Work breakdown

Doing this ribcage, I think there were a few spots that I could've added a bit more shadow, allowing more depth to be shown. There are some areas where I felt that I did a really good job with it. Area's of improvment would be line control and some more depth with shadowing.

Another one where I had difficulty with line control. This was from clothed figure drawing class, understanding folds. A lack of detail on the folds, correct shading would of made this really pop. This was a caricature that we got to do at the end of our semester.

I feel I did well on these, they were about 5-10 min sketchs, bottom left the upper jaw/mandible shows great depth, I believe I worked from right to left, top down on this one, so the bottom left one was the last one I drew, being left handed, and it shows that even though it was a quick sketch, that one has a bit lacking detail. 

This was a study off of Michelangelo's work. I put a lot of time and effort into this one, I feel that it came out really well, a few hard lines down in the calf area and abdominal area could of shown a bit more care.

  With the leg, the proportion was off by a little bit, and the heel being a bit to large, I think I had decent line control here. It was a great indicator showing the upper and lower leg muscles.

I have good line control, proportions are pretty close, lack of detail in the hands and getting the face correct are issues that I had/have with this one and others.

Dynamic hand poses, it really stressed my ability to draw these in the very unique poses that they were, more shadowing in them would've made them really pop. The line control on these was decent, if done properly, it would've helped with the depth.

Another study off of  Michelangelo, the guy on the right I feel I nailed, I put a lot of time into this one, so when I started to draw the second one, I knew afterwards the proportions were off, I adjusted and tried to fix and make as best as possible. 

This wraps up my conventional drawings. From here I will be posting my digital work, from models to screenshots of levels/design.

From here, the thing that stands out the most for me, would be textures, and it is something that will be a constant throughout my work for that is one of my weak points in my eyes. You can see the wireframe, which shows you the topology, and its decent, though it could use some a bit more work inside the joint areas. And of course as it stands to show, most of my work is low poly work. Though I don't think it is a negative point that I don't have any high poly.

Here, my normals are not popping like I would like them to, the topology shows a bit more for the joints, and texture wise, very lacking. I would say that the anatomy is a bit off, biceps should be raised into the shoulder a bit more. I was going off of my perception of what a dwarf would look like, so in that regards, I wanted a very broad shoulder/chest.

Here we have a really low poly model, topology shows once again, need more edges/verts inside the joints. Knowing that I did animate him for a game, I can tell you the legs and groin area could use a bit of an adjustment, allowing better bending/blending of the animations.

Other then the obvious lack of textures. The wireframe shows that cylinder polys are not 4 edge polys! I think texturing the following two models would really make them pop. I would like to add a bit more geometry to them, and finishing them to the concept that I have in mind.

Just another one, that holds true to the same critique the last one had.

It sounds redundant, but textures, textures, textures! Topology shows that a few polys are more then 4 edges!

Textures! This one I was playing around with bumps, so there was no normal's on this. I know how to create normals on organic/humanoid but hard surface I have just begun dappling in.

Sticking to a artistic theme is my big issue here, As I continued working on this one, my style changed due to learning the Unity game engine, on its limits. Textures of course, that is a obvious one.

Normals don't pop! Lack of detail from the texture. Wireframe shows topology lacking the necessary edges on the joints.

Lack of texture details. The normals did pop a bit more on here, but the lack of speculars did not help. Wireframe shows again that edges are lacking on joints. Facial texturing is completely missing. He was designed for a 3rd person melee/ranged so you would've never seen his face.

 Gears of War level design: There are a few areas where it is somewhat obvious that after the cutoff point, you can tell there is nothing there. I worked on optimizing this one, to keep it down, low level poly buildings with Lod's going on, to help establish it to seem like the city. Path finding and some scripted events I think were still bugged.

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Topology shows that its weak in the joints, specifically the shoulders, if they are attached, it is hard for this model to have an animation tied to them. Lack of textures.

Self Reflection

To start off, I need to go back to the point where I first was exposed to video games, this is where the first thoughts of my mind started to churn about video games, both in playing them, and in a few short years to creating them.

I was young like most when first introduced to games, I was five or six years old but in my case we would only really play them during the winter months. My parents had a restriction on them that only when it got to be 30 degrees outside could we play video games. So it was then and from that point on that my love for video games started. I played many games from that point, ones that were of interest in my life include Hero quests, Quest for Glory, Kings Quest which the last one was a intro into the 3d gaming genre, and then from there Age of Empires to Diablo and Diablo 2. There have been so many games that I have played, I would have to say that the one that I really don't have a huge interest is in Sports, it was always a thing that I would rather do, which I was able to do rather then play. Though if I would have just played them on a console or pc, I probably wouldn't of had the injuries and consequences that lead from them.

I didn't finish High School, I dropped out in my junior year, seeing no interest in any of the classes. I went into the workforce then, doing Heating and Cooling for 2 years, worked slowed there with not making much, and I went to work for Carver Yachts at that time. Doing metal fab for another 2 years. I was at a point where I saw no chance that I wanted to spend my life doing factory work, or even tradesman job. Before I dropped out of High School I went online and did some looking around for anything dealing with Game Design then, and at that time there wasn't many options, with money being a number 1 concern, I couldn't afford DigiPen or FullSail, for those two were really the only options.

But, thankfully, and I can say that I was happy with the education that I received from ITT-Tech at that time. Ben Giesler just was recently hired there, and he wrote/developed an entirely new curriculum. More to the standards of what was needed to get hired on straight from school. In fact, upon his arrival, the first batch of students that graduated 3 out of the 5 were hired on. One was hired and is currently still working at HighMoon Studios.

I pushed pretty hard on the last 2 years of the degree, for the first 2 it was more about learning the programs, 3dsMax, flash, director, Photoshop, illustrator, and the following 2 years was around the pipeline and learning a game engine to create something for your portfolio. I was selected out of our class to intern 9 months prior graduation, where I was a QA for 3 months. After the 3 months I was then hired as a Teaching assistant. Now you may be wondering why I would go from QA to TA? Well, QA wasn't a paid job, while the TA was and it was good money while I finished school. Prior to graduation, I was hired on as a Adjunct Instructor, and from there I developed a love for teaching. Giving more ambition to continue teaching sometime down the road.

I am continuing my education to develop my artistic abilities and to obtain my Masters for a personal goal. I would love to get a job in the field, and I would love to be able to create my own games instead of following someone else's dreams. Though the experience I would cherish also as I learn more about the field I love so much.