Much of the PBM made me realize how much I learned in the minimum of 4 quarters, even if I struggled on some, they still taught me lots of what I need and want to know. Doing my video presentation furthered that point as well. It helped me get much more prepared for future speeches (probably) and helped me understand that if I really wanted to and tried to, I could've done much bigger and better things throughout the quarter. By far, it made me acknowledge how fun I had while making these 3D artworks, to even writing in my blog posts. Going back to my video presentation, even if it's not noticeable, I controlled much more of my stuttering than I had, and helped me make more sense in how I put words in my sentences. As well as having more confidence in what I say. Overall, I enjoyed making the PBM. It assisted me in being aware of my progress throughout the year in this class.
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Quarter four was definitely a quarter where I tried my best in most of my classes. Overall it was a nice quarter, the only thing that sucked was my procrastination. For as long as I try to improve it, and focus on the important things, I always end up losing my motivation, along with not giving it my all. There were subjects that I was great at, which became stressful and complicated. At some point I just worried about my grades far more than what I'm actually doing to learn, etc. I think I'm still in that cycle but I try my best to catch up on my work, which I did! Only thing I'm really worried about is the question of whether I will pass or not. This is always on my mind from when we end a quarter to when we start one, to when it's done. In the end, I know I tried my best, even if it seems like I didn't. I did take time to learn about myself much more though. Lets hope I do far better next year!
This quarter has been filled with many ups and downs, with lots of bumps in the road. My mental health was at its lowest this quarter, especially since I started really strong and got hit with corona. I kept working thoroughly, even if my motivation wasn't as much, even attending one class made me feel accomplished. Though at the week before the quarter ends, I did pick myself up and turned in work, to make me pass most of my classes with 60´s-70´s, which is good enough for me. I want to say I learned a lot this quarter, but there's really no in between whether I did or not. I do know though, that some teachers were very understanding of this whole situation, hopefully though, I get to turn in more work before the end of the quarter, to raise my grades more up than they already are. Music and art has been a way for me to cope with all this stress, and it has helped me much more than I thought. To wrap this whole quarter up, it's been a very tough month, with lots of assignments and etc, but I would like to say that I did gain much more reason and determination to continue to work harder than I already am, even if it doesn't seem like alot to some others!
When we first started working with lighting to add to our 3D Works and models, I didn't really get how it would function or even benefit from it until I started laying around with it more. I've noticed that lightning completely changes the way our models can be seen. It can alter the shadows, along with the intensity it gives to the work. Adding to that, its visual way to show depth is much more viewable. It gives it ¨characteristics¨. My favorite light to use so far is hemisphere light. Such as how the sun is positioned in our earth, hemisphere lighting is placed where the sun would be located, if our 3D model was real, of course, giving it a more realistic and authentic visual. I figured out that we could also change the color of the light, along with the shadows, if that makes sense. If you want a more greenish look, you could change its colors, instead of its original color, etc. Overall, i'm still getting used to adding lighting to my work, though it does affect how my models look in a good way, which is beneficial for me. It really depends on how and where you place your lighting, along with what type.
Working on both the tank and boxing map, along with creating our own soda was at first stressful for me, especially since I'm working on a web based software completely different but similar to the one we're supposed to be working with. Ingressing materials in Clara could be slow. We start off by either making our own material, or finding one that we could actually use. We digress slowly into importing those files in Clara. Up on the right corner, we see render. Clicking on it leads to other substitutes that could help us. First one to pop one is materials, pressing that one leads to different types of export materials you would like, such as standard, physical, etc. Since these were my first time importing textures and such, I used standard. Side note, there was a MultiD substitute you could've used to add multiple materials for one object, though this feature never worked well for me, which is why I stuck with standard. Continuing to this, a little green ball will appear on our explorer tab to the left of the screen named standard. This is where our imported files from earlier that included our materials come in handy. Pressing that little green ball leads to these commands on the right part of the screen, I followed through and first named what the material was. For the box, I had different sides such as top, side 1, bottom, etc, so of course i'm naming them in the order I exported them along with how I made the object in which i'm putting the material in. I made the mistake of making my textures transparent, which gave me a problem. I would recommend actually just cutting up your own material, cropping, etc without making any changes as to how it's shaped and so on. Forwarding on to importing the material, look down and there's a ‘select image’ button on there. Bingo! Put the desired image of the material you want, and it is automatically already a material. Go ahead and drag your desired object to the material, and there it is. Clara did glitch lots for me when doing this, stretching skins, and not getting out in the right place for this. I just closed the tab, along with detaching separate faces, from the object I was working with.
