07/05/14-08/05/14

To be honest I don't feel there is a great deal to write about this week. I was really surprised that I am really on track with the Taking Stock module, and I think I may have pretty much done all the work I need to do. All I really needed to do for this module was to add an example of somebody who works in Art Therapy for my 5 year plan, just to show that such a job exists, and to show that people can make a living from it. This didn't take too long, and I did actually find somebody local who uses Art Therapy in their work, which is really interesting. Even though it was only basic information, I did find the website really informative, and covers pretty much everything you would need to know about their work, in an easy to read bullet point format.

http://righttherapist.com/dir/therapist-listings/pamela-jackson/

However, I have felt very tired during this week at college, and therefore I felt like I haven't done as much coursework than I could do if I was not feeling tired. I didn't sleep well on Wednesday night, and I have had a lot on my mind recently, so this could be a possible cause for this. However, things at college have been very relaxed this week, and Neil has been very understanding about this.

Also this week I have continued to edit my video tutorials, and have edited and exported three of my six video tutorials at home. I tried to export an edited video tutorial at college this week, but as with last week exporting a video takes a very long time (in this case, over an hour) which drastically drained the laptop's battery, and eventually there wasn't enough battery life to export the video, so I decided to save it for later to export at home.

A similar problem arose when I had to render my Pac Man level, because my display in this year's exhibition at college will be an A2 render, this takes much longer than a standard render (around 10 minutes) which also drained the laptop's battery. This is also worse, because, unlike iMovie, it is difficult to perform other tasks while a project is rendering.

To be honest I do feel like the work I need to do to hand in next week will certainly be manageable, and I do feel pleased that I have managed to keep on track with this project.

30/04/14-01/05/14

Wednesday

It was really nice to see and to catch up with everyone after the Easter break today, and everybody seemed happy to see each other. Today we just had to show the work we have done so far, as well as continue with our journals. Over Easter I had managed to complete a draft of a five year plan, as well as evaluate on most of my previous journal entries. Even though I felt I probably rambled a bit in my five year plan, everybody seemed really impressed by it. Because the other students could see how much I have written in my five year plan, and seemed quite amazed by it, I made a joke about being the "Hermione Granger" of the group. Well, I have the same birthday as Emma Watson, who plays Hermione in the Harry Potter films, so i guess we have some things in common.

I think I was in a funny mood today, wanting to have a laugh and a joke a bit today, which did feel good and made me feel happy. One of the things I remember joking about was names of AntiVirus software. One of my friends' laptops had AVG Anti Virus, and I was wondering what AVG stood for. Apparently it stands for "Anti Virus Guard."I misheard this, and thought they said "Anti Virus God!" So I just said as a joke "Dear God, please protect this computer from any viruses, Amen!"

Thursday

Today was more about the work we need to do for our final projects and the end of year exhibition at Stafford College. As I have learned to do, to give me enough to do during my day at college, I wrote a list of tasks I wished to complete today. Since I prefer recording the tutorials at home, I decided that I will edit or re-record the videos at home, depending on how long it would take and how I feel about the video tutorials I have already recorded.

The first task I started today was to perfect what I have made in my video tutorials - The Pac Man level! For this, I altered Pac Man and the ghosts slightly, as well as add other assets to the game level, such as fruit (cherry) and the dots Pac Man eats during the level. I know that I will need to at least have some renders to display in the exhibition, and this is why I wanted to work on this first. It was a bit irritating that Maya crashed when I was modeling the cherry so I had to start again sadly. Although to be honest the cherry was a lot better when I modeled it the second time!. Neil also showed me a quick way to create all the dots, using "Duplicate Special" in the "edit" menu. I could sort of remember this, but I haven't really used it in a while, because there hasn't been much I have needed to Special Duplicate for a very long time. This lets you make multiple copies of an object, and can also rotate, move or scale in the Special Duplicate as well, so objects will rotate, move or scale in the Special Duplicate. This made the task much simpler, quicker and less tedious, and in no time at all I had all the dots I needed for my Pac Man Level.

I also attempted to use iMovie for the very first time this morning. This was initially quite confusing, as most software probably is at first, especially knowing from working on Arts and Media based courses for the past few years, using programs such as Maya, Unity, Photoshop and Illustrator, all of which do take a while to get used to, even when you haven't used these programs for a while. I wanted to edit the latest video tutorial I had recorded over the Easter Holidays, because I felt pleased with the information given in the tutorial, but I remember getting openly frustrated when Maya briefly closed down during the tutorial, so I wanted to edit that part out. This did take a while to understand, and it doesn't make clear how to save videos either. From what I remember you can just simply delete selected parts of a video by just selecting the part of the video you want to delete, then press the backspace key. Also, iMovie automatically saves your workspace, but if you want to create a new video from what you have edited, make sure your video is in the project window, then click Share - Export with QuickTime.

However, this massively drained my Macbook Pro's battery, so I decided not to Export the video until I got home and charged my laptop. This also affected my Maya work as well, so I couldn't do much else other than written work this afternoon. I could have done practical work on the Macs at college, but I prefer using my Laptop to do practical work, and I had some catching up to do with my written work anyway.

I have liked how relaxed everything feels right now, despite having only two weeks left until I need to submit my work for my projects. I still understand that I still have quite a lot I still need to get done, but I feel that everything is under control. I just hope I keep on track of things, and don't wait to get things done.

Easter Holidays

Since finishing for Easter, I have had a wonderful, yet busy Easter break, and it hasn't been all to do with the Foundation Degree. I have been very busy over Easter, travelling to lots of different places, such as Swansea for a few days with the family which I really enjoyed and it was really nice to get away from normal life for a few days. I have also been to the cinema 3 times, to see The Muppets Most Wanted, Divergent and The Amazing Spider Man 2, all great films!

It was also my birthday over the Easter Holidays, and I really enjoyed celebrating with friends and family. In fact, the cinema trips did count for me as celebration of my birthday too! I also had lots of presents, such as a docking station, DVDs, games, spending money and much more! Celebrating Easter was lovely too, I just spent it with the family eating a delicious Easter dinner, and playing a few Easter games, such as an Easter treasure hunt!

Because my personal life was so busy over Easter, possibly because of my birthday, I wasn't able to finish everything on my to do list for coursework I set myself over the Easter Holidays. However, I still feel confident that I will get all the coursework I need to do done and it was also nice to have a short break from it.

I did, however, manage to record my sixth and possibly final video tutorial. I do feel much more confident with my video tutorials, and feel reasonably happy with this one. I did get a little flustered on the video tutorial when Maya randomly closed for a second whilst trying to show the different types of rendering, and it may have come across as shouting, but I hope I can edit this part out, as I felt happy with the rest of the tutorial.

I also managed to write a five year plan for what I wish to do after the Foundation Degree. I showed it to dad, who was really impressed, and suggested I changed a few words and sentences. I feel that showing work to others can really benefit your work, because then an outside opinion is gained that you can use to improve your work.

I have also evaluated my journal entries much more. I decided, because I feel it would be easier to do it this way, to evaluate the journal entries by either each month, each term or each module, depending on which section of the journal I am evaluating on. This has been going really well and has given me a lot to think and write about. It has also been especially interesting to read again what I had written in each journal, and to think about what I would do differently if I approached similar challenges again. I definitely feel I am much more confident and mature about my work, as well as many other different aspects of my life, especially since the start of this year, and I have definitely noticed this since starting my work placement in September.

