Hi! My name is Chloe Weng and I am an animation student at Freestyle Academy. These past two years, I have explored numerous applications and learned new techniques to help me grow as an artist and create projects that I am proud of. Outside of Freestyle, I work at a boba tea shop—primarily to save money for my senior trip to South Korea. I also like to spend time with friends and family watching movies that often inspire my artwork and have fueled my passion for animation.
For my Showcase, I chose to display my first large project using 3D animation and my Zenith project in Animation. I decided on my 3D character and weapon design because it was probably the longest and most enjoyable project I’ve completed this year. I had never tried 3D animation before this year, and I thought it turned out similarly to what I had imagined. I also chose my Zenith project because I think it represents me well and demonstrates my fluency in 2D animation. I like how we had complete freedom in producing this project.
I plan on attending UCSB this fall with a major in Statistics and Data Science. I hope to find a way to relate data science to art/design or find a specific area of data science that I am passionate about.
Thank you for taking the time to review my work 🙂
Kei & Her Dagger
As soon as this project was introduced, I knew that I wanted to create a dagger. I always felt they were practical and I liked its simple design compared to other weapons. To go with the simplicity of the weapon, I decided to create a character whose strength stemmed from her agility. When looking at different weapon designs, I decided to follow a reference of a dagger that had gemstones on it. I’ve always been drawn to jewelry and stones in general, so I thought it was perfect. The first step after coming up with designs was to create a basic model in Maya. This meant putting together various shapes and molding them to look like my weapon or character. After, I imported my models into Zbrush where I was able to draw directly on these models and make them more detailed and realistic. This was my favorite part of the process as my project was finally starting to come together. Next, I used Substance Painter to add color and texture to my models. My weapon was now complete. However, I had to import my finished character model back into Maya to animate her. I used mocap animation to animate my character doing tai chi. At some points, I had to adjust the animation so that her arm wasn’t intersecting her torso or anything else that looked off. This was my first big project using 3D animation and I was satisfied with the outcome. I felt like I had learned so much in this short span of time and gaining understanding about such a complex topic was valuable to me. I was able to use my knowledge to create more 3D animations and it influenced how I viewed other animations. I could visualize how they came to be. Overall, this might’ve been the most impactful project I took part in this year.
Zenith Project
Our Zenith project was unique from any other project we’ve completed at Freestyle. We were given complete freedom to create anything we wanted. With such broad rules, I found myself lost with all the options I had. After considering another idea for a while, the idea suddenly came to me to demonstrate my personality or my emotions through this animation. I was heavily inspired by the film “Inside Out,” specifically the concept of having different characters represent separate emotions. Once I had this idea down, I began designing my characters and each of their scenes. I would be in the middle of doing my homework or watching a show when an idea would suddenly pop up in my head and I would rush to my Notes app to jot it down. As soon as my brainstorming felt complete, I started my introduction scene. For each scene I animated, I started by drawing the background and the characters in Photoshop. I drew the lines first and then added color in a separate layer. Then, I adjusted each character slightly to create the effect of it moving. I then used frame animation to create the animation. I put all of my scenes together in After Effects and added music and transitions. I enjoyed every part of this project as it was based entirely on what I wanted to do. I felt happy that my final product compared to what I envisioned. I think the creativity that this project required was the most important and it has motivated me to continue thinking creatively for my future projects.
Reflection
Being a student at Freestyle Academy these past two years have taught me skills, both technical and interpersonal, that I could not have obtained otherwise. Having only done traditional art up until coming to Freestyle, I was terrified and excited to try digital art. The concept was intimidating, but it was something I had always wanted to try. I worked with Photoshop primarily for my animations and Illustrator for some of my art and designs. I went from not knowing how to adjust pen pressure or how to properly use the pen tool, to creating minute-long animations. I also learned about other skills like editing audio or creating music in Pro Tools and writing lyrical essays or poems in my English class. Beyond the technical skills I learned, I also improved my collaboration skills as a large portion of projects encourage us to work together and discuss our ideas to receive and give feedback. I got to work with two of my closest friends to create a podcast episode about a topic we were all passionate about. I created my Senior Narrative with three of my peers; it required lots of communication and combined decision-making. After spending the majority of my time here at Freestyle, I have found myself feeling like I belong here more than anywhere else.
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1b10XkYZ7U4KcC4_tlbH3amxSKCjHufKQVcs0mkorq2k/edit?usp=sharing