ANC220 - Week 2

There's a lot of work to do for this unit as it turns out - not just for the proposed major inter-studio project, but for the individual study as well.

I've had to give a lot of thought to the latter - at first, I wanted to sketch - you know, be a concept artist - because if you read last week's blog (I think) I mentioned that is exactly what I wanted to do. But then as I realised that the industry is a more 3d oriented place and that every lecturer thus far in my course has assured me that concept artist is not the way to go (perhaps they think none of us are good enough?), it more or less shattered my concept artist dreams. That's not to say that I still wouldn't love the opportunity - however I realise that i won't be paying my bills freelancing (i mean I did try that 2 years ago), and it's a hard, poor, slog. I asked myself what I need to be happy with my quality of life and the answer is: a full time job and dependable salary. Holy shit, that's depressing. But I'll need that money if I wanna pay these bills, and I'll need to do something I actually love if I'm to commit the rest of my life to that job and if I can't beat the market of concept artists who are already game fully employed, raising the barrier of entry for me, then I'll take a job as a 3d artist. Did that explain the premise of this paragraph? As I said, I've given a lot of thought to the individual study component of this subject and I've decide (hopefully) that I'll be pitching the idea that I want to build a show reel of assets. Each and every week I will model and texture an asset and in the end I'll have approx 12 pieces of work that I can put into my showreel. Why? Because I plan to advertise myself ot the market as a graduate modeller - and to this end, there's no point in putting together a showreel that includes a bunch of film, concept work, websites or games that I've made because at the end of the day I need to display the work for the position that I'm applying for, correct? Look at me regurgitating CIU notes, jokes, not really. It's common sense. Sometimes.

I'll have ot continue this later - I've just been informed that my partner is unwell and I'll need to go see her. #Adulting.

Ok I'm back. It's the following day so I've lost track of my thoughts but I think I was covering my pitch for this week's class: Right so I'll be pitching the idea that by the end of term I'll have a bunch of great little assets that I can use for my real. Ideally I guess I'd rather do 2D concept Art because that's where my passion really lies BUT in saying that, I do very much enjoy modelling in 3D. I guess it's like the choice between two luxury cars - sure, I'd rather have the Ferrarri, but that new Mercedes is a pretty nice consolation too.

What else has been happening...OK the joint studio project. So last week we were pitched the idea for the script: Two robots working alongside each other, one is older and one is younger. The younger one has recently come into the workforce and he's abilities and youth pose a threat to the older robot's job security. Sadness ensues. Last I heard, the Studio 3 kids have scrapped that idea, but we'll see what happens in this week's class. As for last week: we were tasked with coming up with concept work for the project.

Now typically, I like to have some direction with my work but we were really only given the bare minimum: old robot and young robot. So with that in mind, I decided I'd put together a sketch of each, however as time goes, there simply wasn't enough of it for me to get both done and so I presented half a turnaround for the old robot.

Most of the detail are written in there but I'll give you the brief; I based my idea behind the premise of: "What would an old man that was transferred into a robot, look like?" And your answer is above - I introduced some elements that would be representative of an older gentleman whilst keeping in theme with what a robot would look like. In fact, the only things that aren't actually part of his construction is his fedora and walking cane (which Phil pointed out didn't work with the idea that he's a factory work bot but I countered with the fact that this is simply his full outfit and would obviously not be wearing these things on the job). See when I do concept work, I like to imagine the character out of context - what does the character look like walking down the street? what does it look like in the comfort of its own home? etc. Other than that, I like the fact that older gentleman that i typically see (or at least the ones that i pay attention to) take pride in there appearance, as if a part of that old culture sticks with them. And I really appreciate that and hope that in my elder years that I too will still take pride in my appearance. Anyway, with this in mind, I tried to spruce my bot up as best I could: I incorporated a thick mustache into his faceplate, a stylish cravat into his chest cage, high waisted trousers (with belt) and left the rest of the design quite clean. I threw in some easter eggs, like little bolts on the side of his face to represent those liver spots that you see the old person trope usually have. To add some more complexity to his design I added a powersource which is located inside the chest cage and looks like a heart - the idea was that in animation, the heart could beat at a slower pace than the same design used in the younger bot to demonstrate the difference in age and energy. The power source would feed power to both the upper and lower portions of his body via the cables you see running to his head, arms and legs.

Here's some more work I did for the turnaround, assuming that my idea might get shortlisted, but that was of course, until Phil told us half way through the presentations, that no bipedal, anthropomorphic bot designs were allowed. And there died old Jasper, the last of his kind.

Moving on to this week: Well, I'm excited to hear what Studio 3 has to pitch if in fact we've changed the film idea. I'm on the slack forum now and then but it's a bit of a cluster over there and tbh I only just realised how to use the timesheets. I need to prepare my presentation for Wednesday and I'm not sure if I need to build a power point? OK, I'll go ask Phil now,

OK, well I'm sure he'll write back before wednesday, and depending on how much time I have this evening, I'll put something together anyway.

I think that's all for now - I have a heap of modelling work to do for Nigel's workshop on Thursday, so I'm going to get back to it.

- Ryan