So here we are back after summer and I have to say that it has flew by. Good to be back though. I'm exited to get my teeth stuck into this year. The first year, for me was very enjoyable, keeping on top of work was a little tricky (mainly forgetting to post on my blog). That said after all the tears and frustrations I'm actually proud of all my work. Threes definitely room for improvements. But I feel I have the ability to recognise my mistakes and I will be able to avoid them this year. My biggest weakness are my drawing skills which I hope to improve upon in my second year, but 3D is where my heart is. I love it and I can't get enough of it. I feel my ability with 3D grew a lot last year. I learnt a lot of things very quickly that I may have not found so easy to understand withought Heathers advise. This has not only improved my strengths and identify my weaknesses, but it has helped improve my confidence. The upmost biggest fear for me was knowing that I have low confidence and that stops me from wanting to do work out of pure fear of failing miserably. But as I do more and more work, I more increasingly get things working for me, I see myself improving more and more.
So how can I improve on this in year 2? I just need to keep focus! The odd time I've (and I'm sure I'm not the only one) sat around thinking I'm never going to make it to the end with a skill set that developers will consider to be worthy of employment. I think I need one of them posters with the cat hanging from the tree. maybe I'm being hard on myself, but I am scared about facing this "lull" I've heard Mike talk about. I think it will hit me if not all of us at some point. And ever the optimist, I hope it will make me into a better person.
A big thing playing on my mind is what path in the industry to follow. I like both Character and Environment design. But recently and over the summer I saw pattern with the work I set myself and the tutorials I was searching for. They were all to do with characters. I've been playing around with Zbrush and I like to think I'm getting better each time I use it. I've been looking into a lot of anatomy for characters so I hope any I make this year will be heading in the right direction. I know we have got a group project coming up and although I've played with the UDK before I'm going to wait till then and focus on more character work. Then after that I will have a better idea of what path I may consider following in my final year.
