Introduction
The Reflections unit encourages Freestyle Seniors to dive deeper into what makes them who they are. After diving deeper into what I value at Freestyle, I have learned a lot about myself. I narrowed in on some of my core values, such as self-expression, growth, passion, curiosity, and truth. During this unit, I was given the opportunity to evaluate my core values & interests and express them in various new forms. In Animation, this came in the form of learning 3D modeling platforms like Maya and Zbrush. In English, students wrote a personal narrative essay similar to the Common App essay requested by colleges during applications. Finally, In Digital Media, we began learning how to use Adobe After Effects, as well as advanced features of Adobe Illustrator.
On of the first assignments Seniors completed in Digital Media was making a video with Adobe After Effects about 7 or more of our core values. We learned how to use keyframes, different fonts and colors, and text fade in or fade out effects to enhance the quality of our videos. I created my core values video with underlying creative and technical techniques that helped match the video’s aesthetic to my general preferences and better represent me as a person. When making the video, I often needed to balance the amount of creative vs. technical elements used in making decisions about the video’s appearance or sound design. For example, I chose the background music because it fit a chill but semi-inspiring mood (creative consideration), and had notes or gaps/silences that I thought would coordinate well to when text appeared on or faded from the screen (technical consideration). Specifically, I was able to match the times when text describing the title of the video, date, and my name appeared on screen to sets of 3 notes towards the beginning of the song. My favorite colors are teal, red/peach, indigo, and black. I tried to match the colors and fonts of my core values to the feelings they gave me. For example, the word trust is in solid blocky letters and a peach color because trust feels solid, dependable, and bold to me. As for text animation presets, I chose those based on what I thought looked interesting and tried to make sure none were too similar to each other so that they would not be mistaken for repeating each other. I also made sure the entry timing of different core values would not cause text to overlap other text when it was coming in, starting with core values placed on the bottom and left of the screen and working my way up to ending in the top right. I learned a lot from this endeavor, ranging from using Adobe After Effects to general video editing principles. This assignment taught me how to effectively balance all of these creative and technical factors to create better videos, a skill I will be using often in the future.
Digital Media: Mandalas
The Digital Media Mandala assignment taught students how to make mandalas using Adobe Illustrator and Wacom touch sensitive drawing tablets. In Illustrator, we were able to set up template files so that any stroke drawn would be repeated and reflected in a circular pattern, forming beautiful patterns. We create 4 different templates total, each with a different number of slices within the circle. Having multiple templates gave us the option to chose how many slices we wanted the mandalas we made to have, our options including 8, 10, 12, and 16 slice mandalas.
After completing our templates, we began drawing mandalas in illustrator using our connected Wacom tablets and pens. We learned how to import unique brushes and brush libraries into illustrator. Our pressure sensitive tablets allowed us to use the imported brushes vary line weight and stroke easily.
The first mandala we completed was our black and white mandalas. The B&W Mandala assignment challenged students to create mandalas based either on their core values or on subject matter that had personal meaning to them. I decided to create my mandala with a design of 4 giraffes, representing the 4 members of my family. Since this assignment also included choosing a final product for our mandalas to be laser-cut on, I designed my giraffe mandala with the intention of gifting it to my mother. After completing each mandala, students were required to submit an artist’s statement to be displayed with their work. An artist statement is a piece of writing that helps the audience access or understand an artist’s work. Below is the artist statement I wrote for my B&W, or Laser-cut Mandala.
B&W Mandala Artist Statement
“The Laser Mandala Engraving project challenged Freestyle Seniors to create black and white mandalas in Adobe Illustrator that would then be laser cut onto a material of our choice. We were also encouraged to base the mandala design off of something that had personal meaning to us, like our core values or a story we would like to convey. After seeing that I could print my design on a pizza board, I chose to make something for my mother. She cooks balanced and delicious meals for my family almost every night, and I wanted to make something that she could use in the kitchen. My mom’s favorite animal is a giraffe, so I decided to incorporate 4 giraffes into my design, one for each member of my immediate family. I used reference photos to create a baby giraffe for my sister, a teenage giraffe for me, an adult female giraffe for my mom, and an adult male giraffe for my dad. Then, I attempted to further ingrain giraffes into my design by adding spots and patterns in the blank space. I plan to gift this to my mom on her birthday, and am excited to see her reaction!”
