So back again after the summer! It seems I’ve survived the first year, so now its on to the second. I’ve started a new blog as I think it might give me a fresh start.
Over the summer I’ve been working on a few projects, firstly the summer project set by the university. I chose to do the seabed one, as I thought it would be a good challenge as underwater is a difficult effect to achieve. It was difficult, but I think I learnt a lot from the process of making it. I’m not very happy with the result, but its helped me improve my 3d work a lot. The really low poly fish had to be the most fun to model.
The second project was the one set by codemasters, the FPS project. I did not finish this project, but should hopefully soon as its nearing completion (should be blogging bout it soon). This was a lot larger than anything I’d attempted in the first year as its basically a small environment. The technical limitations were also a lot more strict then the briefs we were given in the first year, which were hard to work with a first, but it became easier as I got used to them. This taught me a lot, not only in practical 3d work, but also by giving insight in to what working in the industry might be like.
So on with the second year. Apparently this year there will be less instruction from tutors and we’ve got to learn more independently, and by the third year we should be working on our own. There’s still a lot of things I would like and need to learn this year, such as using zbrush to create normal maps, but I should be able to learn these this year. I’m also going to be posting a lot more asking for critique on the university facebook, this was really useful for improving my work last year. Feedback is really important and although it would be better to get feedback from my tutors, the facebook is quick and easily accessible.
As with overall ambition, I would still really like to be an environment artist. The summer projects were really fun to model, and also with visual design I find environments more interesting to draw and paint. There’s so much great environment art and spectacular places around the world that its really inspiring. I should be posting about things like that later this year in this blog.
On to the actual subjects. Firstly, Visual Design. I think that I have improved from the first year, as I’ve continued to paint and draw over the break, mostly on personal projects and a little bit on the summer projects. Comparing last year’s work and this year’s work there has been a definite improvement. I’ve been using a lot more colour and am starting to get to grips with it. I also have got more confident with my sketching.
The part I really need to work on is my human anatomy. The life drawing was really good practice last year and I’m looking forward to it this year. To supplement it I’m going to be doing gesture lessons on this site as much as possible. This should help me out, they’ve also got animal anatomy ones, so I might give that I shot as well.
As I’ve been practicing my 3d over the summer, I think my work in game production will be a lot better this year. I’ve not finished the first project we’ve got this year yet, but comparing my wip to my darlek model made last year there is big improvement.
I’ve also improved with building characters. The gladiator project was really difficult for me, but in the seabed project I built a driver and I found this a lot easier. It was also a lot better than my first attempt at a character, although a lot of work is still needed to get my character building skills up to scratch. Last year I was only learning the basics, this year I want to get actually good at these things.
And lastly, Critical Studies. Last year I found it difficult to write a blog as I was a lot more used to the style of essay writing. Hopefully this year it will become easier for me to write like this. I’ll make sure to post a lot more about stuff that interests me and is relative to the course.
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