Self Evaluation

Its very important to be self critical after completing a project like this, otherwise you will never learn from, nor and build upon your mistakes. I encountered a few problems during my project which looking back i wish i had thought about more productivly in the beinning and early stages of development. My main concern on the outcome is colour. Although i spent a lot of time researching into colour, and colour palletes to suit the personalities of each of my characters, i later found that it was very hard to apply colour to plasticine, without using the actual colour of plasticine specifically needed, and i had already ruled out this option down to costs and practicallity. However, if i was to do this project again, i would look more into techniquest of creating a flexible outer layer on my plasticine which has enough slack on it to not crack under the pressures of being animated.

I also come accross problems when trying to transfer the level of detail from my original head armatures, into my final clay models. I found that because the heads had been significantly scaled down, i was unable to replicate what i had already done on a larger scale. A good example of this is the level of detail between the head model of the Scottish groundskeeper, and his head on the final model (See actual models).

Another issue with my project, was project managment and organisation. Initially i had neglected to do a scedule right from the start of my project, and i later came to regret it when i found myself running out of time, and still had things out of place. If i had produced a schedule from the start i could have easily gone through it and ticked off each of my things 'to-do' without getting myself into bother when it came down to the last couple of weeks. This is definitly one lessoni will learn from this project, as i know i cannot afford to do it in the future, as i will always be under tight and strict deadlines.

I regard some parts of my project a success on the other hand. In my opinion, for a first shot at producing clay models from scratch under the pressures of a brief that couldnt be changed, i thought i did pretty well to produce 5 characters, however, another side of me feels that i may have taken on too much of a job, and maybe if i had restricted myself down to 2 or 3 clay models as my final piece, i could have encourporated more animation into my project, rather than just producing a block out of a potential animation i could produce at a later stage.

I enjoyed this project very much, but there are definitly things i would change if i was to re-do this at a later date. Now that i have experience of how to make wire frame models, and how to apply clay to them, i think i would do a far better job if i was to do this again. I would be more accurate in making the wire frames, which would maybe reflect on the accuracy of my actual models compared to my final model sheets i produced on paper.

I have learnt many things with this project, i have learnt new techniques i wouldnt have even thought to use before starting on the project, which goes to show how valuable reseearch can be in a project like this. I learnt about using tin foil to bulk out a character, how to use wire frames to assist in animation, how to use oil to smooth out the apprearance of a character, and how to created textures on clay.