Keeping up your skills

One thing about being a rigger, is that there are schools for animation, and modeling but for us, not so much, so I find that online classes with professionals is a great way to learn and polish your skills. Icarus paid for one of us to take some classes with Paul Hormis and it really made me a better rigger in max and using biped. there were things that we were making custom bones and complex things to correct things that were in biped, just burried in the motion tab. So if your in need of some rigging schooling in max, I highly suggest checking out Paul Hormis. His stuff is great and try and get your place of employment to pay for it.

expanding your skills,

As a rigger, I've noticed that most game companies dont just want riggers, they want either modelers who can rig or animators that can rig. So lately I've been animating. I normally make a goal and shoot to have that animation done by that goal.

Drawing people is fun!!!!

Before I discovered animation as a profession, I was a artist, and I dont know about you, but if I don't draw something, I'll go nuts. So I tend to go out and draw people in bars, malls, or different places. Lately, I've discovered the airport. First RDU parking is cheap, so you go out there for a hour or 2 and pay 2 bucks. Second everyone is bored at the airport and they don't move that much. third, I modify my sketchbooks. I love the really big sketchbooks with the acid free paper, and then I decorate the cover so I can tell them appart. But on the back, I get some cardboard or foamcore and tape it to the back so that the book doesnt bend. Coptic markers are great but they bleed through so I stick to pens and soft pencils. Also if you get yourself a tablet, sketching directly into a computer using a tablet is awesome. Just make sure you dont get one that is wireless, my wireless one sucks. Any of the intuis wacom tablets are great and if you can afford one of the touch tablets, my friend jenny has one and they are just sexy.