First Year

     Where has it gone? It really has just flown by at a breakneck pace. So much has happened since September it's kinda hard to find a place to start, moving away from home to an environment I didn't know filled with unfamiliar faces, meeting so many great new people to the improvements in my artistic abilities in pretty much every aspect. It's been a fantastic 8 months, it really has.

     I'll also try and keep this one concise as I know I'm particularly fallible in that regard with many of my earlier entries standing testament so we'll get straight to it and begin with Critical Studies. I'm surprised by how much I've enjoyed it this year, I'll be honest I didn't know what to expect really and worried it may end up being a chore, which a few (read many) in the year feel as though it is. I've had fun researching the various topics we've had to discuss as well as growing more comfortable in my writing and beginning to reflect and critique my work. I'm almost a tad disappointed we didn't have more blog posts for this term as well as any talks or presentations. Speaking of which I have also really enjoyed presenting to my group, especially the last bunch of talks we had which the topic was anything we wanted. As you can imagine this led to a great variety of talks with nobody doing the same topic. At first it was almost paralyzing to be given the freedom of anything but once I settled on the idea of The Battle of Stirling bridge, a topic close to home figuratively and literally, it was great fun to put the presentation together, especially with the inclusion of props and sound bites. A suitably stereotypical jimmy hat and Mel Gibson's roar of freedom hopefully led to an enjoyable talk. Michael's classes have also been very interesting to listen to with topics ranging from elements and breakdowns of the course itself to looking at points in history and how they've influenced industry.

     Game Production wasn't that much of a worry for me coming on to the course, as I've stated numerous times before it was Visual design that I thought would be an issue. It would be fair to say I've had quite a bit of experience with 3D modelling before September, albeit not in max, so it was more a transition from Inventor (what I used before) to 3Ds Max and with many of the tools and processes being identical or similar I found it to be a smooth one. After getting comfortable with the software I feel I've just been going from strength to strength learning so many things from Heather and Simon as well as the third years. This progress has been much more noticeable, at least in my opinion, than Visual Design although that's not to say there hasn't been visible improvement too. Stuff such as N-Gons, isolated vertices or X-forms which are now all an important part of my workflow but had you mentioned those at the start of the year I probably would've asked how much old Sci-Fi have you been watching. It's crazy to think that from our first Dalek within a 7/8 month period to populating a small level in UDK, and just goes to show the rapid learning curve of the course. The variety of things we modelled has been great as well, from the bins, tins and Daleks from the first term to trees, vans and a Gladiator after Christmas. While 3D modelling wasn't an entirely new concept to me texturing was and while I feel I may have struggled with it to begin with as the years progressed I've grown more competent with it although I still believe it be my weakest area in 3D if not one of my weakest on the course as a whole.

     With Visual Design I don't think I've ever seen my art improve at such a rapid pace, back in term 1 it felt as though every week there were visible improvements in the work I was producing. While my initial fear of being significantly worse than the majority of the year never manifested it is fair to say though that I was one of the weaker artists. Fast forward 8 months and I've now caught up with the majority of the class and I've surprised myself with how much I've improved. Perhaps what I've loved most though is drawing on site, going all the way through high school and pretty much drawing from pictures the whole time it was a breath of fresh air. Especially in the great weather we've had recently. Life drawing as well has been new to me and as you can imagine I was unsure about what it was gonna be like but I settled into it surprisingly quickly and I've really enjoyed it. Another aspect of Visual Design is the design projects we've been set, the vehicle project for instance, have been great fun and I'm looking forward to being set more in the future and also for more joint projects between 2D and 3D like the weapon project. While I've made improvements throughout first year the road goes ever on and hopefully the pace of development won't falter in second year, Chris has pointed out at both reviews that my confidence and mark making still need to improve.

     The course has been everything I could have wanted, and I've loved every minute of it. It's just been fantastic. To me one of the greatest strengths of this course is its sense of community and it's been hugely supportive both online on Facebook and in the Labs. Hopefully this remains intact going into next year and I would think it should, however with the new first years coming in it'll be interesting to see how it evolves to encompass a larger amount of students. The years not been easy though, there's been a ton of grafting and nose to the grind stone to get projects finished and up to a standard I'm happy with. The amount of blood, sweat and tears that has gone into every drawing and 3D model mixed in with the countless late nights has been tough, definitely, but that's a part of the experience and I wouldn't change a second of it, not for anything. It's been a real joy this year, it really has, and I'm sad to see it finish.

     Let's hope that second year doesn't disappoint.