This is my reflection blog post for our second assignment in our Animation Strategies module.
To be frank, this assignment turned out to be a great challenge for me due to factors and setbacks I had to face that were outside of my control. I had previously stated in a blog post for our other module, Character Design, that I had ended up facing several issues with that project that had caused me to fall very behind my work in both that assignment, and in this one as well as I had to dedicate more of my time to both fixing the issues I was experiencing and catching up on my Character Design work.
Furthermore, the scheduling of our deadlines being so close to Christmas as well also hindered me due to other obligations. As a result, I was incredibly far behind on my work for this assignment with only one animation having its keyframes finished, and another not even having been started yet.
I am aware that I am allowed extensions for my assignments, and would most likely have saved me some of the stress, but I chose to try and get my assignment handed in on the regular deadline date. This decision was influenced by events I had scheduled later in January, and I personally wanted to avoid spending a majority of my break working on animation, and then going back for our second semester with only a short week break after the months of work I have done. I had come to a consensus that I would rather work harder in return for a longer break, rather than have more time to work at the cost of my time off.
And so, within the 12 days I had left before our deadline, I fully dedicated myself to working on this assignment. Most of my time was spent on my lip sync animation, which I felt was the best decision as it is the highest quality animation I created, having the additional benefit of giving me a good piece of animation for my portfolio as I aim to focus on character animation in my career. I made the best decisions needed in order to save myself time, and as a result, I was able to complete all three animations in the small amount of time I had, and to a quality I am proud of.
With the disadvantages I have worked under, this module has taught me a lot about project management, dealing with sudden issues through critical thinking and decision making, and how to utilize my own traits, namely my refusal to give up and passion for animation to work to the best of my ability. In conclusion, I feel that I have more than proven to myself that I am very hard working and smart when it comes to my work process, which gives me a lot of confidence in my career moving forward, especially now as our attention turns to placement years.