Year Two

Hello year two. It’s nice to meet you.

  A lot of things have become clear to me in the few months off over the summer. The break allowed me to go back and look through thee first year being critical of the work I have done and how I approached the course. Looking back at the first few pieces of work I produced for both visual design and game production made me feel both proud and embarrassed. I can’t believe I have come this far in the space of a year. Yes, the other participants on the course have done as well. I came straight from college with hardly any artistic knowledge and no 3d knowledge at all. Now, I know how to make my perspective correct, how to check anatomy and different techniques when it comes to drawing. With regards to the 3d work, I could hardly create a box when we first started, and now I’m creating knights and tree houses with textures and normal/specular maps. I’m learning something new each and every day.

   Year two I will concentrate on getting these skills correct and putting them into practise. The first year I was stumbling around, now I feel like I’m at walking pace. This doesn’t mean anything will be easier, definitely not. But at least I know where I went wrong in the first year and how I can improve on that, and that is important. It’s alright to make mistakes as long as you can recognise them and know how to change them or stop them happening again.

    I’m very anxious and incredibly excited about the upcoming work. I expect to develop my knowledge of digital painting and the use of colours to portray emotional concepts and meanings in my work. As well as testing and trying new and exciting methods of drawing and colouring, as well as developing a better understanding of 3ds max. I am here to learn new things and progress through to the next year with an even larger understanding of the artistic world both traditionally and digitally.

    I need to make sure to focus on my time managing skills as well, as this is something I found very difficult to control on the first year. I will need to make sure to give myself proper time limits and recognise when I’m wasting time on something. I also need to increase the speed at which I draw, I shall practise creating thumbnails at variable speeds to improve on this skill. However, I shall not just focus on one area of the course, I shall divide my time up to gain a “jack of all trades” understanding as this is the kind of thing that the industry is looking for. It means I wouldn’t be a specialist in just one thing but have a more rounded understanding. This is useful as technology advances very quickly in industry, so I would need to be able to learn things quickly and if I specialised in something that was replaced, it would mean that I would be replaced as well, with someone who can adapt better.

    In conclusion, looking at my first years work I know that I can do better this year, I have not yet hit my peak. I look forward to the opportunity to learn more. Knowledge is power.