Mandala
For the Mandala project, we used Illustrator to make mandalas that represented who we were. Illustrator is a difficult program to use, and I struggled with adjusting my normal drawing process to work in vector graphics. However, with time and practice, I was able to get it.
When this project was introduced to me as a mandala about who I am, I decided to go the literal route, and create a mandala about who I am anatomically. I wanted to show that, at the end of the day, we’re all humans with (mostly) the same insides, no matter who we are on the outside. In terms of the drawing itself, I struggled the most while drawing the ribs, since it was a really complicated shape with many overlapping parts. I overcame this by making many sketch layers, each more polished than the last, until I had enough guidelines to draw it properly. Besides that, I also struggled with a lot of technical difficulties that I had to spend a lot of time working around. I am most proud of the area with the hands and the teeth, since I think the drawings turned out well.
For the colored mandala, I tried to use mostly warm-toned colors, with a few shades of blue. I ended up making the blues slightly tinted green, so that they merged better with the other colors. The most difficult part was picking the colors and making sure everything was precisely colored. If I had more time to work on it, I would add gradients to make everything pop more. I am the most proud of the colors on the eyes.
I struggled with learning how to use the camera for this part of the project. It was difficult to get used to all the buttons, but I managed to figure out how to use it enough to take the photo. If I could do this again, I would pick a simpler background for my photo, so that it doesn’t distract from the text. It was fun to experiment with color correcting in Photoshop.
Motion Graphics
This unit was the first time I had used After Effects. I had never used any editing program before besides iMovie and CapCut, so it was really useful to learn how to use something more professional. I enjoyed the parts where we got to be creative and use the skills we learned for our own projects.
The interface was really confusing and slow on my computer, but I got much better at troubleshooting as time went on.
The video “My Cool Graphics and Audio” was supposed to showcase our skill at syncing graphics to audio in a creative way. I wanted to use a drawing I made of one of my characters and make it seem like they were dancing to the music. It took a lot of work to figure out the “bouncing” effect, but I think it turned out alright.
The video “My Simple Motion Graphics” was supposed to showcase our skill at creating simple motion graphics like pops and lines. I chose an image of a painting I made and tried to use motion graphics to add a sense of motion and energy. I put a lot of effort into making the colors match and making the beginning motion look natural.
The video “Rotoscoping” was supposed to teach us how to use rotoscoping and certain text effects to create an interesting video. I had to do a lot of troubleshooting with the rotoscoping part, but I was able to mostly figure it out in the end.
I plan to major in animation in college, so learning how to use editing effects and sync things to audio can really help streamline my process and make animating certain things much easier. Not only that, but I can use motion graphics skills to create promotional/brand videos in order to better market myself online and make myself more hire-able.