The second mandala students needed to create was colored mandala. I spent a lot of time learning how to use different brushes and color combinations to create different visual affects in my mandala. I also experimented by drawing an image that was not reflected or repeated and putting it in the middle, something I had not done before. You can read my artist’s statement for the Colored mandala assignment below.
Colored Mandala Artist Statement
“For the Colored Mandala assignment, students were tasked with creating colored mandalas in Adobe Illustrator using a variety of different techniques. At the time we were asked to complete this assignment, we had already learned how to create beautiful black and white mandalas by replicating and rotating a single slice of artwork in Illustrator. Now, we had to either color in a grayscale mandala we had already made, or make a completely new colored one. We used several different features of Adobe Illustrator to make our colored mandalas, including colored strokes, gradients, and the live paint tool. For my colored mandala, I treated it like a fun assignment that I could play around with. After experimenting for a while with calligraphy brushes and adding a centerpiece in the form of a girl’s head, I was happy with my design. There is no great meaning behind it, but it helped me further develop my comfort with making mandalas.”
We were also taught much later in the semester to display 2 images with a slider bar for the mandala section of our reflections WordPress webpage. We used a combination of Scripts and HTML code to alter the display settings for two images, merging them into the slider visual you see below. This slider displays both my black and white giraffe mandala and experimental colored mandala. Drag the line below back a forth to check it out!
Laser Engraved Mandala Project Completion
After finishing my digital B&W mandala and submitting it to Mr. Florendo, I moved on to other projects while waiting for my mandala pizza board to be completed. Mr. Florendo was able to record a video of my mandala being engraved on by the laser cutter in the classroom, which you can click below to view.
After the entire class’s Mandala projects were finished, we held a small gallery walkthrough in Digital Media class. This allowed students to celebrate our peer’s work as well as our own. After the gallery walk, students took some photos of their projects, with plans to later edit them to display relevant information. Below are 2 photos I took of my engraved pizza board. The first photo is one I edited in Adobe Photoshop to include information about my piece and show the pattern close-up. I included the second image to show what the completed pizza board looks like from further out.
After finalizing our mandala project edited photos, we created and artist’s statement encompassing our laser engraving project as a whole.
Laser Engraved Mandala Artist’s Statement
“The Laser Mandala Engraving project challenged Freestyle Seniors to create black and white mandalas in Adobe Illustrator that would then be laser cut onto a material of our choice. We were also encouraged to base the mandala design off of something that had personal meaning to us, like our core values or a story we would like to convey. After seeing that I could print my design on a pizza board, I chose to make something for my mother. She cooks balanced and delicious meals for my family almost every night, and I wanted to make something that she could use in the kitchen. My mom’s favorite animal is a giraffe, so I decided to incorporate 4 giraffes into my design, one for each member of my immediate family. I used reference photos to create a baby giraffe for my sister, a teenage giraffe for me, an adult female giraffe for my mom, and an adult male giraffe for my dad. Then, I attempted to further ingrain giraffes into my design by adding spots and patterns in the blank space. After my design was laser engraved on the wooden pizza board I selected, I took quite a few photos of it around the freestyle campus. Then, I edited my favorite photo in Adobe Photoshop to turn it into a polished display of my final product. For this project, I am most proud of how the photo I edited came out, rather than the engraved piece itself. Because the brush size I used when making this piece in illustrator was rather small, it can be hard to appreciate the details of the mandala when looking at the physical pizza board. In the couple of the first photos I took, I was unhappy with how difficult the details of my mandala were to see. However, I overcame this by zooming in and showing only a third or half the mandala in the photos, allowing the viewer to get a much better look at the pattern engraved on it. During this project, I learned a lot about how designs translate to the physical world via a laser cutter. I have a better understanding of what line weight and styles look best, and will be sure to keep this project in mind when working on new laser cutting assignments.”
