Same shit, different media

» Written on January 22, 2011 at 7:22 PM «

This semester has certainly wasted no time in dumping on the assignments. Strangely, while the workload is definitely less, I find myself much more stressed than usual. Perhaps it’s been my recent re-discovery of the concept of procrastination, that wonderful indulgence which, much like smoking, leaves you gasping for breath, utterly exhausted, after having experienced its throes.

Some would probably disagree and say that’s sex. Anyway.

Discipline, of course, is a major part of my life here: it’s that which keeps the apartment in a relative state of cleanliness, the factor which drives me through the walk for groceries (although the threat of starvation does play a part in that as well, I must admit), the force that compels me to continue through certain classes which, for lack of time, I shall refer to as completely contemptuous both in concept and content.

What comes to mind at that curious phrase, I wonder? Perhaps it’s three hours of meaningless, rudimentary acting concepts, without any real analysis or observation of character movement and actions. Perhaps it’s three hours of going over the Writer’s Journey, with protagonists, antagonists, and lo! It’s literature classes all over again, only this time modified into a “for dummies” version, devoid of any real deeper substance, and consequently of zero help to my pursuits.

Which, as of late, have not really been pursued, per se. Observe:

A still life, for my Tone, Colour and Composition class. This is why I hate working on large format (18×24″), because it really screws me up when I have to get things right in perspective, since I love working close to my canvas. My tutor told me that my mark-making (i.e. my pencil strokes) were pretty sloppy, which is true: I’m mostly spoiled by being able to redo any stroke I want at any time all my life, so whenever I work in real life I tend to slow down and get very nervous about laying down a line, which affects the final quality.

Another still life that I had to work on, on a smaller format size. Basically a tonal study. Yes, I was doing studies like these all last semester as well; it just goes to show that practice doesn’t really make perfect in some cases.

And a part of our first assignment for the new, upgraded Biology class: to illustrate a fantasy man, with orthographics and all. I’m actually very unhappy with this, because I had the original idea of doing a Silent Hill-esque sick-as-shit character, but then I totally forgot once I was at my apartment and just drew a generic man, then started adding  all sorts of generic motifs to his body. By the time I remembered my original idea, I was almost done (I took about 2 hours total for the perspective one). And yes, I do my main character concept before working on the orthographics, because I hate orthographic studies: I already know what he looks like from every angle, why the hell should I have to illustrate it further unless I’m going to hand it off to a 3d modeler?

In any case, between this and animation class (which, thankfully, has become much easier since I started bringing my tablet PC to class instead of animating the traditional way), things are, at least, much better than Semester 1 was.

Not to say there isn’t room for improvement, of course. On both sides.

   

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