It's a Good Start

So ends my first semester.  I am mentally exhausted.  At the end of class today, after working for a solid eight hours on my final drawing, I felt like I had just gone 13 rounds with a pro fighter, or maybe run a marathon.  I think I worked harder on that drawing than on anything else I have done in my entire life.  At the very least, that is how it feels.  I'll talk more about that in a paragraph or two, because that is the big news, and we like to disclose that last.

Last post, I promised I would publish my research paper for my History of Games class.  Well, here it is:

Leveling Up Research Paper

It was great fun to research and write.  The process and material were both edifying and inspirational.  When I presented it on Monday, the class seemed impressed, and that was satisfying, as well.  My week was off to a good start, and was only going to get better.

Today I rose from my bed at 6 AM to begin the final efforts on my portrait, the last piece in Analysis of Form, my drawing class.  You saw it in its early stages in Thursday's post.  Since then, I have worked on it for about twenty hours.  As the instructor, Mitch, watched it progress today, he told me he wanted me to submit it to the Spring Show.  You may recall from one of my previous posts that the Spring Show is a Big Deal.  It is how the best work in the school is recognized, and it was my goal at the outset to get pieces in it.  Now, not only does that stand to happen very early on in my AAU career, but upon disclosing my Semester grade, Mitch told me I got the A.  The A.  As in, the only one he gave this semester, in any of his classes.  I am crazy proud, not because it reflects my "talent," but because it acknowledges my hard work.  Hard.  Work. 

The class.  They're a smart bunch.

As I worked on the piece today, my head and body began to ache.  I felt light headed.  I kept going.  For the last hour of it, I felt as if I was doing the last push-up of an exhaustion set.  For those of you who aren't into fitness, that's the push up that feels like there's a fat man sitting on your back, but you do it anyway, even if you are ascending at fractions of an inch each second.  When my classmate, Jess, said I should take a break, I told her I couldn't.  The reason that I couldn't take a break is that despite the head pain and exhaustion, those moments were the most fulfilling thing in which I could ever imagine engaging, outside of deep love.  I told her, "For most of my life I haven't known what 'my best' really looks like.  With this piece, it feels like I can get there."  So, with no further ado, here it is:

It's a good start (Right, Scott?)

I'm going to work on it more before submitting it.  It is not flawless.  It will never be flawless.  But with more of that "hard work" stuff I keep harping on about, it may just become great.  Mitch has kindly offered to coach me on it to help me get it to Show Quality.  I am looking forward to that.

More to come.  Robin out.

Crunch Week

Image Credit: http://red89.cghub.com/

 I am besieged.  I grit my teeth within a fortress whose walls are made of the will to succeed, as an unruly horde of excuses, fatigue, distractions, and life's obstacle batter at my redoubt.  The hard stone cracks and chips, but does not crumble.  Within this fortress, I forge my greatest weapon against these curs who dare oppose me in my place of puissance: artwork of which I am proud.

To put it in less florid language, it's Crunch Week!  My last class sessions of the Summer semester are Monday and Tuesday of next week, and that is when I have no less than three huge assignments due.  The bad news is that this level of assignment load has kept me from posting here as often as I'd like.  The good news is that I get to show you what I'm working on.  One of the assignments is the research paper I mentioned in a previous post, and I will be posting a link to that on Tuesday.  The other two are a portrait and a Still life, with In Progress shots below:

Willem Dafoe!  This is just a few hours' work.

Don't worry, the drawing isn't crooked, I just took a bad picture.

I really can't emphasize enough how much I'm growing as a result of this experience.  It makes me feel like that version of myself that I've always thought, but not quite known, was lying within is finally within my reach.

I'll post all the finished products on Tuesday, and after that, GRADES!

Speaking of grades, I did some research and found out that the minimum GPA for honors at this school is 3.7.  Given how hard it is to get A's, I am going to be working crazy hard over the next few years.  Crazy.  Hard.

