Remaining stoic and learning lessons from a hellish morning...

 My word it's been a slightly testing day so far, so much so I thought it would be a good idea to make a note of it and share the simple but valuable lessons learned...

Yesterday I started work on a cleaned up animation test with the aim of having part of it finished to show the group at a meeting this morning. That's right, school began last night... 

Lesson one, when exporting PNG files from Procreate make sure the background layer has also been unticked! This little beauty cost me a good half hour of playing around and researching and it was nothing short of glorious when I realized the mistake I was making regardless of how basic.

Lesson two, when exporting more than one PNG file from Procreate choose the option of Animated PNG which will, as you've probably guessed, export all your layers in one go saving you having to do it one at a time, you beauty!

Knowing I had a meeting at 9:30am I dragged myself out of bed at 6:05am to crack on. 

Lesson three, everything ALWAYS takes longer than you anticipate. I realized fairly quickly, probably around 7:15am that there was no way in hell I was going to finish the whole 4 second sequence in time for the meeting so decided to finish the first part which is 12 frames. Confident this was very doable and that I'd be able to quickly export the files, newly coloured background as well, and take them into After Effects to export a clip as well as feed and walk my two dogs before things kicked off at 9:30am...to say things didn't quite play out like this would be an understatement, quarter past nine and due to a slow internet connection I was still trying to export these 12 frames. 

The dogs were overdue a walk and came to make a complaint several times but by now it was 9:25am and they were going to have to wait so they retreated to the hall and uncharacteristically I didn't hear from them again...

Lesson four, don't rely on your internet signal as...

Lesson five, failing to prepare is preparing to fail. By 9:30am the meeting was just starting and I was still trying to export a video clip from After Effects. I just figured it out when I received an invite to join the meeting from Heather, which I accepted. In my haste I didn't pay attention to where I exported the clip but thought it would be ok as it was on my screen and I planned to do a screen share to show the group. Hmmmm...

Back to lesson four...eager to share all my hard work and get some feedback I offered to go first. Shared my screen and introduced my first clip. Happy days. Mid -flow and just about to play the short version when my lecturer Keiran let me know that the stream wasn't very good and the animation was looking very jumpy. Not so happy days. He suggested I share the clips to our shared folder in One Drive, which sounds straight forward enough, if you know where you saved the file you'd like to upload in the first place! I didn't...so while the meeting continued I scrambled back into After Effects to save a new version and upload as quick as I could. Would it upload? Deep breath and take in lesson four...

When I then lost the sound in Teams and passed on the message, I had to take five and step away from the laptop. Stepping into the kitchen for a breather I was presented with lesson six and another job...

Lesson six, ALWAYS walk your dogs before they go quiet! Not wanting to go into too much detail I found a present from my Springer Poodle Darcy sat on the kitchen floor. Just the job! So I made my way around the corner on route to the bathroom for toilet roll and discovered our German Shepherd cross Indie had also decided she couldn't wait any longer. Note to self, always make time to walk the dogs. I pondered this and the other lessons as I cleaned up not knowing that there was still one more good one waiting...

This was all infuriating and led to a trip out of the flat for some fresh air having learned especially from lesson six. On returning to my studio a couple of hours later and eager to get cracking I found that my iPad was non-responsive. Brilliant, could this day get any better I wondered? Turned it off, turned it on. Opened Procreate, picked up my Apple Pencil and it's still not working. Literally ALL my work is on Procreate so if there's something wrong with the software or my iPad, we have a problem...

So I did what all super non-techie art types do and consulted the gods of Google. iPad not responding to touch...then I noticed it worked when I used my finger. Hold on. Ok. Gods of Google, iPad not responding to my Apple Pencil...answer, try unpairing it through Bluetooth then plugging it back in. Okay. iPad, settings, Bluetooth, devices, Apple Pencil. 'Not connected'. Popped the magnetized pencil onto the side of the iPad, VOILA! It was uncharged and out of battery because I'd gone out and left it on the table not connected! 

Lesson seven, ALWAYS reattach your Apple Pencil to the iPad when you're not using it. Luckily they charge pretty quickly but it was just another unnecessary inconvenience that could have been avoided.

Right, there it is. In the words of Conor McGregor...you either win or you learn and the GOOD thing is the whole day is not a write off, so baring that in mind I'm going to finish the Keith Haring mural animation and hopefully upload a cleaned up, and fully coloured version tomorrow :)