Magical Folding Canoe (AKA That thing last Wednesday, and life in general)

Ah, Advice - the building block upon which the world was built. Sometimes, I wonder just who gave the first piece of advice - then I realise I don’t really care, I’m just thankful that I get any. And what could be better than advice from the Pros?

Most of it, I’ll admit, was just common sense: Be polite, work hard, get good grades, don’t send in crap-tastic work or foxes in underwear (That, shall forever be burned into my mind… and yes, Craig, I’m looking at you). But there were some serious gems in there.

I’d thought that to be accepted, you pretty much had to excel in 3D - in fact, I was a little scared. I’ll be the first to tell you that my 3D stuff isn’t great, and I struggle with it, but at least now I know that while I should still put the effort into being the best I can at it, I’ll also be judged on my 2D skills. Can anyone say ‘sigh of relief’? I know I can.

Also as we discussed the other jobs available in the art, I was interested to learn about the concept artists. I hadn’t given much thought to the position at all before, but now I think I’m going to look into it more. As I said, I feel my 2D work is my strongest asset, and if I can put that to use, then why not?

I’ve also decided, that even though I’m not in that field anymore, I’m going to keep my animation skills strong. I know it’s a weird thing to say, when they were all ‘Specialize! Specialize!’ but I’ve found myself relying on a lot of the knowledge I gained on that course lately and I feel its best to keep my options open on all accounts for the time being.

Anyway - I’ve started waffling, haven’t I?

The lecture was awesome, the guys were awesome, and the examples of Blitz’s work that they showed had me glowing green with envy. Especially the digital paint stuff. I’ve never been a whiz on Photoshop, and its something I think I’m just going to have to plough through. I’ll have to start doing that ‘speedtacular’ exercise on Facebook, and see if I improve.

All around though, it was an enlightening look into the business - though the amount of work they have to do towards deadlines scares me (just a little). If I’m honest, a lot of the topics they bought up, I’d never considered before, like going out and taking photo’s of real life. I’ve never owned a digital camera (Sure, and old disposable film one, yeah - who hasn’t? But a serious one? Never), and I’m probably the furthest thing from a photographer you will ever meet, but I’d never looked at it that way before. I suppose because even though its amazing, I take the real world for granted: ‘Oh, it’ll still be there when I need it!’ …Any body know where I can get a camera?

On other thoughts, I hate texturing. With a passion.