More to come.  Robin out.

There Is So Much Happening

Seriously.  So much has been going on at school in the last two weeks that I have not had the time or energy to update this.  The Catch-22 there is that there is a veritable monsoon of material to tell you about as a result.  Let's get to it!

The BART strike was rather disruptive.  I didn't want to write a whole post about it, but it warrants a few sentences.  The night before it started, with no other ideas about how to get to school, I slept in San Francisco in the home of some generous friends, and was prepared to ride the gnarly couch waves until the strike was over.  Fortunately, thanks to the emergency transport protocols of AAU (Thank you!), I was able to go home the first night.  Several of my classes were cancelled because the instructor could not make into the city.  Craziness!  It could all happen again in August.

Last week, midterm grades came in.  Before I disclose mine, to instill in you the proper sense of awe at the Academy's expectation of excellence, I will repeat for you here some excerpts from the grading rubric in my drawing class:

C: The student demonstrates an understanding, if not mastery, of the concepts being taught, and is ready to move on.

Okay, so that's basically a B+ or an A somewhere else...

B: Top student whose work is consistently excellent.

...and that gets a B!?!?

A: ...demonstrates mastery of concepts and techniques and produces industry standard work.

So, basically, an "A" is the teachers way of telling you you're almost too good at the subject matter to take the class.

It is glorious to be in a place where expectations are so high.  In hindsight, it has never been satisfying to me to get an easy A.  It has been a relief in times of stress, but has never been something to brag about.  Here, if I earn an A, I fucking earned that A.  It means something.  Because of those high expectations for achievement, this is a meaningful experience.  So, with all that in mind, here is the big reveal: my midterm homework assignment, in its completed state, and the grade I earned.

I got a B.

The school mascot is "Urban Knights."  Well, this one just took up the gauntlet.  Challenge accepted.  I will get an A.

The next big assignment in drawing class is a still life.  I'm really looking forward to it, but I'm also anticipating some challenge, so I decided to do a study of one of the still life subjects in this week's drawing workshop.  Before I show you that, let's talk about these workshops.

They are great.

I have been attending the drawing workshops every single week, and it has made a huge difference.  It is run by Adam Caldwell, who brings a complimentary perspective to that of Mitch Gibson, my drawing teacher.  His approach for simplifying a form, breaking it down into planes and simple shapes, has really helped my observation skills.  I can't emphasize enough how helpful Mitch has been, but Adam is what we refer to in the gaming world as a "force multiplier."  He provides that little bit that takes things exponentially further, which would be far less effective without the foundation I get from Mitch.  This week he helped Adam draw a skull.  Here's some process:

That was about three hours of work.  This is the farthest I've ever gotten on this kind of piece in that amount of time.  Here's to progress!

I've been writing a lot about my drawing class, but haven't really mentioned my History of Games class.  We just finished our first big assignment, which was to design a primitive game with limited materials.  I am quite proud of the work that my group did.  It was great to see what each person had to offer, and the end result was a really fun game.  Here are a few images from the presentation that we made of the game on Monday (click an image to view as a slideshow):

That's the fundamental mechanic of the game.  You race your "snakes" to gather chips strewn strategically about the playing field, and then get as many as you can into the goal area before your opponent gets their entire snake in there.  The chips you pick up make you go faster, and you can use some different tactics and bonuses to speed yourself up or block your opponent.  Fun times!

We put a lot of work into that.  The next big assignment, about which I am totally jazzed, is to write a research paper on a game-related topic of our choice.  I'm going to write about the history and importance of leveling up in all kinds of games.  I'll publish the paper here for your reading pleasure.

It has been a busy, challenging and satisfying couple of weeks.  I registered for fall classes, and am eagerly anticipating what they hold in store.  With four classes, the amount of interesting content I will have to share with you, my cherished readers, stands to be immense.

More to come.  Robin out.

