During the drawing section of toolkit two I feel that I developed my skills somewhat drastically. The life classes were valuable, even though the main bulk of the sessions happed at the end of term due to covid, I developed my drawing skills as well as trying out some different styles. I also found the process of drawing everyday for a week therapeutic as I was able to draw similar poses in lots of different ways. However, it is a shame that these sessions were not all throughout the term as I feel that the figure drawing side would have helped me in my other projects. Overall, I think that I could have been more adventurous with my style but I have defiantly developed my drawing ability. During the character design project I was defiantly apprehensive at first. As we were all given characters and scenarios at random it was a good opportunity to get in the mindset of a commissioned concepts. I don't have a huge amount of practice with creature and animal concepts and especially not in a chibi art style so it was a bit daunting but once I created a few concepts it developed quickly. I think that if I was to redo the character design project now I would be able to produce more work and to a better quality but I am pleased overall with the outcomes.
For the animation section of toolkit I feel like I learnt a lot in a small amount of time but there is lots I can improve on. My animation comes across as floaty often, and I think in general this takes me a bit longer to grasp. I know there is lots to improve on but I feel that I have improved immensely since the beginning of the year. I found the texturing classes insightful and I also feel like I managed to understand all of the content in such a short amount of time. These classes will be extremely useful for year three. For Jet Pack Jones time keeping was a major issue. I found it difficult to complete the tutorials in the time I had planned because I was became too critical about the head modelling. I hoped to have more of the tutorials done and I am pretty frustrated that I didn't complete more but I plan to complete it all in the next few weeks so I am prepared for my final film. I did, however, find this process informative as I have improved my problem solving in maya and I now know that I need to give myself much more time to complete the modelling process.
Overall, I am pleased with how my drawing ability has improved over this year and even though my maya based work is more or less unfinished I have learnt a lot of skills that I will be able to transfer into third year. I do think that being at home for a large amount of the year in person lowered my work ethic somewhat as I am usually really motivated. The substance painter classes were a great asset to the term, as I will be able to apply everything in those classes to my upcoming projects. Although there are unfinished elements to this toolkit, I am happy with what I've learnt and produced.
