New Year Resolutions and some other things

With the big bad 2012 coming up, I figured it's time I put some actual resolutions into action. While I am a girl that says she'll exercise and never does, hopefully that'll change. BUT ACTUALLY, I have bigger and better ideas too. In order to try and encourage myself to study more, I bookmarked a series of web pages that I'm hoping will become useful. Some are Photoshop Tutorial websites, some are just public forums for visual design.

That time of the year again where I update with stuff I did

A stressful semester has paid off quite well. I enjoyed most of my assignments (minus making the ferry building look like it was made out of legos because it ended up looking like a pinata), and I definitely learned a lot.

So Fall Semester Started

So this is going to kinda be a lengthy post just because it's been a while since I updated, but here it goes! If you don't wanna read any of this, just scroll on through I guess.

I'm already going into the fourth week of my classes, and I can't help but feel like this is going by incredibly fast. I only have two days of class too, which makes time go by even faster since my free time is going into my assignments and my part time job.


Well, my classes have been fun so far. In one class, I'm making web site prototypes, and I'm really enjoying it. Rather than coding, it's a class dedicated to the layouts and the aesthetics of websites, putting a focus on what you can do to create easy interactivity between the website and the user, and making it simple but still visually appealing. Our only assignment so far was re-designing the Netflix website. We spent two weeks doing that, and now we're moving onto our midterm where we have to come up with a website proposal and design it within 7-8 weeks.

My other classes have been well too. I'm taking a Motion Graphics 1 class, where we unfortunately are going to be putting our focus all into Flash and not After Effects as well. It's a little disappointing just because Flash is actually slowly getting the boot, as HTML5 makes its way in the scene. However, I managed to take it easy and have a little fun with the assignment, making a pregnant cartoon lady out of geometric shapes.

And then there's a photoshop class that I'm not too proud of just yet to post the assignments for, maybe next time.

Summer semester is almost over

and I hate gradient meshes

So apparently I'm halfway through the Summer Semester

It's been going by relatively quick. Nothing really worth mentioning in my classes; I've just been doing busy work but I actually just finished my midterm. We had to create an Illustrator file that had a magazine cover, using a photo of ourselves and vectoring it. I just submitted it today, so let's hope it gets a good grade. I had fun looking for fonts and trying to figure out a good layout for it, so I hope for the best.

Still kinda iffy on the placement of certain cover lines, but if nothing is wrong with them in the end I won't bother changing it.

New Stuffs

As I mentioned in previous posts, I was changing my major from 2D Animation to New Media and Web Design. Well, I'm taking my first class for that this summer, and already I feel like I made the right decision in switching. It's a pretty basic Illustrator class, but it still consumes a good amount of time (at the same time, I'm working nearly full time right now so my free time has been limited during weekdays and weekends).
So far our first assignment and second assignment has been pretty simple. The first was to do an illustration of an insect, in any style just to show what we were capable of already in Illustrator. I chose to do an Orchid Mantis for mine.

Unfortunately due to a housewarming party for our new apartment and work, I rushed this assignment because it was already a day late. However, I was still happy to do it.

 

The unfortunate thing about Summer Semester is that you only have like 2-3 days to work on things, meaning if you procrastinate you're screwed. My second assignment for this class had given me hell. While it was fun to do, I had a series of problems the day it was due because I needed to get it done within a certain amount of time before I went to work.

We were to trace an image of our choosing and fill it with vector shapes.
Here's the WIP:

 

Original photo

 

Old stuffs

So I realized that it's been quite a while since I updated this blog (not that too many people are following anyhow, so it's less of a concern for me than it would be), however a lot of things came up that were also keeping me occupied.


I'm taking this post as an opportunity to post some of the old work I did from last semester. Most from digital illustration, but also some doodles I managed to work up as well.

FINALS INTERMISSION

Just a few more weeks left.

Just having a few weeks left of school, and my second year here will soon be over! I've been learning so much, and it's unfortunate but great at the same time that I'll be switching majors into Web Design and New Media. Hopefully I can use learning interactive design and web building to make things a lot better for myself. I'm hoping to be able to make more graphic illustrations too..



It's been real busy for me. I've been trying to find a new job while looking for a place to live in that just works out for me personally, all the while trying to maintain a social life and homework. I'm just hoping all's well that ends well.


In the meantime, here's a usual update from my digital imaging class; we had to make a creature and fully render it in two weeks. This one is kinda sloppy but...eh. I like the turnout much more than I thought I would.

Back from the dead

After a long amount of days and spring break kicking me in the face, I've returned. Still under lots of stress but pulling through! My digital imaging assignment over the past 3 weeks was to make a composition based off of fantasy, sci-fi, or pirates. I chose a hansel and gretel theme, and with that, decided to attempt cell shading. Now, I would have had no problem with it to begin with, but doing long term projects like this kills me, and at the end I just don't care anymore.

The style ended up being kind of sloppy, but I do enjoy cell shading like that. Idk guys. I'm about as over it as I am when I eel like waking up to exercise.

But yeah. That's what's been annoying me the past three weeks. Also, I did some drawing on sight last week. Very fun! I'll have to do it more often now that the weather is getting nicer for it.

Hnnnnng

So it's already tuesday and it's kind of already been hellish for me. I pulled two all nighters in a row last week and the result got me sick with a sinus infection. Now I'm suffering swollen tonsils and ended up skipping my anatomy and digital imaging class yesterday to go to the doctor's, to get a doctor's note for today and possibly tomorrow. It's kind of nice but stressful at the same time with the amount of work I have to do.

However, I managed to do a portrait for my digital imaging class, which was a first for me. I realize I would like to add more tones to the skin to help darken the shadows a bit, and the hair is a bit meh for me. But it was fun to do, I wish I had saved older copies of the picture because it definitely went through different transformations.

Also I've been considering switching majors from animation to New Media. I'm going to be talking to the department head about it and see if it's really what I want. Even if I do change though, I won't stop doing what I've been doing!

As a continuation from last week..

The assignment we had to do with various character thumbnails was brought to an end tonight, as I reworked kinks and bits of detail for my witch doctor character and colored it in photoshop. It had been AGES since I used photoshop to color things, let alone with a tablet. Unfortunately I used the dodge and burn tool more than I wanted, but hopefully next assignment I'll gear away from that. Here's some work in progress:

 And the final!

I appreciate Andre showing me the fun of textured backgrounds.

Augh

So this semester has been kicking me square in the ass, with good reason too. I'm realizing that my study habits are quite under par to what I should be doing considering the work I have to do over the week. Usually 30+ drawings of something, some digital work, and long term projects. Not only that but social life and work have definitely been impacting that. I need to find time to work through my priorities.

In the meantime, here's some work I'm doing right now for my Digital Imaging class.

 

I had spent the most time on the bottom one, so I'll probably work on that one for continuation.I am very sleep deprived now, so the top two were a result of that progress. I need four hours of sleep now

Hooray digital imaging!

I just started a digital imaging class last week. It's pretty fun, along with the rest of my classes. But I can already feel like I'm going to be quite busy this semester

Just filling up some air!

Figured I'd just add various things I do for now until school starts. Here's a quick trace-over I did from a picture in Illustrator.

Hi friends!

It's about time I start working on a blog site. A lot of my friends have been doing it for a while now, and so I shamefully am starting as a late bloomer. Since it's 2:20 AM right now, I won't be posting current images of my work just yet. But alas, I'll be doing it quite soon.