The Meme Post

Almost through week two, and the experience continues to be excellent.  In the last two days, I have spent thirteen hours drawing.  Part of that was in one of the Academy's workshops, which are held weekly at no additional cost to students.  It's resources like this, and the glorious, glorious library, which really create strong opportunities for improvement of craft, and make other schools seem like this by comparison:

 
 The library, for instance, gives students access to some amazing things.  There are 152 DVDs from a company called Gnomon, each of which is essentially an Entertainment Design and VFX industry rock star telling you their secrets.  These things are pricy to purchase, as DVDs go.  I checked out two (the maximum limit) and now I feel like this:

Srsly.  Bro been jonesin'.

In my last post, I mentioned learning an iterative system for rendering.  Well, I thought I should expand on that a bit.  In this week's drawing workshop, I set up another still life, and photographed it at key points in the process.

On the left is the subject.  The first stage is "Pentimento," which has a very different meaning in art history than it does in art creation.  For artists, the pentimento is a basic blocking in of the shapes.  If you look closely at the second image, you can see some crazy geometry in the vase.  There are all these triangles, ellipses, a vertical center line, and some dots.  These are all tools used in a repeatable, measurable process for drawing accurately from life.  Adam, the teacher who ran the workshops, told us that in the Atelier School in Europe, you spend the first six months copying master drawings in a direct 1:1 size ratio, using direct measurement translation.  This is an extrapolation of that, which uses measurement of proportions.  For example, the short edge of the cylinder is half of its length, and is the same as the edge of the cube.  There are many relationships like this, and understanding them is a key point of observation in drawing.

The important message here is that there is no mysterious something, no "X Factor" in the fundamentals of art.  All of it is empirical, even scientific, in its method.

After the pentimenti comes blocking in value.  Value is how light or dark something is, and we refer to making something darker as "adding value." To do this step, you squint your eyes until you just see two values; light and dark.  Then you add some value to the dark bits.  This is your starting point.  I've started to do it on the second image, and gone past this phase in the third image.  The third stage is to find the brightest highlight in your subject, and tone down everything around it in your image.  If your brightest highlight is crazy bright in real life, everything else in your image needs to be dark to exhibit the intensity of the highlight.

Once your highlight is taken care of, everything else is just asking yourself if Thing One is brighter, darker, or the same as Thing Two, and adding or erasing value as necessary.

I'd like to reiterate the point that there is no mystery here.  This is all measurable.  It just takes practice and an understanding of a process.  Lastly, I want to show you what that process can do:

This is the result of about seven hours of work.  At no point did I feel like I didn't know what to do next.  At no point was I without a means of evaluating what could be better or should be different.  As I look at it now, I see mistakes, but as prosperity guru PJ Van Hulle would say, mistakes are sexy, because we learn from them.  As Mitch Gibson, my drawing instructor, said, "It's good that you're finding your mistakes!  That means you get it!"

Well, I'm off to learn from some DVDs, and to try some more new techniques. More to come.  Robin out.

One Down, Ninety-six to Go

Well, the first week is done, and much learning has gone on.  Summer sessions at the Academy of Art are a unique experience.  I am enrolled in two classes and have spent sixteen hours in them, combined.  In those sixteen hours, I have learned the fundamental value and appeal of games in human culture, designed a primitive game with a team of two other students and learned (but not mastered) a wealth of drawing techniques, including: an iterative system for creating the illusion of three-dimensional objects on a two-dimensional surface; how to blend charcoal strokes with a "cowboy hat," (also known as an ass-gasket, texas t-shirt, portagee penoir, or simply toilet seat cover.  Thank you, Urban Dictionary); practice methods for drawing freehand ellipses and straight vertical lines; the difference between charcoal pencils, vine charcoal, and compressed charcoal; and why the SHAMWOW is a vital tool for any artist.  So far, I think I am getting my money's worth.  Maybe more.

My first in-class charcoal drawing assignment, about 30% done.

