Another week, another chance to get back on track and do what I came here to do... Succeed! Little did I know what this week would hold for me, but I can tell you now, it was a barrage of tough decisions with my mind all over the place! - This one's going to be a long one!
Between last Wednesday and this Monday, I managed to get the Dalek done, get the materials & homework for Life drawing, and do a final outcome of the bridge that I would be happy to hand in (This took me 12-13 hours though!!!...(Shh, I'm a slow at drawing).
Back into visual design, dreading what we will have to do next, I walked in rather apprehensive. Chris talked about how we got on with the bridge and saying that things are good etc. Down to business though, me sitting down rather nervously, feeling like at some point I will need to say I've struggled to get the outcome finished by today as I have spent so long on it that I haven't even had time for much else. Then he comes out and says "So, has everyone done the 12 sketches and final outcome then?", 95% of people are like "yeah totally", there's me going "12?!??!!" I've done one and it's taken me all my free time! Little did I know, the 12 sketches are only thumbnail sketches that are used to get the composition, not full out detailed drawings. At this point I was hyperventilating in my head thinking "I'm.Screwed." - I need to catch up and fast.
Moving on, I found out they had to be thumbnails when he explained about the archway and how we need to use these sketches to get the perspective right - this time it is harder because we are unable to see the vanishing point + the road curves round to the side, so it is trickier to get it right. Down to the archway we went and cracked on with 3 thumbnail sketches, they sucked and it took me a long time, but I'd done more than of the bridge.
Into life drawing class, we all brought a long with us pictures of a pose from pre 1950 that we liked and shared with everyone what it was we liked, this was mainly to get us to learn each other's names better. The drawing boards hadn't arrived as they should have, so once again we did a few quick poses and a longer 20-30min pose at the end. Mine still looked terrible, a few were ok, but mainly shocking. I still have no idea why in 8mins, mine look like outlines and no tone at all, but others look like finished pieces like it's taken them 30mins! It baffles me, and I hope that in the future I too will learn how to be better & faster.
Visual design again, 6 hours at the computer, struggling to get through the lesson this time without thinking "I can't do this...". Steve (Our teacher for VD), went through a couple of tutorials on UVW unwrapping and how to do it, in order to prepare us for the next project due in 2 weeks: The wheelie bin. This time we have to model & texture it, both from reference photos we've taken ourselves. As you can imagine, there's nothing strange about finding a random bin in the street and giving it the paparazzi treatment. Anyway, stupidly enough I wanted to get it done asap so I started modelling it right away - without properly re-sizing my reference images in photoshop first. It didn't turn out too bad, but the top view just wouldn't look right because the reference image wasn't correctly adjusted to fit the side & front view. Although, I wan't to get at least one done this week and then texture it next week so I can have time to catch up on those 12 thumbnails for visual design. The afternoon, I practiced texturing on a phonebox, but for the first hour & a half, Steve didn't show up, so we were all unaware of the extra tutorial that wasn't on blackboard... *Sigh*. I left feeling both good, but unprepared to finish the project.
One comment I'd like to make is that they claim a thumbnail takes 10mins... I can't do that in 10mins, if I did, it'd look like a child's drawing, so before anyone thinks "Ohh you don't need that long to catch up"... Yes. I do. Not to mention the hours I now have to do the remaining 9 + final for the archway by Monday.
The gurus and grasshopper's first session on Wednesday was really helpful, only 5 people in our group showed up so it was nice to finally get some direct help with my current mindset of "I'm not good enough, I need to change course or drop out". Jimmy M explained that some people haven't been the best at drawing, but have gone on to work at amazing places, raising my hope up a little bit. He also showed me a couple of tricks in 3ds Max which was really nice too. Our 1st project is on a zombie apocalyptic axe of some kind, which sounds pretty cool, I just don't know if I'll find the time to get it done.
Mentally at this point though, I was still extremely unstable, the course transfer deadline was creeping up on the Friday and I had to think fast as to what to do next. After quite a lot of phone calls again to my dad, we agreed it'd be best to arrange a meeting with my tutor and lay all of my options out of the table: a) Get info on other courses and perhaps transfer. b) Stick it out till Christmas and see how much I improve. c) Drop out now before the first quarter of the fee is payed and find something else. There are extreme consequences for dropping out, and I've already paid for 1 year accommodation, and I doubt they'll stop the payment of the fees in time. I arranged to meet & discuss what I should do, Chris was extremely helpful and helped me decide what to do next. Between now and Friday, I met with 3 course leaders: Product Design, Animation & Graphics. I'll spare you the details, but I decided that Game Art was clearly the best choice for me. I'm not sure how it'll turn out, but I have until Christmas to develop & improve to an acceptable standard.
Critical Studies this time got moved to Friday. The morning lecture consisted of a fire alarm, and more information about what to include in our blogs, with an example of someone's previous blog and how they laid it out. The seminar was very similar where we discussed why we are on this course in a group, but I had to leave for one of those meetings I had arranged with a course tutor, so the rest I cannot comment on.
Finally, I'd like to say I will be posting my work up at some point, but I haven't scanned anything yet (because I don't know how to!...)
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