Had my first in-person meeting with Neal (really happy to see him!) Before the meeting I sent him my working pitch document and art boards to review.

• Overall, we’re both positive on my progress. Both on my embrace of a looser style, my artistic chops, and the narrative direction of the piece.
• I’m still a bit lost as to what to include–Neal’s suggested I think in levels.
• Three different showcases of transitioning my concept to 3D.
• These should be different approaches, or solving different “problems” my art presents.
• Neal kept citing Breath of the Wild–its ‘flat’ style. I want to key into this more.

Next steps:

• Really nail down a calendar–not just times to work, but milestones I want to meet.
• Come up with a blog schedule–what kind of posts I want to make and when.
• Sort through my existing concepts–what do I like/dislike?
• General reflection; how do I feel about the project so far?
• Do a general sort/organization of my photos–I want to be able to locate all my references/textures immediately.

Worked on last night, and finished today, a first pass sizzle reel for mood/tone.

Done in iMovie; exported movie clips from YouTube

First day of school yesterday

Started a greybox area of the level: placed a few already made assets. Laid walkable ground (dark blue texture), and indicated builds (yellow), and natural props i.e. cliffs.(pink).

Really want to nail down a perspective and texture here.

Still unsure of how to indicate the salt mining: refineries in the background? Fields in the distance?

Starting to think about how I would display text if this were a narrative project.

• made edits to the building (posted yesterday); changing the shape to be more playful.
• Messed around with textures in Substance Painter, and made a basic model in Maya. Still need to fix the bottom layer texture and make edits to the model shape (focusing on smoothness).
• Goal for tomorrow/Friday is to focus on geography/level design; going to make everything flatter. Will touch up/refocus previous work.

-Started this wordpress blog

-Submitted the BDP contract for Neal’s approval.

-Stayed up late last night to work on a basic building concept (and to watch LSU win the championship!):