Category: Student Posts

I’ve always loved to travel.  Exposure to new places, people and cultures has allowed me to gain a greater perspective on the world.  That’s why I chose to the black and white image taken in Alaska.  Although i’m looking at the same thing, the lens on either side reflects a different image.  This demonstrates how I try to look at situations from multiple perspectives and keep an open mind, which is something that travel has enabled me to do.  I was also messing around with pixlr and was able to incorporate another picture taken in Fiji.  Not only are these places far in distance, but they’re also far from similar.  I’m fascinated by the contrast in environment, climate and overall lifestyle between places all over the world and can’t wait to continue to explore what else is out there.

Although I have had some sketching experience in the past, I have had very little practice drawing comics/ cartoons, and so I wasn’t sure which style I should choose for my avatar. Ultimately, I decided that as we are in a class that looks at graphic novels, I wanted to challenge myself to draw in a new style. I think that this image represents my personality because it is a little bit quirky and fun. It is also filled with bright and bold colours and my avatar has a massive smile. I always try to get enjoyment out of what I am doing and I’m striving to become bolder and brighter, so I think this image represents me well. This image also speaks to the topic for this class because it is in the style of the novels that we are studying. My avatar is also holding a giant pen; which means to represent drawing and/ or writing (typically associated with an English class). Although the cartoon doesn’t really look like me, I have tried to keep some of my distinctive characteristics, such as my green eyes, and my tendency to wear black trousers. Even though I really enjoyed creating my avatar, I faced some various difficulties in the process. Firstly, I had to practice drawing in this new, unfamiliar style – it took me several practices before I was happy with the result. Secondly, the colours appeared patchy when I scanned in the image, so I had to Photoshop the image once it had been scanned in to try and create the appearance of smoother block colours.

sk1

So when I started this image I really did not know what to do so I just kinda thought about my favorite animal and went from there. So thats how the panda got into the mix. I have always loved the panda as I see it as the cuties fluffiest animal out there. My love of the fluffiness of the panda made me always desire to be hugged by a panda. For some reason that manifested itself into me being a baby rapped in a blanket being hugged by the panda. This project was kind of a mystery for me so I just tried to start somewhere and go from there. I trued my best with the creation of the image. I was severely limited by my lack of use of any of these photo editing website and my lack of artistic creativity.

While I was originally planning on doing a pretty simple drawing for my avatar, after seeing the submissions already made, I decided to go out of my comfort zone with some pixel art.

My initial struggles included finding a program that would minimize the work needed. I took a picture I had already had and pixelated it, which didn’t work well at all. Then I found a pretty nifty program that would let you could compose pixel images. This meant, however, that I had to start from scratch. The lips were challenging, and I don’t think they look very realistic. Straight off I knew the eyes would probably be hard to get to look correct, so I drew sunglasses instead.

I chose to make it a gif because I thought it would be creative, and I like the retro look of the pixels. The flashing banner references our English class. I was originally planning on having the banners be the books we’re going to read in this class, but the difficulty in the execution was too great. The animation aspect and set up of the program made it difficult to incrementally change the gif. I had to first finish and decide that I liked everything about the face and background before I could move onto the books; if I saw something I didn’t like, I had to manually change each pixel meticulously so each slide matched.

Now I feel more confident that I could make more images styled in this way if I so chose. I quite enjoyed myself while making it, so that possibility is likely.

I decided to draw my avatar by tracing various helmets in Motorsports. The helmet design is similar to the driver from Formula One, but I made some alteration while sketching like removing and adding certain features just for personal preference. I believed that using Motorsports helmet would be good ideas since it goes with the statement that how I like Motorsports during the first class. I relate the helmet with the visual novel since the only human part you can see is the eye. I believe that eye is the only way we can interpret visual novels since it is used to understand the content of the visual novel is through our eyes.

The reason I chose this photo is because I believe it encapsulates the theme I am trying to get across with my Website as well as my love for the outdoors. I think a picture can capture any moment in time. In doing so, pictures allow us to simultaneously analyze a moment as part of a sequence of events occurring in the world. I consider myself an outdoorsman, so I feel the picture also touches on my passion of the outdoors.

Some difficulties I encountered while editing and posting this image include making it a square image and finding out how to add text to an image.

“https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Whirlpool_Rapids_Bridge_2. jpg”

 

 

 

 

Image Source [https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/61QHmBHBIkL._UX342_.jpg]

What a mess.

Unintentionally, that’s actually one aspect of this avatar that is somewhat reflective of me and how I work. My desk is generally a mess, yet somehow I can find what I need (usually).

Everything else has a reason for being here. Let’s start off with the face.

My face is split in half in this picture. The right side of the face [our right] is smiling and happy, with the eye wide open. This represents my happier side, the one that is present more so in the nighttime, as represented by the moon on the corner of my mouth. This is the side of me that most people within classes and study time don’t see, simply because of the environment I am in. I have nothing against going to class or studying of course.

On the left side of my face, my eye is closed, and my mouth is flat. There are also bags under my eye, which shows how little sleep I typically get. This point is further driven by representation of the coffee cup with the clock that shows 4 AM. The orange dot on my mouth represents the sun, which means this is how I am in the daytime. I am typically a very tired and “stone-faced” person, one who doesn’t usually smile or laugh too much.

