Here we are, the last unit in my junior year here at Freestyle. This unit was all about exploring whatever creative medium we wanted to do. We were asked “How can you find, explore, and/or expand your passion?” where in this unit, we had to pick something that we wanted to improve or explore in order to refine our skills in that area. So once we were given this prompt, we were free to go and go make something.
I already knew what I wanted to do about a month and a half before the exploration project was assigned. What was this? Well, I wanted to make a diorama, but not just any diorama, but a gundam diorama. If you didn’t know this about me, but I’m a huge nerd for gundam and the gundam universe. So when I was given the choice to do anything, I obviously decided to do a gundam diorama. One because it was going to fun and two, I had a huge backlog of gundam figures that I needed to build and I wanted an excuse to build something without my parents telling me to do something else.
So first I had to go around and start looking at different photos and other people’s dioramas to get some inspiration. First I wanted to do this one scene from my favorite series, Gundam 00, called the Trust You scene in which the main gundam, Gundam QANT had just finished this large battle called the Trailblazer Engagement and this battle was pretty much it’s retirement due to amount of damage it took and cause it’s pilot, just happens to turn into this like ghost dust thingy. So because I realized I can’t finish this in a reasonable time (given how large it is, and expensive), I decided to go on a much smaller scale of having a mountain/rocky environment with some gundam walking around.
THE PROCESS
So after gathering the inspiration needed in order to start this project, I had to start making and gathering the materials needed in order to pull this off. First thing I needed was the gundam model pieces, which I already had, given that I have a huge backlog of un-open kits. I built the models and then I went in and started to paint them to have some weathering and battle damage onto them. That part was probably the most annoying because painting it took forever.
While making the models at home, I started to make the actually set for the diorama, so I had to first start with a shopping list. I knew I needed moss and paint, but I knew I could get the moss easily and get the paint from Ms P. However, I had no idea what or how to make the rock base. So after some research, I brought some XPS foam, the same foam that they put into the wall of your house to keep the temperature stable. I found out that XPS foam is kinda toxic, which thankfully I didn’t use a hot knife cause I would probably get cancer or something if the fumes got into my lungs. ALSO, I had to watch this tutorial on how to make rocks out of the XPS foam and the guy that I was watching said and I quote “The XPS foam will fall off like meat falling off the bone” which is a really weird way to describe it BUT, XPS foam does not in fact fall off like “meat falling off the bone” which was making me so annoyed because it took me forever to get the rocks done.
Painting it was a lot more easier because I could turn off my brain and start painting. First I put a base layer of black for the shadows and the second layer of paint of of white and gray in order to get the highlights and get the foam to look like a rock. After that, I painted the top, bottom and back in order to hide the pink.
After finishing the paint and gluing the pieces of the rock I started to put the moss onto the rocks and had add some green to the diorama. It was a bit difficult at the start because the moss was all over place and gluing it was pretty hard. The moss would stay where I wanted it to be so I had to glue it and had to hold it in place for 10ish second in order for it to stay. After gluing the moss, I glue the model onto the base using hot glue in order to keep it stable.
After putting it all together, I decided to add another model in order to fill the empty space. After that, I had finished. Overall, this project was so much fun because I was able to do something that I wanted to do and I had a lot of fun designing the base and building the different models that are in the diorama, although I wished I had more time to make some trees and other plants, but it work out pretty well.
Digital media: Music Production
In Digital Media, we had to do a music production for our Exploration. We were told to get into groups in order to do this project because unlike the parody or the experimental music project, we had to either sing or play an actually instrument. I already knew how to play the piano so I offered my skills to anyone to form a group. This led to Me, LandonQ, and AidanJ to create some music. We all knew we wanted to do some weird and random song in order to end the year with a bang. But what song do we pick? Well, we thought that we should pick some meme song so we went through and we came upon the Minecraft Movie. If you didn’t know, the Minecraft Movie is a huge meme of in itself, so this was the perfect topic for us. We ended up picking Lava chicken has it had piano, guitar and vocals, meaning that all three of us were able to do something. We ended going to recording studio and finish the recording in about an hour and a half. After that, post production where we continue to split the work. I ended up doing the album art, Landon doing the final Mixing of the music and Aidan writing the artist statement (with our input too).
For our music recording project, we decided to create a cover of a song recently released by Jack Black, ‘Steve’s Lava Chicken’. We chose this song because of its recent success in meme culture, the overall catchiness of it, and the ease of being able to cover it with only a few instruments.
First, we found musical arrangements of the three pieces we would be performing; guitar, keys, and vocals. After a week of practice, we gathered in Freestyle’s massive recording studio to record. With the help of our Digital Media teacher, Mr. Flo, we were taught how to setup and perform our instruments. Once we were ready, we recorded about five takes.
Post production was pretty fun. Since a lot of the tracks were not mastered and the guitar didn’t have any distortion on it, it made the track sound a little naked. But once everything was mixed in it sounded pretty nice.
Overall, this project was very fun and taught us several new skills that will be extremely useful in the future should we pursue a career in music production or recording in general.
English: Poem
One of the first things we did for the Exploration unit was the poetry writing in English, we had a poet who came for about a week to help us learn and write poetry. I not a huge poetry person but a huge writing person, so this unit was ok for me, it wasn’t as fun as the flashing fiction or narrative but it was still fun in it’s own ways. So the main poem that I wrote was called “What Lingers” and it was actually inspired by another piece of my writing, also named “What Lingers” and I wanted to take the same story idea and plot and turn it into a short poem. In my long form “What Lingers” it was central around the idea of isolation and depression, which I was able to turn it into a poem. However, since the poem had to be on the shorter side, I did have to cut some the main story, so instead this poem was mostly central around the idea of depression and how much of a beast it was to overcome.
What Lingers:
The Cold
It stays.
It starves you out.
Without warmth, without hope,
It eats you from the inside,
Like a parasite, clawing at your skin.
Then it leaves
But only for a bit.
It leaves,
Taking pieces of your soul.
Then it returns.
It returns, then it leaves.
Then it’s back
It’s always back.
It always comes back
For the rest of you,
Collecting the next payment,
The next toll.
The Cold
It stays.
Until the only thing you feel
Is the Cold.
Because then,
It knows
It’s, in, control.