The last thing I did was to start to collect my research and practical work in a folder ready to hand in on the 15th May. This can usually cause a lot of stress, especially with writing a Bibliography as well, because in the past I would usually do this the night before submitting my work, but I am trying to avoid this stress with these modules.

Exhibition Plan...

For the end of year exhibition at Stafford College I plan to develop the models I created in Maya in my Maya Tutorials, the Pac Man level and characters and the robot and create some nice renders of these. I will do one render for: the level, the Pac Man ghosts Pac Man himself and the robot. These renders will then be printed and mounted onto boards for the end of year show. This is similar to how my work was displayed last year, where I printed trading card designs featuring 3D Models, which were then mounted onto thicker boards.

However, one thing I haven't done for the end of year show this year is the use of Augmented Reality (AR) Technology, which I used last year for the trading cards. This did add something new and unique to my trading cards last year, and I do feel it is really important to add something new and unique to a project that will be shown on public display, to make the work stand out in the exhibition. What I have done this time that is new and unique is the video tutorials of the basics of Maya. Before this project, recording videos is something I have very little experience in, especially making a screen recording of my computer activity, and it is something I've always wondered how to do, so I thought it would be perfect for me to try this for this project.

I could also, if I am allowed to, present ONE of my video tutorials in the exhibition. (perhaps the first one, as it covers the essential basics of Maya.) I can't really display all of my video tutorials for the end of year exhibition, as each tutorial I have recorded is between 20-30 minutes long, and I have recorded 6 tutorials, so watching all the tutorials would take around 2-3 hours long. So I feel that having just one tutorial in the end of year exhibition would be good, as it would show the purpose of what I have modelled and shows more of what I have done as a project. For this, I would need a spare Mac, and maybe some headphones for people to listen to the tutorial, so it doesn't disturb the rest of the exhibition and maybe an opening of Maya, so people can practice the tutorial.

RLJ Evaluation - March 2014

I do feel that over this time period I did manage to balance my work very well. Making a timeline each Thursday breaking down the day and writing what tasks I feel I can do during my time at college has really helped towards this, and has made Thursdays much more productive.

I also have mentioned, like, a million times, it seems (including this time), that I get on better with Neil than I did last year. He is much more helpful to myself and other students and provides much more constructive feedback than he used to, rather than just being critical of my work and saying what needs improving. This is noticed by feedback from my video tutorials, and research, as well as offering to print copies of my online campaign sketch, all of which I really appreciate, especially when printing off my sketches wasn't going right.

I also feel that the Online Campaign project I worked on with the Photography Students and Ananda went really well too, and I really enjoyed working with these people, even though Ananda does interrupt not just myself, but others too. Lynda has noticed this too, so I don't feel too bad saying that. The group project was also a good way to get to know the other people in the Photography group a lot better, and meeting outside of college has given me ideas for meeting outside of college in the future. This project definitely also helped with socialising, something I really need to work on, so I really appreciated this chance.

As for the style of writing, because this is really recent, It wouldn't change too much. I do feel it has improved a lot since the start of New Media, as I do reflect much more and think more openly and broadly and am more open to feedback. However, I did eventually find in one of my earlier journals (I think it was in the first year) about image boxing, but at the time I couldn't find it, as I probably checked my past research files, but not my previous journals. So I have learned to look back on previous journal entries, even more so because I have had to reflect on them all!

RLJ Evaluation February 2014

As I didn't have many lectures in February, due to Reading Week and Half Term taking place, I did not write many entries regarding lectures. However, I remember handling the Professional and Contextual Studies modules much better than in January, despite me still being fairly unsure of the module during half term. This was later resolved with the group project, which was to set up an online campaign of our work through social media. Although we only had one meeting during February, and even though before half term it seemed that nobody was fully aware of this project, despite it being mentioned in the handbook, I felt the first meeting went rather well, even though I may not have said as much as some of the other people in the group. This was fine, as I still contributed and agreed to ideas, such as for me to design an illustration to promote our online campaign, which we later decided to use Facebook for, because everybody was familiar with Facebook.

As for the quality of my writing for the journal entries, I don't feel much has changed since January, and I don't think I would have changed much about the journal now. I did manage to include an image of some research for my Specialist Pathway module, which was from 3D World Magazine, which shows proof of research, as well as giving the reader ideas of the types of work I am researching to gain inspiration for my project. I feel the quality of my reflective writing has certainly improved since the first year, and even since the start of the second year, where I didn't reflect on as much as I should have done. The writing is much more reflective now than ever, rather than just describing events and lectures. It was also nice that I managed to post about some personal interests outside of the Foundation Degree, such as the Lego Move and Pokemon. I thoroughly enjoyed both, and decided to make a piece of digital art regarding Pokemon, which was part of a Facebook game regarding Pokemon.

RLJ Evaluation - January 2014

Even though I hadn't written many reflective journal entries in the second year up to this point, I do feel that my journal entries during January 2014 were very well written. Also, because these entries are fairly recent, there may not be much I would change in terms of the style of what was recorded in the journal. I feel I managed to record all the relevant information from lectures in my journal, and reflected on what I have learned from the information and how it made me feel. I also compared my life at college at this point compared to one year ago from then, when things weren't going as well.

Despite me not writing much about the previous term, I wrote a recap of events from that term, the best I could from what I could remember. I feel I managed to write about all the important things about college and the Foundation Degree of the previous term, such as the modules, my dragon/kart projects, being in a class with the photography students and how I felt the whole experience was going, and I think it was going very well. Definitely the best start to any year I have been at college, without getting too upset or stressed.

I also wrote about my work placement, which has been a very important part of my life as it has started me on a potential new career path in Art Therapy and helping others. This placement has gone really well, and perhaps because I was doing something positive that wasn't to do with college, I felt much happier and relaxed at college on my Foundation Degree.

I mentioned that, with the projects, there was "a lot more creative freedom" this year compared to last year, which I am really grateful for, and I feel I enjoy the more creative projects more because to me they feel more "personal." It was also good that I could choose what I did for my final project, and I do feel I came up with some really good ideas, such as the plane animation flying over Rome and Paris, monster designs from my art therapy sessions, and the video tutorials I eventually decided to work on. However, I do feel I would have been happy with working with any of these, as all the projects seemed fun and fulfilling as projects, where I wouldn't have had too much or too little to do at any one time if I planned my work efficiently. Also, it made me realise that it is good to have a number of options for projects that will be equally as enjoyable to work on, so you're not stuck with working on a project you're not happy with working on. I do feel, however, that the work and entries from January were more about the planning of my project, which is still a very important aspect of any project, so you know it is possible to achieve the best results.

I also remember being rather confused about the Professional and Contextual Studies module, especially about writing a grant for money from the Arts Council, and I certainly reflected on this in my journal. I also remember this module was very confusing last year. However, because I have a good working relationship with the lecturers, Lynda and the students, we were all able to figure this out together. Also, writing about some aspects of this module I learned about, such as PESTEL and SWOT, really helped me to remember what was discussed in the lectures. I have learned that it is super useful in the future to record anything new you have learned in the journal.