The overall image of this split face is not as much to show split personalities, but to show that there are different sides to me, as with any person, that come out at various times. This shows a dynamic character rather than a static, one-faced personality.

The detective hat and magnifying glass set represents my curiosity for things unknown. As a detective does, I examine all the small details and try to piece them all into a single image. This way, I can learn the grand scheme of whatever topic I am learning. I do this in classes such as biology and chemistry, where I believe that everything links back to a single purpose or parent. This way of learning has helped me understand concepts easier, as I have something further up to connect it to.

On the detective hat, there is also a chess piece and a musical note. This is to represent my main hobbies, the ones that have allowed me to grow the most as a person.

On the topic of purpose, I am a very goal-driven person. This is shown through the single star in the night sky. While I may seem to be a person surrounded by darkness and negativity, I always have sight of the grand goal and keep it in mind. This is what drives me to continue doing anything in life, whether it’s to improve small things or create big things. However, to others, it may seem as though I’m just a dark person who has no drive.

The green background doesn’t completely fill in the entire back. Instead, there are parts at the edges that are not colored, as well as spaces in between that also have not been fully colored in. This is intentional. Something that I have learned as I’ve grown older and as a person is that not everything needs to be filled in. I used to strive to make sure every single small detail was fulfilled, and I wouldn’t be satisfied if that didn’t happen. However, I’ve learned to accept that not everything will always be filled and complete. Some things in life will never be answered; however, that is okay. I can still be satisfied with how something turned out, even if not everything is complete to the full extent.

Finally, the shape of the name. The robotic text of my name is also intentional. I used to be well known at my old school as a machine. People would say that I was more like a robot than a human. I had to solve problems with equations, if/then statements, and the like. I didn’t really try to look at things based on a mixture of logic and feelings. However, as I’ve grown, I feel like that robotic style has started to fade. However, this logical style of thinking is still who I am, and I will not strive completely away from that. We can see this being represented in the name because of the fading ends of some of the lines in the name. For example, the top of the C on my last name is fading. However, it is still incredibly easy to tell that the text is in a robotic style. I won’t stop being robotic, but it will indeed start to fade little by little.

There was absolutely some difficulty in this avatar. What do I use to represent myself? How can this be interpreted? All these were questions that can be answered differently and are so open-ended that it’d take years to finalize any answers. Not only was it hard to understand myself and what I want, it was also hard to get back into art. Digitally drawing was something I tried to get into, but never did. Conventional art media and digital art has very different techniques utilized for the same purpose, so my old art lessons proved to not be very effective.

I am satisfied with the current state of my avatar. However, I am excited for the day I look at this avatar and say, “I can do better.” And when that day comes, I look forward to redrawing this avatar. But until then.

The picture I have chosen to represent myself is one of a colorful brain. Half of the brain in this illustration is not very interesting, but still shows a little color. This may indicate untapped potential waiting to be unleashed. The other half of the brain is bursting with color and fresh blooms. I believe the colorful side of the photo shows how with a little nourishment and encouragement, one can be very successful. I really enjoy this photo because I think it reflects me very well. I have a feeling that the majority of this class, including myself, has a lot of untapped potential when is comes to visual writing. With a little “nourishment”, I think we can all flourish in this class. The most difficult part of picking a photo for my avatar was deciding what I wanted to be the center of attention. My first thought was something based on a comic book character or a well-known comic book landscape. After some thought, I decided to go outside of the box and choose something complete unrelated to the subject at hand. I think this photo encompasses how I feel about my future in this class, and sheds light in a different perspective of visual writing.

Attached is my avatar. This picture is of Ben Franklin from the $100 bill listening to headphones with a background. To be totally honest, I’m not 100% sure why I chose this picture. I had no real ideas for a self portrait and didn’t want to draw a crappy picture of myself so I got creative. I chose Ben Franklin for no real reason, I guess I like the idea of modifying an icon and I like history. I feel that this properly represents my eclectic style; I will work with whatever whenever. It was important to me that he was listening to music because music plays a huge role in my life and is something I’m very passionate about. The two biggest challenges I faced when making this avatar were thinking of an idea and executing it. I’m not the greatest drawer so I had to think of something which represented me. This poorly edited picture is the what I ended up with. The other challenge was producing the image. I’ve never worked with photo editing software before and I think it shows. It took me well over an hour and a half to figure out how the program I used (Pxlr) worked and to assemble and edit the entire thing. The result is what you see here, a brief statement of me.

 

Ben Franklin picture:

Earbud picture:

For my avatar image, I decided to create a picture that would represent me in this class. I did not know whether I want it to be my real photo or a drawing. After a long time of thinking about it, I finally found a solution to my problem in the idea of creating something in between. In other words, I wanted to make my photograph look like a drawing. I picked my photo and made it more “cartoony” via the application called Cartoon Face. Due to the fact, that I wanted this sketch to represent me in the context of this class, I thought that having comics theme as a background would be the best decision. Additionally, using the application called Snapseed, I typed my name in a bubble because, in my opinion, it is an important element of comics.

One of the main difficulties that I faced in creating this badge was the fact, that I did not have any experience with photo editing programs, sketches, badges, and creating anything like this avatar. But we always need to start somewhere and try something new.