Week 11 - Character post mortem

The marks the end of our last project of 2014 and also the half way point of my second year here at DMU, its very odd to think that we only have 2 more projects left this year. Soon it will be FMP time and that is a very scary thought indeed. This project was the first (and apparently the only) character project of the year, this project was the first project in a good while that really got my stress levels up, We had some serious time constraints during this project and we had literally no down time after the sentry gun hand in. I basically had to have a finished design for 5 days after the sentry hand in which was a little ridiculous, the design i managed to pull together was then completely torn apart when presented to the class meaning i had to start again anyway so it felt like I wasted a week

This project was a love hate affair for me, i didn't really like any of my design work but i really enjoyed the later elements of the process. I absolutely loved modelling the character and texturing was also quite fun, unwrapping wasn't quite as enjoyable but it wasn't too bad. I feel that i kept the design simple enough to execute well but it didn't really fit the brief well enough, the characters i designed weren't dichotomous at all. I feel that the dichotomy element of this project was a silly addition and this project would of worked a lot better without it.

I feel most of this project turned out very well, the final outcome really shows that and i feel it is the best 3D work i have done so far. I will definitely be putting this piece in my portfolio, i feel it showcases a lot of the skills i have learnt since starting out in the first and when compared to my gladiator project the jump in quality is substantial. After finishing this project i feel really inspired and compelled to look in to doing more character work after the project finished. I really want to learn zBrush as it is essential for character artists in industry, I will maybe plan a project in the near future where i can learn zBrush whilst developing another character for my portfolio in the process.

Again, during this project the main issue i had was in the early stages of development, i had serious issues with the design process and trying to achieve what the brief set out to do. A big issue was communication, lots of people look at your work and all say different things and give different advice, I guess at the end of the day I learnt how to look at criticism, how to listen to it and select the important parts and do what feels best; a fair majority of the crit i received was in fact correct and very helpful.

All in all, I oddly enjoyed this trainwreck of a project, it was a complete mess from start to finish  but i really got a rush from it. The final outcome looked the part and matched the concept and i will totally be able to use it in my portfolio, i may even model the second character but for now i plan on enjoying my Christmas.