I'm Back

So, much to my surprise, after completing the infamous trash box project, I’ve actually made it in to second year, and after reflecting on last year, it’s obvious there is a much needed change in academic behaviour in order to make this year more successful. It helped that this week after speaking with other students, I realised that the majority of them went through the same doubts and struggles as I did which has now given me the new found confidence needed to take this year head on.

Last year (and I’m sure my lecturers would agree) was a bit of a sham, I went through some major issues regarding the confidence in my artistic ability which led me to question whether or not I was suitable for the skill set required for the course, so I willingly let myself get behind and my work to slowly accumulate and drown me. My organisation and attendance was shocking, and my work ethic and hours were so ridiculous that I would let the deadline get so close I would have to sleep around 3 hours a day in order to catch up.

Although I wouldn’t agree with the premise that my first year was a complete failure, I did pick up and learn a vast amount of skills and understanding relating to improving my artistic ability, which has helped me better as a person and an artist; for instance at the start on the academic year I struggled to even be able to draw stick people using a tablet, now I have digitally painted character concepts, environments and landscapes.

I have improved using 3ds max, last year was the first time I used the program, I originally trained in Maya and the layout just didn’t make sense to both my mind and hand/eye co-ordination, as well as the whole concept of texturing actually brought fear and anxiety rushing around my body, but throughout the year I have managed to model and textured a Toyota Hilux as well as a zombified version, a stylised house and a street diorama, all of which I felt confident tackling, whereas before I struggled making the sci-fi crate.

So to summarize, with failure comes reflection and improvement, so this year I’m going to ensure I’m constantly going to be creating art and upload it to this site whether it be physical or digital, attend every session like a normal student should do, and just have fun with all the projects instead of fearing and avoiding them.