Wednesday, June 1, 2016

MFA year 1 Complete

This post is coming late….but I guess you should be use to that by now.

The semester ended and I couldn’t have been happier. By the last 2 weeks I was doing 2-3 all-nighters a week and really long days the rest of the time.

In order: 

3D Modeling: turned out a lot better than I thought it would. Texturing was a bear, and when I did the print for class a ink blot streaked….twice. I was convinced that I was only just scraping by in the class, that Kane wouldn’t like the final product, that the texting was wrong or the shadows too dark.




But he actually loved the piece! He liked the modeling details and the relaxed detail areas. Liked the angle and the suggestions of alleyways. Liked my town center and all the carts and barrels….even my little peg people I used as scale reference.

End grade: A

Animation: was a miracle it got done. The biggest hurdle was that Pratt didn’t have Cinema 4D anywhere and my student copy only let me export at a max size of 800x600. Thankfully I still had a friend at my old college (Ringling) and she was amazing enough to export everything I needed and get the files back to me.

Thank you Victoria and GoogleDrive.

So the animation finally got together. I finished up that blog and online videos of the final thing are still currently locked since Im applying to different festivals at the moment. Maybe by December it can unlock, so of now here is a still.

This is actually the bad guy at the end of the animation
End grade: A

Teaching: was always different from everything else at Pratt. For a final we had to write a 20 page paper on our observations of 2 of the kids we taught, or observed, over the semester. You also had to have some question you where trying to answer about them through the observation. I did mine very different from everyone else in that my question was “Is the cartoon animation style of today influencing the child’s art style in a 3D aspect.” 

The long and short of it was, yes. I also pointed out in the paper how US animated cartoon shows have very similar styles and designs. 

Overall it was an interesting class. I defiantly learned a lot and say teaching art in a different way then I perceived it to be.

End grade: A-

Model Shop: was a confusing joke. I took the class because I thought I could learn different techniques to create miniatures and fabrication that went with it. In actuality we just had lectures on materials and processes - which are very important to the other 8 people in the class but I found most classes very boring.

Then the final - you might remember the prototype I showed in the last post. I was going to make that for real to submit for final. But I walk into the second to last class and the teacher comes in saying its actually the last day! I freak for a bit since I don't have the piece with me or even actually started, then he says that I never had to make it in the first place and that nothing needs to be submitted at all.

What?

Yeah, that was basically the class.

End grade: A

StoryBoarding: okay I guess. It was mainly just projects and reviewing projects, and watching his animations or film clips he found that illustrated something he was talking about. There wasn’t much direction in the class which I was fine with, but the undergraduates weren’t happy since they hardly knew anything when starting out.

For the final we had to make a board-a-matic for something 1-4 minutes long. I decided to record my parents talking about the evolution of their relationship as it started in high school. It had simple drawings, nothing as detailed as I normally made for the class, but I was doing 3 of them plus getting my thesis presentation ready.



End grade: A

Seminar II: stressful to the end. The animation was subtle and had to be re-worked several times to look decent, the colors had to be changed half way through, and I realized I didn’t agree with the character design in general for my main boy about a week before the full factually critique.

I don’t ave much I can show you since the files are on my other drive at school, but I can tell you about the presentation I gave.

So this presentation was more or less a “This is what I really want to do for thesis and Here is where I’m at” type of thing. Many where not good, but I think that my actual presentation went well - at least I had everything and was quick about it. I got 3 main notes from them that could potentially change the story a great deal. I really do have to start working on it soon, but I needed some time away from it for a bit.

After all, it is summer.

End grade: B+

Final Semester GPA: 3.82

Overall: 3.85



Well thats all the school stuff for now. 

I didn’t end up getting an internship again this summer even though I applied to over 40 places. I’m really hoping things look better come graduation.

For the moment I’m back home in New Jersey with my parents. My brother is at his internship by my grandmother’s house so is staying there, one sister is currently in Rome for a month and the other is in Spain for the next 2 months.

Like I said, I needed a break form thesis but I’ll be starting up again in the next few weeks since there are a few things I want to get done by September.


Till Later!