After 3.25 years at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh, I am finally done with classes. I am relieved and a little exhausted, but of course, I'll become more exhausted as I work on my portfolio display for the portfolio show on the 19th. I'm not overly nervous about finding a job right away; I have some opportunities lined up, but I'm not getting my hopes up for any of them and am just going to have to be vigilant.

Overall, I really enjoyed my 13 quarters at AIP but a part of me regrets not going to a school for computer programming or something of that caliber. I feel I am creative and artistic, but my mathematics, logic, and problem-solving skills seem stronger or at least they could have gotten stronger if I went to some place like Duquesne. My big problem is that I feel above average in every aspect of game art and design we learn, but not AMAZING at any of them. I got a 3.5 in all five categories. What should I specialize in? Being a game art and design generalist? That doesn't exist. I decided to focus on technical art: rigging, skinning, etc., because that will allow me to better my programming skills with things like MEL Maxscript and also allow me to model from time to time, which I enjoy. In my spare time, I'm just going to make games, staring out now in Gamemaker but working my way up to more advance Flash games and eventually XNA. I don't plan on making money on them; they are more for me. Some people write personal poetry or keep a journal; I want to make simple, fun games for myself and hopefully I can share them with a few people.

Anyway, if you've been watching my page, I'd like to say thanks and now that I'll be a graduate I may actually have time to do some stuff and post it. Oh, who am I kidding? This page is going to be blank. *Plays the Match Game '76 music*

I'm between a rock and a hard place. I really don't know what I want to do with my life anymore. At AIP, for the last several quarters, I've been real into 3D modeling, but I've gotten to this point where I'm really sick of it. I hate asset creation anymore. I like technical art like rigging but what I really love is actually making games, and I have, but I feel their rather banal and simple since I'm just using Gamemaker and Flash, and that'd I'd have to waste another three (or even four) years of my life training so I can be successful in that field.

I don't feel my modeling is bad, but I am sick of it, and I like it to a more simplistic point, almost to the point like a hobby the way I am with drawing and writing. It almost makes me feel I should get a office job like Theodore Roetheke and write poetry in my spare time (or in my case, make games).

IDK though...if you know me and have any advice, I'd appreciate it at this point...thanks...

Phew...I just finished my latest demo for my platformer. I like it, but then again; it's my first and I've been working on it way more than I should be recently...yeah...this is all I'm writing cause I'm sick of looking at monitors of the LCD variety...

Well, in less than 8 hours I'll be going back to AIP. I'm kind of excited but not really. The weeklong break could have been better, but it also could have been worse. I saw Horton Hears a Who, cleaned out my hard drives, began learning C# and XNA, and some other stuff. I could be graduating next quarter...but the advise of 3 teachers have told me I should stay another quarter, but I'm not really sure what to do. I have two gen. eds. and 3 cores, including portfolio. I'll decide by Tuesday whether or not to drop some.

I'm excited to start programming my Gamemaker platformer, Lil' Vlad...hopefully all the assets don't take me too long to build. That would suck!!!

What else? I'm TAing a programming class...that should be fun to make like 10 dollars a weeks, lol. What else? I'm not sure. It's late and I don't feel like writing anymore, so :-P.

Finally, I am done with all of my pre-portfolio assignments. As I am writing this, the DVDs that I am handing in tomorrow for review are being burnt. I was confident that I would get done on time, but I'm not real confident if the teachers are going to like my work or not. They can be rather fickle and unpredictable. If my grades are any indication towards how I'll do, I should be fine, but just because you have straight A's, doesn't mean necessarily mean your stuff is any good...or so I've heard from numerous sources. Even if I get a "borderline pass", whatever that is, I'll be happy. I can't really worry about it though; I did my best within the allotted amount of time to produce all of these projects, and though some could be better, I think the fact I got them all done is an achievement in itself. If I fail, it's not the end of the world; it just means I'll be in school longer, able to spend more time refining my work...but I swear to rats wearing mauve jumpsuits, if I fail this class more than two times I'm going to be pissed...

Project list:
1 game design document
50 concept sketches in six different categories
2 storyboards (I hate storyboarding!)
1 animatic (a moving storyboard)
3 sample interface designs
1 animated interface design
14 looping animations
3 character models (I did a fourth one cause I felt one of my original 3 was weak)
3 sets of props
1 vehicle
3 environments
3 playable levels (my levels are just clones of my environments done in Unreal 2004)
1 playable game (I did a gamemaker game)

I think that's everything...as a list, it doesn't seem like much, but when you start doing them all from scratch like I pretty much had to do, it becomes quite a lot.

Even though I am done with this stuff, I still have tons to do in the future: study for finals (for my other classes), begin designing a website, apply for internships, not to mention next quarter's classes such as Advanced Game Prototyping where I will be designing a 2D fighting game in Gamemaker...hopefully, lol...I have to check with the teacher first. It's been fun everyone...I may be uploading some stuff soon...OMG! It depends on how I do...if I do well, I'll upload my stuff, but if the teacher's say it's all garbage...I'll withhold it from the site for now.