Lately we have moved on from character designs, to making our own landscape and environment. This means sketching out and improving on backgrounds, from simple grass and skies, to complex buildings of our own, or referenced. First assignment we got, including drawing a one way perspective. This means we had to draw a setting as a person viewing the place. I struggled with this task as I couldn't really make an image on top of my head of how the view would look, as if I were there. I also did not add as much details to it, along with making it look sketchy and messy. You could see my guidelines, etc. Forwarding on to making our own Sci-fi environment based on a reference image. I focused mine on buildings with neon decor, and an alleyway, along with buildings. For this assignment, I definitely paid more attention to details, especially the small ones such as the building from far away, or shadows. I even added a train station where you could see the stairs slowly going down. This assignment helped me a lot, understanding angles, lighting, measurements, etc. These assignments, slowly but surely, helped get a better understanding and knowledge on how to begin drawing my own backgrounds, with or without reference.
Lately I've been wanting to paint a lot with Acrylics on these canvases my mom had bought me! Usually I'm very timid about Acrylics, I'm not strong in that area especially on mixing colors and putting them in places, but that's why you gotta trust the process. After placing my sketch on the canvas I started working on the colors. This is where I got nervous. Placing down the brush on the canvas was where it usually went wrong, though this time I didn't rush, and I think that's where I would always mess up. I would speed up things and paint very messy, explaining the smudges, etc, on most of my paintings. Acrylics also require lots of blending if we want to be “realistic” which actually helps lots, especially with the shadowing. Surprisingly I didn't mess up on the skin color, it came out really good and I was proud of it. Hardest thing about this acrylic painting was definitely the background. I had a hard time deciding what color it should be, and what items should be behind the character, so I let my imagination handle it. I became a nervous wreck, because I would always paint inside the character I already painted, but like I said patience and calm is the key! In conclusion, I would recommend making yourself do things that are out of your comfort zone, especially things you're unfamiliar with.
After I gathered some more practice on Clara.io on how to do more landscapes, I decided to start on the project once I felt comfortable in the criteria. I first started on making the terrain, which was the worst idea ever. I didn't have a plan on how it was going to look like, or even how it was gonna be placed. Later on, I decided to work on the houses first. I initiated by placing a cube down first and forwarded to adding the first levels details, such as the windows, door, house number, etc. I continued to the ceiling and roof, adding a border to the outer area. It came out decent, though it was very time consuming, you can't afford to procrastinate and wait till the last day to work on it. Especially if you have to make more than 3+ houses, each with a different type of model, color, and placement. Since this is a neighborhood, I added bushes, trees, some objects like some car mobiles, street lights, and of course our sidewalks. After I finished placing every item, I went and worked on the poster. In my mentality, I thought if the poster was going to grab some attention, it should have some info, along with looking friendly and close ups of the neighborhood itself. Although I did struggle a lot with the houses, it was fun to make my own kind of houses, we didn't have a limit to which we could build and what we couldn't, though I would recommend looking at references and tutorials for this.
During this quarter Ive stressed lots of time due to the amount of work I got. This lead to various amounts of procrastinating, along with turning work in late. Though throughout most of these days, Ive gathered lots of motivation, most of the time. Other then that, I still need to get out of the habit where I randomly start working on my assignments in the middle of the night. This quarter has taught me that time is very important, and to take advantage of it. This connects to our 3D assignments in a way. 3D takes up lots of time, especially if your finishing up stuff at the last minute. So dont look down upon the words "time goes by fast", you cant always rely on a due date thats not due until 5 days after. Good things that happened during this quarter though would be me actually trying to do a good job with grades. Although were not back in school, and were learning through online, Ive found ways to try and get more sense into what we have to get taught by. Ironic how most of us relate to spending time on the internet, but to this point it had gotten boring, etc.
During these past months I have been focusing on achieving my art career. I was planning on doing art commisions, to make some money during the pandemic, but I never started on them. Though during those weeks Ive practiced in some criterias and subjects I need improvement and help on. One of them would be animation. I worked on a "animation meme" called Doctor, using the song by Jack Stauber. Keep in mind that I have only done a few, serious animation projects; such as the bouncing ball, and our first animation with a character we made. Though I was proud of those, I have felt that I needed more practice and knowledge in that area. Fowarding on to these few days, I started sketching the animation. Knowing information on how to edit videos, as well as being strong in the Graphic Design area, the only thing I most needed was learning how to properly animate the characters, and of course drawing every scene I intended to do. Using Videostar to edit the audio, and cut it into sections, I continued to drawing the characters digitally. The easiest part was definitely coming up with the character designs. Thankfully, I already had some original characters that I pulled up my sleeve. I have to say, although Im proud of how of it turned out, Im disappointed that I didnt get to finish it. Hardest part after all was knowing what exactly I had to draw/animate for the specific/certain parts I cut up. In conclusion, practice in areas you are most unknown with, it could lead to something you actually might be proud of and lead to liking the result.
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AuthorMy name is Leslie and I love drawing and making my own artworks!! This will be where I keep up of my works and my reflect on them and my own improvement. Archives
May 2021
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