For this first semester, I have encountered many difficulties throughout the journey. I never considered myself to be a good or even an average-joe artistic when it comes to drawing by hand traditionally or digitally. Perhaps I’m just impatient / impulsive when I don’t even know it, or my hand drawn precision just sucks for me. However I do find some form of enjoyment (not as much when compared to 3D Digital), as I recognise the importance of artistic skills transferable and goes hand-in-hand with 3D Digital Literacy. Henceforth, I find myself pushing my abilities and confidence to better grasp the foundation of the design principles of character and animation.

What went well during the term and what I think is the most important, is being part of a collaborative group in effort of creating our first animation. Personally when working on a team, can sometimes be nerve-wrecking since it’s our first time interacting with each other, although it’s probably just me being an introvert. But in the end it worked out well, communication is an important key aspect. For instance, we were able to coordinate our progress, receive feedbacks and make changes. Especially when it comes to world building and storyboarding for better consistency.

Another thing that I find personally worked well is, basically learning how to us different software other than Adobe Photoshop is Krita. Never would’ve I imagine to prefer this over Photoshop, it just feels right using it and the fact I’ve utilized this more than Photoshop speak volumes, which is funny.

I have several situations that isn’t just in my favour. As explained earlier I struggle with drawing (tablet included), I just can’t seem to find a middle ground with creating shapes and steadiness. Perhaps I’m just not practicing hard enough or I’m lacking in technique and finesse, which is an work-in-progress. In addition, I’m sometimes falling behind in lessons which leads to catch-up.

The biggest issues is I’m unable to keep track of my attendance in late-November, mainly getting sick constantly although I still keep in touch with my groups progress and provide them with my own works. However, December is by far the biggest offender, I’m just constantly getting bombard with cold, fever and cough and worst part is that I literary can’t do anything thus little energy and little to no productivity. Furthermore, my sleeping patterns is just messed-up which affects my health (Midnight oriented).

Before the next semester even starts, there two things that I would sincerely tackle, the obvious is attendance; I would definitely need to change my sleeping pattern to avoid future headaches and insomnia, and better communication with my peers and tutors since often times I just don’t communicate and not relay them the situation. And secondly improve on my drawings skills, if I had to nit-pick I would likely focus on finesse since when drawing my hands tends to stiff and waver.

For animation, I would need to improve on expanding more frames to create a smooth animation process. As they are plain stiff and jaggy to look at times, but this usually comes down to the lack of familiarity with the software which I would continue to use and improve.

Overall, this semester has rather been an enjoyable but tense journey for me with Ups and Downs which has considerable effects on my skills as an artist. Therefore, I still have more rooms to grow.