I have a lot of mixed feelings about how I did over the course of this module a lot of them are conflicting.
I can tell I have improved over the course of this module; even looking back at the walk cycle we did as the first animation in this module, I can see many ways I could improve upon it and do it better. I can see this in all of my animations. As long as I can tell my own personal skill has developed, I am happy. I also think I took on any feedback I got quite well, as I tried my best to make any changes the lecturers said would make my animation better because I want to get better.
Something I really want to improve on for our next assignment is taking more risks in my animations. I play it very safe by sticking to mediums I am comfortable with and not really pushing my animations farther or making them as good as I know they can be because I am very nervous around deadlines and not leaving myself enough time, although I know that crunches will be a big part of the industry I am going into and I need to start seeing how I deal under that pressure.
If I could go over again, I would definitely push myself further to do some of the walks and runs in 3D. I find myself sticking to 2D more because it’s what I’m used to, and it’s also the part of the industry I want to go into especially character animation on television and film. But I want to branch out and develop those skills in 3D as well because I can see myself easily becoming pigeonholed. I would also export any progress I made on my animations on the day, whether it be 3D or 2D, because I haven’t been keeping up with that in this module, and so I’ve actually lost some of my work-in-progress animations from this semester, which would have been great to put in my later blog posts like my Walk with personality and my run and jump.
I plan to try to do all the things I wish I had done this module in our next one, as a lot of the stuff I wish I had done is stuff I could easily do if I was stricter on myself and pushed myself more, particularly in research, as I actually really enjoy doing research for assignments, and I’m kicking myself that I didn’t do more, especially because it is interesting and I know there is a wealth of knowledge to pull from in books and online.
Overall, I think my animation skills have improved, but I need to push myself more in research and in the way that I animate by taking a more creative approach to it, which I am going to push myself to do.