Mandala Build Reveal Video
Even though our Black and White Mandalas had already been turned into laser cut physical objects, we still had one more digital task to complete in regards to the project. After being taught the basics of Adobe After Effects, students attempted to create a video revealing the process by which they had created mandalas. We began in Adobe Illustrator, using built in features to create a screen recording video that would alter be edited in After Effects. Adobe Illustrator uses layers to hold individual lines (meaning that my mandalas project had hundreds of layers to match its hundreds of lines). In addition, Illustrator has a feature that allows you to turn visibility on or off for each layer. Using these two features, I was able to create a screen-recording of me turning each layer on one by one, making it seem as though new lines are appearing and building my mandala on a white background.
Below is a screenshot of my B&W Mandala project in Adobe Illustrator.
After making my screen-recording, I put it and accompanying music and fonts into a new Adobe After Effects project. Using what I had learned about after effects in Digital Media, I used keyframes and other tools to fade audio and video in and out, speed up my screen-capture and shorten the video, and put a giraffe inspired yellow background behind my mandala. You can view my final B&W Mandala video below.
Below is a screenshot of my mandala video project in Adobe After Effects.
Overall, I really enjoyed the Mandala project. I liked how it gave me and opportunity to make media based on my core values or personal experiences while simultaneously teaching me how to use new technology or dive deeper into the uses of applications I have used before. I got a lot out of the mandala projects, including an amazing wooden pizza board mandala that I intend to gift to my mother and the ability to create similar gifts in the future. I look forward to learning what’s next!
English
SF MOMA Art Reflection
At the beginning of the school year, Freestyle students and teachers took a collective trip to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SF MOMA). While we were there, students were directed to take a photo of and write a brief reflection about an art installation we found either interesting or uninspiring. We later analyzed why that art piece either drew us in or seemed dull, and then translated those thoughts into a more developed 40-60 word paragraph in our English class. After receiving feedback on our work and finalizing it, we were ready to transform it into a short video in our Digital Media class.
Using Adobe After Effects, Seniors combined visuals of our chosen art piece, a voice-over recording of us reading our art reflection paragraph, text captions, and non-copyrighted background music. This was the first Adobe After Effects project that seniors had to complete mostly on our own. Prior to this, we had had a couple tutorials in Adobe After Effects, and this project was our opportunity to put that newfound knowledge to use.
For this assignment, I chose to focus on an art piece by Ragnar Kjartansson, called “The Visitors.” This art installation was a large room with a series of screens that contained people gathering or playing instruments that harmonized into the song playing in the room. I liked this art piece because it really emphasized a principle we learned about in English class; “collective effervescence.” Collective effervescence is defined as “the feeling of energy and harmony when people are engaged in a shared purpose or activity.” This piece accomplished that by bringing people together in a room and having them create a harmony both through the music (each instrument player contributed to the overall song) and community activities (gathering in groups, laughing, celebrating) despite the fact that most of the people were separated by different screens. The purpose of the video I later created with After Effects was to share my reflection on “The Visitors” with others using an engaging medium. The visuals and audio ingrained in the video enhance the viewers experience by more clearly communicating the feeling this art piece gave me. All in all, I enjoyed completing almost every part of this project, though the field trip was definitely my favorite part. You can view my video below:
Personal Narrative
For the Personal Narrative english assignment, I was given the task of writing a 650-word personal statement for later use in my college applications. A personal essay is a nonfiction piece of writing that explores the writer’s experiences, thoughts, and reflections, often in a narrative form. Unlike academic papers, personal essays are intimate and subjective, allowing the writer to share personal stories and insights.
One well-known form of personal essay is the college personal statement, a requirement for many college applications. These pieces are designed to give admissions officers a deeper view of the applicant’s personality, values, aspirations, and unique experiences.
