Self Evaluation, My very last uni blog post.

So, this is the final entry of this university blog, its all bitter-sweet, as I spent so much time hating writing down my progress and my feelings, but now I look at it, I will miss it. My journey at NUA has come to an end and all there is now is to graduate.

This journey has been one of the hardest things I've had to travel, but I wouldn't have changed it for the world. I've drawn things I never thought I would have drawn, played with software I never would have contemplated and best of all, discovered friendships to inspire my development that I will treasure for life.

I feel the biggest thing I’ve learnt from this project is just to be myself, my final pieces really look great because it is what I wanted to do and in a style that represents who I am. I’ve really begun to understand what works best for me art wise, this doesn’t mean I won’t stop learning but I can add what I learn to what I already know works for me. I’ve learnt so much from the scheduled Anatomy lessons which really helped a lot with the final pieces I created, in particular the Rat Torture piece, before I didn’t understand how the spine moved in a body but having that hands of experience with a knowledgeable tutor really made the different in my learning and what I am producing. I look forward to using what I have learnt to further my skills in concept art.

One thing I would have done looking back is to not be guided by my depression and self-doubt with my abilities, to be stronger with my resolve and not let my worries about my work get me down. I spent so long wishing I was something I wasn't and it nearly ended up being my downfall. But in the end I stuck with my strengths and it all worked out.

No matter what happens, after hand in, after graduation I can hold my head up high, say I done it and value everything that I learnt.

This may be the last blog post for my university blog, but this isn't the end of my journey. I leave the safety net, and go into the world looking for my place in the world of concept art!

Mini Summary - LinkedIn

I've never really had any messages on LinkedIn so I was beginning to wonder was it all worth it, today I received an email from the Creative Director of Invisibit Studios about internships at Oak Moon Studios.

http://oakmoongames.wordpress.com/opportunities

I'm not sure how many other people on the course got this same email as we share a few connections but I'm very curious about this and it sounds like it could be an exciting venture which I will look to pursue after hand in, it does say that internships are unpaid but that seems to be a standard thing, and possibly a nice way to get my art out there.

It does say on the site that they are looking for environment interns but I wouldn't mind learning to do environments after hand in. Just another thing to add to the portfolio so that sounds good. Either way if I venture forth with this I will always be looking to expand my skills.

A Happy, Mini Summary!

I haven't make a post like this in a long while and don't think I have this project so far.

This has been a hard challenge for me, I've been struggling so hard with keeping myself motivated, preventing myself from being lost in my own self destructiveness and BA3b has, I think been my most difficult project to date. It's not only being so independent, but having to look at the same three characters and images over and over is quite overwhelming. I'm still not sure with a style I want to follow so I feel like I am just going to go with my own personal style and let it go from there.

One thing I haven't been keeping track on is how much my artwork is improving (though my hand certainly feels it, ouch hand cramp)! I didn't realise it until a second year on my Facebook and friend Maxine mentioned about how much my shading has improved. I was flattered but then I realised it. Through all this adversity and feeling so down and rubbish about my artwork, I just haven't been realising just how much my work has gotten better since year 1 and even before I started uni.

I guess the lesson from this mini post is, just keep doing what you are doing and everything will turn up good in the end. A lesson for myself is to stop worrying about what others are doing and have fun with your creations.

Now as I am starting to realise my potential this is my face when I look at what I can create now!

Chosen Silhouettes and Values

I think I've been getting the end of year blues, I've been spending so much time thinking about graduating and what is going to happen after I leave uni that it's been setting me back as far as my creativity goes. I had a look through my silhouettes and I've decided which I would be taking forward to the next stage which is Values. These are my chosen 9 (three for each character)

And here are the values, I am in so much love with how they all turned out especially with how bummed out I've been feeling in regard to creating, the Pear of Anguish in particular I feel is the strongest and I am adoring how her costume came out in the values! I often feel my values are really messy in comparison to other peoples but for the kind of style I want to use it works really well. One of my biggest hurdles is to stop comparing myself to other people and their work ... I have to just keep believing in myself and it will all come out right!

A few more silhouettes!

The feedback I got about my silhouettes was "Although meant to be quick, silhouettes need to be more considered and contain deeper thought into the choice of shape / form intended for further development." so I thought I would have a little bit more of a play with them, this will also loosen me up and get a few conceived ideas out of my head.

