Toolkit 02: Reflective Statement

Unlike Premise, I have had a better time managing and finishing toolkit 02 because I started earlier in the year and was able to get some of the heavier and more complicated elements out of the way, but at the cost I think to some of my other projects. 

I think, from last year I was able to manage toolkit 02 a lot easier by getting the work out of the way as fast as I could, which also was how I approached Jetpack Jones, as I knew I wanted to try and finish the tutorials in term time, so I could better understand how long the process would take and if I could feasibly do it for third year. This is also why I also rushed and made a lot of mistakes when I was finally able to finish the model. I am a mixture of happy and also underwhelmed about the outcome of my model, because I was able to finish what I set out to do, however the issues that currently plague the model, such as the obvious thinning on the cheeks and the lack of detail on the suit due to problems I had transferring the model over to Mudbox. I do wish that I had spent more time at the beginning of the tutorials modelling the face so that it didn’t look as obvious that I had rushed the model, but I am happy that I was able to finish the model within the time I wanted to, as now I feel that I will go into third year with more confidence and knowledge than I did before, and I will try and not make the same mistakes that I did while making Jetpack Jones. 

The other issues I had with Jetpack Jones was that, especially near the end I did use it as an excuse to not do Premise work, because I felt that I could feasibly plan out and complete the model due to the amount of tutorials I had left, compared to the issues I was having planning out and completing my Premise project at the time, so I feel that it did play into the amount of time it took for me to finish Jetpack Jones, and what I was able to get done for my final hand in for my Premise project. So, if I could go back and do it again, I feel that I shouldn’t have spent as much time on Jetpack Jones, and instead used it to better finalise my project. 

The Moom tutorials I was able to finish after the lessons so I didn’t have any trouble keeping up with and completing them. Overall, I feel that I was able to build up skills that I had previously learned such as lip synching and animating movements as well as improving the way I think about approaching animation through blocking and animating from the individual poses rather than the whole cycle. The lighting tutorials I was able to finish fairly quickly, with the Mudbox tutorials and the last of the tutorials being the ones I struggled with, due to software issues around completing and rendering the final piece, but again I am happy that I was able to complete what I was able to at the time, and I have been able to revisit those tutorials in light of what I want to cover for my Premise project. 

The character design and life drawing lessons I feel that I progressed with my drawing skills, especially around choosing when to compose a detailed drawing or when to use less detail to try and capture the outline of the drawing using continuous line or blind drawing. For character design, feel that I started off strong designing and composing a story for my assigned characters, which was an Astronaut, however near the end I struggled to keep up with progressing the story and making the character design interesting, which is why looking back on the character bible I’m not very happy with the outcome of the final designs and story. I do feel that I lost interest in the characters as the project continued and I grew to dislike the story because of it, which does make me sad, as I feel that the outcome of the story could have been more interesting if I had been more invested in the story. 

The Mudbox tutorials themselves I was able to half finish due to issues I had trying to complete them, which I feel defiantly did impact my learning outcome from the tutorials, as I wasn’t able to get the full experience from finishing them because of issues from my laptop. Because of this I did have to make a few alterations for the final model, which although did provide a good learning experience for me, did make the final model look very rough and childlike which I don’t like, but, like Jetpack Jones I was happy that I was able to finish the model in time, and learn some of the basics of Mudbox through them. 

Building my own model, I decided to go with something basic, because of the issues I was having with the Gremlin tutorial, but also something that would allow me to experimenting with some of the tools, which is why I decided to make a lemon for my model. I made it using a sphere, as I felt that it was cheating using one of the pre-made models, so I wanted to try and make something that wasn’t from a shape available, too see how well I could model something new in Mudbox. I feel that the outcome was good for a first try and that I was able to get out of it what I wanted from making the lemon, although I did want to add on extra details such as a leaf and a stalk to make it more visually interesting, however my laptop had glitching issues when modelling more than one item at a time, so I had to settle with what I had. 

Overall, I feel that I was able to time manage toolkit 02 well enough throughout the year, however I feel that the final work could have been improved upon more if I had cared more about the outcome, than about the time it was going to take to get the work done. But I do feel through being able to finish all these tutorials in the time planned, I was able to plan out a time management schedule that I can use in third year, to see the best outcome for my final projects while also building upon the mistakes and things that I was unsatisfied with for this hand in.