I also attended several careers advice meetings, both at college and at the Staffordshire County Council. I feel that since the start of my work placement, I have been considering what I would like to do after college a lot more, which I feel has really benefited me well as it will give me some clearer goals for the future. Although I always found these careers advice meetings helpful and informative, my feelings and hopes for my options have changed very often since then. When I saw the careers advisor at college, who told me I needed to pay for an apprenticeship if that's what I wanted, and also that to become an art therapist I would need to attend postgraduate courses, the options seemed quite limited at that point, but when I went to speak to the County Council I was feeling much more optimistic about my options. Currently I am rather unsure of what the future holds, but am remaining calm as I have lots of options and people helping me to achieve my goals. I have felt very grateful for all the people that are helping me to develop my future career, as I am aware that not everybody has as much support as I do, for many different reasons, and without the support of these people, I don't think I would be as prepared and as optimistic about the future as I am right now.

09/04/14

Because I haven't been too well this week, I haven't done too much coursework, even though I knew I needed to. I haven't had too much energy, so motivating myself to do work was difficult. If I was well, I would have been more focused on my coursework. However, before today I have completed preparations for my texturing tutorial and recorded it this afternoon. To be honest I was quite surprised at how quickly I finished the textures, even though I have only used basic colours for the robot design. Despite this, with the Blinn texture, the textured robot does look quite impressive and I am fairly pleased with it. I feel if I had more energy I would have added some metallic robot textures to my UV Texture Maps, just to show more effects and effort.

I am feeling a lot better today than I was last week, even though I still have a runny nose and I was quite tired this morning. Although I didn't seem too bored this morning, I didn't feel that I was very productive today. What we need to do is to write a 5 year plan of our future plans in terms of our careers. Even though I have a rough idea of what this could contain, I decided to look back on my reflective learning journal entries and write evaluations on them, which would include how I was writing them compared to now, as well as comparing and contrasting my work and how I was feeling at each point in my reflective learning journal. I've decided to do one evaluation for each whole blog, as each whole blog covers either a module or a term/semester. I have actually found this really interesting, and it's amazing to look back on my thoughts and feelings back then, especially towards the first half of the first year of the Foundation Degree when things were very stressful and I was unhappy at college. I can also see how much I have matured over the past year or so, and I feel that doing well with projects this year and also my work placement has definitely helped me to mature and to also be much more confident. I just really hope I can maintain this confidence and maturity, especially since I will be finishing my Foundation Degree soon.

03/04/14

Today I wasn't really feeling too well, so I decided to work from home today. My tiredness from yesterday hasn't really improved and I also have a sore throat, which affected my sleeping last night.

I emailed Neil my latest video tutorial I have recorded this week, which was about UV Texture Mapping. I feel that this has been my most confident tutorial yet, even though I forgot to mention a few things, such as the UV Texture Layout after completing the UV Texture Map. I also found the subject a lot easier to explain, as there aren't as many controls in UV Texture Mapping as there are in modelling. I also quickly showed one of my friends part of my first video tutorial for a few minutes. He seemed impressed by this, and was also impressed about how I managed to screen record these video tutorials, but he did admit that what I do on my Foundation Degree does look complicated, which to be fair, it is!

Today I have unwrapped the wheels and the head of my robot, ready to UV Texture, and also caught up with some work from yesterday.

02/04/14

Today I was feeling quite tired, so I found today a bit more difficult than usual. Not so much stressful, but difficult. I have also had a lot to think about recently, such as life after my Foundation Degree, what I want to do next, my work placement and of course my birthday, so I feel that all of these affected my energy levels today.

Neil did structure the lesson today much more than usual, but I feel that this could have been because Stafford College has recently had a new principal, and apparently she is giving all the staff a hard time, which I think is making Neil a bit nervous. Also I think what he wanted to cover in his lesson plan was a bit too much for just one morning. Also, I wasn't too sure where to start with his lesson plan, in which he wanted us to start writing a structure for a 5 year plan after the Foundation Degree AND evaluate our journal throughout the Foundation Degree, and to be honest I did find it difficult to get in the zone today, so I did feel a little overwhelmed. I spoke to Neil about this, and he wanted me to prioritise the 5 year plan structure. I feel that having this 5 year plan will be incredibly beneficial to me, and will reassure me about the future, as it is something I have been thinking about a lot lately. It will also give me some set goals for this time period, which will be very useful for my plan and for getting where I want to be. Today I just wrote the structure, which didn't take me too long, but at least it will give me a good starting point and a good idea of what I need to write about and research.

I have also started to evaluate my journal. I started with the first term of my Foundation Degree, and it felt amazing how my confidence has improved since then. It also made me realise that I feel I would have been a lot happier and would have done so much better with my work if I did have more confidence back then. However, I do feel that part of my lack of confidence was caused by some of the people on the course at the time, as well as other people who did sort of bully me at the time, which was really upsetting at the time. I also needed to get used to a brand new course with brand new people and a brand new level of work, which was very daunting. However, right now I am much happier, both with my work and my social life in and out of college, and I also have a rough idea of a set goal for after the Foundation Degree, something else in which I was lacking when I first started the Foundation Degree. This is how far I got today, but I will need to continue with this work in my own time.

I am also pleased that most of the people from the Foundation Degree that I invited to celebrate my birthday with me seem up for it. I have decided to go bowling with them, and I feel great about planning something to do with them outside of college.

27/03/14

For today I have made my third video tutorial, as well as write a plan of tasks I will need to complete by the end of today, including planning my next video tutorial, which will be about UV Mapping (so quite boring, really), and planning for my birthday in the Easter Holidays.

For planning my birthday I wanted to talk to Lynda to see what her thoughts were about things I could do to celebrate my birthday with some of my friends, both in and out of college. She gave me some really good ideas to consider, such as bowling and having lunch in town. For my college friends, so right now I am considering the Foundation Degree Photography students and Ananda, and also some of my friends from the BTEC course, I want to do something fairly local, because I am aware that some of them live outside of Stafford, so something in town would be ideal.

Back to coursework, I feel I am making great progress with these video tutorials, and feel like I am very well on track with it all. Before recording my tutorials, I do what I want to show in my tutorial first, so I'm not making it as I go along, and will make things easier to explain, similar to the Art Attack videos I viewed during my research. After that, I always write a rough script of things I need to cover in each video tutorial. So far this has worked very well for me, but I don't always follow the script, as I like my tutorials to feel like I am speaking more naturally, even if I am hesitant at times with my speaking in the tutorials after watching them back.

Neil has been very supportive with this project and seems genuinely interested and impressed by my work, which I do feel grateful for, and it makes coming to college much easier, and feels a lot more welcoming. He does mention that in my previous tutorials I do tend to go through the tasks in my tutorials a bit too quickly, which I think I can learn from. I do feel, however, especially with my last tutorial that I had a lot to show and to talk through, and even though I don't want to make my tutorials too long, I do feel that they are a lot longer than I expected them to be.

26/03/14

Today was the start of a new module! The last module EVER! Yay! In this module, which is known as Taking Stock, we will be reviewing our Reflective Journals, so the journals will be especially important for this module. To be honest this doesn't bother me too much, as I usually keep my journal up to date, and write about the Foundation Degree quite thoroughly. However, some of the other students seem a bit more bothered by this module, as they haven't updated their journals for ages. This made me feel quite relieved, as I won't have as much to catch up on as they will, but at the same time I do feel sorry for them.

We will also need to prepare for the end of year exhibition, as well as plan what we plan to do after the Foundation Degree. I have started and worked hard to figure out what I want to do after the course has ended, but am still fairly unsure. I also have so much to think about right now, such as my birthday, and my Foundation Degree and my current placement ending, which really does scare me.

