Evaluation
Developing sci-fi themed objects is a new thing to me. I'm not very used to make something modern/robotic. I like new challenges, however. The most amusing part was to refine the character creation and bring it to life 3-dimentionally, and see how the character 'evolves' from the simplest shapes into something great.
Strengths and Weaknesses
(based on plan, production log and blog posts)
What I felt confident with, was the process of developing ideas of what my robot sidekick is going to be like. I find it very easy to quickly come up with different possible bases for a character - more clearer - to briefly imagine what it would be, very basic foundations which then I can choose from one I really like and develop it further.
This is followed by my weakness (maybe not always a bad point, but sometimes) which is making things over-complicated not considering the time restrictions and experience limits. I am bad with time management as well as any other management type. Though this time I had just enough time to do everything I needed.
Another issue is that I sometimes should follow the mentality of recognising the project as 'good enough' as if through 3rd person's eyes and leave it be this way (or try hard to do something my skills don't allow - yet). I tried to do it with this project, so I won't spend too much time on little details which aren't that necessary, especially as some things were just a conception. That's why I simplified paws and left the tail as it is now.
Aim Achieved?
I am content with the work, it pretty much looks like the one I drew on a paper. It lacks some outlook features, such as cheetah's 'thumbs', spring tail that turns into a cone and bumps on the back. But as I said above, they weren't exactly crucial, well, except the tail thing, but with that it could lose its balance when speeding up.
My other aim was to make it a neon face, but the uv map looked really strange, and I'm not sure how I would do it and how it would look like when on a model, so I left it be.
Feedback Outcome
Instead of asking individuals to write paragraphs of opinions, I created a simple but informative survey which then I sent to people to answer. All the answers can be found as screen shots in task 6.
Most of the responses shown that I was right in the choice, more than half (8 exactly) preffered it's actual name, some (4) liked the name Chita. Majority thought that I achieved my set goal, which I personally think that as well. They all agreed that there was enough reference used and the design sheets were well made.
There were slightly different answers in question 4, where the colour scheme got the lowest score of all of them, though none of sections got an answer poor or terrible. The highest score was in overall design of a model, as nearly everyone (except 1) gave an answer 'excellent'.
8 people couldn't think of any other change or improvement in an open question. 3 people told they would prefer a different colour scheme for it, including one specifically saying about giving multiple colour versions. The topmost responded said he/she would like to give it different tail textures. The last 3 people (plus one who also said about the colour versions) said they would like to change the head or at least see the idea of expressions being displayed on a model.
The last question was about wanting to own a model. 12 out of 15 would like a robot like that, 3 weren't sure, but no one said no.