[2017, OLD] Work Diary - Monday 18th and Tuesday 19th (Maya, Digital Drawing and Movies)
Since not much has happened over these two days (due to them being literally the first and second days of term) I decided to condense them into one post. Not really sure what I'm doing for this but here goes.
On Monday we started with an overview of what we'll be doing in the Autodesk Maya part of Toolkit 1, followed by a brief session of messing around in Maya and learning the basic interface. Luckily I already had a decent grasp of it from my previous year so nothing to hard, though I am 100% certain I've learned a lot of things in, how should I say, far from efficient ways. Mainly due to me just stumbling around the program in a crude attempt to learn it. So I'll be sure to pay extra good attention in following sessions since it's good to crush bad habits as soon as possible, lest they grow into horrific unchangeable problems.
After lunch we moved on to the Digital Drawing session, which I have been somewhat dreading. I don't consider myself to be anywhere near competent at drawing. I can pick up a pencil sure but I find my problems lie in an inability to actually imagine a picture in my head that I want to put down. Anyway, we begun, much like before with an overview of what is coming up.
After that we begun working on something called a Master Study, in which you examine the work of a master and essentially break it down until you have it's individual pieces (composition, use of colour, etc) then recreate it. It was something I'd never really have thought of trying but I feel it's a process I'll use again in the future. I believe I could learn quite a bit from actually looking at other people's artwork, in hindsight that probably should have been obvious.
Tuesday was spent watching two films, Le Voyage dans la Lune (A Trip to the Moon) by Georges Méliès and Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari (The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari) by Robert Wiene. While I'd never had the opportunity to watch A Trip to the Moon before I'd certainly seen it's influence elsewhere. In a word I think I'd call it 'Cute', but I think that's how I'd describe most of the short silent films from that era that I've seen. It was rather interesting getting to see a sort of 'Retro-futurism' kind of thing from over a century ago though.
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari was a whole different beast however, such a strange, unique film and watching it was an experience I well and truly enjoyed. But alas it is the movie I have to do a full review of so I'll be holding back my thoughts on it for now while I give myself some time to properly 'align' them.
This is the first entry of my work diary of sorts and honestly its mostly just for my own benefit. I find it helps to get my thoughts down as soon as possible before I forget them.
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| Just a small thing I modelled while listening |
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| A nice little house we were tasked with modelling |
On Monday we started with an overview of what we'll be doing in the Autodesk Maya part of Toolkit 1, followed by a brief session of messing around in Maya and learning the basic interface. Luckily I already had a decent grasp of it from my previous year so nothing to hard, though I am 100% certain I've learned a lot of things in, how should I say, far from efficient ways. Mainly due to me just stumbling around the program in a crude attempt to learn it. So I'll be sure to pay extra good attention in following sessions since it's good to crush bad habits as soon as possible, lest they grow into horrific unchangeable problems.
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| My Master Studies from Monday |
After that we begun working on something called a Master Study, in which you examine the work of a master and essentially break it down until you have it's individual pieces (composition, use of colour, etc) then recreate it. It was something I'd never really have thought of trying but I feel it's a process I'll use again in the future. I believe I could learn quite a bit from actually looking at other people's artwork, in hindsight that probably should have been obvious.
Tuesday was spent watching two films, Le Voyage dans la Lune (A Trip to the Moon) by Georges Méliès and Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari (The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari) by Robert Wiene. While I'd never had the opportunity to watch A Trip to the Moon before I'd certainly seen it's influence elsewhere. In a word I think I'd call it 'Cute', but I think that's how I'd describe most of the short silent films from that era that I've seen. It was rather interesting getting to see a sort of 'Retro-futurism' kind of thing from over a century ago though.
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari was a whole different beast however, such a strange, unique film and watching it was an experience I well and truly enjoyed. But alas it is the movie I have to do a full review of so I'll be holding back my thoughts on it for now while I give myself some time to properly 'align' them.
This is the first entry of my work diary of sorts and honestly its mostly just for my own benefit. I find it helps to get my thoughts down as soon as possible before I forget them.
Hi Oliver!
ReplyDeleteGood to see you diving into the world of blogging :)
A couple of pointers... although there is absolutely nothing to stop you using your CAA blog as a type of 'work diary', make sure that your reader is made aware of what the content of the entry is, by the title of the post, otherwise they could end up scrolling past. So for example, here in this post, I could easily have missed the fact that you are showcasing your master studies.
If you want to chronicle your learning experience, my suggestion would be to also provide 'stand-alone' posts of the actual work produced; title them so that your tutors see straight away what the content is, and make sure that you label them too, using the button on the right hand side when you are composing your post. When it comes to assessing your work, the tutors will use the labels to sort out each category of work, rather than having to look right through hundreds of posts :)
Regarding Maya...That is good advice to yourself! It's great that you have some prior knowledge, but don't let those bad habits make you complacent :) You should also blog your attempts from Monday, if you still have them, as this will be your starting point, from which your progress can be assessed - again, your post should be labelled 'Maya' so that it can be easily found at the end of the year.
Looking forward to your review of 'Dr Caligari' !