WEEK 8 SUMMARY

This week was the final week of unit BA1a. Finished Character Design and Character Research.

CHARACTER DESIGN
For character design, this final week was simultaneously easy to get through, and very difficult to get through. I did manage to get everything done, and the easy part about that is that I already had the bulk of the work done, this week was just finishing it. The difficult part of it was the overwhelming sense of “what if it’s wrong” that I had a couple of times. I realise in past blog entries I mention the development of not being afraid of failure, but this seemed too big to not be intimidated of at times. But I did manage to get there in the end, thank goodness. The walk cycle had arms added, and the head was fixed too. Turnaround finished up with some slight adjustments to keep consistency, and then that was it. I’m glad I kept on top of it the way I did, making sure to keep an appropriate balance between work and personal time. Definitely going to apply that to my next projects. Nothing really to improve on this week, since I’m at the end of everything and trying to apply what I’d previously said I’d improve on. 

CHARACTER RESEARCH
And the essay is done! I sent off my first draft to our lecturer for feedback, got some back, and managed to fix it up relatively quickly! This helped me in a HUGE way; since I was told that once the changes were made I needn’t send it back, I knew that I could rest easy (relatively speaking) after the recommended changes were amended. I’m ultimately glad that I did the essay in the end; those types of research skills will (probably) come in handy in the future. It also helped me with getting to know characters in a deeper way. Learning every little thing matters is something I really respect, and want to be able to put into my own projects and characters in future. I think the only thing I’d change about the process of making this is go QUICKER. 8 weeks was a good amount of time, but for a few of those weeks, the essay felt more like an afterthought or something that wasn’t AS important, thus taking longer. I want to be able to have essays up front next time, alongside my actual animation tasks. 

FINAL THOUGHTS / SUMMARY OF BA1a
Overall, I feel this unit went VERY well! I feel proud of everything I've made, and all the knowledge I've gained is all vital and important not just for future projects, but for my animation career in general. Learning all the principles, different exercises and character fundamentals in terms of both visual design and as functional characters was all so interesting and honestly enjoyable! I can't wait for the next project!