Going to school again has thrown into relief how important intellectual stimulation and interpersonal interactions are to my mental well-being.  After this first week, I am more inspired and productive than I have been in a long time.  I feed on the people around me and the ideas that are embedded in my environment.  I digest these things and turn them into mental energy and ideas of my own.  I must make sure to delve into these aspects of the university experience, and find ways to continue that trend after graduation.  My success depends on it.  If this drive keeps up, I will have much to show for it.

In my last post, I promised some info on Visual Development.  Here is a concise, three-part definition  of Visual Development from Mr. Villarreal:

1) Designing with a goal based on a story

2) Setting the style or visual identity of a project

3) Creating appealing, functional designs for the story.

But why not hear it from the horse's mouth?  He sums it up quite well in the first two minutes of this video:


 Pretty cool, no?  This is what I have to look forward to, but there is plenty to learn and do already.  Here is some Visual Development eye candy:

The final piece above is from the AAU's annual Spring Show, which is a showcase of the best student work.  It is my goal to be in the Spring Show every single year, and this blog will be the place for you to see that happen, step by step.

More to come.  Robin out.

Art School D-Day

There is a disembodied, female robotic voice in my head, calmly and coldly repeating "T-minus 3 days and counting," as my internal world explodes with excitement.  I attended orientation today.

I arrived on the steps of the auditorium, a beautiful old church with a stone facade near Union Square, about a half hour early.  I wasn't the only one; there were several new students already milling around, some with parents, and most generally keeping to themselves.  The building exudes a palpable sort of venerability.  Everything about its architecture says that the things that go on inside are a big deal.  I certainly felt that way.

As I waited for the doors to open, I could immediately pick out the Game Design kids, with their official Companion Cube messenger bags and pixelated tee shirt designs.  Maybe everybody would be that easy to pigeonhole if I had that much in common with them.

When the doors opened and we sat down in the decades-old pews, I could feel the anticipation of my fellow students fill the air around me.  The ambient noise was not the idle chatter of a cafeteria or a typical auditorium. 

The Auditorium fills.

When the first speaker took the podium to introduce the Academy President, Elysa Stephens, and asked the crowd if we were excited, everyone in the audience, myself included, demonstrated an air of uncertainty.  Here we were in this big, austere edifice.  We're allowed to be excited?  This is about us?

Ultimately, it was.  The president's speech focused on opportunity, and how the coming years will change our lives, giving us a chance to make our dreams come true.  She mentioned some statistics and some anecdotes to communicate the school's credibility, but I appreciated the fact that the speech was ultimately about us, the students.

The high light of the presentation was a speech from a member of the Game Design faculty, Michael Buffington, Jr.  He was an engaging speaker who really drove home the idea that the only way for us, artists and designers, to succeed, is through hard work.  He laid a few quotes about this on us, such as "Success is 10% talent, and 90% sweat," and "there are many ways to fail, but only one way to succeed."  He followed each of these up by asking us if we believed them, and interrupting our response with, 'it doesn't matter, because it's true.'  I like Michael Buffington, Jr.  I intend to take a class or two from him.

Next, we had a Q&A session with the head of our department, Nick Villarreal.  Also in attendance was Francis Hsu, a Visual Development faculty member.  Interestingly enough, Nick was in Argentina during this Q&A session, magically projecting his voice and image through this morass of witchdoctory we call the Internet.  Hard work was further emphasized here and some frank and bleak truths were disclosed: the "industry" is kind of crazy right now.  That is to say, video game companies are laying people off or closing, movie studios are erratic in their hiring patterns, and the economically vibrant, fly-by-night world of my childhood is most definitely gone.  The good news is, according to Mr. Hsu, "If your work is good and you're nice, you'll do fine."  As a matter of fact, that was a recurring theme in the session: if your work is good.  It all hinges on that.  Well, at least I've got the 'nice' thing down.

My new classmantes.  Mr. Hsu is at the top-left.

