Week 1 - Leicester Canal, Modelling Furniture + Weapons & Life Drawing

Visual Studies

During this first week of my Visual Studies, I was tasked with experimenting and improving my understanding of One Point Perspective. I began by drawing small, thumbnail sketches of a nearby canal, most using pencil and some using fine liners. My aim was to have at least 15 sketches. Here are 2 of my first sketches.
 
While drawing at the canal, I noticed how my focus on detail began to change. I focused on more important features such as perspective, tones and the actual shape of the environment/objects in front of me. I chose more carefully what I drew and at the same time minimised my mark making. I enjoyed this part the most, as it made my drawings clearer. This helped me draw more thoughtfully and my quick sketches turned into more accurate and confident ideas. 

After I've done enough thumbnails (18 in total), I moved onto choosing the most interesting area from them. I then revisited it, to draw a larger and more detailed piece to present as my final drawing. The final piece was drawn in full A4 size. Areas such as trees and clouds were drawn in less detail, compared to the bridge and buildings. This was because I focused on the canal and its surrounding architecture.

Game Production

Now during my first week of Game Production, I was taught the basic tools and techniques on 3DS Max 2014. I really enjoyed this learning process, as it involved making and customising objects, the first session involved making a table and chair set. Using this 3D software was becoming easier and at the same time allowed me to make more complex models. The first image below shows the set we made as part of our tutorial while the other shows my version.

Here I moved onto a more detailed object, a war hammer. Building it in 3DS Max has taught me enough to be able to make my own weapons, like a machete and a battle axe. The machete and battle axe proved to be the more difficult to make, as I was trying to make these looks as detailed as possible, while trying to avoid having too many segments. 



Life Drawing

It wasn't my first attempt, as I have drawn from life numerous times before. But my past experience was not enough to make this drawing session any easier. It was a tough challenge to draw a humans body to me before and it always will be. There are just too many different combinations of proportions/shapes in a person's body, for me to understand it perfectly. There's always something new I learn, every time I attempt it.

The drawings in my class were timed, roughly 5 minutes spent for each. This was just another way challenge me, as I needed to mark down the basic proportions of my subject and then within this time draw all the body parts.

I was fairly satisfied with my first drawing, as even though it wasn't completed, I still managed to mark down the models body shape. On the following drawing, I managed to be a bit quicker, but another challenge came up and slowed me down here, the models body was slanted forward towards me. It was a very tricky pose, which I don't remember drawing before and I needed to spend more time on planning it out on my paper. In the end I was more focused and ended up finishing most of my third drawing. I even added a few tonal marks to create some depth.