My first year of the course is all finished now, and I can say that it had some good and some bad.
I have had a lot of fun, and learnt a lot of new things. This includes my new love of 3D work, when starting this course I had no interest in 3D whatsoever. I now can say that I love 3D work, and am quite confident in navigating Blender, being able to help my peers through some work despite it being new to me as well. I find watching tutorials online and being introduced to Sketchfab was really helpful to my career in 3D, allowing me to be able to build on the simple tutorials that were provided online and try to really push my work forward. I found that I really love texturing, being able to achieve a variety of styles and adding extra detail by using maps blew my mind. I really like Substance painter, and being able to talk to a past pupil on the University Discord helped me try to push out from just the basic materials and create work that would impress those looking to hire me. I think that because I had already been quite an independent learner, that I was able to make the most out of this course as I really wanted to learn more so I looked for more to learn, but I saw a lot of people struggling with this.
The University Discord itself is something that I really like, being able to communicate with people from any of the years and even graduated students helped me to be able to settle in a bit better. I use discord daily and I really like seeing what other people are creating and being able to have quick access to help or get inspired is something unique to this course. I think it also helps create this collaborative atmosphere, something that I think all creative careers should have, and I really enjoyed talking to those who are currently working in the animation industry to understand what it is like, get advice on networking and a deeper insight to what people would look to hire, and just have a fun time with them online.
I really liked the course content in all of the modules we covered. I think there was a bigger focus on 3D, which makes sense since there is a lot to be introduced to but I do miss having 2D animation assignments, and I hope to go over these myself over Summer and throughout the following years of my study. A lot of the information I learnt this year I would describe as general, which does give me a foundation to jump off from for more independent and focussed study, but I do hope that next year we cover more specific elements. I really enjoyed Yuan and Ryan’s lectures about Animation, both the history and development of animation from different countries and the different genres of animation. It helped to build on my knowledge of analysing film, and has sparked an interest for me to go and research films and critically study them to improve my own creative work.
My least favourite element of the year so far was the amount of group work. Despite being marked individually, I still felt the constant fear that others work could harm my own and having to deal with people that were quite rude, but not being able to say anything really made me anxious, and it negatively effected my mental health a lot. I do struggle with communication a lot, so this is something I have to work with especially since this line of work is largely working with others but I felt that a lot of people weren’t really mature enough to receive critiques, or ask for help or be called out on their behaviour, things that would be easier in a work place environment. Despite this I was able to have one positive group experience out of four, and it was a really good experience where we all leaned on each other.
The biggest issue I have had with the course so far, is that I have no real free time. This means I don’t really have the time or energy to be able to practice the things I have learnt in class and really harness my skills in them. This includes animation, I haven’t really had the time to practice any 2D or 3D animation principles despite this being an animation course- I felt like I haven’t been taught a lot of animation. This is something I plan to focus on, and really set up a schedule to allow myself to do throughout Summer and my next year at school- so that I can achieve the classwork and allow myself to improve on the skills I want to in tandem.
Another issue I experienced, was that my mental health was pretty bad during this course. I found that I never really felt supported so to say while on this course, and I found myself quite overwhelmingly stressed out when compared to my more lax peers, to the point that I had started to think that maybe I wasn’t fit for this line of work. This may just be because I set unreachable standards for my own work, but when I tried to contact a lecture about this towards the start- they seemed to brush me aside. Despite this I was able to push through because I made a nice group of friends and we all supported each other when we felt down, and I know I could turn to them for any issue I have in future.
While I was quite active on the Discord talking to people from my year and the years above, I found that I never really got to meet with a lot of my classmates. In my first module with Sarah, we were supposed to rotate around and be introduced that way but for whatever circumstances I never got to do this. So, I hope that next year I am able to learn about some of my other peers and make more friends than my current small circle. I also joined some societies, but since a lot of them focussed on going out to things like bars, and had activities that ended quite late I never felt comfortable to engage myself in these, so I hope next year that this may be something I am able to do.
If I were to start the whole year over again, I would try to have a bit more fun instead of stressing out. Giving me time to improve on my personal art and use what I learnt in the modules to try and enhance my personal art. I would try and focus less on grades, and focus more on having fun and enjoying the atmosphere of the class and all that the university has to offer. I would schedule some of my time for some independent animation study, so that I could really improve on my fundamentals and be able to achieve more for my group work. I would look to do more animation studies of artists I like and spend time recreating and analysing them. But alas, I have done what I have now for this year and I can only look to improve instead of letting myself get dragged behind by what-ifs and what-could’ves.
Overall, this definitely was an experience for me. I was able to grow not only creatively but also mentally as I was able to overcome a lot of anxious things ( last year I wasn’t able to leave my house and now I can comfortably go to school and talk to new people) and manage my depression with help from friends. I can’t wait to learn more things over Summer and come back with a fresh attitude and more experience and looking at my future modules for Second Year, I am quite excited to come back for more. I can’t wait to be able to look back on this years work and be able to see the progress I have made.
