Narrative

During our Narrative unit this year at Freestyle, we got to learn various ways on how to create graphic designs through Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop and Avid Pro Tools, along with many more Abode Applications. It allowed us to explore our own creations through storytelling, illustrations, music, and even collaborative work with peers in my Animation class. Throughout the projects, I was able to build on my writing skills, and artistic animation skills, helping me to figure out what I can improve on for the future.

Each class gave us different assignments for this unit, which ended up becoming interesting pieces. In English, we created a narrative story using symbolism and began improving our creative writing skills. For Digital Media, we got to choose on how to create original music through Pro Tools, and Adobe Illustrator to create our own project for our exhibition. And finally, in Animation, we were tasked with creating a lip-sync animation of what we wanting, practicing frame by frame. Along with a group collaborative animation that let us show our skills from what we’ve been learning on Adobe Photoshop.

In English, we were given the task to create our own character, following appearance, behaviors, personality, and background. This allowed us to really dive deep into different aspects of characteristics you can use when making your own type of writing. Using this, we build onto an actual short narrative story. Our narrative stories were meant to teach us how to use symbolism in our writings, and having more “show, don’t tell” examples.

My inspiration for my short story was to create a character that resides in a already created universe from another writing of mine back in 8th grade, because why not create more characters. My main focus was to follow this character, Ivy, who goes through this self-change from being a quiet village girl, to someone standing up for herself for what she believes is right. I tend to create characters that are either just quiet and kept to themselves, or really outgoing and are easily able to speak their mind, but I’ve never really tried making a character make a complete shift from the two personalities.

I love how my story turned out in the end, and honestly, I’d continue building onto the story itself and add more details throughout it if it weren’t for the word count. So I may keep this chapter open.

Once completed with the writing, I recorded in the campus’ ISO Booths using Pro Tools. Pro tools was a little complicated to use at first, but eventually, it became fun when putting all the voiceover recordings and lines together. Special thanks to an Animation Student, Orlando M, for voice acting a few lines as my character’s younger brother, Orian.

IVY

Everyday is always the same. I wake, I cook, and I head out to the village.The most exciting thing of my day is when I return home. After I prepare lunch for my family, I would grab my basket which had the subtle scent of flowers and go to the green forest at the back of my house. The soft grass at my feet, my hair flowing with the gentle breeze, the quiet ambiance with the sounds of nearby animals. I closed my eyes, feeling a calm and loving emotion inside my heart, trusting each step, familiar with the forest. Something about the tranquility of the forest always drew me in, yet I knew I shouldn’t tread too far. Eventually I would get to the lovely flower fields, carefully picking them with such a gentle touch. The bright colors of tulips, the beauty of the red roses, playfulness of the peonies. I noticed the critters peeking out of the bushes and trees, taking a moment before they recognized me. 

“Good evening cuties,” I spoke softly, a soft hum came from my lips when I greeted the animals, raising my hand to gently meet the soft brown fur of the fawn. Everyday I made sure to say hello, not wanting to be rude to nature’s gifts. “I assume you’re all alright.” A smile formed on my lips, the feeling of tranquility and love still resides in my chest. That is until I hear a voice calling out for me.

“Ivy! Ivy, where are you?” I immediately recognized it, it had been my younger brother, Orian. But what was he doing out here in the forest? Night was falling soon, so he shouldn’t be outside. I quickly bid farewell to the animals as they scurry into hiding, picking up my woven basket filled with a variety of flowers. “Ivy!” Orian called out again. 

I turned to see my brother standing there, holding the side of a tree, he seemed worried. “Orian, what are you doing out here?” I asked, taking a few steps closer. Orian immediately ran towards me, wrapping his little arms around my legs as he began tearing up.

“C-come home..mommy’s sick again..” His words were so quiet, and almost unintelligible with how much he had been crying. Sighing, I took his tiny hand into mine, holding the basket with the other as I began leading us to the exit of the forest. Once again, I go back to my daily routine.

The next morning, after staying up late taking care of my sickly mother, I left for the village just down the road. My emotions felt weak and my body felt drained again, sometimes I wish my mother wasn’t so sick. Life would be so much better without– I instantly forget my wavering thoughts as the townspeople caught my attention. I overheard many whispers around me. I would’ve simply ignored them, blocking them out as any normal village conversation I’d heard previously, but this time, it was something I could never turn away from. Townspeople, mainly the hunters themselves, had been discussing tearing down the forest one by one. 

