when I'm animating like a monster. All throughout the week, though, I do try and peep at my other classmates' work and leave comments, as well as check out the forums to see what the students are discussing.

I spend Saturdays and Sundays mostly refining my animated work based on crits from my mentor and fellow classmates, and polishing things, with fresh eyes, that I may have overlooked. I usually give a good five hours a weekend to polishing.

Even though I have set up a specific timeframe each week, I spend practically 24 hours a day "thinking" about animation, 'cause I see it everywhere in the world around me, even in my sleep.

There are two priorities that come before AM, and that's time with my fiancé and my full-time job. Aside from those two things, how much time I spend on the actual assignments is pretty much open. But, I have worked out a rough method to make sure I do put in enough time to complete the assignments.

My general process is: 1. Observing 2. Planning 3. Animating 4. Reviewing 5. Refining.

Oh crap. It's Friday and I'm still on my planning stage.

Don't get me wrong, it's not like I've been slackin' (so I keep telling myself). Oh sure, everywhere I go, I see so many different walk cycles with so much character built in (observation). And yes, I carry a sketchbook ready to capture on paper that snapshot that's still fresh in my mind (reference). When I get home after work, I translate some of the quick gestures to clean, structured pose drawings to hopefully assist with my animation (planning).

Earlier this week, I guess I spent way too long revising my past assignments (Vanilla Walk and Ballie 180 turn.) But, I really learned a lot from Charles' crits and the suggestions left by classmates in my workspace, that I wanted to just try new things and experiment. No harm there, right?

But man, just over 48 hours to go before my assignment is due, AND I have to go to my full-time job today.

Alas! A light at the end of the tunnel!

- I have about 90% of my revisions done.
- I have narrowed down my character walk to one approach (out of the dozen I have investigated.) I have my STU pose of Exhausted sketched out (it was easy, I just looked in the mirror.)
- I'm going to see Madagascar tonight (to prep for Saturday morning's Q&A with the mentors from PDI.)
- After the movie, I'm gonna -animate with little to no distractions, 'till the assignments are due Sunday noon.

So, where did all the time go? Too busy to dwell on that. Time to get crackin!