So how is the course going Sam?

A question that my parents ask often in which I reply “It's good”. In evaluation terms it doesn't mean much and so I am going to access my progression through the first term. The course is definitely fun, no doubt about it. This week having to design a vehicle is awesome, because we were always out drawing something from life, this is a great tester of out creativity skills and applying the techniques we have learned. I will get to this more later but firstly – week one. University seemed so daunting to me before I started the course and when we got our first task I really wanted to get stuck in there and get drawing. That week I was at the canal practically everyday drawing. The problem was I was developing my sketches too much, I spent too much time rendering them and hence wasted time. Non the less I still finished on schedule and produced an okay final. It's far from perfect, the perspective is a little off, I could have made the bridge smaller and more detailed, I tried to frame the picture in leaves but that also failed, the water doesn't look real, the trees farther away in the distance should be lighter but are actually darker than some of the trees in the middleground...as Chris would say; apart from that it's fine.

Week two provided us with a chance to draw one point perspective again but with no visible horizon line, this meant using references within the image to get the scale right. As an artist I do like to experiment with a range of media, after doing pencil the first week I wanted to add style to this weeks. I tried adding colour into my sketches and took etchings to understand the texture of bricks to better understand drawing them. I do like my archway final, I do love my fine liners but I only used them to stylise my final. There is one major problem along with all the minor things that annoys the hell out of me and that's the bottom right hand of the archway, beside the light. It's faaaaaaaaaaaar too long, unfortunately I had fine lined it all before I noticed.

By this time we were also working on the bin with Heather. Fortunately I had done a year of 3D in my previous course and it came in very handy when doing the bin. Unfortunately last year I hadn't learned to texture properly, which is the hardest thing about 3D Max. I learned a lot with Heather and learning to properly texture is awesome, it actually makes your asset look feasible. Of course I am mad as a hatter and put a blood splat on my bin because I thought it was cute. But I also understand that I have to stick to a brief and so took it out and rendered a couple of shots of just a plain old manky non blood splatted bin * cry face *. For some reason I don't have any renders of my bin at home and so I will update this blog when I back up my files again.

Back to vis, week three brought with it the absolutely amazing super fun happy time project that is 2 point perspective...* cough*. Okay yes sarcasm but I just can't get a hold of 2 point, I dunno what it is. I tried and tried and tried and ended up doing 19 sketches or something. Most of them wrong, I was either placing the vanishing points too far from each other or too close. I kept at it and worked meticulously on a final, 1 million hours later I finished it. I used watercolours and fine liners to get the outcome. Again far from perfect but it was better than anything I had produced during that week.

After this was halloween I think...and week 5 the Space Centre. I paid to go in and it was actually worth it, the space centre has lots of interesting things, I loved the engines. Impossible to draw but they where beautiful. The final for that week I did on photoshop, I am not very good at photoshop and so I wanted to practice my skills also with the reflective surfaces of the rocket is hard to render in pencil.

 Now with Heather another task is set. The old building project. At first it seems easy, I ponder about with other tasks leaving it late. Wrong idea, the modelling is fine its just texturing the thing. Hours and hours and hours I tried to texture. I didn't use tillable textures because my building is full of graffiti and so practically ever wall is different. Unfortunately the pictures I took were not very good and it made the building really hard to texture. It looks fine from far away and so if the player couldn't get to the building then fine but when you go up close it's just horrific. Textures are blurry they don't fit and I am disappointing in them. Deadline is Monday and so I have no time to texture a whole building again.

Week five – cars. One word ; Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. I understand the need to draw cars, I understand the box technique in which to draw them but I just can't. Actually I'll rephrase that, I can draw cars if I practice more. Negative thoughts never did anyone any good. I will get better but as time presses I had to do a final. As you can see below it is simply put crap. Colours went wrong, perspective is wrong, wheels are wrong. And so I feel bad to make this a final and I'm currently redoing my final on photoshop because I can change things, I <3 Ctrl + T. Below is my final so far but it's still in progress.

Last week we got to travel to Bradgate. The place reminded me of home, they are some beautiful trees in Bradgate. It's such an interesting place to draw but it was ruddy cold. I have yet to do a final, I am bringing myself the courage to go back dressed as a stuffed bear to keep my temperature regulated in below minus Celsius.

This week it's vehicle design, as I said earlier this is a great opportunity to show some of the creative flare. So far it has been good, I try and think outside the box as much as possible but try and make it work as well. I am working on three concepts and trying to develop them into feasible machines.

Overall the course is going well, I am learning a lot and having constant work is making me better. The blogs are making use of my cognitive abilities, hopefully my spelling and phrasing of sentences will get better during the three years.