We were given the book “College Essay Essentials” by Ethan Sawyer as a reference to help us brainstorm, write, and revise as efficiently as possible. I initially struggled with the brainstorming portion of this essay. I was able to fairly quickly brainstorm some core values (growth, self-reliance, creativity, curiosity/learning, and community) but was unable to tie those values to a specific story from my life, especially one I felt comfortable sharing. We were encouraged to be vulnerable in these essays, but my previous english classes had given me little to no exposure writing about myself, especially more personal topics. After scrapping a few initial drafts, I reached out to my dad to help brainstorm. He suggested a topic that had been right in front of me the whole time. I decided to write my personal essay on an experience at freestyle. Specifically, the moment I first learned how valuable asking for help could be compared to struggling with a problem in silence. This occurred when I was struggling with an assignment in my digital media class and was able to develop my ability to overcome my pride and ask for aid from both my teacher and peers. After finishing my first draft, I incorporated each of the five values I had come with into different parts of the story, and later revised it using feedback from my english teacher. You can listen to a recording I made of myself reading the personal essay I wrote below:
You can click on the image below to view a PDF of my personal essay:
Animation: 3D Modeling
In my Junior year at freestyle, I learned all about how to make my own 2D animations using a variety of traditional and digital mediums. In my senior year, I am learning to use a variety of 3D modeling softwares to create digital objects that I will animate in later units using motion capture and other softwares. In our Animation Reflections unit, my peers and I learned to use 2 3D Modeling applications called Maya and ZBrush. Maya allows you to put together polygonal shapes into a single model. The maya model can then be exported as a 3D object and imported into ZBrush so the artist can add fine details and textures. I really valued how this unit gave me good introduction into making art in a 3D space, as well helping me learn from mistakes relating to the technical aspects of 3D modeling.
3D Modeling in Maya
Learning Maya
The first part of this unit was learning to use polygonal modeling in Maya. we began by watching tutorials to learn how to use Maya’s tools and accompanying keyboard shortcuts. Then, we practiced using those tools to create simple polygon models of different shapes. You can see an example practice exercise I completed below:
Maya has 2 different object ways to display objects based on the map it forms out of faces, vertexes, and edges. Maya can either display a default hard-edged model, or it can display a smooth version of the model. Maya will always export a file as a hard-edged version of the model unless altered, regardless of whether or not the display is smooth-looking within the application. So, if we wanted to export a smooth version of our models, we needed to bevel (add more edges to) the edges of our models.
To learn more about how beveling edges can change a model, animation seniors each completed a “fire hydrant” exercise. we started by making an original hard-edged version of a fire hydrant (far left of the image below) and gradually added more edges and various effects to copied version of the original. This showed us how much variety we could add after building just one model, and gave us a a better understanding of how different types of edges may be utilized to make specific models better. Below is and image of the Fire-hydrant exercise I completed in maya:
Next, we learned how to render out an image of a 3D model in Maya. We added a light source, floor for the fire hydrants to rest on, and choose an interesting camera angle. Then, we learned how to change Maya’s render settings to change the resulting image’s brightness and quality. Finally, we rendered a final image of our Fire hydrants out of Maya as a PDF, which you can view below:
After learning the basics of Maya using the Fire Hydrant and Polygon modeling exercises, my class repeated the process with more projects, like the temple project. In this project, we created greek-style temples using imported reference images to base our modeling off of. we also learned how to use planes, which are essential flat 2D models. like paper. In the temple project, students used planes to create a mountainous terrain for our temple models to rest on by pulling certain parts of the plane up. You can see the temple scene model I created in Maya below:
After finishing our temple scenes, my class and I used our previous knowledge about Maya rendering to create images of our temple scene. you can view my rendered Maya temple model below.
