Reflective Statements for Toolkit 1

Life Drawing

The most noticeable change in my life drawings was the use of different materials, each lesson trying out something new and seeing whether it works for me or not. As well as being supported and encouraged to explore and not to stick strictly to what I know. I think that I have slowly been improving on my proportions although they still need a bit of work. I think that I need to add more tone to a lot of my drawings to prevent them from being just outlines. Having done life drawing before it is always good to be doing something like this each week, helping me understand human anatomy and how I can position characters in the future. I would like to carry on life drawing once home in London, but if not I would definitely like to take the poses I have drawn over this year and apply them to my own personal drawings.

      Maya 

Coming into Maya with no previous knowledge was a big struggle, constantly having to ask questions or thinking I know something then being told I was completely wrong. However, over the course of this year doing this toolkit as well as seeing the work of others, Maya really is amazing. The possibilities astonish me thinking that a simple idea on paper can then be made in 3D. As advised I will try my best to do small projects in Maya using what I know and referring back to the tutorials. I feel like I know a lot more about Maya having finished the last project, things such as UV texturing are a lot clearer and also animating in Maya. Overall, I am glad to have learnt this software and look forward to furthering my skills in it next year. 

     Animation  

Out of all the toolkit lessons, animation was the one I struggled with the most. Unfortunately I let animation become an after thought at times and not managing my time well enough so that I can get all of them done. Besides my time management I found points where I could not comprehend how a movement could be animated and even taking on the advise given such as physically acting out the animation I still struggled. These two factors were my down fall, but the times where I did finish an animation or could understand made me want to continue. Hope that at some point over the summer I actually set aside some time and give myself a small animation to do and try to incorporate what I have learnt in lesson to do so.