What Is Art?

One thing that I need to stop, is asking questions as it annoys people, as I’ve found out on FaceBook. I’ve realised the only way to learn is to do things yourself on your own, hence why they just throw you in at the deep end and put immense pressure on you to begin with at University. I’m not complaining either, I just like to state things or ask when Google doesn’t have an answer, what’s wrong with that? I don’t think there’s really any right or wrong answer in Art, we all do things differently and I think that critique really is overrated, it proves nothing. The course tries to make us produce work that is more realistic and become better Artists but I think in actual fact that trying to be as realistic as possible is a battle that’ll never be won. It’s kind of like a competition really, who can do it ‘the best’?  The answer is no one can. When you look at modern gaming what do you see? Realistic looking games and games with cartoon looking graphics, who says we have to be realistic all the time? Millions of games out there are not realistic but does that make it wrong? A great successful game such as Super Mario should be put down because it is not realistic? Should Angry Birds be put down because its graphics are not realistic enough? It is bad because fat cartoon birds are flying through the air unrealistically? In that case is animation wrong? If so then are the people that made the game going to care? No, they would laugh because they have something that is making them millions of dollars of people downloading it and making money which is whole purpose of creating a game. I maybe criticising the course a little but I think maybe the course should be a bit more open to different styles and ways of doing things; this might be an Art course but one thing we have to remember that this is Art for gaming! It’s quite different to traditional Art, for example I remember earlier this year we was given an exercise to draw an image in a masters style and Pop Art was not allowed and I so wanted to ask why not? I it because Pop Art is cartoon like? With its bold colours, hard lines and think bold shapes? It is wrong because I do know of Artists that were inspired by the Japanese using black outlines in their work, are those great Artists wrong? I believe that Van Gogh himself had a slight Japanese influence. Does that make his work totally wrong? No it doesn’t. The point I’m trying to get across is that we all come from different walks of life, like everyone on the course, we all have our own ways of doing things and I think that it’s never wrong to try something new, I mean look at animation, if I brought anime to my interview I would have been rejected instantly, I mean it maybe better suited for a animation course but maybe a little wouldn’t hurt would it? It’s not really for me to say but that’s just what I think. I look at gaming and I think to myself billions of people around the world like gaming and appreciate it as it is, it’s just the same with animation, so I ask what’s so wrong about bringing something different into it? Or is it that thing were there’s only one route in education and if you don’t do what a school, college or University is looking for they reject you entirely and fail you? I’m just saying let’s be a bit more free and open about work, why not? You never know until you’ve tried, but I guess we all have different interpretations of Art.

http://www.arthistory.sbc.edu/artartists/artartists.html

No, no, no? Maybe a little... YES, YES, YES! 
(ish)

Again coming back to asking questions, right at the start of the first year one of our tutors explained that they want us to ask questions, ask why this and why that and how things work, but from what’s gone on during the year it’s not worth it, you just seem to get your head bitten off every time. Building upon a review of the year task we did, I’ve been thinking more about what maybe the course could do to improve. The first thing is that asking tutors a question is simply forbidden as it were, they don’t like it! I’ve attempted to ask questions but got nowhere asking tutors about things. Why be like that? It’s only a question. I’ve gotten better and I might add a more peaceful response out of asking others on the course however it’s come to be annoying now as I’ve explained. In the coming academic year I’ve decided to ask as few as questions as possible or rather none at all. This year we must start over again and learn a new program (unreal) which I know won’t be easy! Though I have vowed to do my best, doing my best will require me to work in a team this year, so not asking questions may corrupt things within the potential group I am put into, so maybe it’s a bit late for that? I’m just going to use my blog to rant on about things. 

Some things I’ve been thinking about the course is, upon not receiving calm comments from tutors, it would be nice if we were to have someone else there to help us out and give us feedback on things, someone who we could ask questions to and not get our heads bitten off. That way we could get more feedback as and when we like, if it’s through occasional meetings or sending work back and forth via e-mail. It would be good to get more feedback on 3D work as we only get it at the end of each term, the only source we have for that is FaceBook, but I personally don’t think that’s enough. I would like more practical help into how to do things as we only get shown once and for someone like me I like to see how something is done, as I don’t really learn from reading things, maybe that’s why I’m an Artist?

