I have a few thoughts on this project. It's been tough. I feel I have moments where I peak with it and then fall into much lower moments where nothing I do feels right. It's been extremely challenging. However, that being said, I'm really glad I pushed to make a film that I really wanted to make. I've shown and told the story plan to quite a few people and the response has been really positive. When my dog passed away last year, it took a pretty big toll on me and my younger dog- this inspired the whole thing. When I make stuff and really want to do well in it- I want to be able to feel it, I want to make sure that my emotion and energy is going somewhere worth while and working on a film about my dogs- I feel like it is. It's the right amount of personal and relatable that I wanted. 

 I feel my drawing has come a way since the character design classes last term, those really helped kick me in the right direction. But even so, I'm not fully happy with my character designs just yet. I think they can be better. My art has never really had a distinctive style, I've never found my feet with it- so that's still something I'm working on and I think I'll be working on for a long time to come. The amount of drawing that comes with a project like this has also sort of made me lose motivation in drawing in itself, which is to say I don't enjoy it nearly as much as I used to. There's highs and lows about it. I think comparing myself to others also puts me off, so this is something I'm also working on- I want to be happy with what I produce without feeling the need to compare it to what everybody else is doing. We're all at different stages after all. 

 Within the workload side of things- I need to improve. I know I'm not the best with handling everything, things get messy for me quickly, too much piles up too quick and I can't get a grip on it all- which is honestly how I'd describe this entire year for myself. I felt overwhelmed. The entire situation with COVID-19 hasn't exactly made this any easier either, with unstable routines and other responsibilities piling up outside of Uni work. I wasn't fantastic at communication before the isolation and quarantine and it's fair to say that the situation made that even harder to do. It's super difficult to find a balance between your work and your life sometimes, I think back at Uni I had it a bit more under control but when I came home that kind of went out the window- the routine got messy fast. But that's life and that's okay. I still achieved a lot of good things despite these issues. The technology side of things hasn't been all that easy either- my laptop doesn't run Maya smoothly- I think it's fair to say my laptop struggled with the project as much as I have- so there were tests I wanted to run for this project, but just couldn't do, my laptop would crash out. But I did end up with some pretty decent pre-rigged animations that I'm really proud of. They look really good and I am more confident in the idea that I can go ahead and animate an animal. I feel more comfortable doing that, than animating a person. 

 In my project, there's still things to think about and I'm looking forward and planning to take a more relaxed approach to it over the summer. I want to figure out sound effects properly and a soundtrack for the film. I also want to spend some time figuring out set design- I didn't realise how much I struggled with this idea, but now I know. I really do struggle to imagine things in the way I would like to, I struggle to get any idea I have onto paper no matter how clear it is in my mind, it just never translates well. 

 So, with inconsistent motivational periods and COVID-19 going on, I am still proud of the work I produced. It's a pretty cute story and I'm happy that it exists. No doubt in my mind there's always room for improvement and I would like to go forward with a more positive attitude to really do the best I can be doing and work through low periods the best that I can. It's been challenging. Hopefully when back at Uni I'll be able to do more Maya work- which I am looking forward to. I think translating this film to 3D will be really interesting.