20/03/14

As with last week I had prepared a new video tutorial and planned my day out, so I could plan my next video tutorial. So far these tutorials are quite daunting, but interesting to do, but I am enjoying them. This tutorial took me around 30 minutes to film, which I do feel is a bit long for the video tutorials want to make, but at least I have attempted it.

Today I was planning my next video tutorial, which will be more advanced modelling. For this, I wish to build an original robot character inspired by my research of what I was considering modelling in Maya. To start with, I needed to create some original sketches for robot designs, which was quite fun and rewarding to do. I needed to make sure I drew a front and side view because I plan to model from an image box, as I have found this an especially useful technique for my Maya work, so I feel that teaching this in my next tutorial will work very well. I sketched 5 different robot designs, for Neil to then give feedback. He liked my designs, but felt that I should choose a design that would be simple to model.

This afternoon I started to model what I would build for my next video tutorial. I spent a long time trying to remember what to do to create an image box. I was fine modelling and texturing it, but I couldn't remember how to make the texture appear inside out, so I had to do some extra research, which didn't make too much sense, and also tried to find something in my journal which would help me with this certain problem, but for some reason past me was an idiot and DIDN'T WRITE IT DOWN!!!! grrrrrrrrrrggggrrrggg sooo annoying!!! I eventually needed to ask Neil, who mentioned I needed "Backface Culling" selected in the viewport, and then Reverse the Normals by selecting Normals > Reverse. So now for future reference, I now have it written down! I feel that the next tutorial may be more about showing the image box, and how to create more advanced models than actual controls. I didn't finish modelling the character by the end of the day, but the model shouldn't take too long to complete. I have a busy weekend this weekend, but I should still be able to complete this video tutorial for next week.

19/03/14

Today we needed to hand in our work for the Professional and Contextual Studies module. Last night I spent quite a lot of time getting my work prepared for today, and this mostly included finishing my 2000 word project evaluation, so I did feel quite exhausted after last night. However, I did finish everything I needed to do, but last night I forgot to print my journal, which I thought wouldn't take too long at all today at college, so I wasn't too stressed about this.

When I arrived at college today, I noticed that everyone else needed to finish work as well, so this did feel reassuring, but I could tell they were stressed, which isn't good. I would have brought up plans for my birthday, but because everyone was so busy, I didn't feel it was a good time.

Soon after I arrived at college I successfully printed my blog as planned, and seemed to have impressed my classmates with what I have prepared to hand in today. I then decided to leave early, as I had nothing else for this module I needed to do, and I feel I deserved a little break from coursework, as I was working so hard last night.

13/03/14

For today I recorded my first attempt at a video tutorial, and started planning my second video tutorial. To be honest this project has been a bit more time consuming than I thought it would, but I feel that this is fine, because I still have quite a lot of time before the project deadline. Also, I am currently on track with this project, which feels good. I plan to make one video tutorial each week until Easter, and then I plan to edit and improve my video tutorials if necessary.

My second video tutorial will continue from the first, where I started to model a 3D version of the classic Pac Man Level, so my second video tutorial will be basic texturing using solid colours. In this tutorial I will show how to texture the walls of the classic Pac Man Level, and to make things more interesting, model Pac Man and the ghosts as well. Modelling the characters proved more difficult than I thought they would be, even though the characters are really basic shapes. I especially wanted to model the Pac Man ghosts to show the transparency option for textures, where I can make the ghost's textures slightly transparent to give them a more ghostly feel.

Also to help me cope better with Thursdays, because with not much atmosphere in our room Thursdays can feel quite long, I have decided to break down the day into hourly segments, and wrote down the tasks I feel I need to complete for the day. To be honest this has really helped me cope better with Thursdays and helps me feel more motivated and productive and less bored. I will definitely use this strategy in the future, because it has worked so well today. 

I also showed Neil the video tutorial I had recorded last weekend. I knew that it wasn't perfect myself, and it could improve in terms of confidence and speaking clearly, but I feel I did well considering it was my first ever video tutorial. Neil did seem rather impressed, but did say I forgot to explain certain controls, and wasn't as technical as I could be. In one part of the tutorial he pointed out I described one of the navigation controls after extruding an object as a "yellow circle thing," which I agree isn't very technical. I also rambled a bit towards the end of the tutorial, and Neil said that mentioning I wasn't a games designer or programmer wasn't necessary. I feel quite pleased with this feedback, and I will consider this when making my next video tutorial. If I have time over the Easter Holidays, I may edit or re-record the video tutorial, but I don't think it was terrible, so I won't be too stressed if I don't have time to edit/redo the video tutorial. If I do decide to edit or redo the video tutorial, I will need to consider which will be the best and quickest option. If I feel I have missed out too much detail, I will need to re record the video tutorial(s), but if I have made mistakes in only one or two sentences, I should probably just edit those parts out of the video tutorial.

12/03/14

This morning was rather strange, as only myself, Lynda, Neil, Aimee, and eventually Chris were in college today. Ananda was at an interview, Denise was on holiday, Sinead was taking pictures of a rock and I'm not sure why Mike wasn't in today. Also today wasn't too productive, and to be honest I was really tired today, so to be honest I didn't really feel like doing too much today. For a very long time I haven't been sleeping very well recently, which is really frustrating and I really need to find something that will help me sleep better. It's not that I go to bed too late, or I have a problem getting to sleep when I first go to bed, but I really struggle to get back to sleep if I get up in the middle of the night, which can cause a lot of tiredness in the day. Neil also had to sort out something that had happened yesterday with Aimee's college photo shoot, because she was really upset about it.

There wasn't really much of a meeting today, but the online campaign is now active, with Aimee updating the pages daily with our work, and promoting the campaign on her Facebook profile and her Facebook business page. I have also tried to share the online campaign on my Facebook profile, and so far only a few of my friends have liked it. I have also asked my sister and my dad to like and share the page, which they have done, which has gained the page a few more likes. So far we have been able to reach around 100 likes, which is ok, but very far from our target of 300 likes set last week. To be honest, because I don't really have a Facebook business page, I don't really know how many likes the average local page would get in a week, but I would have thought that between the group we could have got 300 people to like the page, as we all have different groups of friends on Facebook. Chris also tried to put posters around college, but didn't get permission to put posters up around college, so they were taken down. To be honest, I haven't seen any posters around college promoting our page, but Wednesdays are the first days in the week I am in college.

All Neil did give us was a guideline for the 2000 word project evaluation we need to do, which was very useful and far less confusing than the module handbook. I had to leave early to go to the dentist, but I was too tired from lack of sleep to do much work, so I watched Toy Story 2, had a quick nap before mum came home, and went to the hairdressers, and it was only in the evening I decided to so something productive and prepare for tomorrow and my art therapy sessions on my work placement.

10/03/14

This weekend I finally got around to making my first ever video tutorial! I felt really nervous making it, and having to talk about and explain everything I was doing in my tutorial, but as I was making the tutorial I soon settled into talking a bit more calmly about the tutorial, despite me making a few mistakes during the tutorial. I may edit these mistakes out of the video, to make it look more professional. I used the Art Attack method where I show the audience how to do one step then jump to the completed step I made earlier, which I feel works really well, as I don't have to waste the viewer's time watching me build something that could take over half an hour, which would be a very long video tutorial, which may result in viewers losing focus after a while. My video tutorial ended up being 20 minutes long, which I feel is very reasonable being my first video tutorial and for it to cover the basics in Maya. I could also make the video shorter by editing it, and I plan to get feedback from Neil and the family.

