Category: Student Posts

For this project, I tried to simplify the process of converting 3D object into game ready models. It can be a complicated process, but I felt it was hard condensing average 3 hours of work into a sheet of paper. There are a lot of process in conversion. There are finding the actual model itself, manually painting texture on to the bone of the character for movement to be fluid, and hoping that upload of the character actually works. The drawing was also hard to accomplish since my hand drawing is awful. But this was the result for this sketch.

As a kid, I loved legos. I always enjoyed the feeling of putting all the pieces together and gazing at the final sculpture I created. So for this sketch, labeled “assemblies,” I thought there would be nothing more appropriate or personal than drawling a lego man. While keeping the metaphor of a final portfolio and what comprises it in mind, I chose to make side by side drawings of the pieces of a lego man and a completed lego man. The former representing each aspect of the class, and the later being the collective whole.

I chose each leg to be one part of the Literacy Narrative because they are in many ways reflections of one another. In addition, legs are what carry the rest of the body, so without those initial assignments we wouldn’t be able to have progressed. The groin is Tracing Maus because it is the assignment that came between both parts of the Literacy Narrative and helped transition us from only writing to drawling. The torso is represented by our readings because it is the center of the body and is where everything else stems out from. The arms are Comparing Palestine & Pyongyang and Mapping Spinning because they are what we used to further build upon our skills. The hands are sketches and class time because they gave us the dexterity to fine tune our skills throughout the semester. Finally the head is our Final Portfolio because it is where our minds are directed at currently.

For this assignment, I wanted to determine whether the weather has any influence on my general mood. I therefore decided to record the highest daily temperature and my happiness from 0-100 each day. While recording the temperature wasn’t difficult due to its objective nature, determining my mood was totally subjective. However, I tried to keep this consistent so I recorded my mood at 9PM everyday in order to avoid timing bias. When creating the chart, I decided to represent the two sets of data as lines in order to see if there was any visual similarity between the two. Before I began I had thought that if the temperature went up my mood may as well, but this was not the case and the data had a very low correlation. I think the greatest flaw of my project was that temperature doesn’t accurately reflect the general weather outside.

If I were to do this in the future, I would not go about it in the same manner. I would likely try to find a way of quantifying how bright and sunny the day is in addition to temperature because rainy days occur and may have a different impact on my day then I previously realized. In addition, I don’t think the comparison is really fair to begin with. There are so many factors that contribute to happiness, and simply relying on weather won’t truly capture the whole image.

Overall this was an interesting project to take part in and even though it wasn’t particularly telling, taking the time aside to assess my mood was beneficial. Realizing the flaws helped me come to a better personal understanding of happiness and the various facets of my life that contribute to it.

This sketch assignment allowed me to reflect on my growth throughout class.  This will certainly help me write my cover letter.  I decided to section each major assignment/task that we have competed in class.  Then, I proceeded to break down my learning accomplishments from each assignment.  I decided to group all the sketch assignments together.  Though some were markedly different than others, each one seemed very similar to me.  I believe that this is probably because ethyl had similar objectives: to create some sort of visualization. However, it was also because I tend to do all of them around the same time each Sunday.  The assignment that I enjoyed breaking down the most was the literacy narrative.  The literacy narrative was probably the most challenging assignment, but it incorporated a culmination of everything we learned in class up until now.  I also saw, as I broke it down, the growth throughout the assignments.  I realized how effective McCloud’s book was in helping me create my literacy narrative.  Lastly, I figured that i would include in class lectures.  They were blatantly helpful in allowing me to hear a diverse sea of ideas.

When starting this assignment, I was uncertain of what comparisons I would focus on. I was aware of many superficial differences and similarities between the two texts, but I needed to create a visual representation to narrow my focus. So I began the brainstorming process by building a comparison chart. This allowed me to conceptualize their differences in narrative structure. While my initial comparison noted numerous similarities in plot, I began to notice some stark differences in style of narrative. I highlighted Delisle’s use of subtlety in Pyongyang and juxtaposed it with Sacco’s use portrayal of boisterous disarray. While the two texts report journeys through countries where citizens suffer under oppressive regimes, the individual narratives are told in very different ways. I highlight these differences in my final comparison.

I chose to do a pseudo-cake recipe because of all the integral parts involved in cake making. All of the ingredients represent different parts of this class. Larger parts of the cake, such as the flour and sugar, represent main assignments like Spinning and Tracing Maus. Smaller portions represent daily activities and Sunday Sketches. All of the “ingredients” came together to supply the parts for the cover letter and reflection, or the “cake” of this assignment.

For my 11th sketch, I decided to frame all the assignments we did this year as components of an eye. Over the course of this semester, I learned a lot about the possibilities and the depth of graphic novels. I thought a good way to show what I learned would be through a literal eye. I broke down the 4 major assignments we did this year to show how they helped me learn about graphic novels:

Tracing Maus: After reading our first graphic novel, Maus, I was shocked. I didn’t know that graphic novels could be so serious, deep and dense. By tracing it, I analyzed the pages closely and it helped “open my eyes” to the diversity and potential of graphic novels, just like an eye-lid open the eye to the world.

Comparing Palestine and Pyongyang: After Maus we read two graphic novels which, although they shared a similar style, they approached and used the medium in very different ways. By comparing and contrasting the two, I saw how flexible and customizable the genre is, similar to how the iris filters light and allows different colors and shades to be seen.

Literacy narrative: After reading and studying a few graphic novels, we wrote and illustrated our own mini-novels and I was able to understand the struggle in writing, planning and creating a graphic novel. This is similar to the pupil/the back of the eye, where light is processed and turned into something comprehensible.

Mapping Spinning: The last graphic novel we read was Spinning, which we analyzed for some non-obvious pattern. It was an exercise in seeking underlying messages and themes of graphic novels to understand the depth they can have. It was a fascinating process where we looked past the surface for patterns. (Not really sure what the white part of the eyeball does but it felt fitting to put the mapping Spinning assignment there…)