2nd Year Review

All years are great if you study what you love to do. First year was just a boot camp. We all came in to this course with no previous preperations. Well in my case it was graphics & multimedia but 5 months before the course I have started doing life drawing to have a chance or a spot on the course. Dunno if that counts.

This year, 2nd year was tottaly different. We had our basic knowledge and now was the time to work on our artistic judgement. First semester was a great come back and a great start. Projects we had were great. Blitz treasure chest was my favourite one. I have found the character brief as a sort of challenge. At the beginning of year 2 I wanted to be a character Artist. I have said to myself that if I want to be one my selfportrait has to be spot on and good quality work. For that reason I have zbrushed my charater. I did that becouse I have had previous year knowledge of building proper topology and base meshes to work within zbrush. I have succeeded with this brief. The final outcome was more than I expected. I was satisfied with it but my interest has changed. Instead of being a character artist I wantted to create environments. Love for great architecture was bigger than I thought.

After Christmas I couldn't wait for the group project. First time using an engine to create playable environment was something I was looking forward to. Working in a group would be our first test before working in the game industry. "You're not a game artist on the course till you do the group project ... " I have to agree with this. This project was demanding. I have learned alot with this project. I can say that it was a good experinece but on the other hand it had alot of downsides. It was said that this is how it would be in the industry. First of all half of the people in the group wouldn't last longer than a month in a company with the ammount of work they were producing. I can say that if all of the people in the group where working on 100 % the outcome would have been totally different. As a group leader at the beginning of the project I have predicted a bit what might happen and have structured the workflow and ammount of work for people. That worked out well and my predictions were correct with few positive suprises. There were times during the project that I knew we weren't able to finish it on time and I hated it. Towards the end I became more positive, was trying to push people with work. Overall I think it was a good project.

Second year was alot better than the 1st one that is why I am looking forward to the 3rd year, becouse I know it is gonna be even better. Now I have alot of time to boost up my skills before September, learn what I will need and practice so that each piece I will produce can be worth having in my portfolio.