Sketching: Little Victories

Recently, the animators of SpeakeasyFX started a sketchblog in their spare time, with weekly themes. Our first theme was Healthcare, then Regret, and now, Little Victories. I spent the week thinking of tiny victorious moments and this was the simplest one. I was hoping to achieve a lot of character. Here was my contribution.



I have a lot of babies in my family right now.. nieces, nephews, cousins.. and one thing these babies have in common is their hilarious tendency to want nothing on their feet. Ever. Period. The parents get their socks on.. and those things come right off. So I thought it would be cute to feature a slightly older, but still very young girl, putting them on all by herself.

Revamped Website

So today, I decided it was about time to revamp my website. I need to make a nicer looking one, but in the meantime, I pulled down the old one and threw on a simpler design with current stuff. Check it out!

Grooveshark, For A Good Energetic Mood

If you haven't heard of Grooveshark, it's your next best friend to Pandora. It's the real thing with music on demand... and playlists. You can export playlists too, and embed them in your webpages, like this.



I'm still working out this playlist (and you can maintain several with up to 200 songs), but this one keeps me in a perky mood most of my day. Music and a good mood go a long way in my daily life. Enjoy!

No Black Noodles for Nate

Dear Natron,

I felt that you should not consider yourself a loser for the third month in a row while overseas, so here is an official audio Valentine from the SkoNats.

First Valentine sound bite  The Office 5x15 Blood Drive sound bites

I refer to black noodles in the title of this post because apparently if Nate didn't get any Valentines, he would suffer through a Chinese style black noodle dish, mourning being single. Nate, if you meet a pretty girl today, you'd best give her some Skittles.

Thanks to Wikipedia for this excerpt:

Thanks to a concentrated marketing effort, Valentine's Day is celebrated in some Asian countries with Singaporeans, Chinese, Pakistan and South Koreans spending the most money on Valentine's gifts.

In South Korea, similar to Japan, women give chocolate to men on February 14, and men give non-chocolate candy to women on March 14 (White Day). On April 14 (Black Day), those who did not receive anything on the 14th of Feb or March go to a Chinese restaurant to eat black noodles (자장면 jajangmyeon) and "mourn" their single life. Koreans also celebrate Pepero Day on November 11, when young couples give each other Pepero cookies. The date '11/11' is intended to resemble the long shape of the cookie.

The 14th of every month marks a love-related day in Korea, although most of them are obscure. From January to December: Candle Day, Valentine's Day, White Day, Black Day, Rose Day, Kiss Day, Silver Day, Green Day, Music Day, Wine Day, Movie Day, and Hug Day. Korean women give a much higher amount of chocolate than Japanese women.

Cheers. :-)

Sketching: Regret

Recently, the animators of SpeakeasyFX started a sketchblog in their spare time, with weekly themes. Our first theme was Healthcare, and in this, our second week, our theme was regret. Here was my contribution.



This doesn't exactly represent a personal story for me, but instead a mix of random things I've been coming across lately in chatting with friends about relationships, including topics such as how their boyfriends proposed to them, and whether or not they fart all the time (or at inappropriate times). Honestly I didn't take much time thinking about what I wanted to draw.. I just started drawing. I'm sure I could come up with many other forms of regret... but instead, I picked this little guy's flatulence.

Auto-Tuned Elmo

A new generation of Sesame Street songs.....An auto-tuned Elmo & Dancers perform a dance & How U Doin song for Wendy Williams on her talk show.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKuNYzZngAU



It's always interesting to see how Sesame Street embraces social change through the music of the day. I never would have thought to auto-tune Elmo. :-)

Kitty Complaints

Those who know me well know that I love our kitty Sully, who we rescued three days before we got married. Those people also know that while he is extremely cute and cuddly beyond belief, Sully can really be a little brat sometimes, very jealous, calculating, and destructive. So I started logging a mix of compliments and complaints, and if you're interested, they can be found here.

Warning.. Extremely Cute Cooking

This little blonde Boo (Monsters Inc reference) bakes chocolate chip cookies cooking-show style. Complete with catch phrases, like "I will BREAK YOU!" and "Shut up old man." Her lines are clearly spoon-fed, but still subject to her hilarious interpretation.

So.... much... cuteness.... The Yippity Yo Cooking Show



Pretty sure my family will agree that this is an incarnation of toddler-Laura...

My Fitness Pal

I definitely would recommend this site to anyone trying to shed some pounds before summer. I joined in February and have lost four pounds, which is more than I can say for just "watching what I eat" on my own. It's got a great food database, so you just enter what you're eating and it tracks all the nutritional information for you.