I also wanted to explore shapes more and found Alchemy is one of the best ways to do it, I always struggle to do silhouettes in Photoshop as all my silhouettes end up very human and stick man-like. Alchemy give me that certain inhuman shape I am looking for with these torture device characters.

There were the results.

I wanted a little more of a rounder shape for some as the Pear of Anguish has the curvy bell shape to it and because it is also a very benign device, it doesn't look threatening. The Rat Torture and Iron Maiden are a little more harsh because of the nature of the devices, I went with more spiky shapes and more square because for the Iron Maiden its a bulky object and must be represented as such visually, the spikes because of the inside of the Iron Maiden. The rat torture also features spikes to represent the bucket that held the rats, these can be developed further in Photoshop to make them bigger when I do my values and colours.

I'm not sure if I want to do any more with the silhouettes, I got a lot of nice shapes here and I need to stop being so obsessive with them, Nigel said do hundreds but I honestly don't think I can.

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In anatomy we've started adding leg muscles, it's really progressing quite nicely. It's so fascinating watching it all come together! I'm still rusty with all the technical names, but I can start to recognise particular muscle groups during weekly bouts of watching wrestling so it must be impacting me somewhere!

Self Evaluation.

Today is hand in day and marks the end of BA3a ... sad times! Any research that is missing from this blog is now inside of the Research and Design documents I will submit as this research will be clearer and in order.

Now for my own self evaluation of how I handled this project and the tasks.

Self-Evaluation.

I was very happy with my project work. I love the nature of my project and for the first time at university and am really happy with how the project is going, being able to be true to myself after my failure in Year 2 really fills me with so much promise as I take this work into the next stage. I also discovered that I could overcome my own phobias, having to expose myself to the things that scared me the most made me feel braver, I have a feeling this bravery will carry through into my designs. Being able to let myself go has done wonders for my skills and how I react to having to do work.

As always, I let time get the better of me, start of term went very slow, the lack of guidance and lessons this term has made me slow up in terms of work production. I also underestimated how fast time had gone even though it felt like it was going slowly. By the time I realised this it was almost too late, though this is something I will take through with me to BA3b. I will be stronger with myself and not allow myself to be distracted by frivolous activities.

I really let myself down with the tasks, I started out with a lot of interest in them, but as the weeks went on I didn't consider them as important as my main project, even though I still feel like they aren't and I felt that I was not allowing myself to fully engage with the main project (as there were all these little tasks breaking into my thought process). Though I did end up loving the pieces I created, especially the Treehouse and the Insect.

For the first time with any project I really felt I had improved with my essay writing, and for once, I finished my essay long before anything else, I found having a project that ran alongside the essay was one of the reasons I felt more interested in it, and also I was writing about a topic that really interested me which also helped.

If there would be anything I would have changed about this project, I would have gone to more life drawing sessions as, due to timetabling, our group missed a fair few, I myself only getting to one of them. Next term I will actively attend more sessions and will explore more into colour on black. I would also look to sticking to my timetable more. Having the timetable was very handy but as normal I leave it in a folder on my computer and generally forget about it. Next term I will probably have a copy stuck on a wall by my computer to always have it visible.

Overall I feel this has been a good learning curve. For me this was one of the hardest projects, juggling this project with side tasks for the first time, alongside bouts of insomnia and newfound anxiety attacks defiantly made it a difficult time. But I feel stronger having come out the other end with a strong project to carry through to BA3b.

Mark Session Round-up! (26/11)

So for this session we had to bring in a 1 slide presentation showing what we had done and what we had to do ... I was bricking it over this session, before I had my moment I listened to classmates also saying they were behind, Mark also said it was a common theme in our year, this made me feel a little better, when you are behind its very easy to feel like you are the only person in that position, and to hear other people saying the same thing takes a little pressure off yourself (that sounds really bad!) This is the slide I took with me.

I said that I was very much stuck in my head as far as my ideas go, I was struggling pin pointing which phobias I was going to choose, I felt like I was being governed by my moodboards and I needed to get my finger out of my butt (in a better sense than that)!

