Hi and welcome to my Portfolio page! I’ve chosen a range of projects from Digital Media and Animation. I hope these select works below provide insight into my growth as a digital artist at Freestyle Academy.
3D model design: weapon
The weapon design was one of the first 3D modeling projects from Animation. I used Autodesk Maya to create a basic model, which I then embellished using the ZBrush application. My design was inspired by weapon appearances from League of Legends.
personal Mandala
In the first semester of this senior year, our projects centered around Reflection: who am I and what do I hope for my future? This mandala design is based on elements of my old memories, current activities (fall 2022), and future hopes.
For example, I included a water polo ball inspired by my experience on the girls’ team this past fall. The center of my mandala might draw your eye to the white bowling pins, which represents a medal that my grandfather won and gifted to me as a keepsake. The ocean waves can be connected to the location of UC Santa Barbara, where I will be attending in fall of 2023.
The vibrant colors I filled these symbols with are balanced by duller, almost nostalgic shades in the background. I used color gradients especially to represent fruit and vegetables and multi-colored yarn. The interaction of patterns in the mandala show how I have many passions that have guided my growth, and so many more things I want to try in the future. Just like in the song Childhood Dreams by Ary, I ‘dream a hundred dreams a minute.’
Finally, I want to share these photos of my design etched by laser into a wooden round piece. The photo to the right shows light from a sunset projector illuminating the wooden mandala.
Illustrator Project
In junior year, I implemented skills in Adobe Illustrator to design a dodecahedral lampshade. These three images show different views of my final lampshade, which I assembled from lasercut pieces. I lit up the lampshade up using tealight candles that were we had from Halloween a few years ago.
Below is the digital design I created. When creating the pentagonal patterns in the centers of each piece of the dodecahedral layout, I was inspired by other lampshade constructions I saw around the Internet.
This is a photo showing a moment from my assembly of the lampshade! The lampshade shines in my room still! I love looking at the patterned shadows it casts on my walls.
watercolor effect in photoshop
After learning to use a Photoshop effect that causes photos to appear like they were watercolor paintings, I made a triptech (3-paneled set of images) showing three beautiful things (+ people) revealed as a vignette upon a solid color background.
Surrealism Composition
Using Adobe Photoshop, I created a composition from multiple original images. The images here, including a faded wristwatch, the stem of plants, partial yellow blooms, the texture of shrimp, and a paper tear, are intended to represent the Worldbuilding narrative project I created with ZoeyB and LillianC in English class. The narrative revolves around a health epidemic instigated by a mysterious fungus, which the protagonist must combat in order to save her community. I thought this composition matches the title, “Ammensalism”.
Character Design and Animation
After learning to model assets (such as the weapon design at the top of this Portfolio page), I created my character design, a little girl with two bouncing black ponytails. I happened to name her Maya, like the application I used to design her.
These three images show the evolution of my design from the render view of the basic model I created in Autodesk Maya, the more detailed OBJ created in ZBrush, and the low-polygon finished model imported back into Maya. Please click on any image to see it in larger size.
Finally, I learned to rig my character and create 3D animation for her.
Click the image here to see a walking, running, and jumping animation of my character!
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In second semester, I also used my character design in my group’s narrative animation production, which is the story of a girl, taking care of a lighthouse, who forms a rivalry with an annoying seagull.
3D multi-layer art
I created the design for each of my layers on an Adobe Illustrator file. Below is an image of my workspace with all my final layers turned on! Most layers are simply outlined. My bottommost layer has shapes filled with black, because the color fill tells the laser cutter to etch that layer rather than cut it.
My final step for this project was to create two videos, the first to show how the layers of my project fit together in 3D space, and the second to share the process of physically assembling my piece. Please click on either image to view the associated video!
Senior Zenith
The Zenith project is a final opportunity in our elective class to use our cumulative skills and produce something unique. I investigated how to use the Bifrost Fluids technology included in Autodesk Maya, and below is my compilation of animations.
To share my behind-the-scenes processes, I also recorded audio and videos as tutorial on how I made the animations for the mochi donut, wave, and splash motions. You can click on the corresponding image to check out their tutorial!
Animation Reel
This video is a 90-second long compilation of what I feel are my best projects produced at Freestyle Academy. Please click on the image below to access it (the image is a shot from my senior narrative group animation), and I hope you enjoy!
