Year 2 Review - Self doubt and Crazy talk

So, we have just come to a close on our 2nd year at De Montfort University.
This sure has been a big year, I feel I have developed so much. Just putting our final submission disk together was making me really see how far I have come. Looking back at our very first projects, I am crying to myself, thinking ' what the hell was I doing??'
My artistic judgement has come on in leaps and bounds, and with Mitch joining the teaching staff, we have been learning techniques I never thought even existed.

This year has been so exciting, yet at the same time very sobering. It seems that everybody has had their little epiphanies, realising that actually, what we are doing is freaking hard.
We called it the 'mid game art crisis' after the first term, a lot of us became very existential and were strongly questioning whether this is what we should be doing.
Am I good enough? Is this what I really want? How much work can I put in without killing myself?
After watching John Cleese's talk on creativity I have realised we were all very stuck in the closed mind mode, especially as we were all in the same place, it was hard to get out of.
The way I looked at it was; what else am I passionate about?
Turns out, this is the only subject that I truly care about. I question myself daily on whether or not I am crazy for wanting to pursue Character Art; Watching Rich (last years graduate) struggling for some time, and seeing the standard I am expecting to get up to is absolutely terrifying.
But Rich made it, he worked his ass off and he is now in a position he wanted to be. It give me hope, after speaking to some character artist's and receiving some feedback and helpful tips, it started bringing me out of my closed state of mind.
Gradually we all relaxed a bit and managed to get back to our open minded state.
Once we got there, the rate of our development rocketed, we were all at full steam, pushing each other to achieve more than we ever thought we could. I am so thankful for what we have here at uni.

Yet, with people I am close to getting jobs, and the potential of me doing some internships (possibly a year long) I am starting to feel myself slip back into that closed minded state. I don't feel am I ready to go out into the big bad world yet. I mean, I am still in my safe game art bubble, the majority of it got popped compared to my euphoric mind set in first year, but I still have the stability of the people I trust and the creative environment we thrive in.
Luckily I am looking to do internships with my close friend Ben, so I am not completely alone, but I am still so afraid that my skills still aren't good enough. One of Emma's feedback for us when we presented our work, was that our confidence doesn't show. I agree, I say I have started to relax to feedback, which I certainly have, but I still find myself making excuses all over the place. I talk my work down, it is silly really as when you are in the presence of somebody working in industry you sort of automatically put yourself lower than them. Which isn't completely bad, but it is hard to over come that lack of confidence in your own work. It is something I need to work on.

As John Cleese said, confidence is one of the keys to getting to that open minded state. Not ego stroking, but just believing in yourself a bit. I guess it stems from education on the whole. My entire educational career (up to uni) has been people telling me that I should be doing something sensible like maths or science, that I will never make a living out of Art, what I love. It is not that I want to prove them wrong, I am purely following this path as it is what I care about, it is my passion, but the implications of that are that sense of self doubt. With opportunities presented to me like this, it seems that maybe I may be able to make it, that I do have potential.

Either way, I still feel I have matured in my outlook on things, as Anna often says what seems to keep getting us down is that fact that we can now see the bigger picture. That hill called university we have to climb seems minuscule compared to the mountain that is the games industry. I do have more confidence in my abilities, but I also doubt myself regularly. While this can be bad, I do not see it is a completely awful thing. For every time I doubt myself I remind myself why I am doing this and I tell myself that I am doing the right thing. That keeps me going, along with all the amazing people that I surround myself with.

On the whole, this year has been very 'eye opening' I feel I am developing my work ethic as well as my artistic judgement. I am happy with my progress, but I know I still have a long way to go. Pray it never ends as I don't know what I would do if I was not constantly trying to better myself.

Life Changing or Career Building?

As the games industry is constantly changing and developing, it is often hard to know what to teach students on specialist courses to go into the games industry. It is hard to keep up with what the industry is doing, but there surely are skills that are always going to be necessary.

As most students join these courses with little or no 3D modelling experience, so it is something that undoubtedly needs to be taught. It takes time to learn new software and get used to the pipelines and processes of 3D art. Unlike traditional artistic skill, learning 3D is more of a mechanical process. 

You can learn pretty much learn anything if you invest enough time and effort into it however. With a structured learning course and being surrounded by similar minds looking to learn similar thinks, the rate or learning can be accelerated. For example, sat on your own trying to learn 3D studio max can be a daunting task, but when in an environment surrounded by people working towards the same goal, you all learn it easier and collectively.

But what is necessary to succeed in the games industry? Often learning the technical side (once you have a basic grasp of 3D modelling) is a case of doing a little research and practising. Learning core traditional skills takes a lot longer, and will serve you much better in the long run. Technology is constantly changing, but with great traditional skills, they can be transferred no matter what the situation. 

Game developers will look for employees who have strong 2D skills as well as technical skills. Flexibility of style is also important, as in smaller companies you may be expected to work on various different projects in various different styles. 

