Another painting, done while skyping. I think from now on, this blog is going to be mostly renders and paintings, while I'll be updating my other blog on my progress.

another speedie

another speedy paint

20 mins

20min speedpaint

quick painting

quick painting, about half and hour. I'm mostly going to be posting over at my other blog now, but I'll keep this updated with all non FMP things.

taking things down and paintings

So I had to take the Speedo thing down, I guess I was really thinking when I put it up. The image are technically copyrighted, so yeah. It's a shame I can't put it on my portfolio site, but it can still go down as experience. But anyway, it's now on to the final major project. And lots and lots of rock sculpting at the minute. I'm probably going to have to do them several times over to get the best result, but I can see myself improving. Once I've got the basis of the level down, I'll move on to something more interesting.

On the painting side, I've got to get out of this rut. With 3d work taking up most of my time, I have not been spending as much time on 2d. To be honest, the motivation for it has just gone. But I have been trying to force myself to do it. I gave up on that jungle painting, it was looking crap. But I started a new one, based off of a cool rock structure as reference.

I'm going to do more, even if its naff I need something I put on my site and everything from last year is just terrible.

On the bright side though, we are getting some more industry peeps coming in to look at our stuff. I'm looking forward to it, but I am nervous. I don't feel my work is up to scratch, but at this stage there is not much to do about it but keep going and improving step by step.

Last Thursday I went to do a presentation at Peterborough Regional College. They'd contacted me before Christmas and asked if I could come over and do a presentation in the new year. I said yes, and by January that presentation had turned into 3 workshops (yes I know). This really didn't affect things much as I'd have to travel anyway.

I decided to do something based round silhouette , like a workshop that Mitch did last year. And it actually went really well. The students found it interesting and it was a lot of fun talking to people about what they want to go on and do. We couldn't get the 3d software on the computers, so we couldn't do any 3d, but I did load up cryengine on a laptop and showed people how to place objects and run around.

So yeah, if nothing else I feel my presentation skills have improved. At first I was really nervous, but I soon got a lot better.

Since then I've been working on the Speedo project. Its only got until this Thursday to be finished. With this and that other project it's a bit of a rush at the minute. But I'll get some nice renders once it's done to post up here.

Another update on how things are going. I would be nice to post about movies or games, but I've been so busy this week that I don't know what to say. Fun things will have to wait.

The Speedo project has finally started. This is a paid project for the retail development people downstairs in the flecture building. They want us to build 2 stores by the end of January. We only got the reference 2 days ago, so it's a bit of a rush. There is 6 of us in total, so I think we can do it. I'll post up some more pictures once there is more to show.

The other project that I mention has started too. I'm making some foliage, which shall be great practice for my FMP. I've been blocking that out as well, and re learning the basics of cryengine. More details can be found out over at my other blog.

I've realised that my painting has slowly been slipping. I'd like some more nice paintings to put on my portfolio site, so I'll try and make some time for it. I started one today, this is only half an hour in but then I had to go back to my other things. I'll have to finish it next week, as I don't have access to Photoshop over the weekend.

New Year

First post of the new year! I just moved back after spending the holidays back at home. As well as eating tons of chocolate and generally being lazy, I did get some things done.

Firstly, I made this low poly house. The scene is under 500 tris. This was just a bit of fun, and I wanted to have a go at low poly modelling. I was also fun to do some more hand painted textures.

I also finished off that mass effect character competition. I'm pretty happy with it, it's under 10,000 tris, and it was good sculpting practice..

Back with actual uni work, I added some details to the horse and carriage. It's now got the reigns modelled on its face, and I gave it some more detail. The textures are also more scratched up.

The office thing didn't get off the ground. I modelled it, but it needs unwrapping and texturing. This week I might finish it, but there may not be time because of this next thing.

I found this project on linked in. They want to build a small game and get funding through kickstarter. If they make money, the people who worked on it get paid for it. If it doesn't, we're still making the demo for kickstarter, so I'll have something to put on my cv/portfolio. So I thought I'd go for it. I won't post much about it on here, but we're meant to be having the first meeting soon.

So I'm pretty hyped for this new year, I think some good things will come out of this semester.

Assessment

We've had the formative assessment today. I think it turned out well. I was really worried this morning, especially as I was getting the train back and I was worried I would not make it in time. But its over now, and I can get some rest.

Overall, they seem happy with my progress. I'm happy with it as well, but I get the feeling it is not enough. Even if I work hard, it seems that people who are better are still much further ahead of me, and it would not be possible to catch up. I hope I will get to a happier point by then end of the year. I need to work harder.

The rooftop is fine, and there is not anything to change. The normal's were a little too strong though, and I wish I hadn't miss read the brief, I could have made something a bit bigger then.

However, with the vehicle, there could be some improvements. The first thing is that there could be more detail around the horses head, with the reigns. This should not be too hard to do. As well as this, the cart could have some more scuffs and marks to show its been used. The seams were also a bit too visible, and I definitely should have unwrapped it differently. I'd also managed to have to horse floating in the scene I submitted! I thought I had checked it all, but obviously not.

Now I'm going to spend some time on some personal projects, just for this last week I've got left here. I started on a little low poly inn on the uni computers, but as I had come straight from the train station I did not have my hard drive with me. I'll pick it up tomorrow, and it should be finished by the end of the day. I tried to make the building under 200 tris, so it's super low poly.

But for now, I need to go get some sleep.