Wednesday 16 September 2015

New Year New Plans

    The second year of my computer animation course is starting soon and with that comes a return to daily posting, fresh work and fresh ideas. The first year had taught me that in the field of creative arts, presence is everything in order to get a good start in post-university life. So the coming of a new year has encouraged me to come up with a few plans in order to sort myself out. What I plan can be divided into two categories: The New (in which I start doing things), and the revived (in which I pick up what I once started but may have slowed down with).

    Because there's a possibility that the new year will be as tense if nor more as last year regarding deadlines and productivity rate, I have tried my best to mould the reforms to harmonise with my work hours but there's no guarantee as I can expect a very busy year. 

The New

Livestreams

    Honestly ever since I started watching a couple of artists' livestreams a couple of years ago I wondered if it was an avenue for me. For the longest time though there was the question of when was best to livestream as the time can determine the audience. My thoughts are broadcasting on Saturday or perhaps Sunday evenings where I will stream digital painting work, but maybe also 3D modelling work, depends how things go. Although in terms of spreading presence, more times would logically mean more viewers.

    The content will vary but what I can confirm is the content will be streamed though Twitch TV and depending on work schedules will be a mix of unclassified project work, fan-art and personal pieces. The content itself I will endeavor to keep child-friendly (in the mature content sense, the portrayal of scary monsters and creepy environments will be unaffected).


Time-Lapse Creation

    This ties in with livestreaming and will be a companion for my YouTube channel. Like livestreaming this was inspired by the popularity of artists' time-lapse videos as well as Let's Plays. These time-lapses will be condensed versions of either the livestream videos or projects outside broadcasting hours where creating sessions will be condensed and sped up from 2-8 hours to up to 15 minutes (longer if I get the right things in order, but half an hour will be a cap).


Better Synchronisation

    Along with this blog I have a few other accounts and profiles that I use and thinking about it, apart from the Twitter account to the right they're not very well connected. Looking on the blog it's a little challenging to work out I also put stuff on YouTube, Scribd, Vimeo, Google+ and Facebook. So what I will look into is a bar or section at the top or side of the blog that provides links to these other sites. And if available these other sites will have clear links back to the blog.

    I've been on two Young Enterprise workshop weeks and one of my favourite video games is more of a hyper-realistic business simulator. How I am only now trying to get the hang of this stuff is a  little bit of a mystery.

The Revived

Sketching

    Honestly I tried to get the hang of sketching once a day but it was harder than it seems with a busy lifestyle, But recently I was looking though one of several how to draw guides in my personal library when I stumbled upon the Latin proverb Nulla dies sine linea, "no day without a line." Being an enthusiast in history I was struck with enthusiasm by the proverb and on a Friday visit to London I took up my pencil while on the train and at St. Pancras and drew. Mostly images intended to be logos that don't really relate to anything on the course but got my brain working nonetheless. I'll explain in a more related post.

    So I have decided to look into adding nulla dies sine linea to my list of personal mantras (My Latin's not great but for me the it rolls off the tongue better than the English version) and now that my printer-scanner is plugged in and working again I can get back to presenting my sketches.


YouTube Channel

    Last year I made the rather foolish decision of using a freshly-created YouTube channel "Mark's Moving Arts" as a dumping ground for work-in-progress animations, tests, animated tutorial creations and final presentations. I regret that now

    That will change. I will make sure of that by the time I return to my university studies. A Mark's Moving Arts 2.0, if you will. Which will be much more organised, optimised more coherent. Especially as that is where livestream recordings and time-lapse videos will be going.


No guarantees but I will endeavor to set all this up over the rest of the week and perhaps the coming weeks. So here's hoping it all goes well.

5 comments:

  1. Good to see you getting organised Mark :)
    You are right; you have a very busy year ahead of you, with lots of fresh challenges... looking forward to seeing what you come up with!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I am both a tiny bit anxious and very exited about the coming year. But I see that as a good thing really; I'm working to get myself exited for the new and the strange because it is so much more interesting to experience.

      Delete
  2. Spelling check Mark!!! Let's hope you are getting 'excited' and not 'exited'!!! :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yeah this time the error was unawareness of how excited is spelled. My bad.

      Delete
  3. Hey Mark - and now I have some other new duties for you! Your mentoring duties begin today! I'd like you to take returning student Tyler under your wing, and likewise Robin, with whom I think you'll have lots in common - not least your encyclopaedic brains! :)

    Tyler @ http://tylercgi2.blogspot.co.uk
    Robin @ http://sakerandco.blogspot.co.uk

    ReplyDelete