In that moment, the feeling of emptiness and desperation flooded through me, life without the wonders of the forest, how cruel. My feet were already moving before I could think, rushing towards the townspeople, begging and pleading on my knees for them to change their mind. I could see the way they looked at me though, seeing just a desperate and unfortunate girl begging for something so meaningless to them. Yet how could a girl, who’s always on her own minding her own business be tearing up and seem so vulnerable in this moment? 

My pleading ended up being in vain as I was kicked off and told off to by the people, saying that the forest was nothing to care so deeply about. Though if only they knew that the forest they spoke so poorly about was the one place– the one place I’ve been longing to run to for years, away from monsters like them. The only people really being beside me was my family– no, it was the animals, not even my own family would be there for me like I was for them. I watched the ‘monsters’grab their tools and proceed to head to the forest just up the hill, as I laid helplessly on the cold ground. 

I wasn’t going to give up. I couldn’t, not now, not when those innocent souls were in danger. I jumped back onto my feet, holding up my dirtied dress as I made a run towards the forest through another direction, in order for them not to spot me. I knew the forest at the back of my hand, using that to my advantage I’d call upon all the animals to move deeper in, safe in the forest’s leaves and bushes, hidden in burrows & caves.

The moment their footsteps were heard, close to reaching the edge of the peaceful land, I prayed, prayed to the nature of the Earth, and to whoever could help me now, to help me protect this sanctuary. To my surprise, predators of the land came to my steed. the bears with their sharp claws, the wolves with their powerful jaws. The look in their eyes, wanting to save this place. I too would rather die fighting for something I love than not trying at all. If I had turned my back now, I wouldn’t be just betraying these powerful souls, but myself too. As soon as I was struck by one of the monsters, I awoke. 

A rather still pond surrounded me, in the middle of a place I could not recognize. Though, the place around me was thriving with such life, life of those innocent creatures who have passed. Alas, that day had been long gone, back when I was alive at least. But I have no regrets in my choices, no regrets in managing to protect the life around me.

Using ProTools was honestly fun for me, since it was something really new, considering I’ve never really edited audios before, or added sound effects and background music. I had some troubles when forgetting key-binds at the start, but everything start working smoothly, especially with editing the volume of the music and sound effects you here. But overall with the entire project, I say I did relatively good. I enjoy my story and it’s outcome, just like I enjoy the audio production portion of it. I’m still new to audio editing, but I think next time, I’ll do better, now that I have a better sense of using ProTools.

Exquisite Corpse

Names of Artists (left to right): Blanki FM, Cam M, Carter C, Griffin P

In Digital Media we got to work on a collaborative project in a group, drawing whatever we wanting using guide lines in Adobe Illustrator. I didn’t know what to do, since during this we couldn’t see what our other group members were drawing. But considering that I like music, I wanted to do a music themed drawing for myself. As a little easter egg, I did the first few five from a song I like, You are My Sunshine. A nursery Rhyme that my family and I love. Although I think it was cute, I wish I was able to add more details and color to it. So I’ll keep that in mind for next time.

Illustrator own Choice

Sleeve Quotes
The Design for the Back side + Yarn ball for the front

Artist’s Comfort



During the illustrator project, I chose to do a sweater design. From the beginning, I knew I wanted to make something that related to a character and my art, so at first I thought maybe a pair of wings on the back would be cool. Connecting to characters that I’ve created that have wings, though after I came up with an idea; why not create something related to my story Stringed by Fate, It would be perfect, a project that represents a bit of my art, and writing. Using Adobe Illustrator, I created a book with the phrase “Where your story begins” referencing that you, the ‘reader,’ can create your own story however you want, choose what you’d like to become. The book itself is meant to show you your own work, what you’re doing with your life. The rest of the sweater includes other quotes on the sleeves and under the book, along with a quill. Because when you think of writing, sometimes you think of a quill, to begin your story.

Ever since I was a kid, I’d always make up stories in my head and try to write them ini construction paper, stapled together like a book. Growing up, I tried harder, improving my writing. Around COVID was when I realized, I really do like this, and I wanted to make something my own, like a real and physical book. The big quote at the back of the sweater is a word by word quote from my own book that’s in the works, Stringed by Fate. It’s from the prologue that starts the story off.

The main focus of my piece is the art of writing, which I’m proud of. I’m glad I got to use Illustrator for this project, playing with font’s stylizing them to fit the writing theme, and using the pen tool for the details of the quill, which took a bit. Although, if I were to do this project again, I’d most likely do another sweater that can be connected to my writings, just with a more detailed design, including characters on the back, and symbols that represent them all around the sleeves in subtle ways. But for now, I’m really happy with the outcome, and I hope to make more in the future.

