~Transcription 4 - Week 10~

So, week 10 is done, and so are the 5 week projects. The Transcription project has been neglected, a lot. I can admit this, and I have admited it to both Phil and Alan. Once upon a time I may have shyed away from the fact and try to hide it from my tutors. Not anymore, I put together my presentation for crit, and I was honest with myself and my tutors. I am glad I chose to do this, they were a big help and I am extremely grateful for their understanding. However, It wasn't through laziness that I am in this situation, I got carried away with my five week projects. Both of which I got in the 60%'s on. Both of which I got 2-1's on.

So with those projects out of the way, it means I can focus full attention on the Transcription project. We had an interam crit and I presented my ideas, however both Alan and Phil were concerned with both my approach and the sheer scale of the idea. It was quite a big thing to undertake, though I believe that I may have managed it. However, with producing that would be the sacrafice of any real design.

Both Alan and Phil know that my passion is with character design, I want to be a character designer/modeller and I'm sure on the back of my Simulated Environments they accept this. We are entering the third year very soon, and people have to focus on what they want when they leave here. Character Design is my focus, and I feel great that they are allowing me to focus on that.

Building a character from a pencil sketch, to a fully realized 3D Model, texturing it, and then rigging/skinning and blendshaping and then animating the character is a very exciting thought for me, albeit VERY overwhelming. It's scary, because it's such a huge thing to tackle. Both Alan and Phil have advised me to focus on building my main character, and main villain, rig them and animate them to interact. That is what they want me to build my project on, and I am more than willing to do so.

However, I was a bit concerned when Phil said that they can be animated on a white background, although it was merely a suggestion. That isn't me, whilst my main focus lies in characters, I wouldn't dream of animating them on a static white background, and so I will produce a small ship scene for them to interact in.

I was feeling rather burnt out after the two previous projects, I had worked extremely hard. So I took the advice of a class mate, and decided to take a small break from work altogether and have recently started to produce stuff again. To warm myself back up and get back into it I decided to start putting together a small scene to animate the characters in. Granted, this should be the last thought on my mind, I have 2 characters to produce! However, I felt I needed to warm myself back up again and so I produced something that I was confident with. If only to boost my confidence back up again, for without confidence I can not possibly hope to produce these characters.

Here is a render of the scene thus far:

My plan right now is thus:
Easter Holidays (2 Weeks) : Produce the main Villain entirely.
2 Weeks after Holiday : Produce the main Protagonist.

Leaving 2 weeks left to produce an animation of them interacting, and any overflow and delays/complications can be resolved with the characters here.

I think that is enough time to produce it all, at least I hope so. Two weeks to animate may be too much, but I don't want to overestimate myself, it's not something I have had a lot of practice in and so I need to make sure I give myself enough time.

I just want to produce an animation of the villain (Schreuder) walking down the steps drawing his weapon, and then show the main protagonist (Hal) Jump down from the other side with his weapon in his hand, and then animate them to fight. It won't be overly long at all. I just want the animation to be good, and the characters to be right.

Let's hope for the best eh? :)