The online campaign group, "Pixel" also met this weekend as planned. Only myself, Ananda, Aimee and Mike attended the meeting, but I feel it went really well, despite us not having much to discuss for the topic other than the work we wish to post on the group page and the fact that Aimee had not received all the fully copyrighted work and the promotional money yet. Fortunately I have paid my promotional money and Aimee has my work ready for next Sunday. However, I do feel that I had a nice time spending time with these people in a more relaxed environment, and this could be a potential friendship group for me. My birthday is coming up next month, so it may be nice to plan something with these people.

I have also had the best idea ever to celebrate my time at college, which is to have a Graduation Party for me, and I could invite anyone who I feel has made my time at college special. It could also be like a reunion party for some of the people I have in mind as well!

6/03/14

Today I continued planning for my final project. I do feel I am a little bit behind with my planning, which is a bit worrying, but I hope I can do a video tutorial this weekend. I was also a bit nervous about today, because Thursdays can feel like very long days and I found yesterday quite stressful, so I didn't really sleep well last night, and my current inability to have a proper night's sleep, even though I try to each night, has been a personal problem for quite a long time now, and has been a lot worse over the past month or so.

However, what I have done is decide what I am going to do for my first video tutorial, which is to start making a 3D version of the classic Pac Man level! I do feel that this is a good idea, and it does show off a lot of the basic controls in Maya, so I am happy with it. However, when I trialed the project yesterday after college, it did take me a while to get used to Maya again, after having a short break from it, and for some strange unknown reason the Undo button wouldn't work! This was the first thing I explained to Neil today, and he also thought my first idea was a good idea, and helped me to fix the Undo button so it works as it should.

I also wanted to catch up with what was discussed in yesterday's meeting and get my work ready for the online exhibition. I don't plan to make anything brand new, but I wanted to change some of the work I have submitted. I plan to submit one of the trading cards I made for the summer exhibition last year, as well as something I did in last weeks lesson for a Facebook post. I also plan to submit a blue version of the dragon I made in Maya in October, as well as a blue version of my sleigh I made in Maya before Christmas. It was really nice to revisit my work, even though I was feeling a little bit nervous about it, because I wasn't too sure how good it really was. However, I do feel that my dragon has to be the best model I have ever done, and looks excellent in blue. All I did was repaint the texture of the dragon to blue instead of red, and made another render of the dragon. I decided to recolour the sleigh in Photoshop, because for the submission of that project I edited the image quite a lot in Photoshop. I actually prefer the sleigh in blue, compared to the red and yellow sleigh I handed in. Also, I decided to change the character in the sleigh from Mario to Sonic, because my chosen colour for the exhibition is blue. This was a little bit awkward as the image I found of Sonic wasn't at the correct angle to what I wanted, and I messed up the layers in Photoshop, meaning Sonic was on the same layer as the background layer, so I couldn't edit Sonic exactly the way I wanted to.

Also, to prepare myself for the video tutorial, I decided to write a script of instructions I will cover in my first video tutorial to help me with what I am going to talk about. Neil did suggest that when I'm ready to make my video tutorials I find the music department at college and ask one of the music lecturers if I could use one of the sound booths. To be honest I didn't get around to doing this, but I am glad I know this if I need to make a video tutorial at college in the next few weeks.

P&CS 5/03/14

Today we were continuing on the group's online campaign project, to promote our work on social media. For today's session I completed a drawing for the group pages, which was a drawing of everybody in the group wearing their chosen colours for the work we will be posting on the social media. I did really enjoy drawing it, and also made me rediscover colouring my drawings, which I feel really bring the drawings to life. I do feel that the drawing wasn't perfect, and I probably used my fine liner a bit too much, and I did notice that my fine liner was a bit too thick and inky, so I may need to get another one. It was also really good practice for my art therapy sessions I provide on my work placement on Tuesdays.

However, the first half of this morning was pretty stressful. Firstly, I thought I was designing the cover photo, and Ananda was designing the logo, but his logo was the size of a Facebook cover photo, which was really worrying me, because I didn't want to have done my drawing for the group to not use it!

I also needed copies of my drawing to hand to each member of the group, which I didn't mind doing, but this made me realise the scanners at college weren't very good, and the copies didn't print properly, and I did need copies for the meeting in the second half of the morning. Thankfully Neil was really helpful and offered to help me to print the copies by printing them off from his computer area, which I was really grateful for. I do feel that Neil and I do get on much better now compared to last year, which again I am really grateful for. However, I was clearly stressed and didn't really feel like talking and one of the other members of the group wouldn't really stop talking to me, which to be honest stressed me out even more, even though I know he meant well. I did however tell him to leave me alone, as calmly as I could.

Eventually my scans were printed, but the prints weren't very good. However, this is just to show everyone what I have done for this project so far. It was now time for the meeting, which even though I was still feeling anxious, I feel went fairly well, even though I felt I didn't really say as much as everybody else. I suppose I am quite a quiet person, but I have learned to be ok with this, as this doesn't mean I am a boring person.

The meeting today was about getting the online campaign started, which will start on Monday and run for 7 days. We also needed to agree on what work everybody was going to submit for the online campaign, and if any work anybody has done so far needs to be changed. Thankfully I was right in thinking that my drawing was going to be used as a cover photo, and everybody seemed to really like my drawing, but I think that everybody wants individual drawings of each person. This will be easy, as I can just crop the existing drawing into seven individual drawings. Also, I will need to get the work I will submit for this online campaign ready for Friday. My work isn't ready yet, but I have a clear idea of what it is I wish to submit, and it shouldn't take too long to edit to make each piece focus on my chosen colour, which unsurprisingly is blue.

Also, Neil did bring up that we should be meeting outside of college, something which we weren't aware of before, but shouldn't be a problem. So the group had to decide on a date, time and place for the next meeting. Because Sunday at 11am works best for most of us, we decided the next meeting will be then. We just needed to decide on a place. I suggested somewhere in town, because it is somewhere we all know, and we can meet at a cafe or something. We eventually decided to meet in the town square, despite Ananda suggesting to meet at the University, but I don't think the photography students go there much at all. I think meeting outside of college is a great idea, as it gives me another social option and it will be a lot more casual, and we could have breakfast or a morning coffee somewhere!

One thing that does bother me about Ananda is that he constantly interrupts and talks over people, especially me, and this is one thing I find incredibly frustrating and frankly rude. This did happen at some times during today's meeting, and this can make it hard for me to form a true friendship with him. We don't really have much in common either, and we only really talk to each other about work, so I guess we are more colleagues/acquaintances than friends. I suppose this is ok, as you can't really change people, but it can make Thursdays quite difficult.

27/02/14

Even though it was our first Specialist Pathway lesson since half term, it was quite a quiet day, where everyone carried on with their individual projects. Also, college itself was a bit quiet, as only Higher Education courses were in today (so that includes me).

I also thought about the work I was doing yesterday (the group project, as well as what I was doing in the lesson, Pokemon digital drawing for Facebook that was set by a couple of my Facebook friends) and I was thinking, because the Pokemon I had drawn was blue, I could use that in the online campaign!

I feel that today's most important time was when Ananda and I presented our work so far this morning. This was worrying me, because up to this point I have only done research and am unsure if it is really finished. Ananda presented his work first, and I do think he has struggled with this slightly. Clearly he has done research, and was able to talk a lot about his findings and his project, but I'm not sure whether he has recorded much of it, and also didn't seem to consider much about how his project will help his work. He has done a few quick sketches of his designs, which is something I haven't done yet, but still needs lots of development work. I did feel that Neil was being quite tough on him, but I could understand what Neil was asking of him.