At the end of the first year we were shown what we get marked on for visual design and I just wish that we could have been shown this at the start of the year which would have helped more. One thing I like about visual design however is that we get an extra chance on a Friday to do more life drawing, I would like to get more help on life drawing but it is that I’m just too afraid to ask now and I actually daren’t ask! I have got the occasional help from Jack but again one person to about 40 students is difficult, though I’m guessing that 40 is about half that now. I remember an Artist (can’t remember his name) saying that every Artist has thousands of naff drawings inside them and I think that is definitely true, sometimes you’re happy with things but sometimes you are not, on the course I’ve seen a lot of people not happy with things a bit too often even though I think their work looks very good and asks me the question of ‘how did they do it?’. I think confidence is key, I mean you’re (as a human) never going to be happy with everything you do, as that would be unreal, life throws good and bad things at you else if it as all good it would be boring, and all bad things wouldn’t be nice. I think confidence in your own ability is key, especially from now on, you can’t go into an interview with no confidence else you’d never find a job, you have to take it on the chin really and remember whatever you don’t think is good is probably good to someone else. You sort of have to stand back from your work and say what’s good and bad about it and try to right the wrong next time around. What I’m trying to say is that this year confidence is important especially when working in groups. I can talk about it as much as I want but it won’t change what happens out there, only thing I need to do is sit down and shut and just do it as the slogan for Nike goes.

Return For 11/12

And so I've made it through to year two. As today I passed my re-sit and made it back onto the course. But there’s no time to celebrate, I’ve been pondering about the outcome of my re-sit for months, at first I was worried that I’d even get the chance to re-sit and then once I got that I was worried that I’d passed the re-sit. I must get back to work, I’ll make sure that this year it doesn’t come down to re-sitting and actually make sure that I find enough time to complete my work so I’m not rushing about at last minute, not only handing it in late but forgetting one of the projects!

All that said, I’ve done enough to keep on the course, a course that was described as boot camp on the first week. Well I’m glad to say I survived the first year of boot camp and that this year it’s time to work 10 times as hard. I preferably would like to do 4 times the amount of work in all areas of the course at a minimum standard as I doubt they’d be anytime to 10 times.

I think on areas of the course specifically, I would like to get better at modelling first of all. I mean modelling hasn’t exactly come easy to me in the past year, as I’ve said I have not had much practise with a 3D piece of software before, however I’m getting a better hang of it. I will definitely do some personal work on top of everything else this year. One thing about game production this year is the team projects, very looking forward to it but worried some things will be stressful and fallings out can and probably will happen, but I can only give it my best. I think it’ll be fun though as it really excited me that we get to actually build a game level by working in teams when I first found out about that. It’ll be interesting to see how it turns out and I guess it’s good for developing an understanding of working in teams regularly which on any game is important as all games all made by group of people working together as you know. Communication will be important, and I think it’ll really put us all to the test. In which I think will help with our final major projects to happen in the third year as it’s allowing us to work on a bigger scale, or project altogether which is what is done in the final year from what I’ve seen.

In visual design, this year again it’s all about personal work I need to do a lot more personal work, tons in fact. The only personal work I did in my first year was some fruit and painting the back of my hand, which isn’t obviously good. Though I still passed visual design without having to re-sit, I need to do a lot more work. I’m thinking that drawing a piece of fruit once per-week as suggested earlier this year will help, I got into drawing fruit but I only found the time to do 4 pieces rather than about 10 which I was aiming for. I don’t this year want to get told that I have to re-do all my work again, like at Christmas and again at Easter! I really don’t want to have to do work again so I think putting more time into doing the personal work will pay off in the long run alongside the mandatory work to. I think that more fruit, more still life objects and some figure drawing every now and then will help; I really need a better understanding of the human form, and so researching into more things like that will help to. I mean if I had to choose from character or environment Artist it’d be environment every time for me, so I think that learning more about the figure etc as it can also help with people in relation to the environment they are in and spacial relations etc. I like to draw a lot of things in perspective, so I’ll probably do a lot of one and two point perspective and I think I’ll try and go for a 3 point to since that’s something I’ve wanted to try. I want to get better at painting still not just traditional but digital, I think I want go more in the digital direction however, especially for concept work.

