Hi Rez, day two

I'm not sure this is the best way to present this... Might be too detailed and boring. I can only hope that if it is, someone will say so.

Today, after spending a week snuggled at home because of some snow turned to ice, we went to Hi-Rez for the second time.

We decided to start a bit early in case it took longer than usual (again, because of the snow). Not only did we make it on time, but we arrived 20 minutes early. Everyone was out for lunch so we had to wit for everyone to come back before being presented to our workstations. Jerry, my supervisor, showed Vivi and me how to use Perforce. It's a program that Hi-Rez uses to share and centralize files within the employees.

I was then presented with my next assignment for today, as well as the next session(s), which will be to work on some particular character concepts. i eeven got to choose which one to start with. Then I went to my station and started working on photoshop.

Quickly I was presented with my first difficulty, which is wacom's last driver. The tablet ignores pen pressure every few strokes, which can be dealt with but is clearly annoying. Luckily I had faced the same problem at home some days ago and immediately knew what the problem was. It can be fixed by replacing the new driver by the previous version of the driver, which can be found on wacom's website.

Once that was done I worked on the concepts for a few hours and got some more feedback from Jerry in the middle. He suggested I use stock photos or 3D models as background for my drawings to accelerate the process and to get proportions right straight away. He also pointed to what was and what wasn't working in the concepts I had done 'til that point, so that I was able to go in the right when in the next ones.

With that advice I was able to get better concepts for the second half of the day. We selected which concept was the most successful, as well as best suited the character. Next time, I will be defining the most successful concept as well as making slight variations to it, maybe using some of the other successful elements from the other concepts. Jerry also adviced me to limit the use of textures and colors when I got there in order to unify the piece.

It was a good day overall. My supervisor was happy with my drawings, which makes me happy in turn. I mainly spent time at my workstation drawing, which I enjoy. I wish I could socialize more with the employees but I'm shy and am afraid of bothering anyone. I might be working at home before next time (luckily I only need photoshop to work), I really want the concepts to be the best I can do in the end.