So Dom, how did you find Round Two?

The second year has concluded after all, despite being a month longer than the previous, it's gone just as quickly. After tomorrow's disk is handed in I will be without cause until October. At this time the only agenda I have to occupy me into next year is returning to work to restore the damage in my overdraft, but there is a lot more I can occupy my time with, and no I ain't referring to 'catching up' on games!

As higher education university serves as a purpose of expanding our existing knowledge and bringing to a level in which we are able to take it successfully into the working world. In addition to that it also serves as a opportunity to those who spend over thousands of pounds to get in and then fritter and piss the time away. There are those, including my parents, who will always say you should make the most of your uni experience, like join societies, clubs and attend social events. Quite frankly I couldn't  care for anything that is outside of my course, at an early stage I made the decision that I would not have the time for such commitments and given how these past two years have transpired, I feel it was a good decision, since I know that all my course mates are all in the same position as me and I know I'm not missing out on anything.

Yes I finally succumbed to the use of gifs! I tasted it, and I like it!

My time here is what I make of it, and what I intend to get out of this is the knowledge of exiting techniques of software used in the industry as well as the ability to adapt should I be flung into an unfamiliar atmosphere.

At the beginning of the year I made a note in a blog what I had hoped to achieve, so let's see what I can tick off and which one's I'll just reply with an awkward silence.

Photoshop Promotion: Since last year I have leant more of the short cuts and techniques within PS that have helped save me time and made texture making and digital painting more efficient.

Choice of brushes: I've invested (downloaded) heavily in new sets of brushes, which have proven to be vey beneficial in certain pieces of work, the grunge brushes that were shared for the group project above all, I used them for replicating Turners style for the Masters project. My sunsets came out very nicely.

Yet occasionally I swap from brush to brush too often, and I have been told that in some cases the brushes are as important as I had imagined them to be, and that I could achieve what I'm doing with a smaller palate. Something I will try out.

Zbrush: Despite leaving it a bit late in my schedule for Mortal Engines, I learnt the navigation and brushes system within Z-brush rather quickly. I see how it an effective alternative to sculpting normal maps.

Perspective: Totally mastered it.

But no, here and there it has been a bit off, most recently and most notable my interior project, but it was down to my choice of layout.

See? I could just have easily settled for something more linear!

Hand painted textures: There have been times where I haven't been able to source my own textures without resorting to plagiarism, so in some cases I can produced wood and metal textures which have come out quite nicely when compared to internet reference.

Characters: Despite the fact that the two projects for characters were for ones I was very familiar with, one being myself, I felt that they were not portraying their character enough due to their composition. In short, the issue for me was the faces, throughout the 4 weeks of the self portrait I was constantly editing my head, adjusting jawline and  so on.

So until the next year, there are several things that I would like to address. I am still steering in the direction of environmental art, so to prove this I will next more evidence to justify this statement.

Character Improvement: Despite this not being my chosen field I wish to improve my current standing in this area, my idea is to do something similar to the Dmuga Speedtacular with an associated word and made someone from it?

Website/portfolio: I wish to revive and restore my old website which I set up during the Key Stage 3 years. Now I reckon you're expecting me to provide a link to its current state.

It's just too embarrassing, it's essentially the equivalent of an All about me Powerpoint, sort of thing you'd do when you start secondary school. Now I am fully aware that there are websites out there like http://carbonmade.com/ and http://portfolio.deviantart.com/ that can do all the technical shit for you, and I know web design is an entirely different field, but I enjoyed working with Dreamweaver.

Back to work = £££

FMP considerations: We've all asked ourselves this, sometimes rhetorically, but I have some rough ideas for the setting of the level, and of course this big 'break' will be a good chance to gather reference that I may not be able to acquire during term time.

So DMUGA has kept me challenged, mentally and never physically :P, once again. The group project was a tremendous opportunity and I'm glad you coaxed out leader into going for it, when else would we get this chance? On which note we have noted what to add to it over the summer, so that's something else for the list.

Here's to another year eh?