DIGITAL SKILLS ACQUISITION - EVALUATION/SWOT

EVALUATION

This module was called Digital Skills Acquisition; which required creating a model sheet for a character that I created, alongside the model sheet I had to create a 3D model of my created character and to successfully rig, animation and create a successful walk cycle.

 To start off, I created a brainstorm for the theme and came to the conclusion of having my character based around the wasteland, after a process of elimination I decided to use my strongest idea to take forward, a character that has went rogue from his previous company of being an assassin, living alone in the wasteland with his companion, a jackal.

 I wanted to expand my style and techniques. The idea was to have the model sheet created in the design of a wanted poster. I started to look into multiple artists’ style, work and the process of how they’re created to help get a sense of how I would create mine. I create each element individually, from developing my character poses from sketches to digital then moving onto different techniques and media to try and experiment with different software and skills. Once I created my character I then started to work on the poses for the jackal companion and create the expression that would be placed onto my model sheet. With the background information and story already complete from when I created my character it was simple to piece together all the individual elements. Once that was complete I moved onto the 3D aspect of the project, with my character poses complete it was much easier to create a 3D model by using the poses as reference. With the help of group activates and tutorials I successfully created a walk cycle and a funny rugged model to be handed in with my 3D character model.

From the start and throughout the project my strengths were always my artwork skills, as well as my digital skills using programmes such as Photoshop and Illustrator. I was very confident with this project even though my knowledge of Cinema 4D was very little, I knew I would need a lot of assistance from my tutors and that was a huge comfort as it helped me to learn more about Cinema 4D quickly. What I would improve on is probably making sure I know how something can be done before making that part of my plan/idea.

I used both InDesign and Microsoft Word to write my annotation for my digital work, I noticed several spelling errors were made when I printed my work out. The reason is that spellcheck is a manual option in InDesign therefore I was unaware of any spelling errors due to not being notified on the screen, luckily I noticed before I printed my work that there were several mistakes and corrected them.

Setting myself targets is a great way to help be prepared and to make sure I don’t encounter the same mistakes, my main target that I’m setting myself is to be more aware of time management and be sure each piece is finished before moving onto something else, overall I enjoyed this project a lot, being good and interesting in animation defiantly helped as well and I am looking forward to the next project which is based on traditional drawing techniques. Overall I am very pleased with my outcome and the work that I have produced in this project, there are a lot of skills and techniques that I have learned throughout and will help me a lot in future projects  that include digital illustrations.

SWOT ANALYSIS

S - Strengths; throughout this project my strengths would be the digital illustrations and sketches when creating my character. Using multiple programs as well as traditional illustration and methods, as well as adapting to new art styles.

W - Weaknesses; more towards the end of the project my weakness would be the 3D part of the project, at the time my knowledge of Cinema 4D was very minimum and I struggled on quite a few occasions when creating my 3D model of my character.

O - Opportunities; From this project and the skills that I have learned during it, I believe that my Cinema 4D  knowledge has increased and has allowed me to create multiple objects/ projects in 3D in my own time outside of college.

T - Threats; During this projects there was';t many threats that I faced but the ones I did I managed to resolve them quickly with the help of my tutors, my main threat was getting worried and stuck within Cinema 4D but with the problem solving it improved and strengthened my idea as well as my confidence using this software.