The project is finally done and it would be silly to say nothing went wrong (when it did). Not everything was at a complete loss though. As a matter of fact, things turned out a lot better than I thought it would (excluding the stress of course). Before going into detail, maybe I should elaborate what went wrong and what exactly went right.
The Wrongs:
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When I first started the project I had high hopes for a character. I tried to carefully plan this out and make something that I can obviously do. However, the process wasn't as simple as I thought it was going to be. Nothing in life will be given to you, and I expected to do hard work in return, but I did not expect to have problems arise non-stop over simple matters.
My biggest concern was the program. I was never really good at 3D Modeling, since I never thought I would be a modeler in general. Like I said in previous posts, it's very difficult for me to think in a 3-Dimensional layout when I've often find myself thinking in 2D. I had to overcome using this program by trying to think in just that. If you really put it into context, 3DS Max can be multiple frames of 2D to make things easier for you to understand (Front, Side, Top, Back). It is nothing more than just working with a series of pictures to make something appear to be 3D.
Another problem I kept on having was making things a little too literal. I love vector art, and I like that it is incredibly precise, but that didn't help me when it came to making a human-like character. We all know that a human is not just a bunch of straight lines. In fact, it has more shape and it appears to be more round. It was unfortunate to note that each of my models in the beginning followed the same formula... a blocky mess. I just didn't get how to make it seem round with the method we were going with until I messed around a little bit more. I noticed instead of pulling the verts from a box, it was best to do so with an already morphed shape (such as a cylinder). It helped quite a bit and allowed me to make this newly created model.
The Rights:
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Even if the overall process didn't go as well as I hoped I think I learned quite a bit from it. In order to do well or to fully understand you need a little bit of stress in your life to reflect the hardships. I got frustrated multiple times with the multiple errors I made, but as I look back on it, each time I made a new model there was improvement. I got better overall even if it didn't seem like it. One thing I will say that went the best was my overall understanding of the process.
I can now understand how much work is placed into making just one character, and how much devotion you need in order to make that character really come to life. I am generally happy with the process so far, and glad I was able to get to this point. Other than that it was an excellent experience and just helps me to become that much better of a modeler (even if I consider myself a 2D artist).
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