Like I’ve said I don’t want to have to re-do things this year and I certainly don’t want to go through another re-sit, this year’s work is important as it counts towards the final degree so I need not say more about that. On the blog side of the course I did well to get 55 out of the 30 required credits in which this year I am to try and double that amount which will of course count on me researching a lot more like I’ve said. When I’ve finished a piece of work I’ll probably post it and talk about it though I’m not sure what more I could say about fruit etc. However talking more about my experiences on the course, the trips out and around Leicester, my visual design and game production work, keeping a written diary of our team building projects will be good. Obviously getting more links and images in there will be good, but I got to make sure about everything I do, I do it with 100 percent effort as a minimum. It's odd, because last year when the course had just started I was doing well, I got good feedback from my first term, I got told to just do more, so I started doing more and then I my work sort of lost quality to it, I need to balance the quantity and quality thing out. On my first blog I written I said how I was rock bottom of the group in terms of how good I am as an Artist, a year later I still am rock bottom, so I need to get into high gear and really push for it this year. Lots of people I’ve spoken to say the second year of University is easier because they don’t make it as hard for you however the work gets pilled on a bit. It’s not going to be easier than last year in which is the simple case for working harder. Above all I’m looking forward to going back. 

The End?

Well I must say It's been nice at University, but if I'm not destined to go on and gain a degree then so be it...

I can't believe I've done so badly. I thought what I was doing was good enough, but there's always things you miss, like in my 3D work I never knew that you had to name everything you created until just recently.  Having to re-do all my 3D work in 3 weeks is just not at all possible, is it? On top of having to write another 15 or so blogs and do a lot of visual design.

At the moment, I couldn't be more miserable and depressed, I've failed and I know it, everyone keeps telling that you're only human and that 'they' will give you a chance to re-do stuff over summer, but I honestly can't see it happening. They just wasn't enough time to do everything that was asked of me at formative assessment, I passed one part of the course but the other two I just don't see it happening. Only just recently I found out that University is about teaching yourself and I realise what a complete massive idiot I've been all the way through the course asking for help on just about everything, the thing is I never knew that! I honestly didn't know that, and I've always been a slow learner, but in the recent months gone by i've enjoyed it like doing digital paints that I think I've gotten quite good at now? Well I don't think so, I mean I don't ever get any likes or comments of praise on my work.

Like I said before there's no hiding from it, I'm a failure and I know it. I thought I'd have done better but if given a chance to go back, then I'll re-do everything over summer if it takes it. I've messed up and I said to myself in my first blog I'm bottom of the pile out of everyone on the course and how good I am as an Artist and i still am today. It's like I've been relegated, i've been struggling at the bottom end of the class all along throughout the year and now it's time to just face what I had coming to me in the first place.

I wanted to re-do all my projects in 3D but I only found the time to finish just two of them and the other one was about 3/4th of the way done. I was rushing so much that I screwed up the folders on my CD that I handed in, I just wish we had like an extra hour, if I had I could of finalized everything, but there was so little time I just couldn't think. I've never been so stressed in my life and now I'm in a spiraling depression because of it, but it's my fault.
I even screwed the folders up on the disc but it won't let me change it and I forgot to put one of my projects on it. In fact one of my projects is in another project folder. It's been one crazy year and the thing is if I was this bad in industry I wouldn't get a job anywhere, but I've said to myself if I do make it back I'll do nothing but work myself to death as work next year is to final degree so it's very important.

Living on my own away from home and the pressure of all the work really has hit me like a 10 ton of bricks, I've gone about it the wrong way, I have no excuses.

I gave it my best, but if my best isn't good enough then so be it...

Y1 S2 T12 - Personal Review Of The First Year

It’s been an exciting year on the Game Art course. Moving away from home is always a bit nervous but I settled into DMU and the course really well and have enjoyed it. Along the way I found myself doing many different types of work I never imagined myself doing before.

The one thing I was worried about before coming was the fact that I hardly ever used a 3D software package in my life, I had some experience it in from college but not too much and not something as powerful as 3DS Max that’s for sure! In fact I never even heard of 3DS Max before I got here so this was a lot to take in at fist but given the time and effort I have adapted to it quite well. I’m producing work that I never even thought I would before, it was hard but like people said, it’s better to just throw us all in at the deep end in so that we can just learn to adapt to it quicker and then we feel comfortable around it for future tasks. The idea of having tutorials on the internet that we can always comeback to, I thought was a good idea, that helped a lot at first but as I progressed I sort of found myself not needing them as much and using the internet to look into things that were a bit more advanced.