I suppose I had quite an advantage not presenting my work first because I could then think about how I was going to present my work and what I was going to say about it. To my surprise my presentation went very well, and Neil was very pleased with the work I had done so far. I did get some constructive feedback, to structure my work more and to actually decide what I will base my tutorial on, all things I definitely feel will be achievable in the near future. Neil also said to look at more existing 3D models of cartoon characters such as Spongebob, and to also compare notes from watching To Infinity and Beyond! which is something I watched last year.

After the presentations we just carried on with our work. Because I feel more pressure from the group project, I decided to catch up with work from yesterday. I have also started my Cover Photo drawing of myself and my classmates, and so far it is going well. I just need to consider what poses I can draw each person in to capture their personalities the best way I can.

Professional and Contextual Studies 26/02/14

I was feeling particularly nervous about returning to college after the two week break from the course, especially about this module because the work we need to do for this module was really confusing me. However, I was soon reassured by Neil and Lynda and they reminded me of what I needed to do, and also that we haven't covered everything that's in the module handbook yet, which we were going to start working on today.

However, a lot of the other students weren't too sure about what was being asked of them in this module either, so it was reassuring to know that I wasn't the only one that felt this way.

In today's lecture, we started the part of the module where we need to work as a group to promote our work using online/social media, such as Facebook, Tumblr and LinkedIn. To avoid distractions, Neil moved us all to the library, so we could concentrate on the task more, and I do definitely think that this helped successfully. At first the idea of using social media to promote my work did make me feel a bit uncomfortable, because of my lack of confidence and worrying a lot of others judging my work, but soon after the class started discussing ideas with each other I did start to feel more comfortable.

One of the first things we needed to do was to nominate a project manager, who would overlook the project and make sure everybody was doing what they need to do, and help others if necessary. We briefly discussed this, but nobody was openly willing to nominate themselves, so we all decided to vote for who we thought should be the PM. I got one vote from Ananda, but this could be because he doesn't know anybody else in the group that well. Denise, the mature student in the photography group got the most votes, so she was the PM.

We then discussed which social media we would promote our work on. Because we are all familiar with Facebook, and I have everyone in the group as friends on Facebook, that was the obvious choice. However, Neil did point out that we should promote our work on more than one social website, so other social media that was mentioned was Tumblr, Flickr, LinkedIn and Twitter, all of which I'm a bit less familiar in, and probably don't have everyone in the group as contacts on these websites.

We then had to consider different roles for the group project, and also a theme for the artwork we were going to share online. This did make me realise even though both New Media and Photography are Digital Media Production courses, they are both very different and produce very different work. Also New Media work seems to be much more time consuming than Photography work, so if we were to create something new, we would need longer to make it. Anyway, we did decide that colours were a good theme, although it took us a while to decide that each artist would produce work in a different colour rather than have everyone make art of the same colour. Also, a storyline was considered for our work, but because the two courses are so different, this did make me feel quite nervous. We were then given different roles, and I am the designated Illustrator, which relates to my current work greatly, not only at college, but on my work placement too. I also really enjoy drawing in my spare time, so this was ideal for me! Also, my work is going to be blue, which is my favourite colour, and a lot of my friends associate me with the colour blue too, possibly because I usually wear a lot of blue and that my favourite character is Sonic the Hedgehog!

We also had to consider the timescale for this project, because we only have 3-4 weeks to complete this project. We decided to run this project for a week, with a different person submitting their work on social media on a different day that week (there are 7 people in this group, so each person will post their work on a different day) , and then leaving the page for a few days after everybody has submitted their work so the people who post their work later in the week will get a fairer chance for their work to be viewed. I got Sunday, so I will have the longest time to complete my work, which does feel reassuring because I know how time consuming my work can be.

After today I feel that everybody had a much better idea of what is being expected of them, so I do feel today went well. However, I did feel quite stressed during the meeting, because everybody was trying to talk at the same time in such a small space. Although not everything is sorted yet, I am looking forward to working on this project. The notes taken today will definitely help me with my work and will remind me of what has been discussed today.

Also, today I was working on an outside project, which is to share pictures of Pokemon over Facebook, and if anybody "likes" the picture, then I need to assign a Pokemon type to that person. Last night I liked two of these pictures, and one friend gave me Steel type and the other gave me Water type, so I decided to combine the two and post a picture of the Pokemon Empoleon! I was feeling creative, so I decided to create my own digital image using Photoshop, with a neon light effect. I did later think that, because Empoleon is partially blue, I could actually use this for some of my work for this project as well!

Reading Week/Half Term

Over reading week and half term break I knew I would still need to do some work relating to my projects at college. Fortunately, before my last lesson at college I was able to borrow a few issues of 3D World from the college library, which I did find very useful for ideas of what I could build in Maya for my video tutorials. I also considered other things such as robots, characters and architecture from trips I have visited with college and included them in my research for things I could build in Maya for my video tutorials. Because these tutorials are aimed at beginners, I wanted to find something reasonably basic to build, but interesting at the same time. So far my favourite ideas are building a 3D version of the classic Pac Man game grid, including Pac Man and the ghosts, and building a robot, similar to Pixar's Wall.E.

I also needed to look at video recording and editing software, because I have never really used them to make videos. I specifically looked at QuickTime Player and iMovie, because they are already accessible on my Macbook Pro. I feel that, after reading the information I have gathered a few times, I should be able to confidently make the videos I need to for this project. One good thing about Quicktime Player is that it will let me record my screen activity, which is ideal for this project, because I can then show the audience what I'm explaining how to do in Maya.

I have also looked at existing tutorials, both for 3D software such as Maya, and also for other things too. One thing I thought to look at was the children's show Art Attack, where the presenter would do something arty and show the audience how he is doing it. One thing I could do for my tutorials is show how to do something for a bit, then, like with Art Attack, show a completed version of what I was demonstrating. Also, some of the 3D tutorials seemed a bit improvised, like they couldn't really do much planning for what they were going to say (one was a seminar, so they would have definitely needed to answer questions they might not have been expecting), so I feel that one way I could make sure I will explain things correctly is for me to devise a script for each tutorial, so I know exactly what I will say when the tutorials are being recorded.

One thing I was quite concerned and confused about during half term was the Professional and Contextual Studies module, and the work I needed to do for the module. This might have been because there was a big break, and I felt the module handbook was quite confusing, because I couldn't remember if some of the things in the handbook were covered in the lectures. One thing I did manage to complete, that was mentioned in the module handbook was a draft of an application for a funding grant for an art project from the Arts Council. Beforehand, I actually wrote an actual proposal for this, because I was finding this module so confusing. I based this draft application form on what I am doing on my work placement, which is helping others using the art skills I have obtained during my time at college.

Of course, I didn't spend all my time doing coursework. I did actually manage to go and see the Lego Movie, which was AWESOME! Just like the soundtrack for the film says so. I also really enjoyed a couple of days in Wales with dad, which I felt really helped me to unwind and relieve my stresses from the work. However, I do feel nervous about going back to college, because I don't know if I have done enough for my course to be where I am supposed to be, even though I feel I have done as much as I can.

