Monthly Archives: October 2014
I’m Halfway There… WOOHOO!
I am officially a Junior at Full Sail University…
Today marks the day that I have made it to the exact half way point of my 3 year Game Art Bachelor Degree. I am absolutely blown away at how much I have learned in the last year and a half. I knew when I started I would be learning some amazing things and would be able to do things that I never knew possible, but I am still amazed as to how much I have grown as a student and an Artist. I have had some amazing classes and some amazing teachers and met some really cool people.
My favorite part of Full Sail so far, is Networking! I have never been a big networker in my previous life because I felt I didn’t need to be. From day 1, here at Full Sail, they have preached to us about how important Networking is. Now, I thought this was just their standard information that they kind of just told everyone until I met Rob Coble. Rob came into my 2nd class and drilled it into our heads of how important this is. He told us stories of former Full Sail grads that got jobs not because of their grades, not because of their resume, not because of their demo reel, but because of the networking they did. Yes, of course all those other things are very important, but the key to all of it is Networking. I made it my mission to take what Rob said and become a great networker. Now don’t think I plan on doing nothing but networking and praying that I get a good job at the end of all this. I am working very hard to make sure EVERYTHING is in place, Grades, GPS Points, GPA, Giving 100% on everything I do, Winning Awards, Being Impressive, and Networking, so that way when this amazing journey ends, I will have that much more over my competition. I will be the best candidate for the position when the time comes.
The best part of Networking at Full Sail is the Events that they host. They bring in industry professionals to speak, do Q&A sessions, and demos, so that way we as students can hear what we will be doing very shortly. I love it when they are Full Sail Alumni too, because I know they sat in the same exact seats as me and went down this same road and had a great outcome. They come in as Rock Stars but are so humble and so willing to help out and share the knowledge of what they did to get to where they are. They also re-confirmed what Rob told us so long ago, Network! Not one person that has come to Full Sail said “I filled out an application, and they just called and I got the job” No! It has always been some sort of networking story of how they met someone along the way and they were able to help them get that job. The best part of networking is, I have made some good friends and it is awesome to see and hear what they are up to in the industry.
Report Card Time!
After 18 classes I have a 3.82 GPA. When I started I did want to try to maintain a 4.0 GPA but Geometry got me. Although I did not reach this goal I am extremely proud of myself for having such amazing grades. To go through Full Sail which is not an easy college to do great, and to get all A’s and one B is insane I think. Most of my grades are A+’s which means higher than 95% and I plan on keeping this up for the next year and a half. I want to be standing up on that stage at the end and them say my name as top of my class. I am also rocking the 100% Attendance record. Have not missed one day.
I want to also take a minute to thank everyone who has been following http://www.MyFullSailJourney.com I am humbled that so many people are interested in my dream that I am making a reality. Looking forward to keeping you guys up to date on all my exciting adventures.
Catching you back up to Speed – Some past few months of Projects and Grades.
Character Creation and Design
CDC was a pretty fun yet challenging class. It was our first real run at Zbrush. I feel pretty proud of my grades even though it wasn’t an A+ I learned a LOT about Brush and all 1 million of its buttons.
This was my final project. We had to create a detailed arm in Brush and then bring it over to Maya to re-topologize it and create a Low res arm and then place the maps of the high res arm on to the low res. Not to bad for my first run at a fully detailed arm.
Compositing Fundamentals
Compositing was an awesome class. We got to make movies! Well, kinda, just little 3 to 8 second movies. But we were doing exactly what the industry professionals do and we got to get our hands on Nuke.
My Bike was the star of my final project and I came up with the idea to put my bike in scenes that I think would be fun to ride in. It was a bit more than just plugging in my bike, we had to tweak so many options to try to make it look like it belonged in the scene. Once again another program with another million buttons to learn.
2D Animation
2D Animation was fun. Lots of drawing which really helped me get back to my roots of art. Drawing the same thing over and over many times can be a challenge even if it is a simple ball. You really have to make sure you get it as close to perfect as you can when you are doing animation because even the slightest difference in size or shape can throw a whole animation off.
Here are a few of my 2D Animations that I made into Gifs so you can view them. Please click on them so you can view in full size.
Production Modeling
Production Modeling is a class I really got into on certain projects. This class we really got to dive deep into Brush which is my favorite program so far. Even though we still have our fights, I usually win. I got to do lots of “Speed Sculpts” where we had 25 minutes to try to recreate something. It was amazing to see the different from the beginning of the class to the end in only 1 short month. I feel I really improved on my skills and plan to continue to play in Brush and become great at it.
Here is a bunch of my work in PRM but my Halo Energy Sword is what I am most proud of.
Here are a bunch of the things I made in this months class.
So there you have it. It has been a busy past few months, but I am glad that I can show you why I have been a little more quiet these past few months on here. I plan on making sure I keep everyone up to date more often and maybe even adding some other older work later. Currently I am in Animation Fundamentals, which is taking what we learned in 2D animation in traditional art and applying it to 3D animation on the computer in Maya. It is much more fun as I am not having to draw the same thing over and over and over and over… My next post will be about that. Hope you enjoyed seeing what I have been up to and PLEASE feel free to share any feedback in the comment section below. I love hearing from you guys and also would love and critiques on any of my work.
WWE NXT / 2K Sports Full Sail Event
I am feeling very honored to have been chosen to represent Full Sail for this event.
Full Sail and WWE have a great partnership and for me as a student it is awesome to get to see WWE Wrestlers on campus along with the full production of what goes into tapping a WWE NXT event. Full Sail invited 2K Sports along with a bunch of reporters from all over to come see our campus and show off the new WWE 2K15 Wrestling game. I was invited to be one of 4 students to represent the gaming side of Full Sail. I honestly was unaware of what the event was going to be, or how big of a deal it was going to be, but when Rob Coble asks you to do something, you do it! I know he would never steer me wrong so I jumped at the invitation. Little did I know I would be standing up in front of all these industry professionals with the likes of Garry Jones (President of Full Sail), John Saboor (WWE Senior Vice President of Live Events), Rob Coble (Full Sail Industry Outreach Liason-Game Studies/Career Development), and that’s not all… Chance Glasco (Full Sail Hall of Fame Member, Former Senior Animator at Infinity Ward, One of the original “Call of Duty” Creators). I was in awe standing up there with 3 of my fellow peers.
Afterwards, we got to speak to the media and a very nice man named Jim Varsallone came up to me to discuss my website. I was very honored once again that with all these powerhouse people up on stage with me, and he choose to come chat with me about what I am doing. I didn’t think too much of it until this morning when I see this new article in the Miami Herald and I was mentioned along with everything and everyone else.
http://www.miamiherald.com/sports/fighting/article2631353.html
Afterward, I got to go hang with Chance Glasco and Will Fitzgerald and some of the other students who were invited to the event at the WWE NXT match and watch some good old wrastling!
It was definitely a night to remember for me in my Full Sail Journey!
My Full Sail Journey.com 