In bullet point form here is the feedback got from the group

• STOP THINKING TOO MUCH! For the phobias, give each concept piece three phobias to represent in the artwork. To take the choice out of the equation, either stick specific phobias out of a hat or grab a selection of phobias and put them next to an image of my chosen torture device and then ask my peers which three they feel represent the image best, ask them what phobia associates best.
• GET DOODLING!To kick start my artistic drive, look up more about how I want the final images to look, create mock ups with composition, lighting, thumbnails, perspective, colour studies, colour schemes and style guides! Have fun exploring all these different things!
• DEFINE! Define what is the purpose of these video game boss characters, at the moment they are just ideas with nothing behind them, no story! Create a loose game idea and give them a purpose as to why they are video game boss characters.
• THEME! Don't just say I want it to look a certain way, find a theme and stick with it.
• END RESULT! What do I want the final result to be/look like? What do I want the audience to think when they look at the images? How am I going to be displaying these three images?

I have a lot to do, I also said I felt stressed by the tasks and that I felt I was getting bogged down by them, Mark mentioned focus on the important things first, get my main project ideas sorted out then go back to the tasks. Taking this approach is going to help me a lot I think, doing the smaller things last takes the pressure of the big stuff!

I didn't mention anything about my Research Report, but we all heard that our drafts are being read up and feedback written for them so I'll have to wait for that, a book that I got in was taken out by someone else before I could get it which is a little annoying but it happens, I've reserved it and will read snippets here and there until I get it and my feedback back!

Weekly Summary 21/11

I haven't really achieved a lot this week, life's stresses get in the way as with all things and I am really bad at not allowing them to stop me working , I am still in a bit of an art block, though my mood has picked up since my last summary and I don't feel as depressed as I did then.

I've tried putting pen to pad to get some ideas down and try to get my art brain going so to speak.

With the pear I want her to still be beautiful despite having no jaw. I want there to be a sense of sexuality about it like with Silent Hill's monsters even though they are creepy they are still sexual looking beings. I will focus mainly on the face for this creature, but I want the body to be ravaged by the lack of ability to eat, hence the gangly limbs.

I think this one could be a bit gorey, with the idea of the rats having gnawed all the way through, I was thinking this could be where the rats lived instead of being in the bucket the whole time, so there would only be fur inside the body not guts so much.

This was an idea for the Irom Maiden, to have the character trapped, twice ... in the form of the clothing and in a tight looking space.

Although I haven't done a lot physically with my art work I have had a lot of ideas floating around on where to take my ideas now, this coming Thursday (26th) we are to present a one page slide of where we are up to for the new staff. This will be a cleansing moment where I confess my sins with my lack of work (thanks art block)

Mark wasn't in our last session I attended so I didn't get to discuss my problematic torture idea, however after coming in for sessions and not getting seen due to time restraints me and Maxine finally got to talk to one of the newer staff members Chris and was able to discuss my problem of choosing my last torture device.

He was really great, he suggested I go with rat torture as I was really concerned with how much art wise I could get out of water boarding, also with it being a method of torture being used today I want to stay clear of the politics behind water-boarding, he mentioned that I should look into the Saw movie series as the series revolves around people trying to escape from horrible torture devices. As I am a massive wimp I said I couldn't watch them because it scares me (to which Chris looked very confused due to the nature of my project brief). The 'reverse bear trap' reminds me a lot of the pear given that it's inserted into the mouth. I will look at this one if anything else.

With my pear of anguish I mentioned that I wanted to have her jaw taken off somewhat and that I was going for a steam-punk theme with that character, he suggested that I could maybe make it less gory by trying to rebuild the mouth with cogs and metal because obviously I need to keep the gore to a minimum, as the device is metal I could see that working really well! The iron maiden item he suggested I look into Houdini and his escape procedures as the focus for my iron maiden, this could be an interesting take on it.

Chris also asked how I was going to be laying out the final images, I want the focus to be on the characters only so he suggested I use an IES profile and have a specific spot light. I felt a bit dumb when he said it and I didn't really know what it was until be explained it was just the way the spotlight falls (derp). I really like this idea as it puts all the light on the characters and I don't have to focus so much on the background, I think I could also get some really nice lighting this way!

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I still haven't got round to completing the tasks so I'm going to have to prioritise my time wisely. My research report is going well, one of the books I need has arrived in the Library so I can start reading that. The other one has an estimated arrival date of August 2016, which is great .... as I'll be graduated by then! I handed in my draft with a word count of 2277 (including bibliography). I would have liked to write a bit more than that but on the night of the hand in when I was getting really creative I was having crazy sinus problems, it was more than the 1000 word count but a little bit of me wanted a bit more to hand in, I was going on a bit of a tangent so it was probably for the best that I didn't write more.