It can also track exercise, although I've opted to track it in notes vs. through their exercise (calorie burning) database: the reason for this is because say you go running for a couple hours and burned around 200 calories - the site then gives you a 200 calorie extra allowance in your daily food intake.

So by not officially reporting the exercise, I am eliminating the extra allowance and sticking to my set calorie goal on a daily basis. I'm tracking sugar and fiber much better, which is tremendously healthy awareness. I've made strides at weight loss that I haven't made in over a year, and it's been really great.

MyFitnessPal - Free Calorie Counter

Sketching: Healthcare

Last week, the animators of SpeakeasyFX started a sketchblog in their spare time, with weekly themes. Our first theme was Healthcare, in honor of the recent bills passing and political schtuffz. Here was my contribution.



A certain someone might realize this sketch is about him. A friend of mine in college went to the university health center, and, despite his masculinity, was asked if he might be pregnant. After seconds of silence, the doctor looked up from his chart and realized he was speaking with a man, and moved on to the next on his list of predetermined questions. My friend and I had a good laugh over this, after much commiserating over the lack of good health care in America. I haven't had a good doctor since my pediatrician, and if I ever go in for any symptoms whatsoever they are, these close-minded doctors always assume pregnancy if you're a girl - even if you've been celibate your whole life, which I found very frustrating at the time.

I actually haven't bothered with doctors since.

It's pretty cool that Healthcare was our first topic, considering I have a short I was "doctoring up" about a month ago involving this subject, and now I'm re-inspired to get going on it.

(White board silliness ensues..)

Blog Bio

Every once in a while I retire my blog bio.
Latest retired bio:

Laura is happily married and finally living together with her husband after spending 10 months apart, working her dream job as a 3d character animator (using XSI) at SpeakeasyFX in Westfield, New Jersey. The company created 13 eight-minute episodes that began to air November 10, 2009, during the 40th anniversary season of Sesame Street. Laura has since contributed to the direction, layout, and animation production of the interactive segments which will air online, alongside various broadcast episodes. She and her husband now live together in Central New Jersey.

On Thu, Nov 12, 2009 at 10:18 AM, Laura (Skowronski) Nattam wrote:
Laura is happily married and finally living together with her husband after spending 10 months apart, working her dream job as a 3d character animator (using XSI) at Speakeasy FX in Westfield, New Jersey. Her company created 13 eight-minute episodes that began to air November 10, 2009, during the 40th anniversary season of Sesame Street. Laura has since contributed to the direction, layout, and animation production of the interactive segments which will air online, alongside various broadcast episodes. She and her husband now live together in Central New Jersey.

I'm retiring my former blog intro:
Laura is happily married but currently living away from home, working her dream job as a 3d character animator (using XSI) at Speakeasy FX in Westfield, New Jersey. Her company is creating 13 eight-minute episodes that will air in November 2009 during the 40th anniversary season of Sesame Street.

That's all the history I've got on my edited bios.. but I thought it might be interesting to keep tabs on it over time.



Retiring blog bio - 12/30/2010:

Laura is currently freelancing in NYC and from home. She always keeps her eyes out for new collaborative animation projects, especially since the successful completion of 13 eight-minute episodes and interactive webisodes of "Abby's Flying Fairy School" for Sesame Street, which she worked on with SpeakeasyFX. While anticipating production for a new season of AFFS in January 2011, she continues to develop IPs with fellow animators there, most notably the "Hot Dog & Hamburger" series of shorts. She is happily married and lives with her husband and kitty in New Jersey.

Laura knows life is good when she wakes up really early in the morning after a pleasant dream, only to realize that dream is her real life.

April Fools 2010

I think April Fool's could very well be my favorite holiday. It's not the most anticipated day of the year, like say Christmas or New Year's, or a landmark birthday, or a wedding, or a baby being born... it's just a subtle day, unlike most others on the calendar. But for me it brings great joy. :-)

It isn't utter chaos, but there are so many un-truths floating around, like my Prego My Eggo graphic indicating I might have a waffle in my toaster, or my latest post to the Kids Media Salon indicating the salon is a place for a child's first haircut in front of a television.

Of course the famous one is always Google (or shall I say, Topeka), which in itself makes me want to work for Google even though I have no idea what I would do there.

Starbucks, Kodak, and Hulu were my other favorites this year (so far).

If you're behind on all the April Fool's jokes, one great place to look is TechCrunch - they had a great list this year. Take a peek.

And, thanks to my brother in law, Raj, for pointing out this old clip.

Prego My Eggo

* Not actually pregnant. Happy Fool's Day.