What to focus on...I'm two years into school and after this quarter ends begins my final 4 quarters(year) of school. I looked back at all my work form school and I have one piece that I think is okay. I don't really know what my focus should be, characters or environments.
And the thing is I don't think I'm really good at either. So I need to spent the next year really becoming badass at whatever it may be.I really enjoy making characters even though I'm not good at it, it's always fun to do. Environments are 'easy' but they're a pain to do, sure it is generally fun but it's more work than fun in my opinion. Also being a member of such forums as gameartisans and cgsociety everyone on those forums are great character artists and I feel like if you cant make awesome chars then your not a cg artist.You can be an awesome environmental artist but who really cares? it's never the thing that's impressive. And so I've been thinking and still don't know what to focus on.....
I feel that characters are the coolest and most fun thing to do. But Job wise is very hard to get into. Environment you have a much higher chance of getting into a AAA studio/developer but I feel it's not as rewarding, it's not like when the game comes out you can be proud to say you made that wall texture or you made that building. And I say that because environment, more so to props(tables chairs walls buildings etc) are not really artsy or creative, it's just something that's expected in the game/movie. But you see a vehicle, cool gun, or character that's creative and artsy.
As an intern artist at Isopod Labs I make environment assets for xbox live games. And it just doesn't feel too creative or rewarding. Sure it's cool to see something you made in a game but it's not filling the artsy/creative side of it. I see plenty of awesome environmental art from friends or just on the web but like I said it's never that impressive. yes it is a tremendous amount of work, yes the artist is skilled but it just doesn't feel creative...I don't really know where I'm going with this so yeah, bottom line is still dunno what to focus on...
unto other things, watched Starship Troopers 3. It's not as good as the first but a million times better than the second. In this one Johnny Rico is back. For this film they upped the satire like 300%. But that is what SST is about satire and parody of real world stuff. I found it entertaining for what it was. The visual effects weren't bad for a straight to dvd low budget film. Though I really wondered why the warrior bugs were animated so weird. They was they moved and ran/walk wasn't like the last two. I'd assume they'd have access to the original models and rigs of the first. Cause the walk animations were very stiff and didn't have that bug like walk to it. So anyway if you're a fan of the series it's like 7/10 in my opinion. If you were never a fan of SST you can skip it.