The End of the Beginning

So, my first year as a university student is finally over (well, my last assessment was due over a month ago) and I couldn't be feeling any better, really. I finished the year with so much confidence with my work and why wouldn't I? In the process of a year, I have worked my way to becoming a third of a professional animator. Even though that doesn't make much sense, it really is a fantastic feeling. Honestly, I want to do something animator-y over my 3 months or so of holidays, like make another 3D animation or just model something. To know how to create these things just makes me really happy on the inside.

So, now that I'm on holidays, what am I doing? Well, playing all the games I missed, for one. My PS Vita is getting the love it deserves with the haul of games Sony is releasing for the Christmas holidays and there are so many fantastic JRPGs that are surfacing. No doubt, I'll be writing a few positive reviews (and maybe some not so positive ones) for those.

I'm not doing a whole lot of drawing at the moment, despite my planned Pokémon Nuzlocke challenge in the makings an all this animating that I want to do. I just need a break I think. A small one, another half a month or so, before my hand is ready to co-operate.

But since uni is over, I am totally happy to showcase what I've done!


Animation History and Practices:
So, the basis of this assignment was to create something that was influenced by something else. A silly and naive student like myself thought that 2D would be absolutely stunning and easy but... well, it really wasn't. Never-the-less, I did finish it, thank god.

Despite not knowing much what I was doing, I was extremely happy and surprised to get a 7 in this subject (for those who don't know, that's basically an A). The video isn't exceptionally long and it makes me tired thinking about how much more I had planned for this. Still, I finished this subject on such a good note.

Animation and Motion Graphics

This assignment I probably found the 'easiest' in a way that it wasn't difficult, just tedious to put it all together. I based the animation off Atlantis Arising, which you may or may not have heard of (I've mentioned it maybe a billion times in previous entries) and basically made a TV show opening for it. 

I know the criteria said a movie and it did suffer a little since I seemed to have styled it like that. Overall, I got a 5 for the subject, which I am happy with. I learned a lot of tidbits from the subjects and I can actually use After Effects! Hurrah!

Introduction to 3D Computer Graphics

Before now, I had never touched Maya in my life. Sure, I'd heard about it but never had I actually thought about giving it a whirl, since Blender's splash page was too intimidating for me. But, really, after a little time of practice, I found modelling to be a really relaxing experience for me. Everything was so structured and mechanical and logical, so it's a little hard to try and be creative when there's a grid staring at you and telling you to stick between the lines. Once you got the hang of symmetry vs. spontaneity, I could sit for hours at a time trying to try and work out how a bump map works or UV mapping.

I was really happy with my finished product but I did finish the subject on a 5, which was a bit of a bummer. I probably would have gotten a 6 if I had stuck a bit of sound in my video. Ah well, I'm still happy with my work overall. 

Drawing for Animation

The subject overall really felt like a direct copy pasta from last semesters 'Drawing for Design', but with more .gifs and a little more about how movement works. I'll just go ahead and upload EVERYTHING!!

... Okay, not everything. Just the stuff I liked.

 

 

 

The last is a group project which I found both hilarious and amazing. I'm sure you all will too. Overall, I grabbed a 6 from this subject which didn't expect at all.

So, that's what I did in the past 6 months; schooled, worked, gamed, hung outed and was pretty bad ass at it too. Now, excuse me, I gotta get back to Virtue's Last Reward. It's plot twisting my brains out.

Today's song; Nascence - Austin Wintory

Half a semester down, three big animations to go

So, yeah, university has been pretty hectic up until now. I've finished all of my first assessments for all my subjects, but this isn't going to get any easier. No, between now and the end of semester, I have a short 3D animation, a slightly longer 2D animation, a motion graphics and a drawing portfolio due. I'm in for a pretty busy four weeks but if I can just cram this all together, get my head down and do hard, solid work, I should be just fine.

So, between the start of the semester and now, I've been a pretty good student, aside from the few super late nights doing assignments. I've had two exams, a drawing portfolio, a VLOG and an essay (as well as two proposals and an oral but that doesn't really count) all handed in and it feels good to be free for just a little while. A few days of gaming and catching up on sleep will be good until I need to really pull myself into these next assignments.

So, yes, the first half of semester. I'll upload some stuff!

This is the very rough 'preview' for my motion graphics assignment. I have to create a one and a half to two minute video of a fake movie's opening titles. I chose Atlantis Arising because I'm an uncreative bitch. Also, because the concept is really cool and I've really wanted to do something for this series. 

