DMUGA Week 11 - Seeing some improvements!

This was the final week before the Christmas holidays and I have to say... I'm so excited! The first term at university studying Game Art Design has been a roller coaster; had a rocky start and am still not great, but 'gains' are being made. I can see that all aspects of my drawing have improved, from my use of tone, to better mark making. Mind you, like I said the drawing is still nowhere near the standard I'd like it to be, or what it needs to be, but I'm definitely better than I was at the start of the course. In addition, I'm still trying to get into the gist of things and what work needs to be done for when, but considering I was all over the place in just the first week of work, I think that's a small victory in a sense. So, things are looking up for the next term, as I'm apprehensive, yet optimistic about giving everything a go and getting even more into it.

Visual Design
The morning session consisted of using the Skeleton prop as our still life subject. I found it is similar to the Dinosaur bone drawings in the sense that little imperfections on the bones don't detract massively from the image due to their nature anyway, but for whatever reason I just could not draw the skull properly! This really frustrated me as I gave it few attempts and it just didn't want to look right. I'd want to give it a few more goes and just practice; I think that whenever it comes to a living organism, there seems to just be a mental barrier that makes me even worse.
In addition to this activity, we were informed of this week's project... Design & Illustrate an evil Christmas character! I think this is a pretty nice idea, and it should allow for some creativity to come through; it'll be interesting to see what everyone comes up with. I'd be even happier about this is it wasn't for the issue I just brought up. However, I see this as an opportunity to try and overcome some of my fears and just go for it. What I end up with my not be very realistic-looking, but hopefully it'll teach me a few things and techniques on the human form. Even if my character completely sucks, it doesn't matter, as what I'm hoping to get out of this project is... Improvement!

Proportion is something I have been trying to get better at from the start in life drawing, and I can definitely see a different in my mark-making and planning it out more instead of just drawing as I look; ending up with something being either wonky, or out of proportion. Therefore, I was very glad to see a lesson which focused solely on proportion. I tried using a technique which made me look more for the 'planes' and get a better sense of 3D with just the outline (The tone is what will make it better). So, I gave this a go and in my eyes they are definitely better than some I've done before, proportion-wise. I think this was overall a good lesson for me to try this out and I enjoyed doing it, now I just need to hammer it in and practice!

Game Production
One thing is certain, even low poly trees take a long time to do if you want a good result. The deadline for our 2 trees was today, and despite editing the normals using the "Normal_Thief" script for max numerous time over the past week, the shading just didn't want to play ball. I kept ending up with bits of the tree that really should be lit. I still don't know if it was just the type of lighting I used, or just a setting that was causing it. At first I was just using the basic omni-lights for the scene and the shadows were way out on the tree, so I then tried a skylight and the shading was much better on the tree, but no shadow appeared from the tree trunk on the floor so it looked 'wrong'. After submitting the trees I was still frustrated with the lighting and decided to try and find a better light source. After playing around with some, I found that the standard 'daylight' feature with default settings which seemed to fix most of the problem, although, it still had some issues as you can see.

1st Tree - Daylight

1st Tree - Omni Lights

2nd Tree - Omni Lights

2nd Tree - Daylight

Critical Studies:
The seminar this week was again both useful and engaging. It was really good to hear a little about the 2nd years and how they weren't exactly totally amazing at the start either, but things do get better and development is made. The main focus of it however was also to set ourselves goals for what we want to achieve in each of the modules, plus by the end of this year. In addition, write down our strengths, weaknesses, and causes for concern for them.
Here's a short bullet-pointed summary of the goals that I set myself to do:

Visual Design:

• Make proportions and mark-making/planning ahead a focus for life drawing, as until that is nailed, it will never look right.
• Try and use tone and contours to emphasise depth, this will hopefully make it look more 3D and 'pop-out' better. Also, using this, it should help with creating 'atmosphere'.
• Do quick studies with fluid strokes in order to speed up my drawing pace a bit.

Game Production:

• Use the texture space more efficiently - It is ok, but could be better.
• Clean up unnecessary tris/polys - Again, not too bad, but there are still some which are unneeded.
• Plan the model ahead in terms of where things will need to be place, and in terms of my time management (how long each task will take, as they can be very deceptive).

Critical Studies:

• I need to use more professional/reliable resources, I.e. from DMU's library database, Google Scholar etc.
• Post photos of my work as examples of what I am talking about.
• Improve in general on my writing style, and ensure everything is in order.

For 'causes for concern', in order to be completely honest... My time management wasn't that great at the start, but it is certainly getting better. Even before I came to uni, I organised my time between all of my subjects extremely well, which is why I think that actually I manage my time rather well. However, procrastination is something which I think affects a lot of people and I try to fight it so hard, but I am not 100% please with procrastinating even a little bit and it's really starting to bug me. Therefore, it is something that I am concerned about, alongside the 'subject concerns', but I promise that I am doing my best an will not give up on this.

Subject-wise, I am concerned about not getting good enough, fast enough. I am making progress, but looking at all the amazing work of 2nd years+, I am just hoping that it'll all click sometime. Other than not being good enough, I'm not too concerned about things, except maybe the time I spend on each subject. Although, thinking about it now, I have strengths and weaknesses, so surely it is healthy to prioritise some over another to focus on those weaknesses (At least until I am satisfied with where I'm at)?

Anyway, a good first term; I'm looking forward to starting the next term, despite the stress it all causes me! :)

I wish that you all have a lovely Christmas with your families & a Happy New Year!!!