Review

   Explain the journey you have gone through in this past academic year - perhaps through the previous year as well. What were the greatest milestones of your learning? How do you feel you have developed as an artist? Explain how you have decided on your specialism – was it a turning point in a specific project? Have you always identified as a specific type of artist? If so, how have you developed and furthered your skills to get to this point? Explain how your journey has ended up here, with this idea, for this final major project.

    During this year I’ve learnt many new things, from how to composite and edit videos during the James Bond opening sequence, to how to rig and animate a character, and how to design and pitch an idea for a game.  My greatest milestone this year was learning how to animate and also some of the basics principles of animation, for example how to pose characters and use the action line, also how to use anticipation movements in our animations. During these 2 years, I think I’ve specialized more on 3D modelling, mainly because I find this part the most enjoyable, and also something that I’ve encountered in most on my projects. By practicing it during our projects and in my free time, I’ve improved my modelling skills, and I will continue to do so. I ended up with this idea, by wanting to create something that is not generic or a cliché, so I’ve started researching some of the famous artists, the old masters, and came up with the idea for my final major project

Project Concept & Proposed Artist Statement

   This is where you explain your FMP project idea and concept. Be specific about what you intend to communicate and what you hope to achieve by producing this work. How will your work engage or affect your audience and what will they discover by interacting with or viewing your work? Describe the theme/concept of your work – is it based on fact or fiction? Are you creating or reacting to a mood, an emotion, a sense of atmosphere or sensation? What is the title of your Project? What will you work towards producing? What will be your final outcome?

   Through out the years, famous artists had different interpretations and styles of the female form, from the Italian Renaissance master Giorgione, “Sleeping Venus” (1508-1510), to Picasso’s “Le Rêve” (1932) a Cubism painting, and also Lucian Freud’s expressionism painting “Benefits Supervisor Sleeping” (1995). My intention is to continue this tradition, and interpret the female form in my own way, only in a 3D digital version, the same way Lucian Freud reinterpreted “Sleeping Venus”. While continuing the tradition, I also want my work to send a message to the viewer, a message about the dangers and traps of our modern days, the unhealthy lifestyle many of us are living, and don’t fully understand the menace in front of our eyes.

   I will model an overweight woman, which will be composited into real life footage of our class. She will have a pose close to the “Sleeping Venus”, and will be lying on the floor, sleeping. Objects from our time period will also be present, objects like an iPhone, energy drinks, and fast food. These will be one of the ways with which I will try to send a message to the viewer. Another Influence would be Ron Mueck, an Australian sculptor that specializes in hyperrealist, an example would be the sculpture named “A Girl” (2006). I will use his main signature move, of exaggerating the size of his work.

   The title I believe would suit this, would be “Hidden in plain sight”, a title which refers to the theme of my project, and also guide the viewer towards this.  I believe this project will be a step forward in my process of becoming a 3D artist, and I’m sure I will learn new techniques and sharpen my current skills in the making of it.

Methods

  Refer to any techniques and processes you intend to use. Describe the range of media and materials relevant to your project and how you may use them to explore and develop your ideas. Include aspects of studio practice, workshop procedures or the use of particular equipment and software etc. In the timetable, provide an indicative timescale for your project and indicate the manner in which you intend to divide your time in order to investigate, develop, produce and evaluate your project appropriately. This should be a meaningful plan to you and should be personalised to your project.

   For this project I will be using Maya for the base modelling and UVs, along with any maps I will be using for the character, such as displacement maps, reflection and subsurface scattering ones. Mudbox will be used for the final mesh, creating the actual displacement and bump map, and also for painting the textures. Photoshop will be used to create these textures, Syntheyes for the tracking of the footage I will record, and After Effects for compositing and blending everything together. Before I start working on this, I will plan my timetable and will also create some sketches of the character and background, and create the colour scheme I will be using.

Evaluation

  How will you critically review and analyse your work and determine if it is successful? How will you identify directions for ongoing development? Do you have a method to record the critical response to your ideas? How do you propose to assess the success of your Final Major Project and what will be your methods of evaluation?

   While working on this project, I will continuously ask for feedback from my classmates, teachers and any other source of reliable feedback I find. Then, when my work is complete, I will present it again to some of my teachers and classmate, but also try to find people which aren’t familiar with our kind of work, and ask for their opinion, and what kind of message my work sends to them. Doing these I will gather enough external criticism to help me consider whether my final outcome was successful or not.