Intro
In English, I develop insights into my experiences, beliefs, and values and use the writing process to develop rich material for online publication and potential use in my college applications. Then, we combined the inner reflection and core values from English class with the knowledge of illustration and After Effect from digital media to create a mandala and several video works. In addition, in the animation class, I learned how to make 3D models.
Who am I? What are the core values that matter to me?
I am Weiyi Cheng. I am an immigrant from China to the United States. The values that matter to me most are: family, culture, friends, Resilience, brave, creativity, and responsibility. My artworks shows that I’m very proud of my culture because I used a lot of elements related to my culture, such as: dragon, phoenix, and auspicious clouds.
Dragon and Phoenix Mandala
It’s a very joyful progress of creating Mandala by using Adobe Illustrator. First, we made a perfect circle to mark the size of Mandala. Then, we set the repetition and symmetry of the patterns. We created a triangle with light green to mark the area that we can draw patterns and cover the rest part with mask. Now, we can finally start drawing! It feels amazing to enjoy the strange collision of lines and shapes because even one simple line could make a complex pattern after repetition of multiple times.
The title of Dragon Warrior is obviously borrowed from the animated film Kung Fu Panda. How did Po transform from an ordinary fat panda to the Dragon Warrior? The key is “belief”.
“Belief” means believing in yourself. You are what you believe yourself to be. This is what Po learned from the Dragon Secret Book. I hope I can do something in the future like the warrior riding on the dragon in the Mandala Center.
Finally, I want to show that even though I came to the United States, I am still very proud of Chinese culture. Therefore, I hope more people can see the elements of Chinese culture.
This black and white mandala is my initial design result, and later I painted it and carved it on acrylic board.
2024 is the Year of the Dragon in Chinese culture. The dragon symbolizes supreme power, as well as happiness and peace. I hope that this year we can move forward and rise like the people riding on the dragon in my work.
The dragon is surrounded by a circle of auspicious clouds, and outside the auspicious clouds are 12 pairs of phoenixes. The phoenix also has beautiful meanings, such as auspiciousness, peace, virtue, freedom and rebirth. I combined these elements together not only because they are related, but more importantly, they match well.
Reflection to the Mandala project:
In this entire Mandala work, there are two core values that I care about the most. The first is that I am proud of my Chinese culture. The second is courage; it takes great courage to step out of an environment you have been accustomed to for a long time. Of course, during the creation process, I also pay great attention to the handling of details and the presentation of colors.
Personal Essay
In our senior year English class, we discussed the question ‘Who am I?’ The significance of this question lies in reflecting on our life experiences and introspecting. The following are the values that I consider most important to me.
Family
Culture
Resilience
Friendship
Creativity
Faith
I listed 20 items that were relevant to my story based on what the book said. Then, I listed 10 core values that mattered to me. Then I narrowed them down and developed my article based on them. The values I chose changed many times because some of them didn’t fit the story I was writing about.
I started my draft by expanding on what I had brainstormed. The biggest challenge I encountered was that I couldn’t connect the dots between the things I wanted to mention.
After receiving feedback from teachers and classmates, I chose playing basketball, learning English, and throwing Frisbees. They embody my three core values: resilience, self-discovery, and friendship. The revision process helped the structure of the article become clearer.
In terms of editing, I am more accustomed to using Chinese grammar, so some sentences cannot express the exact meaning. I adjusted them from the perspective of a native English speaker to make it easier for readers to understand. I didn’t use AI at all.
Reflection:
I think the most challenging part was the brainstorming process. I wanted to write about the challenges of cultural differences, but the term is too broad. After some twists and turns, I decided to focus on the challenges of language and interpersonal relationships to highlight my core values. I feel that College Essay Essentials played a significant role in this process. The revised version of my essay now includes two additional specific examples compared to the first draft. After all, this essay helped me reflect on the changes I’ve undergone during these crazy two years since coming to the United States. It clarified what I value most, which has also played an important role in shaping my future plans and career choices.I think the professional level is appropriate for describing my essay.
Animation Products
3D Skull
At the beginning of learning 3D model making, we used Zbrush to make a skull model. This process was very difficult because 3D modeling is like making a sculpture, it is very difficult to control. We referenced 3 pictures of the skull from the front, side and top. Then, I kept adjusting it from different perspectives to get this result.
3D Table and 3D Game Weapon
These two above images were created using Maya, zbrush, and Adobe Substance 3D Painter. I first used Maya to create the basic shape, then used zbrush to refine some details and even print patterns and pictures. Finally, I used Adobe Substance 3D Painter to add color and more detailed textures, and I added background and light and shadow effects.
3D Character Model and Composite Cycles.
First, I drew Sasuke’s 3D model in 3D modeling software by observing his reference pictures, and carefully carved out his hairstyle, clothing and facial features. Next, I added a bone system to the model so that it could perform various actions. Then, I set keyframes in the animation software to define the model’s posture at different points in time, and adjusted the details frame by frame to ensure smooth movements. Finally, I rendered each frame as an image and synthesized them together to form a continuous animation sequence. In this way, Sasuke’s 3D model came to life.