Alien Film To Game Presentation

I attended a talk done by the creative leader and some other members of the creative team. Here are some scans of the notes i took.

Coffee Shop Sketching

Today after college me and some classmates organised a trip to a coffee shop in town in order to practice our drawing skills as a few of us hadnt done any proper observational drawing in a while and we felt a little rusty, it was a lot of fun, we each tried a few techniques that put us out of our comfort zone, i myself practiced drawing people as fast as i can as they went past and i attempted drawing someone in the style of Oscar, another classmate. I also attempted to sketch colour a little however i felt that was a little more unsuccessful. I know i want to do this again and i think my peers feel the same way, perhaps this will be something we do on a regular basis, i know i would feel comfortable with the practice.

  Below are some scans of the sketches i did today.

Who Am I?

For the Who am I? talk i was unfortunately absent so i had to go through the presentation by myself in my own time so therefore my understanding of the meaning of the presentation may be a little bit off but i think the gist of it is working out who we are and what our most effective way of working will be, so what i shall do is go through the slideshow in order to work out "who i am" and reflect on this blog post. Now i'm not sure how well i'm going to be at writing this because i don't want a blog thats supposed to be on serious work stuff to suddenly turn into my personal therapy blog or something but i still want to put my twopence in with it so i suppose i'll just have to wait until Mike tells me i've been too over-sharing or something... ANYWAYS

  The first part asks if i am an introvert or an extrovert. Up until this point i always thought of myself as an introvert because i spend a lot of time by myself indoors and often think about things a lot before i do them, and for a little while looking through the criteria of each i saw a little of myself in both but when it bottled down to it i think i fit more into the extrovert category which consists of;

-Being motivated by others instead of by myself

-Feeling deprived when i am cut off from people

-Enjoy wide variety and change in people relationships

The only part of the category i felt i didn't really fit in with was acting first and reflecting later, but the more i think of it, despite having a rather large issue with overthinking things i do often act first and think about it later, so i suppose for the first part, i am an E; Extrovert.

  

  The next part; Sensing or Intuition, for this one i found it very difficult to pick one, so far its leaning more towards sensing (Since i am working this out as i go along rather than writing about it once i have completed it, keeps the info fresh) but for the three middle parts of each i can see myself a bit of both. Intuition is more about working thing out from imagination and being comfortable with the unknown, and though i feel i am an imaginative person i definitely live in the now and dislike unclear facts, both sensing characteristics so i think i'm probably leaning more towards that, so i'm going for S; Sensing. though i am going to keep a note of both and see the difference if i chose I instead of S.

  Third, thinking or feeling. Another tough one... i've developed a new strategy, all of the aspects that i think apply to me i'm going to circle and all the ones i don't i'll scribble out and in the end i'll choose the one with the most circles, yeah, sounds good. Once again it was a close one but i found myself leaning more towards thinking than feeling, though i do dislike conflict and i am quite sensitive to peoples reactions and needs i do focus a lot more on telling things how they are and damning the consequences. I'm a thinker, T.

  For the last part, judging or perceiving i'd finally gotten used to getting a mix of both and despite the fact i'm not just black and white, judging or perceiving i think i am probably more on the judging side, like i said earlier though i am going to keep an eye on what differences there are if i leaned more towards other options but for this one i have to go for J, judging.

  So, my four letters are; ESTJ, which means...

I'M A GUARDIAN!?! ADMINISTRATOR!??! WHAAAAAAT!

Ok granted, i see myself as a bit of a guardian, i do try and look out for other people, but i am definitely not any kind of administrator... 

Even looking at the other personality traits none of them really seem that much like me, apart from maybe the ones highlighted in red...

ISTJ The Duty Fulfillers Doing what should be done	ISFJ The Nurturers A high sense of duty..	INFJ The protectors An inspiration to others	INTJ The Scientists Everything has room for improvement
ISTP The Mechanics Ready to try anything once	ISFP The Artists Sees much but shares little	INFP The idealists Performing noble service for society	INTP The thinkers A love of problem solving
ESTP The Doers The  ultimate  realists	ESFP The Performers You only go round once in life	ENFP The Inspirers Giving life an extra squeeze	ENTP The Visionaries One exciting challenge after another
ESTJ The Guardians Life’s administrators	ESFJ The Care givers Hosts and hostesses of the world	ENFJ The Givers Smooth talking persuaders	ENTJ The Executives Life’s natural leaders

Whatever, the test felt too vague to be accurate anyway.

For the next part i have to give myself a score out of 100 for each listed aspects of my life. Below are the scores i gave myself;

Heath & Well Being 60
Achievements 30
Contentment 20
Work-Career 20
Friendship 70
Security 60
Energy 40
Self-Esteem 40
Fun & Recreation 70
Home - Family 50
Relationship 30
Family 40

There was another part about putting all of this information on a circle so its a little more easily visualised so the pointy parts should be flattened out a bit and stuff but the basic idea is that we need to work on getting all of these different aspects to a certain level.

  If i'm honest i haven't enjoyed this, i get counselling, i have my own methods of working on things and to be honest working out my personality doesn't feel very important and i have no idea how this was supposed to help me work out my best way of working, maybe i missed the point but i've been bogged down by so many different theories about what kind of stuff we need as humans and had so many different ideas like maslow's hierarchy of needs that i'm just a bit sick of it, i think i'd like less of finding myself and more of learning how to be the best animator i can be.

Who Am I? Why Am I Here? What Do I Want To Learn?

 Why did you choose to study on this programme?

I think i chose this programme imparticular because it felt so informal yet professional at the same time, and i feel like a less formal environment helps me streamline my work and generally work better. The College itself was a lot less daunting than many of the other universities i applied for and everything felt a lot more personal, I don't like to think i need my hand holded when it comes to work but i'm not the kind of person to ask for help when i need it and a little more attention is certainly helpful if i find myself drowning in the work. I've known i wanted to work in some kind of visual communication/interactive media career for a long time so i knew it was going to be an animation course i was just unsure what university/college i was going to study at. The final nail in the coffin was the work i saw produced here and the attitude the students had towards their work and this course was also very inspiring and made this course the course for me.

What do you want to learn during your time on the program?

I definitely want to learn more techniques used in the animation careers and continue working on my skills as an artist, i.e. drawing, painting, visual analysis, however apart from that I don't think i had a solid set of skills i wanted to learn while here, i supposed i just want to learn a little bit of everything and then pick out my favorite techniques and roll with them for the rest of my career in animation.

What Skills do you think are your strengths?

I find it very difficult to define my strengths, but if i were to pick a few things i think the passion i have for learning about theories behind art, psychology behind pieces and just generally the thought processes that creators have to make their creations is definitely high up on the list. I also think i'm very willing to experiment, i enjoy pushing myself outside of my comfort zone and trying new things.

What things do you want to improve?

I'd certainly like to feel less negative about my work but i think thats something i have to work on myself as a person rather than trying to improve via this course. I want to work more on getting my ideas down on paper the exact way they appear in my head, but on a slightly shallower level i'd like to work on my drawing skills and just generally learn how to make things move convincingly are my main focus'.

What ways will you evaluate your progress?

In my previous course i ended up making small notes over almost everything i created and i feel that habit will continue over these next three years. I will also try my best to keep this blog up to date as its not only a way to evaluate my progress but also a good way to keep my thoughts in line and keep track of my development as an animator.

I am very excited to get started.