Professional and Contextual Studies 05/02/14

Today mainly included a quick lecture about Equality and Diversity in media. This was surprisingly easy to understand, because they are things I have studied and considered before. However, something that really confused me was what I need to do for this module, which is a portfolio of work including worksheets we have done in the lectures, as well as a written account of how it affects and relates to our work. I also need to research topics discussed in lectures in my own time. Even though I did feel a bit unsure and worried about what I needed to do, I was very grateful that Neil calmly explained to me what I would need to do. This also made me think how well a situation like this was dealt with compared to in the past during my time at college. In the past, if a situation like this happened I would have probably left the room afterwards, as soon as I could, feeling very upset. I also feel that Neil, and my support Lynda understand me and get on with me better than ever, which I am also grateful for. It makes coming to college a lot easier and a lot more comfortable if you get on well with the people there. To be honest I feel that during my time at college, even though I can still be a bit shy and anxious sometimes, I've got on well with most people, both students and staff.

Other than this lecture, I didn't feel like a great deal was going on in this morning's lecture, so I wasn't too sure what I was supposed to do at this point. The other students seemed to be looking at using social media to promote their work, or maybe they were just not doing much, but I was just a bit unsure myself of what I was supposed to be doing. Towards the end of the morning Lynda showed me a jobs website, WM Jobs, that I have discussed with some careers advisors previously. I think that Lynda and lots of other people helping me with finding the next steps of what to do after college, as well as looking around myself during my time off college will be a great help to me, and I really appreciate this help. I think I will look at my career options in a lot more detail during my time off college these next couple of weeks, as well as catch up with college work I need to do.

Personal Development in Specialist Pathway 30/01/14

For today, I had to construct a detailed timeline of my plan for my final project, which did help me to see what tasks I will have to do, and also what exactly I need to research. This was added to my project proposal, which I handed in this morning.

This morning I also started to watch one of the DVDs I lent from the University library last week, but I didn't realise until this morning that I actually lent out a seminar about rigging characters in Maya, instead of a tutorial, so the DVD was around 100 minutes long. However, it was interesting to hear that Neil had actually watched that DVD, saying that it teaches a new way of rigging, called the Component Editor, which I may look further into. Although the seminar was informative and detailed, I  don't think it was exactly what I was looking for, as the seminar discussed more about the coding and programming, rather than the creative side of Maya that I'm interested in, and what I will be discussing in my video tutorials. However, I did find some useful ideas in the seminar which I could present in my video tutorials, in the way that the speaker of the seminar was explaining all the things in a friendly way.

Neil did seem pleased with how my timeline was structured, saying I have left some good time to gather research and ideas. He also advised me to watch at least one video tutorial a day, which seems very reasonable.

It was then all written work this afternoon, reflecting on the week that has just gone. Although it helps to break the silence for me, I do like listening to music while doing practical work, but I feel it can sometimes distract me when doing written work. However, at times I can listen to music while doing written work, but I need to block the music out somehow, which can sometimes be hard to do.

29/01/14

Neil had to get a few things ready this morning, so for the first 30 minutes or so the class had to further explore how to write artist's grants for work. To be honest I do find the business side of art quite confusing, but I do understand the importance of it. After much consideration for ideas I could write a grant for, I eventually signed up to the Arts Council website, because I see my future work involving helping others using art, and there was an option to apply for funding that sounded quite similar to what I see myself doing. Just to be clear, as I am still a student, I am not eligible to apply for funding, but the purpose of this exercise is to write an almost draft proposal for a grant for work. This did take me a while to understand, and what we have to do is to use the application template on the arts council website to help us to understand how these grants are written.

http://www.artscouncil.org.uk

Neil had then got today's presentations ready, and at this time I had only just signed up for the Arts Council, so after this I was too busy participating in today's lecture to further explore the Arts Council website. The first part of today's lecture was about ownerships to work, and how that works. We were all given copies of the presentations, which I did find handy, and will be very useful to refer to. Something else I found useful for me to understand the lecture was that there was a small quiz about ownerships of work, even though I did get a lot of the questions wrong. It was also interesting to hear about the relationship between ownership of work and online and social media, such as Facebook, Pinterest and DeviantArt. Also, I found the strict laws in some countries about online file sharing scary but interesting, which was also mentioned in today's lecture.

The second part of today's lecture was about how being self employed in the art world works, and we were all given a large booklet about all the different ways of being self employed, which was a lot of information to take on, but again, I feel that the quiz that we had to do about this definitely helped make the lecture more exciting and informative.

These lectures I have on Wednesday mornings are very similar to the lectures last year with Neil W, but I feel I am a lot happier with where I am with college and the future than I was this time last year. I also feel that Neil B is a lot more considerate towards myself, Ananda and the photography students than Neil W was in the ways of making the work easier for everyone. Being on New Media this year might be an advantage to understanding these lectures, but I do feel that Neil B definitely involves the photography students. Also, it could be easier this year because there are less students in these lectures, so it could be easier to make your voice heard.

However, I did feel a little bit confused as to what to put in my portfolio for these lectures, as some of the other students have already started recording work, but Neil B said not to worry and that he will give me a list of things that I will need for my portfolio, which felt very reassuring. As far as I'm concerned, I think that I will need the journal, what we have worked on in the lectures and the application for the artist's grant.

I should also note that because of my work placement yesterday, I am really enjoying drawing, which sadly is something I haven't really done for a while due to being quite busy recently. I was even polishing up some drawing in the class today!

Overview of Personal Development in Specialist Pathway

During my time at college I have learned so much in my creative skills and using digital media and software to express my creative skills, which have expanded and grown so much over the past few years, and this has helped me to produce work I am proud of. I still feel there is room for improvement, but I have always done my best with every project, even when I haven’t fully understood what it is I need to do. Some of my favourite projects I have worked on, which could help me decide what I am going to make, include a dragon mascot for a football team, a trading card franchise, an angel character and a futuristic sleigh kart image for a Christmas card.

It is very exciting that I will be learning lots of new things for my final project, as well as using the skills I have learned during my time at college, and it will be a satisfying and rewarding end to my time at college.

Career's meeting/Work Placement (27/01/14-28/01/14)

I had arranged a meeting with the person who organised my work placement to discuss possible options  for after I finish college, which took place on Monday (27/01/14). I did find this meeting very useful, and because now that this person is aware that I am now considering what to do after my time at college, they can now help me further into finding this. This also made me aware that I have a lot more options than I thought I had, which was very reassuring. They also said that I could always volunteer at the school my placement is taking place after my placement officially finishes until I find something different that will help me find a future career. I think right now, even though most people my age seem to be at Uni, I don't really want to go to Uni, as I feel I would find it too much for me to get used to.

My placement has been going well, and I do feel I have tried my best on my placement, and I feel it has truly been a success. My art therapy sessions I organise for the children at the special school my work placement takes place are very well received, and I feel I have a good working relationship with the students and staff, which does make me feel really good. I do sometimes find it hard to explain things on my work placement, and the children sometimes find it hard to understand, and I feel I'm still not used to the authority I have there, and I really don't want to get frustrated with the children, but overall it has been a very positive experience so far.

Tutorial Competition RESEARCH

In this part of the research, I will be looking at different video tutorials, mainly relating to my work at college, to help me to understand how to explain things in a friendly and detailed way, and I may learn some new skills I can use in my work while doing so.

3D World Disc 147 Oct 2011, Future Publishing

On this disc included a Fluid tutorial in Maya 2012. The guide creates some flowing water coming from a very impressive looking fountain.

