Take It As a Compliment

Super-stressful week. Assignment is stayed home to work on on Tuesday has had its deadline extended to next Tuesday. After several hours' of struggling with it, I was still no further ahead. As always seems to be the case with this friggin program, one extra keystroke was the difference between success and oblivion.

Wednesday's assignment was faring no better as designing anything as a 3D model can be done in such a way that you're only working with half of the model before "mirroring" the image to complete it. Basically, anything functional (cars, planes, ovens, chessboards, etc.) can be designed with only half of the model and then mirriored for the full model.

Only the style of modelling we were using for Wednesday's class wouldn't let us use the "mirrior" command. Nope, instead, we had to (& I only found out 5 minutes before it was due) go into one section of the program and switch a number from '1' to '-1'. Too bad I still had about an hour's work before it would be finished... I handed it in anyway and that was better than 1/3 of the class who ddin't even do that.

The next big challenge was Thursday morning's assignment which took a few hours longer than expected. Having woken up at 9am on Tuesday, I knew I was pushing it Wednesday night when I opted to go out with my wife instead of finishing up the work. I did that when we got home aorund 10pm.

I finished at 5:20am and my alarm clock was set to go off at 5:30. No sleep for this Hoser.

I admitted to my carpool buddy that I'd been awake for nearly 48 hours just before the 90-minute commute to school in a dense fog and with slippery roads. Hehe. I think it's the first time he's stayed awake for the entire commute.

I got it done and apparently it was one of the better texture designs she'd seen. I was happy to hear that, but even more surprised when, later on in class, she came over to compliment me on my painting in Photoshop. I wasn't using texture samples like everyone else in class. They'd take a sample and paint over it to give it an "original" look and feel. Nope. I was painting red clay roof tiles.

And she complimented me. She never compliments me. Or anyone else for that matter. I felt... weird. No matter, she also said she could see me working for one of the major studios very, very soon if I kept this up. ('very, very soon' meaning within the next 4 months, this Hoser could be pulling in $50k a year!) And the compliments kept rolling in. She made mention of me in the next class for both the assignment and for my painting style.

Actually, before I go on, let me dirgess a bit. Apparently she found me quite freaky just becuase as I was painting in Photoshop, I was also writing down notes in my book --at the same time. So, while the right hand was moving the mouse to draw, the left hand was making notes of the colour palette I was using and severity of the dark & lights. I guess it's hard to read people when they're not showing if they're a lefty or a righty... freaked her out.

One instructor last seemster who proved extremely difficulty to please (especially for me) commented on some of my artwork this morning. I'd showed him a few samples of my life drawing, including a few pieces I'm most proud of and a few others to point out "highlights" of the work. "Kicking my ass" was part of his compliment --and more than I ever got from him last year. I've now been invited to Thursday-night sessions in Vancouver to meet with other artists in the industry.

Cool. Networking.

And compliments. To think on Tuesday I was about ready to pack it in...