Reflection of year one and ambition for year two

I defiantly think I could have done better in year one, but think this is down to how much effort I put in and not my technical limitations. I found with 3DS Max I would find a way around a problem instead of actually trying to find out what was wrong and fix it, as often it would take too much time. But now I feel I actually have a good understanding of the basics I can begin to really find out every little thing that made a project harder and figure it out. This will make me more efficient and give me more time to get things right. I’ve looked at tutorials and gone over things in the summer to improve my understanding of the basics and now I’m more confident for the second year. For visual design I’m also more confident and comfortable with digital painting which means as long as I learn something with each painting I will continue to improve without worrying how to do something on Photoshop. This is especially true for colours and composition.

I need to make sure I try my best for each project as everything counts towards my final grade. Which means giving myself enough time with 3D. Sometimes I find I underestimate how easy something will be and then unexpected problems occur or they are just more time consuming than I imagined. This means I end up rushing towards the end and overlooking small, but very basic and fundamental mistakes. I also take too long trying to perfect something which just isn’t working and needs to be started again, now I know how to go back and change something without messing everything up, it will be easier to gradually progress through a project and better manage my time without getting caught up. This is also similar to my problem with starting a painting and thinking it will just be a development piece, so I don’t spend as long perfecting the perspective. Then when I go to do a final I just add detail and improve colour of one of my development pieces and don’t start again and get the perspective right. My main problem with writing blogs is just starting; I spend too long thinking about what to right instead of just writing to get ideas down, then going over everything again. If I think of it more as a painting where nothing is necessarily final and everything helps even if I don’t use it, I won’t need to think about each word at the start.

I’m a bit worried about how I will manage with the work load at the start of this term, because my summer internship runs into November, which means I will have to deal with more work. But it is useful to get a better understanding of work flow within a company and how important deadlines are, it will also help me improve my 2D skills as I have to work with a certain style.