When we first started we looked at one point perspective and I found it somewhat difficult, I think it was the fact that I was looking too much into it at first and it became difficult, but now it’s so easy that I know it like the back of my hand. It’s funny because every time I look down a street or path I’m always looking at where the vanishing point is and the horizon line. When we was doing the architectural project I found it so easy to do, but it’s because that it’s a really blocky shape, but at the same time in visual design we started to draw buildings using two point perspective which I found easy, again because it’s just blocky and easy. I’ve never drawn a piece of Art using perspective before so i thought it would be a bit challenging, but it’s really not, perspective is so simple and I love to draw to one point perspective, it’s kind of become something I’ve become a bit addicted to, but it makes it a lot easier.

I’ve enjoyed how in visual design we’ve got to go out and doing drawings, it’s as if we have a little adventure every week but with a new project at hand, we need more places to go to, I like how in the course we get to re-visit places like Bradgate Park etc and see how the colours change at different times of the year but however I don’t like how we must keep going back to these same places as it appears from what I’ve seen the second and third years do, it would possibly be nice if there was a lot more places to go to, like around the country perhaps. I went on the trip to Liverpool to the Tate museum which was a really nice trip and all but by the time we found a place to sit and draw we had literally 30 minutes and that was all, so had to make it count as much as possible! It was really interesting to go there and see all the work first hand like we saw some of Picasso’s work etc I think arranging more trips to around the country would be nice, I mean we are in the middle of the country so it’s not too difficult to get anywhere!

Over the past 7 months of the course I found myself doing a lot more painting, at first I thought I would do some, but not much as I prefer pencil more, but we’ve been taught in the way that if you take time to plan everything, use perspective and layer colours over each over there’s not a painting you can’t produce. I found myself wanting to buy a graphics tablet and using it to produce digital painting, I must say that in the short time I have been using it I think I’ve adapted to it quite well and next year I would hope to do a lot more. Next year I would like to do a lot more personal work given the time and get use to some more advanced techniques using Photoshop.

I’ve enjoyed the lectures we’ve had, we seemed to have a lot however in the first semester and I really thought about 3 would be enough. They’ve all basically told us the same type of thing in every one, implying what you do in industry and what types of jobs they are out there and what jobs are harder to get. It’s been fun though when they talked about making a good portfolio and told us what is good to see and what isn’t like animals in bikini’s, enough said...

We’ve had lectures like the deadliest Artist that have been fun to watch and I remember when we had one guy that came in from the course in the past and he basically told us not to worry about becoming better etc and that we’re all heading the same direction and he even said to us, that he couldn’t do this and that and his 3D work wasn’t good but now he’s giving professional a run for their money.

It’s been fun watching our films on a Wednesday, and I liked watching them more in the second semester (because there was more). The blog has been my favourite part of the course, next year I would hope to do a bit more personal work again given the time and maybe talk about things in the gaming industry more, like we’ve talked how it’s the fastest growing industry in the world and still growing, it would be nice to talk things like that more but it’s all going to be about working in teams since we have the queen building project coming up soon. But to talk about what’s going to happen in the future of gaming etc, they are really interesting talks that have even sparked up on FaceBook a few times.

Overall I’ve really enjoyed it, we were told to make a final painting to sum up this year and what it’s been about, basically I went along with creating a digital painting of Abbey Park because I took a really good one point perspective shot of on one of the bridges there. It’s my final because it sums up how I have gone from always avoiding paintings because I’m not that good at it, to now producing colour digital paintings that I’m enjoying a lot, there’s no denying I’ve become better and I hope that next year I can become even better, which I’m sure I will. I also think what is a better way to sum up the year than incorporating what we’ve learned back at the very start in week one? Being one point perspective, in colour, digitally done, showing my progression and development of being on the course. If I’ve improved this much in such a short amount of time then next year-just next year...

Game Production & Visual Design Developments

In Game Production this year I’ve been introduced to 3DS Max and however that it may have started out a bit slow for me I’ve really gotten use to it and produced a lot of good work I would say, though it seems no however good you think your work is there’s always someone to criticize it, but it’s a harsh reality.