Now, how about a whole lot of Drawing for Animation .gifs?

And of course, how could I forget life drawing?

 

As for my other classes, I had exams and essays. Practical exams yes, but nothing special enough that I want to show just yet. After the semester is over, I'll be confident enough to show my obviously bad ass 3D, 2D and motion graphics animations. See you all then, I suppose.

Today's song; Finale - Madeon

It's been a long time...

Almost 8 weeks. And it's going to be a bit longer.

Sorry guys, I've been caught up with other things, and with university starting back up for it's second semester, I'm going to get busier.

Just for a heads up, I'm doing four classes again; Animation And Motion Graphics, Animation History And Practices, Introduction To 3d Computer Graphics and Drawing For Animation.

I promise to update soon (ish) with some stuff, okay?

University: Weeks 11-14

MAN. What a tiring couple of weeks it's been! Honest to god, I've had my fair share of crazy and I've practically done nothing but work on assignments and work at work and very little time roleplaying. But now, it's all over. As of today, I have officially finished my first semester of university! Yeah!! And now, I can slip into 7 weeks of holiday bliss where I can do nothing but game, hang with friends and play more games (and probably work too). Yeah, it's gonna be fantastic.

So, let me just recap everything!

First's first, my Animation Methodologies essay is all handed in. There's not much really to say about that without boring you with theory, so pressing on...

Burned to a CD and 500 words later, Digital Media is also all handed in! If you haven't been reading, that one was where we had to make our own video of anything (which was annoying). Of course, I won't include the 500 words but you can check out my awesome video below! Okay, maybe not completely awesome and perhaps a little quirky but I definitely liked the finish product!

Drawing for Design was ... phew! Though I had a lot of the drawings down, I had to draw about a million and a half bikes, which was INCREDIBLY PAINFUL. Drawing one bike is hard enough, but to draw twenty?! Thirty?! No thank you. I did it anyway and some of the things, including the animation, just... I was almost crying because how well it turned out despite my crappy light box (it was seriously my laptop light with paper over it).

That wasn't all of my drawings, but I think if I included them all, I'd probably kill everyone's bandwidth.

And Visual Communication? Well, I had to create a booklet for that and honestly, it turned out so awesome. If printing it didn't cost $16, I would have printed out like 4 or 5. Because I loved how it turned out so much and how the girl at Officeworks thermally bound it and how the whole layout just... worked! It was just awesome.

If I can, I may try to upload the full PDF later. For now, let's just stick with some cool sneak peeks from it;

Yeah! There was more, like nets of my packaging and actual layout but this is the stuff worth showing for the time being. I actually really like the vector of the glasses and the device, I was a little sad I forgot to save it in Illustrator (I still have a lame low-res raster in inDesign, which is what this is. Though, when I look at it, the quality seems pretty alright!).

So, now this is all over, I've bought Diablo 3. So I can play that and see what all the fuss is about.

You know, something I've never shared is my gamertags and details, so I'll do that now and stick them in my 'about me' section. I've got a few, but I'm mainly PSN based thanks to my Vita.

PSN: Maddaye
XBLA: Maddaye
Steam: psn_maddaye
battle.net: Skymin#6323

If you do happen to add me, make sure you attach a message of some kind saying who you are because I will most likely decline if you don't! I've also got Minecraft as well!

ALRIGHT. MADDY OUT.

Today's song; Over the Hill - Bearhug

University: Week 10

Now with only pretty much 3 weeks of university left, I've really stopped doing anything else except my moderating duties down at PokeCommunity and homework (and maybe a little bit of game playing in between. Like, 15 minutes after I wake up and 30 minutes before I sleep. C'mon, I gotta stay sane somehow. Plus, it's my job!). If I'm not working, I'm drawing or trying to film 15 minutes of crazy footage which I only use 15 seconds of.

To put it in perspective, I have an essay and drawings of bikes due next week and that video and my entire visual communication get up due the week after. I'm progressing well; I've just started the bikes and I've done most of my Visual Communication and Digital Media video, but my essay? Well, I did the test to say I can write a test. Haha, oh well. I'll get to it. I'm not even worried.

I did get my marks back on most assessment and yay! I haven't failed anything yet!

Well, at least I have my drawing to show off. Unfortunately, all my leisurely drawing is confined to scraps of paper at work, but I've got naked people!

