Hello, my name is Kai Zhou and I am an Animation student at Freestyle Academy. Freestyle has been a great way for me to get out of my comfort zone and try out things I never thought about trying before. It has given me many oportunities to learn new skills and engage with so many wonderful people. The people at Freestyle are all incredibly talented and passionate about their work and I’m glad that I can be appart of this program with them.
In my free time outside of school, I work as a freelance artist, who creates and sells digital art pieces. I also work in various online communities which have bettered my communication and leadership skills. Outside of my art, I enjoy horror media and games like Minecraft. They give me a way to relax after a stressful day and actually give me motivation to continue working on my art.
Showcase Video
I will be showcasing my Zenith project as it’s the thing I’m most proud of making this year. My goal for the project was to use what I learned in my Animation II class to improve my illustrations. I used a 3D program as a way to create backgrounds for my project. Overall, I’m quite happy with how the perspecitves and atmosphere turned out and although my storytelling is still a bit lacking, this project has helped me learn more about my own weaknesses and how to go about improving.
Some parts of the project I wasn’t too sure about and would like to know how I could go about fixing them. I wanted to stick to a darker grey-blue color palette for the cover but had trouble picking out what colors to use. Do the colors work well together? Or is there anything I should change about it? Another issue I had was lettering and sound effects and I would like to know what I could do to improve the lettering to better convey the sounds being made in the comic. I tried making the panneling a bit different by not having boarders or drawings blurring into another but I’m not too sure how well I did it. If I were to do it again, what would be some formats I should consider using? Are the pannels in the comic formatted alright or would it work better if I positioned them differently?
Though it may not necessarily be graphic design, I still greatly appreciate you taking the time to review my work.
![](https://freestyleacademy.rocks/~KaiZ/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Screen-Shot-2024-05-16-at-12.12.34-AM-1024x578.png)
Showcase Reel
The showcase reel includes the projects I was most proud of during this year at Freestyle. I included stuff like 2D and 3D animation as well as 3D character design.
Reflection
I first found out about Freestyle through my counselor who recommended that I applied due to my interest in art. When I came into Freestyle, I really didn’t know what to expect. I had little to no experience in being in an art class up to that point and had really only been drawing for myself. Freestyle turned out to be nothing like how I imagined it would be like and it’s given me opportunities to improve in things I had previously not been good at as well as try out thing I never would have tried.
Over the course of this past year, I’ve been able to see myself grow not only in my artistic abilities but socially as well. I now know how to use so many more applications that I previously did and I’m sure I will find good use of these applications in the future and potential jobs. Everyone at Freestyle also created such amazing projects that inspired me to try out some of the things they did for myself.
Freestyle has been a wonderful experience and I hope it continues to be for upcoming students as well. Thank you so much for reviewing my work.