Our next Maya assignment was to create a scene with a table and 5 accompanying objects. I drew some inspiration from my stereotype of a table and from a few internet searches about 3D modeled table. I also came up with ideas by drawing on table scene models made by past freestyle animation seniors, archived on the freestyle website.. After finishing, we once again rendered an image of the model out of Maya. You can view my Maya table scene both as a model and rendered out below:
After students developed a greater level of proficiency with maya, we were given the chance to design more complex but simultaneously more interesting model using our creativity. The assignment was to make a model of a fantastical or video game weapon, that may not be realistic but would look very cool. After looking through Pinterest for a while, I decided to make a fantasy weapon based of a knuckle blade (essentially a combination of brass knuckles and a knife). I created several rough designs for my weapon in procreate, eventually choosing the one below:
Then, I went to work making my model in maya. I received helpful instruction from my teacher that definitely saved my model when I later imported it to ZBrush. when a 3D model is exported from one application and imported into another, it tends to lose a little bit of it’s volume. So, since may is the first application for the model, the model should be made a little bigger than what you intend it to end up as. This concept was especially important regarding the blade of my weapon, since it is already pretty thin. My teacher told me to make the blade wider to prepare for the thinning between applications, advice that was essential to my later modification to the weapon model in ZBrush. You can view my Maya model and renders of my fantasy weapon below:
The final model my peers and I made in Maya a model of an original character we created. we were given almost complete freedom when designing our character, provided we didn’t add so much detail that it would be too difficult to model or animate. Students were required to create a reference drawing of the front and side views of their character to assist the in modeling.
I don’t really have any specific inspirations for my character, I think that my subconscious drew from a variety of different sources to create it, from childhood TV shows (Skylanders) to books I have read and even dreams I’v had. The general idea behind this character is that they are a boxer/fighter in a sci-fi setting with imp/elven characteristics. You can view my reference sketch of the character I created below:
After completing our references drawings, students imported them to maya. Because Maya operates as a 3D space, If you only look at a model from one view while editing it, you could turn it later and find that from a different angle, your model looks completely off. To remedy this, we created two different reference image planes and aligned them perpendicular to each other so that we could build the character with correct proportions from multiple angles. You can see an example of this in the image of my Maya character model project below:
ZBrush 3D Modeling
After finishing all of the models for our Maya projects, my class and I exported the models as 3D objects and then imported them into ZBrush. Just like Maya, ZBrush had a multitude of unfamiliar tools that we need to learn using video tutorials. However, since we already had some familiarity with 3D modeling, students were able have our first ZBrush model be a bit more complicated than the basic shapes we had started with in maya. Using premade sphere mesh models and a variety of brushes from ZBrush’s library, students sculpted models of semi realistic human skulls. we were able to uses references of skulls from the internet to guide our models using ZBrush’s opacity feature. Essentially, we could lower the opacity of the Zbrush window we were working in to see a window with a pdf image of the skull reference we were using below. You can view images of my ZBrush skull model below:
Next, we tried something a little more complicated. we used the same process as with our ZBrush skulls, but without a specific reference this time. Attempting to make a realistic human-esc head and face in ZBrush was challenging to me. Because I am much more used to looking at human faces than human skulls, I could easily pick out everything that looked wring with my head model. I fiddled with my head model until I was somewhat satisfied with it, and then added some horns and elven ears just for fun. You can view my completed ZBrush head model below.
After fully integrating our understanding of ZBrush’s tools using the first 2 projects, students began working on adding details to our previously made maya models. The first maya model we imported was our table scene. Since I like the simplistic look of my initial Maya model, I didn’t change much about this one. I simply fixed a few mistakes and added some fun wavy lines to the lamp and vase to make it more interesting. I also tried to add a bit of wood texture to the table and chairs, but it wasn’t very visible. You can view my ZBrush Table scene model below.
Next, we imported our fantasy weapons and characters into ZBrush, modifying and adding details to them using the same tools used on our table scenes. For my weapon, I am most proud of the leather texture I was able to add to the handle of the blade. For my character, I like the level of detail I was able to add to their accessories in addition to face I was able to add.
You can view my fantasy weapon ZBrush model below:
You can view my ZBrush character model below:
Overall, I really enjoyed learning 3D modeling during the Reflections unit. Before the start of this school year, I had dreaded the 3D Animation I would have to learn Senior year. I believed it would require much more technological skill than the Junior year 2D animation, and as a result, be difficult for a relatively technologically-inept person like me. However, despite the hurdles I encountered, learning 3D modeling was not the massive undertaking I thought it would be. I was able to adapt to challenges using a combination of reliance and asking for help from my peers or teacher to gain confidence in my new modeling abilities. I learned a lot, and look forward to learning how to add color to and eventually animate my 3D models.