When
I first started Year One of my Game Art course I was overwhelmed by
the pile of work that kept growing larger week by week, eventually I
got into a better frame of mind and kept on top of the amount of
work, finishing it to a reasonably good standard. Initially I was
really pleased with what I had created in my first few lessons of
Game Production, especially my first texturing project - the wheelie
bin. Now that I look back to my Game Production work, I feel that it
is evident how much I learned and how my skills grew without really
realising. I had a few setbacks where I recreated my Transit van and
my Gladiator models as they were originally not up to standard, but I
am glad I redid them as I can now see where I went wrong.
I have now
learnt to take my camera with me everywhere I go, just in case I see
a nice texture or an interesting scene, and since scouring Leicester
for wheelie bins and transit vans, I now see them everywhere,
including video games!
In
Visual Design I learnt to hone my drawing skills by being set new
projects almost every week, which mainly made me learn to draw
quicker, as I had already learnt about perspectives and life drawing
in my foundation art course. I enjoyed going out to different places
to draw, my favourite being the National Space Centre, as I have been
interested in space since I was young. It was interesting to have a
different scene to draw and also a good way to learn where places
were in Leicester, as before this course I had never been to
Leicester so didn't know where anything was, which is a scary part of
being a first year! I think that the main thing that I learnt from my
Visual Design lessons was to look at a landscape and to find the best
place to “frame” it to draw pictures from, and to not be
completely “precious” over all of my work.
The
main thing that I enjoyed in Critical Studies was watching films in
the afternoon, because we mainly watched psychological thrillers that
I wouldn't have watched by myself (I generally don't like gory
violent films). The films were really interesting and made you think
so broadened your mind a bit more, so I was a bit disappointed when
they got cancelled because the DVD player broke and no one could be
bothered to bring a laptop in or anything. The rest of Critical
Studies was to teach us about the history of games and to help us
with our other work by giving us new ideas of things we could
reference and base things from. I must admit that I didn't really
enjoy Critical Studies as much as the other lessons because I am an
art student, I always have been, and I will never enjoy writing. It
has taken me a while to get round to writing this blog post actually,
I would rather be drawing, sorry! However I don't think I will forget
the things I have learnt from Critical Studies so I am glad that it
is part of the course.
Ideally I
would have liked to have written more blog posts over the summer
holidays but I was quite busy making my summer project, swanning off
to Germany with my friend from college, and making a Loki costume
from scratch!
(My 21st
birthday was shortly after the summer holidays, so I wanted to
celebrate it in style, by having an Avengers party and going to Drayton Manor!) ^__^
But this
year, as my birthday isn't as special I will concentrate more on my
blog over the summer.
Here are a
few images of my summer project:
I decided to
make a Tudor style village featuring a few houses, two horses, a
tavern and a house with a water wheel. Ideally if I had more time and
a bigger triangle budget, I would have added a small market place
with food stalls, and maybe some carts for the horses.
In
conclusion the first year was quite challenging, I found that I was
out of my comfort zone, I didn't know anyone, I found it difficult
living away from home for the first time and having to live with some
very inconsiderate people that I really disliked. The course itself
was a bit nerve-wracking as well because there was so many new things
to learn, scary new programs and feeling stressed about meeting the
quality of work of my peers. However I enjoyed it, this is definitely
what I want to do, and I got through each challenge I faced, so I can
only grow stronger. Every day just gets me closer to my initial goal
of being a part of the games industry, and when I look back to what I
have achieved in just a year, I feel quite amazing!
I
passed the first step, It's a new year, I have a new hair colour and
I'm ready to learn, so bring it on! XD
A
few things that I would like to achieve this year:
+Learn
to doodle quick sketches for visual design concepts
+Be
an absolute pro at 3DS Max
- Get
better at unwrapping/texturing
- I
can bake cakes, but not textures, learn how to bake textures!
- Learn
to export into UDK
- Create
more realistic renders
- Learn
about lighting and shaders
+More
blog posts to express what I've learnt and to show off how amazing my
work is!! (..haha ¬_¬ )
+Learn
how to digitally paint correctly
+Actually
do the correct amount of work on time without leaving it to the last
minute
+Practice
drawing more landscapes
+Push
myself out of my comfort zone
- Use
different medias for drawing
- Practice
different techniques
+Try
and enjoy myself!
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