Basically its time to get working because ... January is looming.

Just a little Summary (a sad one)

I feel like I haven't done a summary for awhile, I think It's time I done one. It's not going to be a good one because I'm kind of feeling at a loose end with how I'm dealing with this year.

So far I'm really behind, I am only half way through my Orrery project at this point when it should already have been done. I've only just started my research for the latest task we have (I haven't made a post about that yet) I don't have much of a reason why I haven't caught up yet when I had so much fun doing the insect task.

I'm feeling VERY overwhelmed by all this work, I feel distracted from my main project and my CS work as I feel like we have so much to do. It's brought back all my fears and doubts and it's brought on a nasty bout of depression and my anxiety is through the roof. I normally suffer from this when I feel there is too much on my shoulders. It's making me wonder, do I deserve to be on this course, why am I on this course ... what's the point, everyone else is making amazing headway and yet here I am. Struggling to draw a glue stick. I haven't established a style, and the style I had two and a half years ago has gone somewhere.

I have all these ideas in my head and every time I try to get them down on paper or in Photoshop but I just end up staring at the screen, I can't make any sense of the blank paper and it makes me want to cry. At this point I understand why so many people quit at the last hurdle, because everything just gets to much. I feel like I can't talk about this to anyone because I don't want to appear like I'm whining (ironic since I feel like I'm whining on here)

I know this will all pass in time, but I don't have time. I'm just hoping I can drag myself out of this hole before it's all too late.

First things first I have to finish my Orrery stuff, then get my Task 3 stuff started .... taking things one at a time I think will be best.

Oh well that was a bad post, hopefully next post I do like this will be a lot more positive.

Weekly Summary 9/10

Just lately my brain has taken a nosedive. So much is happening around me that my mind is too full of fluff for me to concentrate, the stress of Third Year is already taking its toll ... which is weird because we've pretty much only been back three weeks (which in itself is terrifying), time is going seriously fast!

'an accurate representation of my brain currently.'

This is one of my first weekly summaries as advised in our 'development documentation guide' where I will talk about what I have learnt this week (which doesn't feel like a lot in my brain fluffy world right now!) and document anything that doesn't really belong in a research post.

At the moment with my project work has taken a bit of a side course as I really try and figure out what I want to do, these tasks we've been set are really curbing my brains ability to focus on more things at once and I feel I've paid more attention to the insect one and now we've got another to do its a little too much. SO I think I shall focus this next week entirely on my main project and CS work and see if I can do some catching up!

I think I have finally settled on a strong idea that will carry me through to BA3b. This idea is to scrap a few of the ideas that I have been umming an ahhing about such as the Death Knell, I absolutely love it and it's something I would love to do, but it's taking me away from the main path and causing me too much stress to link it all together.

I am sticking with the tasteful torture theme, and have decided to link it with phobias, to do this I will be looking into said phobias and pairing them best with torture devices that fit. To make this 'tasteful' and available for the end of year show I will be looking into more of the psychology of phobias to make the images 'scary' without showing too much blood or scary images. This is still going to be a challenge though. My tutor Mark suggested I do some reading into psychology, which thankfully I have a bit of a collection of from BA6 (thank you serial killer project!) and that I email Stuart Ashen (or Ashens to the whole of Norfolk) and ask for some advice on this matter as he has a PhD in Psychology, well, as a massive fan of Ashens' Youtube channel ... sending an email about torture and phobias felt very weird. I eagerly wait a reply! Mark also suggested I look into using the inkblot Rorschach test instead of asking questions with words to see what images scare people more! I reall like this idea as I'll be able to use these and then go straight into values with them. The survey will still be a great help though!

I have also changed my CS research report to match with this project work, I will be looking into how games use scares to create a scary game 'What makes a good scare?' I have already begun a little research into this by creating a questionnaire asking strangers and friends for their fears and the like. Mark gave me some advice on this by suggesting that I look into guides on how to write good questionnaires so I don't end up leading people on with my questions. I still need to work out what topics I am going to cover with it as well.

Well this is all I can remember from this week.