My work has been a bit sloppy and messy throughout so I have had to come back and address things, at first I thought I’d just produce everything in 3D however I could get it done but after a while you realise that there’s no hiding from having to unwrap assets instead of mapping everything and that the mesh flow must be good and clean that that everything must be named and have the correct sizes! I thought it’s overcomplicating it at first but to be professional you must take the time to do it and not be lazy! I avoided the 3D work as much as I could at first because I thought it was hard to get use to and I’m sure we’ve all been stressed with it at some point but like I say you can’t hide and I have bothered to get myself into gear and do it.

I’ve now tackled my fear of understanding how to unwrap assets and model them efficiently, I have found myself asking for help quite a few times along the way though. Next year I’m not going to ask as much for help unless I really need it, University is about self teaching yourself so I need to do a lot of that, no one else can help, like we’ve been told countless times, this is not school or college and at first I treated it like college, but I’m a slow learner so over time I do eventually understand things! So I’m going to do that especially after basically being told by one of the third years to shut up and just do it, because critique is overrated and makes no difference according to him, being a third year I definitely believe him.

In visual design well what can I say? I’ve gone from doing pencil sketching to now being more confident in drawing much more complicated objects such as cars etc that a year ago I’d have never been able to do! Now I’m drawing all kinds of stuff and why is because perspective and going back to basics of drawing has really helped me a lot! I have a better understanding of colour theory and have become much better as a painter, I mean I can’t just always produce pencil sketches my entire life.

In life drawing I’ve gained a better understanding of the human figure and different forms of it, though I do need to practise it more, I can’t believe however how simple it was just to not look at the page your drawing on and just let your hand follow your eyes, my drawing of the figure have turned out a lot better this way though sometimes it doesn’t seem to work because of rushing things, I need time to plan my drawings and work out that everything is in proportion before I render so I mostly just thumbnail sketch everything because it’s easier and everything looks a lot more accurate! When we only get 20 minutes to produce a rendered sketch just isn’t long enough and I end up going wrong because of the rush, though I think this is something I need to address, GETTING FASTER! I’ve spent so much time doing one drawing after another on Photoshop and I spend way too long on the images I produce, drawing a banana took me 6 hours to do and it still doesn’t look right!

I’m not sure where things are going to go in the next year but I know that over summer I’m going to practise my skills and techniques in 2D and 3D so that I don’t forget nothing and be fully prepared as from now on it gets harder. I understand depth, composition, colour theory, perspective a lot more this year and I would say I’m well on my way to becoming a Game Artist pretty soon, my only worry is my grades but only time will tell.

I guess over the summer I will have to keep practising my skills in 2D and 3D and probably in the meantime it will be good try and download UDK because as I seem to have mastered the basics in 3DS Max we’ve all got to go back and learn the basics of a new program this October! Best get a head start huh?

Year 2 & 3 Presentations

I liked watching the year 2 and 3 presentations. First off the year 2 presentations, straight away they all made an immediate impact on what is expected of us on the 2^nd year of the course. The quality of the 3D work produced was amazing; at the moment I’m not as good as what the 2^nd years produced but not far behind! So far I’ve built up a good library of the basic skills, but if I am to become better I need to work more and they showed how much you need to work in order to become better. It was the sight of actually seeing these fully playable levels right in front of me first hand which made it more exciting to watch. They all explained about how they went about coming up with the ideas for the Queens building project. They went around taking photographs first which is self explanatory why but I liked how they used these images to create some concept work of how the final thing may look and each part of the level will look like. Actually being there and seeing this done first hand was very interesting, I’ve seen videos of old games that I like and how they went about creating the concept work and making variations of what scenes may look like in day and night etc and how what levels may look like once they finished, but never have I once seen it being produced and sitting around the labs, you can sometimes catch a glimpse of it but to see it actually work was awesome!

I know that working as a team isn’t easy; it may think it looks easy but trying to keep everyone happy in which no one is doing all the work sure isn’t, I’ve even seen arguments around the labs because of occurring problems. Thing is, I think it’s a lot more like designing a game; you don’t just have one designers but a few or LOTS! You’ll find it better to pool together all your ideas and then form that pick out what you all like and will work and what you don’t like and may not work, it’s like deciding on what people think maybe a risk and what they think may not be because it’ll come good, or at least is should come good...