Not a whole lot, but progress!! There's the real storyboards and some metamorphosis. Next week, I should have a lot of my Visual Communication done and all of the drawing finished. So, next week may be a big load.

Today's song; Threshold (8-bit) - Brian LeBarton

University: Week 9

The end of semester is getting really close and everything is piling on. I've got five assignments to go and as much as I hate it, I procrastinate all the time. And it doesn't help that I work casual either. Despite this, I'm not worried at all. I'm usually pretty laid back about homework and stuff and if I stress too much, I tend to rush and just make everything really bad because I just need it over and done with otherwise I'll explode.

Digital Media, I've done nothing but brainstorm, which is really bad because this four minute video is the big thing. The ideas I have are simple and involve mainly either using my brother as an actor and me as a background person or just me. I don't want to make this a super awesome thing that has explosions and fabulous acting, I want this to be simple and witty and easy enough on the eyes and ears. It's about the way it's edited and constructed, not about the actor accidentally skipping a line. Less is more because honestly, this is a school assignment. Not some big budget movie.

Animation Methodologies, I'm in the process of writing my three minute oral. Orals, I have no big deal. I learned my mistake from the Digital Media oral and I understand that one, this is not high school and two, don't clump paragraphs together on your speech and make it hard to read and three, practice. The essay however, I'll really need to get into. Essay's are okay, it's just trying to write it without repeating myself within the 1500 words because I seem to do that. A lot.

Visual Communication, my oral went really well in my opinion. I practised it probably a million times and it really helped. I did rush the whole thing, but that was because I needed to fit it all in there. I had a lot to say. And luckily, everyone understood me! I even had a fellow classmate come up to me and tell me she really liked my oral and that it made her day (which made me feel awesome). The assignment will probably be something I can do with ease. Design seems to be my speciality at the moment, especially here when a lot of students seem to not understand that bright colours and rainbows is not the way to go.

Drawing for Design is one of the biggest hoops. To create such a portfolio will really take it out of me since it's not really my brain that decides when I draw, but my hand. I won't upload my drawings from that class (on account I haven't done the homework yet) but I'll upload one I did this week.

And also, I'll upload some drawings by my friends for me!!

The one on the left is of Azure (based on the pixel art I mocked up of her) who I drew last entry by another member who manages the roleplay. The other is a picture my uncle did of me as we were drawing each other. SEE, I'M SUPERMAN!

Since, apparently, we get six or so weeks holidays, I've decided to partake in a project with some of my closest online friends. We're creating a Pokémon game with RMXP (RPG Maker XP) and I'm the artist. I really wanna put my all in this, especially since I do nothing else but work other than university. If I can grab some attention with this, perhaps I really can get my name out there. I really want to start commissions and by doing something like this, it should really help with a 'portfolio'. I plan on remaking a lot of the overworld sprites (600+ Pokémon may be too hard, but I'll see how I go) and all of the art should be original. I'll keep everyone posted, even post art and junk here! I do have few sketches for the trainers but nothing solid yet.

Anyways, hopefully by next week, I should have a bunch of stuff for you guys!

Today's song; Live to Rise - Soundgarden

University: Week 8

Whoa, sorry for the late entry! I wrote everything last Tuesday and am posting it all now, so just read everything as such!

Week 9, MORE ASSESSMENT! I handed in my Visual Communication and went awesomely on my oral, hopefully my tutor thinks the same way. I'm gonna take a few days break until I get stuck back into it. I've written half a script for Digital Media (finally, I have an idea!!) and I've gotta get back into drawing for my weekly drawings (apparently last week's storyboard wasn't what we had to do, so expect that redrawn!) but Animation Methodologies seem like a breeze, writing an essay and doing an oral about what was crap about my Animation. Self critique? HELL YEAH I SUCK!

Moving on, last week in Drawing for Design, we did mostly life drawing again, but we learned about typography. I've never been that good with words and such, so it was marginly helpful (I still suck).

As for my own stuff, this week's life drawing went really well, actually! I enjoy longer drawings as I can spend more time on details and shading.

I started this last night and it's turned out pretty awesome so far. I seem to start in the weirdest places. It's a product of me playing too much Monster Hunter though I did buy Disgaea recently, so perhaps I might start going crazy. ANYWAY! Next week! Metamorphosis!

Today's song; Always - Panic! at the Disco