I think that a strong foundation in traditional skills is very important but having the technical skills is necessary to take on a job in industry. It varies on your role, some jobs need more traditional skill than technical. For example if you are working on developing a game environment, you are all well and good having some well made sound assets, but if you have no understanding of composition or other traditional skills, you will find the overall environment will look disjointed and wrong. 

I think one of the strongest things about my course is that we are very much based in 2D, our fundamental skills are in observation, composition, perspective, etc. But then we also get to learn a lot about 3D modelling, game engines, sculpting, etc. We treat 3D as an extension of our core 2D skills.

Year 1 Review...

This year has gone stupidly fast. It does not feel like we’ve been here for a whole academic year already, not to mention our course is somewhat longer than everybody else’s. I mean, we had weeks left before hand in and my flat mates had already started moving out. I’m not ready for this year to end. I need more stuff to do, this year one of my main discoveries is that I’m terrible at doing nothing.

In fact, a lot has changed this year. If you met me this time a year ago, I would have been a very different person. I defiantly had a bad attitude to my work.  I will admit, at A level I definitely could have tried a hell of a lot harder.  I complain about the low mark I got, but looking back, I’m not surprised.  Since getting here I have found something that I actually care about, I’m being challenged, I can actually see myself improving, and it’s completely refreshing. I think my main issue with my A levels was that I had been doing exactly the same thing for the last 4-5 years. I never really left my comfort zone. I studied two art subjects, media studies and philosophy. To be honest I found philosophy the best as I was learning something new.

I mean it wasn’t until the last minute I decided to take the risk and go for this course I was intending on keeping on with the illustration and fine art path. I am so happy I decided against it. If I was doing illustration or fine art right now I don’t think I would have improved much. I certainly would have the same attitude towards it and right now I would probably be over the moon that I had finished.
The difference is; I chose game art. I am currently devastated that I have finished and I want more work to do. My routine has drastically changed this year, I was always accused of being lazy, lying in for ages, but simply I didn’t have something I wanted to get up for. I have become so much more self-motivated.  I’m now up bright and early every day and working until late, because I’m doing something that I love!  

So, how have I improved, and where the most. I guess for the majority of people on the course 3D is going to be where the most improvement lies. I mean, we arrive here all mostly all complete noobs, never having encountered 3D modelling before, and then are chucked straight in with no knowledge on the subject what so ever.

Well lets look back, where is my most atrocious 3D modelling crime to date?
Well this bin is somewhat shameful. I mean the render is hilarious for a start, although not as bad as some of my others with wonderful multi-coloured backgrounds. It wasn’t until after chatting to some third years that I got to grips with doing a decent render.  Looking back at the topology, well, blimey, I was still at that stage where I hadn’t understood that it was ok to have more than one object attached together, as opposed to having one single object.  Ngons galore! I guess as it was one of our very first projects it isn’t completely shameful as we were (and still are) on that huge learning curve.  

A project I was particularly proud of and feel shows a lot of development in my skill, was when we got to the Gladiator project. This was only the term after the wheelie bin, but I already felt much more comfortable with modelling. I had a good understanding of topology, I had moved on to more advanced processes like baking ambient occulsions, zsculpting and baking normal. Not to mention my renders improved drastically.  

When I started the course I didn’t think I would ever be able to make something like this.

I have also been working on my zsculpting, which has helped me practice my anatomy and technical skills in baking in max.  (High poly vs. Low poly bake)

For visual design I feel that I learnt the most in the first term. It was very helpful going back to basics and mastering them,  it has certainly helped me improve overall. I terms of my traditional work I have improved a decent amount, but in my digital work, I feel I have improved rather a lot.

Well this is the first piece of digital work I attempted before coming here in September…

I mean wow, like wow, what?? What is this?? This is true chamber of horrors material, please forgive me Mike. I swear I could at least draw the human figure better, changing from traditional media to digital is somewhat challenging. I think the idea was to learn to achieve tone; obviously this didn’t work so well.




Here are some of my recent pieces...

I feel that I have improved vastly. Life drawing has seriously helped me with my human anatomy, and doing the masters study and other exercises with Chris has helped me to get a better grasp of colour theory.

I have really enjoyed all aspects of the course so far, I’m very pleased that I decided to come here.  My main downfall has unfortunately been this blog. I’m a person that really struggles to get words down. Ask me about stuff in person and I can talk about things for ages. I have also never been someone to get into the habit of regularly writing diaries. My main aim for next year and summer is to get into the habit of this, start writing more about what I’m doing, what I think about it and more often. 

I will be better at blogging, I will be better at blogging, I will be better at blogging... 

I even considered doing video blogs as I am a much more confident speaker, especially after all the presentations we have done this year.  They have seriously boosted my confidence in talking in front of people about subjects that effect, are important or interest me.  I saw a drastic improvement from my first presentation to the final one (my mark also reflected this.)

Over all I feel I have had one of the most successful years in my academic career, I have learnt so much and my attitude to my work has changed drastically. I feel a lot more confident with what I want to do in life and how to go about achieving it. I love my course and all the amazing people I have met here.

Also, Adventure Time rules.