Communication is key, obviously, staying in contact, knowing who is doing what and when it must be done by and just generally keeping it all in order managing your time you have. If one thing isn’t done it can and will throw the whole thing out of place and require you to re-do the whole time planning process which should be done at the start so it’s kind of having a step back to the beginning before you can continue again.

The year 3 presentation we’re even better than what we saw in the year 2 presentations, the thing is just because you’re in year 3 doesn’t make you better than anyone in year 2, even first years have gotten comments from third years on how good their work is, but to me in Art there’s really no right or wrong answer, you’ve got to be creative and just create things how you see them and then create the image in your mind of how you see your concept working out? I think the biggest impact of seeing the year 3 work was the fact that they was making work that I'd consider better than the year 2 work but there is only one person doing the job.

There work was stunning, everything right to the last detail, but the thing was that everyone wasn’t going for same style, in year 3 it looks as if you get to chose what you want to go for, meaning you don’t have to create something realistic just something you would really like to do. You can set your own triangle limit which makes it interesting to model things as well as texturing them I don’t know what my final project in the last year would be, but I know that I’ve got a lot on my plate now before I can start thinking about that.

Finally we talked about how adding things into your levels makes it more rewarding for the player, like adding photo's of your friends faces. Here's a video of how Crash Bandicoot 3 was made, in here they talk about that exact same thing for example when a player dies the animation of the character dying in all kinds of different ways really "softens the blow" as they put it to make losing a life a little more fun. They talk also about how the Art within the game can be changed etc to gain an outcome of how what it may look like when the final thing is finished. They sort of say what target audience they are going for and how really try to engage their audience by taking what they like and challenging them with it.

4 Lions

4 Lions is very interesting film to me for a few reasons. One would be that it’s set in Sheffield England which is near to where I come from; two is that the characters are all Muslims that become suicide bombers and finally... everything I said.  It just seems like a funny concept when you put it that way. It’s completely hilarious along the way. They all eventually turn out to get materials which allow them to make explosives. They then try to decide on what to use these explosives for.

There’s one scene where the explosives are in bags and they are trying not to drop the bags and bring them safely home without getting caught. In which one guy who is friends with of the Muslims throws one of the bags left behind and it’s either catch it or be killed, and it’s things like that which get in the ways and make the film funny.  It actually ends up with them attacking the London Marathon with them dressing up as existing characters such as a mutant turtle and the honey monster, thing is they have the bombs strapped around them all. Earlier in the film they are shown trying not to get caught in which they eat their SIM cards out of their phones simply because they are electronic and can be tracked. Later on the during the marathon however they get themselves into all kinds of trouble, I can’t help but think that the film was inspired all the crap you see on TV where foreigners are threatening to bomb places etc, which is wrong but it sort of based on that but it shows how we mostly stereo type these people in exact similar ways and they aren’t all like this.

The ending however was quite surprising, I thought it would of ended in the way of getting what they actually want but I didn’t quite understand that they wanted to become suicide bombers? It actually all ends up with them all dying, but the way they all die is made funny and it’s okay to laugh at all of them because it obviously not real. One guy eats the other guys SIM card and then when he starts t choke on it someone attempts to help him bring it back up but when he grabs hold of him and squeezes, it sets the bomb off and all you see is this mutant ninja turtle head come falling down. One of them and to quote the words says: “he fell over a sheep and exploded”, it’s just so funny all the way through and has that great British comedic sense of humour about it which I like. I felt kind of unfair that they all died in the end, two of them are brothers and one of them dies while in a restaurant but the thing is because the other brother has had his SIM card eaten he can’t contact the other brother, and so it ends with the older brother jumping into a local boots store and exploding to death, again even for the final death and ending to show it still managed to be funny.

It’s a good comedy but it sort of shows you the kind of things these people go through I thought besides all the comedy, I was well done and I would put it near the top of best films I’ve seen, I think one of the biggest things in this is that you become connected to the characters in which I’ve previously talked about before, talking about how you become connected to the personalities of the characters and the things they get up to and even the environments they are in, such as a certain scene were they in Pakistan hiding from helicopters hovering above and firing rocket launchers into the middle of nowhere , having no knowledge of how to properly use the equipment, causing disasters and getting themselves into more bother. Just brilliant!