The guide's approach to the tutorial is casual, and feels like he is talking naturally. He sometimes backtracks (e.g. "I need to do this first"), and shows us work he has done previously, but is still very informative. Also, because this is a Maya tutorial, this is quite accurate to what I am aiming for. However, I'm not very confident with fluid techniques, so I'm not sure whether I will include this in my tutorials, unless I do end up building something that involves fluids, such as fountains or waterfalls in my tutorials. It is useful that the guide goes through the tutorial step by step and that you can see how he is making the fluid effects in Maya.

3D World Disc 160, Oct 2012, Future Publishing

Texturing Game Props

On this DVD I found two video tutorials. The first video tutorial showed how to create a stereoscopic image using V Ray in 3DS Max, a program very similar to Maya, but since I will be using Maya in my tutorials, I may not include this in my tutorial. This video was 2 minutes long, so very to the point, but one thing that really bothered me about this video was that there was no sound, even though I turned my laptop and my laptop's video player onto maximum volume. Having no sound on a video tutorial was a major hindrance, and I feel that without somebody talking on the video, regardless of how their voice sounds, makes the video tutorial much easier to follow, and I feel that if I needed to use a tutorial with no audio, I would probably find myself watching it several times before fully understanding what it is I need to do.

The second video tutorial showed how to control feathering using a variable mask in After Effects, which again is a program I don't use and is a topic that I probably won't cover in my video tutorials, but it seems simple enough. This video did however have audio, with somebody talking through the tutorial, explaining what he was doing. This definitely made the tutorial much easier to follow, and I'm sure this is a very useful video tutorial if I ever use After Effects. He also broke down each step to make the video tutorial easy to understand, and the end result looked quite impressive.

However, the main focus of this DVD is to learn how to create impressive textures for game props, such as tanks, cannons, vehicles etc. The DVD divides how to create these textures using 3DS Max and Photoshop into 15 video tutorials, so it's all very nicely broken down. Since it's about texturing, I have had to texture my models many times before, so texturing may feature in my video tutorials. The guide also shows the end result at the start of the video tutorial, which can be a good thing, so that the audience will know what they will be working towards, and this can really help motivate people, which is certainly ideal for a tutorial. The guide is also very thorough, making five "lessons" (video tutorials) showing how to UV map each part of his model (a cannon for a game). He then discusses the UV Layout, bringing all of his UV Maps together. In part 8 the guide shows how to "render" the UV Maps ready to go into Photoshop, ready to edit, which is all something I've done before in Maya. However, his UV Maps look so much more professional than anything I've ever done, and he makes it look so easy and quick, whilst I find it really time consuming! He then just basically designs the textures for the UV Maps in Photoshop, and uses many different Photoshop skills to do so, and includes photographic images for certain details for his texture map. I think this video is even giving me tips on how to improve my texturing! Cannons also seem quite simple to model, so modelling a cannon could be an idea for my video tutorials! Finally, he applies the textures to his cannon model in 3DS Max! This is also a very good tutorial for newcomers to texturing, and this is the sort of level I'm thinking I would aim my tutorials at.

Maya Techniques: MELbot Wars: Virtual Fighting Robots, July 2004, Alias/Wavefront, Kolektiv

This DVD shows how to make a robot wars style fighting game, using two very simple robot models in Maya, so this is a really good idea to base my video tutorials on. The guide even shows you the simple basics, to build simple polygons, and has a bit of everything in this video tutorial. A very basic idea, very good for getting beginners used to Maya. However, I did find the pace of this video a bit slow, even for a beginner tutorial, so

Maya Seminars: Anatomy of a Maya Character, July 2004, Alias/Wavefront.

Very technical, so definitely not for beginners. However, speaks very clearly.
As title suggests, not an actual tutorial, but a recording of a seminar. This seminar teaches us many details of character rigging, so that your characters are ready to animate. Uses slides to help explain the seminar, but goes into great detail of the slides, even if it is in technical terms. Brief details on slides, but speaker expands on the slides, to give audience a better understanding of the seminar. The seminar is presented by Maya Developer Barbara Balents. The recording often switches from the slides to Barbara speaking herself. She sometimes shows signs of nerves, such as using the phrase "you know," and using her hands to speak, but I feel that presenting a seminar or being in a situation where you have to speak in front of a large group of people can be quite daunting and definitely does take a lot of courage.

My course leader, Neil said that he had actually used this DVD in his research in the past as well, and told me to look out in the DVD for something called the Component Editor, which he said was a different kind of rigging. I may look further into this, because I might find more detailed information about the Component Editor elsewhere.

I feel that this can be quite difficult to follow, because even though it is informative, the seminar doesn't really offer much in terms of a live demonstration of what is being explained, which I feel would have made the seminar a lot better and easier to understand. There are also lots of graphs and coding shown on the slides, which is visually unappealing and not fun, and I would like to try and make my tutorials as fun as possible. However, I feel that this tutorial applies more to people studying coding and programming than the creative side of Maya, and I am focusing more on the creative side of Maya.

Also, before the seminar, Barbara listed everything she would talk about in the seminar, something I feel would make my tutorials much clearer, if I can edit text into my video.

Art Attack

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F329Rxp7NjE

Something I remember from my childhood that could help greatly in terms of presenting my video tutorials in this project is the children’s TV programme Art Attack. The aim of this show is to get children interested in arts and crafts and being creative by showing the audience how to make art in a very fun kind of way.

The presenter, Neil Buchannan (who was also born on the same day as my mum) would show the audience what art product he was making (in this instance, a “Halloween monster”) and told the audience how to make it by a step by step process. 

One thing I find particularly interesting, which I could do in my own video tutorials, is how the guides were presented. What would happen is that Neil would show an example of how to achieve each step, but then, probably to keep the show at a reasonable length, and because some steps require preparation, he would show the completed step using another example he made earlier. I feel that this could be a possible method for me to use for my video tutorials, because a lot of things that are done in Maya can be quite time consuming, and it might not be very easy to follow if I am actually building everything as I go along. Even in the video tutorials of Maya I have watched, a lot of them have had quite a lot already built before the tutorial begins.

Also, one thing I noticed today that I didn't pay too much attention to when I was younger, was that a 3D animation is used for the title sequence, bringing many different art tools to life. Since this programme is quite old, the quality of the 3D, especially the textures aren't as good as the professional 3D of today, but I do really love the animation. Also, the quality of the 3D won't need to be worried about as much because it is a children's programme, so they might not pick up on the quality of 3D animation as much as older people.

This video is also relevant to one of my projects on my work placement, which is to design a monster based on what people find difficult. Up to now, I have just been drawing these monsters, but this video does give me ideas on ways I can improve this project, by making craft ideas as well.

The "Big Art Attacks" are really clever too. These just show you can make art from pretty much anything, and is always a good way of expressing yourself.

Neil even discussed ways you can improve on art, and also discusses how professionals work as well. Even areas such as animation is covered, as to how animators draw very simple shapes and "matchstick men," and this is also something which means a lot to me and my work. Also, in the show, to show possibilities of each project, Neil shows different results of each project, which shows that you can still follow these guidelines and still be imaginative with the project.

This show also does well with trying to relate to the younger target audience. This is shown by the language used by Neil during the show which would appeal to children, such as "bogey green" and "babyish" to help explain what he was doing.

The show also lets the audience submit some of their work, and Neil shows several highlights in each episode, which is another way the show is appealing.