I am girded now for years of intense work.  As far as I'm concerned, this is going to be like getting ready for the Olympics.  I will be breathing art for these coming years.  Keep your eyes on this spot to see it, and to see where it takes me.

In my next few posts, I plan to define Visual Development (the kind of art I'm studying), tell you a little more about the Academy of Art University, and also talk a little about the process of getting money for college.  It was quite a kraken  to wrestle, and I am still wrestling it, but I hope to share its secrets with those in need.

More to come.  Robin out.

EDIT: Fixed a dismembered sentence.  High-level blog magic was necessary, but it has recovered nicely.

Commencement

In exactly one week, I will attend the orientation activities that will begin my second try at making my dream life happen.  In eleven days, I will attend my first day of college.  Strictly speaking, it is just another one of hundreds of days of college.  It is, however, my first day of college in seven years, since I dropped out of the applied computer graphics program at a state university in 2006, only a few classes from receiving a degree.

That was my first try at making my dream happen, and it culminated mainly in frustration.  I didn't have any idea what it really took to be all the great things I had floating about in my visions of my own future, and it was not any more clear to me as a college senior who was woefully unprepared to enter his chosen field.  I knew at the outset I had to go to college--this was communicated to me by my parents with the consistency of German trains, and nearly as much force--and so I enrolled in the first one someone suggested to me.  No research.  No comparison to other schools.  I just took a blind step forward, the dream of my future firmly superimposed over the circumstances and choices that, ultimately, did not lead where I thought.

What is this dream?  Ever since early childhood, I have been an avid exponent of two pursuits: art and games.  I have been drawing regularly since age four.  Like many males of my generation, I would be hard-pressed to count the hours I have spent (okay, Dad, squandered) playing video games, not to mention pen-and-paper games, trading card games, board games, and miniatures games.  The dream has shifted and morphed with the passage of time and the accumulation of experience, but the crux of it has never changed: I will make awesome-looking, fun games.

Five years ago, I put myself in a position wherein I was constantly surrounded by the things about which I am so passionate, but was not creating them.  I was selling them; first working in, and then running, a Games Workshop Hobby Center.  Awesome.  My ambition shifted.  I was in the "Gaming Industry" (read that in a booming, echoing voice) and was excited enough about that simple fact that I dazzled myself with visions of becoming an integral part of the company.  I worked hard.  I grew the customer base and sales of my store, the ambition to distinguish myself and be recognized fueling my every effort. 

And then I ran out of steam. 

I had an amazing job.  I got to go to work every day and teach people how to paint models and play games.  I got to run fantastically fun events, and soak up the joy of those around me.  So why the burnout?  Couldn't I do this forever?

As the mental and emotional fanfare of doing that amazing job died down, I once again heard the siren's call of what I really want to do with my life.  I looked back on the last 12 years of my life, not with regret, but with a new understanding.  None of that time was wasted.  In my time at Games Workshop, I learned how to market things, manage my time, and a host of other valuable skills.  In my time at University, I met my beautiful, talented wife, and a host of valuable friends.  And, by seriously and wholeheartedly pursuing things that weren't, truth be told, my dream job, I learned the most important lesson I could have learned: I cannot settle for anything less.

So it is that in eleven days I start my first day in the Visual Development program at the illustrious Academy of Art University in San Francisco.  I have spent countless hours researching schools, applying for scholarships, looking at the work and education of artists I want to emulate, and otherwise thoroughly vetting and preparing for the path I have chosen.

This blog is an account of that path: the journey of a 30-year-old undergrad who finally found the courage and resolve to do what he really wants to do with his life.  This blog will do a lot of things.  It will help me share my experiences with those who are dear to me.  It will create a record upon which I can look back and, hopefully, gain new insights--or at the worst, have a laugh at my own expense.  It will be a platform to show how my artwork develops over the next three years.  If it is successful, it will lift the veil on how to get money for school and, if wildly successful, inspire others to follow their dreams.

No, not follow.  Create.

More to come.  Robin out.