Charlie Wallace, Game Art Third Year Style Matrix Review and FMP plans

I don’t want to start this essay on a down note, but ‘catastrophe’ comes to mind. The style matrix has taught me a lot as a learning process but it does not mean any of the projects have been completed to the standard I’d like or even that of a third year student. I won’t be able to approach this analysis in the same way as most of the other students due to the sheer lack of actual work, however I will be able to show where I went wrong, what I did right, what I plan to fix and where to go from here, and hopefully present my case as to why I shouldn’t be completely dismissed as a hopeless student and given a failing grade. Over my last two and a half years on this course, I’ve experienced so many ways a project can go. I’ve seen them go smoothly or with speedbumps, I’ve seen them crash and burn or even get better towards the end- it’s been a learning process, as it should be. The interesting part about this project is that I’ve never had a project land so spectacularly on its face despite my absolute confidence that I was on track the entire of the duration of it. These were three subjects I cared deeply about and was incredibly passionate to pursue- it was refreshing to be able to pick out what projects I specifically wanted to explore, and wake up every day genuinely thrilled to be working on what I was. The one lesson I took away from this set of projects was to never get too comfortable. ‘Time management’ is always a factor that needs improving, so mentioning it seems redundant, but ‘becoming complacent’ is less oft spoken of and I think it was the main cause to my staggeringly low quality project turnout. The first project was to create six Viking characters in the style of J.C. Leyendecker. I jumped on this the moment I saw it as it offered a very particular opportunity to not only do a design based 2D project but also to study such an inspirational artist to improve my own work. I couldn’t pass it up. I was warned beforehand at how hard his style was to recreate, which I ignored, and promptly led to my mess of drawings trying to accurately recapture the look and failing miserably. I am not a strong 2D artist. This statement physically hurts to write and frustrates me to my core but it’s the unfortunate take away from this project. I don’t know a single artist on the course with worse rendering skills or understanding of colour and value than myself. It’s very easy to put oneself down in an environment like this but I feel that while self confidence is important, self awareness is even more. During the Viking project I realised I needed to use the cintiq rooms to work, and was promptly scared out by the frankly toxic atmosphere and concluded to work in my room at home. This was simply repeating a past mistake, as I don’t work at home. I just don’t. I get distracted and lazy, and time slips by and before I realised what I was doing it was already too late. I’ve since moved myself into Third Year labs where I can get help from tutors and my peers but the damage had already been done. Meeting with my tutor toward the end of the project encouraged me to take up more traditional colouring and rendering exercises, which I’ve been neglecting for a long time now as these basic skills are clearly lacking in my work. My art isn’t bad, but at this point in the course I think I should be considering where my skills are, in contrast to where I wanted them to be by now. The Vikings themselves where incredibly fun to design however, and I enjoyed experimenting with different character archetypes and creating personalities for the characters and really pushing that into their designs. My most successful by far were the ‘Protagonist’ and ‘hunter’ characters. The sprightly, fun-but-still-hardy star of the show came out very well and I’m proud of how cleanly the design came out. I tried to reflect Leyndeckers style but giving sharp, defined cloth creases and folds to varying degrees of success, but I feel I succeeded in creating a character I’d want to play as- not a power fantasy, but still powerful, optimistic and sprightly. The Hunter came out very well as a foil to the protagonist, and I focused on giving her a more ‘wild’ look, with loose pieces of fabric hanging from her wiry frame and her gaunt, commanding face being genuinely intimidating. I was trying to imagine another character alongside the father figure to act as a mentor or a teacher which turned into this experienced shieldmaiden, but when I realised the character felt redundant I flipped her into a more villainous role and it filled out excellently. Other characters, especially the Nobleman, came across well through gesture and posing, which I was very happy with. The second project is woefully unfinished due to the fact that by the time I reached this project I was already behind schedule and was meandering around getting my work done. Instead of doing one of the set 3D projects in the matrix, I acquired permission from tutors to base my 3D model on one of my already designed characters instead of just making a new one. I chose the protagonist character as she made the most sense, and was the most interesting to model, but also quite challenging, with belts and fur being uncharted territory for me. I was getting help from one of the tutors along the project’s duration and made another mistake that I’ll learn from- I was never going to do work over Christmas and I shouldn’t have pretended I was going to. After realising that I had made irritating mistakes and my model had too high a polycount with no subdivision levels I conceded defeat and the model is not even textured. This is not only embarrassing to hand in but has also motivated me to work incredibly hard on my FMP as I believe this model is the best 3D model I’ve ever made. Obviously I’m going to improve over time but the difference between the quality of this model and the small child character I created last year is, in my opinion, a fantastic improvement. I’m aware that this level of completion is not to the tutor’s standards but I really do hope it can serve as a strong point of evidence that I shouldn’t be written off yet as I’m incredibly proud of it and still have so much to learn, and can’t wait to make a truly beautiful, fully textured, rigged, game ready model next. Finding my passion in this course has been such an incredible experience for me and although I don’t even compare to some of the other students, finding something I think I’m genuinely good at is not only thrilling, but inspiring. Working in ZBrush has been a treat and if the improvement in my characters thus far is anything to go by, my future work in 3D modelling has a bright future. The third project is nothing but scraps and sketches. I’ve thrown them in for the sake of completion, but it’s really not enough to mark fairly. By the time I reached the end of Christmas I’d all but given up and already diverted my attention to the Final Major Project, which is going to be an encyclopaedic take on deep sea mermaids, with 2D fact bios and at least 2 fully textured and rigged 3D models, exploring how far I can push the design of strange and alien, occasionally frightening aquatic beasts and still make them recognisably mermaids, whilst staying far away from the more traditional ‘Disney-esque’ mermaids that most people think of. I’ve been deep in sketching and brainstorming as well as picking up some fantastic reference so I’m very excited to start working on the project, as well as present my ideas to the tutors. In conclusion, I think I’ve explained fairly well why this project has gone about as badly as it has, but I’m remaining optimistic. Not that I have a lot of choice as I’m now constantly panicking that I’ll never be able to make up this loss of marks and will have wasted three years of my life; regardless, I’ve seen this, along with every other project I’ve done, as part of the learning process. One more step towards being great, no matter how far away I may think that is. I’m going to take more care in writing lists and planning my days in order to better organise my weeks, and not compromising anywhere, as is usually m downfall. If something isn’t done, don’t get it done tomorrow. Get it done now. If something makes no sense, suck up pride and ask the tutors who are there to assist me in my work. Don’t let negative atmosphere or toxic people impact the way I approach what is essentially my job now, or let these things affect how happy I am just coming to labs. And never get too comfortable. If I’m done ahead of time, it’s never time to relax. It’s time to make the next thing. I’ve lacked the real mindset to work like a real game artist for two and a half years now, and I think this is why. Do I have it yet? No, but I’m going to force it in until I either make good work or die, because every other method doesn’t seem to work. I’m going to keep persevering, keep attempting, keep failing, and I might actually make one good thing before I leave. Here’s hoping.