In this Experimental Music project, we had to design either an Interstitial or a full music audio using ProTools. For my own piece, I decided to go with Interstitial, having separate different audios played, not being all collectively the same thing or using a single theme. I learned that It would’ve been easier to do this since creating an actual music track would be harder to stay on beat and within the theme you’re going for. ProTools was an interesting application, since we could use different instruments or our own if we wanted to. For this, I used the actual piano keys at our desks to make the audio. Looking back, I wish I was more thorough with my work. 

For the first part, I was thinking of making sort of a dark theme, with deep sounds in order to give it a somewhat creepy or just rather tense tone. Again, I did use piano keys, as I felt it was easier than using the digital instruments provided inside of ProTools. I think next time, I’d definitely change it to a simple and short version, and try to copy and paste it as it goes by, since doing one recording sounds off, especially when you can’t keep the same tempo. I don’t quite like how it came out, but since it was my first try, I did a little better than I expected myself to do. 

The second part is more of me actually messing around, I wanted to use the normal piano key sounds, so I started playing a simple beat to it. I don’t know where it’s exactly from, but I’ve heard this beat before back then and it got stuck in my head, which is why it just repeats the entire middle recording. I wish I used a little lower tone, yet still a bit upbeat in order to somewhat match with the first piece.

The last one was by far the weirdest yet the most fun for myself, since at that point, I wanted to play around with the different audios using ProTools, of course still using the physical piano. I had music in the background that I was personally listening to, and since it reminded me so much of space, I thought; Why don’t I try making some space-like sounds? Which was the idea I was going for. My inspiration for this was the soundtrack from Omori, an indie game available on steam. It has a lot of fantasy themes and a rather spacey look to it. I know I could’ve come up with a better way for the execution of it, but for now, I quite like it because of how funny it is.

Walk Cycle

After using Dragon-frame to create a puppet walk, we were also in charge of animating another version of that walk, just hand drawn. It was an easy, few second short to display our puppets. I’ll be honest, I know I could’ve done better on the digital walk, but It was my first time animating a walk, so I’m still proud of the outcome.

Lip-Sync Animation

For my Lip-sync in Animation, I wanted to use one of my own characters I created, Reina. She’s actually supposed to be an elven character from another story of mine created with some friends, though I did forget the pointy ears. Using Adobe Photoshop, I hand drew each mouth piece that is shown throughout the animation. It was a little hard, considering I never draw open mouths, but it was fun nonetheless. We then had to import all our layers of our mouths, and character into Adobe After Effects where you’d put the audio in, and the base of the character. From there, you basically have to keep matching each sound/vowel with whatever audio you chose. For Lip-Sync, I chose a song, Would You Fall in Love with Me Again by Jorge Rivera-Herrans, creator of a well-known music saga, EPIC based on The Odyssey. Love by thousands of artists worldwide. I love his work, and each song gives off a powerful feel with different emotions, especially with the shifts between sagas.

This was my first Animation that included movements of the mouth, so it does look a little off. But I did like how I ended up matching it nicely at many parts of the song, so I can’t complain. Though looking back, with the character itself I wish I did do more movements with her, like her hair flowing so that she wasn’t so stiff. That and I wish I made her face less pointy at the end, but that was my art-syle at the time. In the end, I enjoy the end of it, the project was fun, using Photoshop and After Effects was fun. I hope I do something like this again.

Visual Narrative Animation

Presenting, Honey Party! We were all put into groups of three, or four, with the main focus on collaborating on a short minute animation. Partnered up with Vee L, and Kingston R, we went through a few of ideas that would have the use of our characters from both the puppet making, and even lip-sync. We went through with a slightly tense chase animation, while also having a chibi style to the video. Each of us made two characters, one being from Kingston which was the bear. A yellow scary looking bear (which was inspired by Disney’s Weenie the Pooh). The theme of mixed emotions, and even the element of surprise by the end.

During this project, we had a lot of time to work through it, which was helpful when we ever got to small problems, which was rare. I was mostly in charge of the backgrounds, and some coloring, along with the entire creates and intro scene created by me using Procreate, the rest on Adobe Photoshop, and Adobe After Effects.

Overall, I am definitely proud of both this animation, and group. We were able to communicate ideas well with each other, and actually have a full proof plan throughout our days working. I also enjoy the vibe the video gives off, and yes, there’s definitely room for improvement. Which I believe is something my group and I will come back to.