Reflection Part 1 10/7/15

     Since the beginning of the semester, I've made quite a bit of progress with my big project. At first, I really had no idea what I planned to do for my project, and I had none of the skills required. After quite a bit of consideration and looking at other possibilities, I decided that character design would be a good choice for me. However, the practice that we did in Maya wasn't really applicable to character design, so I was pretty nervous starting out.

The First Body

     Mudbox was an entirely new animal, and I had no idea how to tackle the process of starting a character design, so I watched a few tutorial videos. I also messed around with the program quite a bit. To the left is my first Mudbox product.As you can see, I wasn't very good, and I made no major adjustments to the pre-made model. The full body was a bit daunting to me, so I decided to start with something a bit smaller scale: the head model.

The First Head

     The head model was a much better choice for me as a beginner. It was much easier for me to play around with, and it was a good way for me to learn the tools. To the left is my first (incomplete) Mudbox head. It was also not very good. I believe that I did quite a bit more maneuvering with this experiment, but I had no knowledge of basic muscle structure or skeletal structure, so this head looks quite doughy. This lead me to do more research. Reference pictures helped me to figure out where the skin dipped and pulled, and it also helped me see what was and was not realistic. The hair was a difficult piece for me as well. After looking at human body parts and many examples of their sculpted components, I was ready to try again. The tutorials helped quite a bit with the techniques required to create the things that I was seeing in actual people.

The Most Recent Head (Work in Progress)

     My next attempt at a head was much better, I think. It was more realistic, and the individual components were much better, aside from the mouth. It was present, but not much else can be said about it. I believe that my skills have improved further since that point, but the improvements have been getting less obvious as time has progressed. The most recent piece of my project is to the left. It is nowhere near finished, but it is much better than my first product.
     The technical aspects aside, I have also come very far regarding the conceptual elements of the project. I knew that I was going to work on a character design, but I wasn't sure exactly what I was designing. That was quickly narrowed down into a set of two characters. I have begun the concept sketches-- one of them looks very similar to my most recent workings-- but they are still in their earlier stages. I would be very pleased to get both of them fully sculpted in 3D, but I would also be satisfied with one.
     Looking back, I feel that I've made quite a bit of progress on the project overall. It's begining to come together, and I'm happy with the progress. I have been nervous at times that I'm not ready for this project, but I think that I will do fine in the long run. I still need to work hard in the future, though. My mouths need a lot of work, and I will eventually need to be comfortable with the full body model, but so far I am satisfied with the progress that has been made.