Welcome to my website!! My name is Alice Rennie, and I’m a student at Freestyle Academy. Here at Freestyle, I’ve attended the English and Digital media classes – and my elective is Animation!!
While attending Freestyle, I was given the opportunity to work on all sorts of different projects, all while learning how to use new programs at the same time. Before attending Freestyle, I’d done my best to avoid most forms of art classes – as I’d gone to a couple of traditional art classes before in the past, and disliked my experience – as what they teach generally is not what I want to learn. That’s part of why I’m so grateful to have found Freestyle – because the art we produce is so greatly intertwined with technology and communication as well, it means that I’m actually learning what I want to be learning, and can apply those skills to other personal projects as well.
Outside of Freestyle, though – I’m still a huge nerd who’s constantly drawing and writing stories. (As well as playing RPGS. The latest Zelda game came out almost exactly a week ago and I am in heaven.) I plan to become a comic book artist in Japan some day (a mangaka), so therefore, a lot of my time is spent coming up with stories and drawing characters. Being able to produce good stories is incredibly important to me – which is why, for my showcase, I thought I would show an intro to the world-building project that a friend and I had been working on for English.
Thank you so much for taking the time to look at my work!! (And please feel free to reach out to me at bestlibrarian1@gmail.com for any further information or questions!)
Etched in Stone
To be completely honest – this video is one that I began making about two days before it was due. (And I’m pretty sure it shows.) So I hope you’ll be taking more out of my reflection here instead, rather than my video – though I hope it still piqued your interest?
For the world-building project, I decided that I wanted to brush up one of my older stories, with the intention of eventually turning it into a comic online. The reason why I chose to go with one of my older stories rather than some of my newer (and arguably much better, whoops) stories was, well – I did’t want to risk one of my newer stories. I knew that for this project, I definitely needed to tell a story where I was passionate about the setting and characters – but I also knew that the moment anything (such as character art, comic panels, etc.) was available on the internet, I’d lose the ability to use the story in the future with professional publishing companies in Japan. (As they likely would want to be the sole copyright holders.)
So I decided to use Etched in Stone as my sacrifice. It’s a story I’ve worked on for years (since I was back in 8th grade), and I dearly love the characters and the story. However, when compared to my other stories that I decided I want to save for the future, this was ultimately what I chose to use for the world-building project. This way, I would have enough passion to care about actually making the world good, despite the fact that it would mean publishing the chapters online on my own time, unprofessionally. (And hey, that’s a good starting point to the industry as a whole, I think.)
Despite working on it for years, project truly began for me when my classmate (and friend since middle school) Jessica Lohse agreed to work with me on the World-building project in English. When pitching my idea to her, she thought up ways to fill up plot-holes, or figure out a better way for the antagonists to be implemented – and I was incredibly grateful to have her help over the course of this project.
I tend to write character-drive narratives. I like stories where interactions, conversations, and the thoughts and feelings of the characters are what drive the plot forward – with some shounen action on top of that to help elevate the stakes.
Etched in Stone is much the same. Here’s a quick overview:
“Marun (a magical nation/archipelago), where magic is taken from magic stones, is invaded by a foreign nation that’s seeking to steal their resources. This was predicted by the members of the Village of Prophets, who foretold the prophecy of six heroes who would save their nation. The main characters are those six heroes.
Magic stones are the basis of the magic in this world, their origin point being the archipelago. Over time, the magic stones spread across the world, but the archipelago is the only place where the magic continues to generate/the resource is unending. Magic stones are used by imbuing their power into certain objects. For example, you could put cooling magic on a box, to create something refrigerator-esque. The six heroes are the only ones who are able to imbue and use magic without the help of stones, in addition to their sense abilities.
Because the other countries around the world don’t have access to the unending magic, many of them have used up all of their resources. This has left their nations open to corruption, a sinister force that appears in the absence of magic. The reason the foreign nation chooses to invade the archipelago is because that lack of magic is bringing about the deaths of their people – so they’ll do anything now to gain magic back.”
I would ask that you just read Jessica and I’s Narrative Treatment as a whole, to get a more concrete idea of how the story progresses, which can be found right here!!: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ZCousLkkKODYP38gWFgc12ifZWgmJe6a35Wtdd9elY4/edit
(You can also check the Narrative 2 page above – as it talks all about the work Jessica and I did for our world-building.)
Ultimately, I’m really glad to have worked on this project. It helped me to better an old story of mine, and also helped me to learn ways on how to make stories better in general (for example, concretely deciding certain events and writing them out, and then working both with and around that). So it definitely expanded my toolbox. It also taught me the value of collaboration – I hadn’t ever planned on collaborating with anyone for one of my comics before, but being able to collaborate with Jessica, and realizing that being able to bounce off one another while writing the story is something that I really appreciate.
Reel
I have made, so so much at Freestyle. (And what’s shown above isn’t even everything – only my favorites, plus a couple of my own personal drawings.)
So many things that I never thought I would make before, things that I didn’t even know existed – and I’m incredibly grateful to have had the opportunity.
Freestyle has given me so many tools that I can use to continue to create, be it 2D animation, 3D models, puppets, written stories, Light Boxes and stickers – and these are skills that I absolutely will use in the future again, even if it’s not just for a grade. (Though, to be quite honest, I’ve been using them quite a bit for personal projects even while attending Freestyle.)
But some of the work that I’m most proudest of is work that I made it Freestyle. I value what I’ve produced here, the friendships I’ve made, and the hope it’s given me that I will be successful in my goals (despite the fact that at times I work a little too slowly, whoops.)
I don’t really know what else to say. I hope you enjoyed seeing a glimpse of all the things I’ve made?
Thank you for taking the time to look at my work!!
Additional Writing Work
Flash Fiction (either click menu above or click here): https://freestyleacademy.rocks/~AliceR/narrative-1/
Profile Article: https://issuu.com/freestyleacademy/docs/article_by_alice_rennie?mode=window&pageNumber=1