I felt this year was just as much of a challenge as last year. I think the amount of work we got to complete was not more, but strangely I still felt quite overwhelmed. I cannot say anything new about this year, sadly everything went the same way as in the first year, a struggle to manage my time correctly, which sometimes meant I spent way too long on specific tasks and was very slow at completing some.
Majority of the time I have spent on Maya was doing the Jet Pack Jones, which I did not enjoy as much as some other tasks, but I know Maya is a software that is incredibly useful and once I get the hang of it, it will be more enjoyable. Both the tutorials and the tasks were helpful, as I had to go over some things that I already knew, but needed a reminder, or taught me new techniques (things that will help me model my own characters with less error).
I can confidently say my favourite tasks and classes this year were Mudbox and Sculpting. I was very excited to work with Mudbox (and was happy to learn that it works side-by-side with Maya). It is a fairly easy and simple software, but it does what it needs to and therefore, I enjoyed using it. Sculpting was probably the class that I was looking forward to the most, and it was the class that I have enjoyed the most at the end.
On the other hand, acting classes were something I was not looking forward to. I was extremely nervous about some things, such as improvising (which is probably the most difficult for me). But surprisingly the amount of time that was uncomfortable got lost between the times when I actually found the class fun. I was VERY scared about our group performance being recorded, but because of the good and fun atmosphere I got through it without a problem and did not feel embarrassed. So overall, I was not expecting how enjoyable acting turned out to be for me.
The Premise project has started out a bit slowly, as it took me longer than it should have been to settle on a definitive topic and story. I have definitely not achieved what I wanted or reach the level I should have. For quite a while I did not find the topic fascinating and found myself unmotivated, and I overall felt a bit lost. It was much later I have found the exact story I wanted to portray and got both inspired and excited about the project. I know I have a lot to do, but now I have a clearer image of how I want the story to go and how I want it to look, and I feel much more excited about the whole project as I did before, so I am looking forward to continuing it and hopefully will do a better job in the future.
