Monday 25 October 2010

Reflection on year one, and ambition for year two !



Year one went pass really quickly. At the start of this course I had no clue how to model in 3Ds max or how to properly draw and paint thos with some of them I am still strugling ang getting better at. Boot camp is the correct term for year one. All the technical skills that we have acquired last year will be put to test and polish stage this and next year. I have tried to carry out as much information as possible from year one to make my journey easier in the later years. Well this is exactly where the fun starts now. Second year will be more demanding with each project. For this reason I am trying to stay ahead with learning new stuff. I have already started to learn UDK to be prepared for the group projects. Instead of wasteing 2 weeks on just learning the engine I could spend this time doing more important to the project stuff.

Year two is also a time to choose "the path". Well not exactly in that meaning. Everybody has a goal to reach in the 3rd year and that is why we need to focus on our weekneses, developing key skills and our artistic judgement. It also means approaching projects from different views and constantly producing something. Ben Mathis in his "Put your money where your mouth is" little text mentioned some really interesting and true stuff of how students are trying to land their first jobs in the industry without even trying to present something good.

"If you say you want to be an artist, but never work on your art, you only like the idea of being an artist, not the actual act itself."

I really like this quote becouse its so true. I understand that to get a job and to be really got at something you need to push it as far as you can. Keep on working and adding different pieces of work into your portfolio. It's important to work on the course projects and make them look very good but we can't forget about personal work. I enjoy more doing 3D work and that is why in my free time I am doing side projects to fill my portfolio with some additional work. There is also a time issue with that. With all the projects we have set up its rly hard to find time do do our personal stuff. I think that it is very important to do additional work. For example what if after graduating everyone would apply for a job with the same portfolio full of the same work ? Putting that additional work will make you stand out and would clearly sugest that you enjoy working on that perticular subject. But let's not get into details here. What about my 2D work ? Hmmmm... as I said erlier 3D work brings me joy and nothing will change that. I know that the art side is very important and that is why I am not abandoning it. That is why I have set up my own goals for both 3D and 2D art.

Witch each project I try to forfill my own needs and golas aside to the ones that are required by the brief. With the first 3d project we had, the treasure chest, my goal was to create a good mesh topology and really good textures. That is why I have spend alot of time to model it properly and alot of time on texturing. With 2D work I am trying to focus on my weakneses like tonal values, colour and line drawing.


Ok I can see I went a little bit too far with it .... lets get back to the core question of this entry.
Ambitions for year two ? Work even harder than year one ! Learn as much as possible and develop my artistic judgement further. My main goal is to get a job as an 3d Artist at a good company when I finish the course. BioWare would be a dream come true to be honest. Since it is very hard to get a work over in the states or Canada I will work hard to and do as much as possible to even try to be noticed.

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