Back to the Ol' Grind

Howdy chaps!

Well, since the last entry, I've gotten an email from UCAS letting me know that I have a conditional offer from Newcastle College. Sweet! The condition, as far as I can tell, is passing this course and obtaining my Foundation degree. And then I have graduation in July, with the robes and the hats and everything. Ashleigh and I are gonna throw our hats in the air American style, rental be damned. So that'll be exciting.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Today is Monday and we are back at college after our week off. Not sure what I got for the previous module and apparently we're not gonna find out until Wednesday. Fingers crossed that I did well. But now we're into our next task which is mainly portfolio development. We're now into the last semester of the course (blimey, it really has gone so fast!) and now we have to get all our pieces done in the course and any favourites done out of college and put them all together to create a serious portfolio and show reel. 

To gain an understanding of what portfolios and show reels entail, I am going to research various ones I come across online as well as take reference from the hand out (it's about damn time I did). Apparently a portfolio and show reel should represent the artist as a person, showing what work they create and also showing a piece of themselves in the process. So rather than slap all my work together willy nilly, I'll have to see which ones really show off my true potential and what type of animator I am. I know that I want to redo a few things, namely the loop with BF and to add something to the run cycle with Ruby because I'm not happy with them by themselves. Other than that, I don't have any set plans for anything else at the moment. Which in my opinion makes this the perfect opportunity to make a plan. After all, we are meant to self direct our own work for this module.

Now, after talking to Dave today, we've been told that we can also design a toy should we want to and I have to admit that I am very interested in doing that. I have many characters and any of them I would be happy to have made into a figurine, pigeon or otherwise. I do have another few characters that I want to design before I make a definite choice though. I’ve had these in my head and done a few sketches for a while but I haven’t really developed them yet. What better opportunity than now, eh?

But that’s quite low on the priority list for now. Besides I need to decide what character I want to design a toy for. So let’s have a look and see what’s on the to do list for now.

Research portfolios and show reels

Finish designs for not yet introduced characters

Continue Crumbs

Redo loop and add to walk cycle

Develop portfolio further- pick out pieces for A3 print, commentary on pieces

Work on show reel

And then design the toy. Obviously though this is in no particular order, although starting with the research is obviously a good step.

Leaving this here as reference for when Ruby slips in the ‘Have a Nice Autumn’ sketch. Nice exaggerated movement. I can learn from this.