Thursday, 18 December 2008

WARNING: do not read if you are already depressed.

I guess I'm writing this just to help me really. Not to preach or depress or patronise or for sympathy, just my thoughts on a few things spilling on to the page.....

I had recently had a number of Revelations in terms of my work and felt like I was making progress. Some things had started to click and I was just about hitting my stride upon returning from the summer break. I felt optimistic about my future on the course and about how I was developing. But then thing's can so easily change. I have recently been derailed by a few personal problems. It amazes me, the contrast between how I was feeling just a few months ago to how I have been feeling recently and how quickly all this has happened. Its not the first time something like this has happened, I'm sure it will not be the last and of course I am not the only person who has problems everyone does, and will in their life, it's just hard sometimes to get your head around why these things happen and the timing of them. I know its not the end of the world and I am slowly but surely getting back to a level playing field and I guess soon all will be well.....life goes on, it's just sometimes it's not always as you envisioned it. I guess whether that is a positive or a negative is down to the person.

But anyway that's enough of that. Its almost christmas for crying out loud, have a good one and a happy new year.....
Some more photoshop work floating about on my pc. Below is a quick painting I produced for the war of the worlds project. When I was happy with with my design I put it in a scene just to get an idea how it might look.

This is completely from my brain box. no reference images or concepts just started painting so there are problems but was just an experiment in using some different tools and techniques in photoshop.

This was done as part of the interesting character project. I actually quite like this and think I captured what I set out to capture. I think the picture has character.


plastercine is fun!!

We have recently been making models from various materials as part of the visual design module of the course. I hadn't done any actual physical sculpture for years. I have to say I really enjoyed it.

The first thing I modeled was a torso. Was just getting used to using the Plasticine really and had recently been looking at anatomy so thought I would bring those two factors together in this little experiment of mine.the next project was to model an interesting character. My sculpture is not an exact replica of the person I used, more loosely based on them and exaggerated.Technically this was the first sculpting project. We had to produce a physical model of a war of the worlds inspired tripod/vehicle. I had made a model but I didn't feel it was faith full to the designs I had produced so I revisited the project and produced this model which was a lot closer to what I had drawn.Just recently I decided to do a sculpture of myself just because I'm enjoying the Plasticine modelling and thought it was quite fitting with the ongoing game production self portrait project.



























































































A rival for the statue of david? probably not....

This is my higher poly self portrait model. I'm still refining the shape but I surprised myself really in the sense that I think its fairly representative of me. Although there are still some issues and there probably always will be when working with a program like max that has a mind of its own, I have noticed improvements in my modelling just recently and hopefully will continue to.
Here is my lower poly self portrait. It's still a work in progress but I think its shaping up OK. I quite enjoyed the making of both the lower and higher poly models and was surprised I didn't have as many problems as I had anticipated.


3d work


This is my vehicle project. The lower image is with the my initial textures, I then stumbled across a tutorial for car paint materials so thought I would give it a go on the wheel arches. It doesn't come across that well in the pictures but was just a bit of an experiment really.




This is my environment project. Quite happy with the model. The textures where just really to see how things where looking and I will be re-texturing some parts , if not the whole thing.



some adjustments

I continued to work into this previously finished picture and i think although the changes are only subtle it's and improvement.Again after looking at my previously finished interior i tried to give it a bit more atmosphere and character


My own worst critic!

I noticed something about myself the other day. I tend to "finish" a piece of work and feel happy with it at the time but upon viewing with fresh eyes I then notice obvious errors, things that can be improved upon and things I just blatantly hate about it. Its amazing how you see things differently after taking a break from them....

I now employ this as part of my working practice. I used to despise revisiting old work but now realise that more often than not it is required in order to do the best you possibly can.