Artist statement

Tina Yang’s artist statement :D

When I first started 3D modeling it was purely out of curiosity about watching anime. I watch shows where the characters would move like performers on a stage. Naturally, that means it would be hard to animate each frame by hand. So when I watched these shows and I really wanted to get into an artistic aspect of my life I found 3D modeling. I started off with MMD making my characters and models out of parts I found on the internet. It was a tedious amount of work, yet I worked into the late summer nights of my middle school career and found it amusing and fun. I became familiar with UV mapping and bones. The more I played around with the program I found a passion for making characters rather than animating. Making the character and dressing them up was a glorified version of dress-up games I played when I was younger.  So naturally when I entered high school I wanted to pursue this fun new hobby of mine I found. While working over the last 4 years I had a lot of projects that I was satisfied with especially in my early stages. But I was just so antsy and wanted to make a full poly character. After making my full poly character I realized that it was way harder than anything I’ve ever done before. In my defense I am a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to making something of mine. I do get upset about the little things that go wrong. Blender as a program is amazing, it’s free with a range of tools and tricks to help you out. But working with it can be unbearable sometimes. I realized that I would like to have this skill on the side as a hobby more than anything else. I would still like the 3D model just not as a big school project or a job, I am more of a hobbyist if anything, and this is one hobby I genuinely enjoy.

Other DAF things

 

GIF

Photo resizing

                               Introduction

Photocroping. I had to learn how to use photoshop this week in class. Although I am unfamiliar with this program I think I had a bit of success remembering the steps that were taught in class to resizing my photos. 

Inspiration

There was little to no inspiration other than the constant pressure of the art festival. Joking! But overall this was something I had to do and personally something I really want to try and do. 

Brainstorming

I had to figure out by Friday which photos I wanted to do, I really did not want to use the donut photo, mostly due to the fact that it was something everyone else has done in our 3D Modeling class. So I wondered if I could use another one. Due to the school getting rid of all of our Youtube videos most of my projects from the last year have disappeared and to be never seen again so I have little to no choice, but to use the Donut scene. I personally really like the scene. I guess I wanted to be a bit more different and NOT seem like I didn't do anything with my last 2 years. I also did not want to use a progression shot mostly since I wanted more than one final product shot. 

Experimental

When editing my photos I remembered most of the steps that were told to me. I forgot to switch to the preserve details section of the modes so I had a hard time wondering why my photos were so blurry. I also kept unconsciously making my photo 20pxs by 14pxs instead of inches, which took me an embarrassingly amount of time to figure out. 

Process

I am missing one more photo, but that is on my school laptop.

Reflection

Overall, it was a success nonetheless! I learned how to crop photos and resize them while keeping the same quality I was given. I am very excited to see them printed. I plan on cutting away the white borders so I can get my full screen on my cardboard!

Work Log:

Monday: Connected Neck    

Tuesday: texturing

Wednesday: Waiting for Photoshop to download

Thursday: Demo Day

Friday: Not in class

Texture Research

           Introduction

As I am about to begin my journey of texturing my model and rigging it. I started to look back on my MMD days and understand how exactly to do UV textures. Now I would not say I am a newbie when it comes to UV Textures, I understand its concept to a tee. And when I did do MMD I would remember recoloring textures or looking at them often to understand how to make the dress I want different color without messing up what shows up on my model

Inspiration

My inspiration 100% has to be MMD, although I might not want this exact style of textures, it is one I am very much so familiar with and honestly editing textures and reworking them to my liking was always a fun part of my night. Thanks to this I had an idea of what I wanted to do and how I can properly execute it with the tutorial videos I watched. 

Brainstorming

So I want to use other textures to make my texture. I want to use other people's s textures and tweak them to what I desire and hope for what my character will be like. This is something I am very much so familiar with and I will be mostly using license-free textures and other community-given textures for my character. Anything I can not find I will make personally make it myself.

Experimental

I collected photos of parts :D and downloaded the zip files for each items I need.

Process

Cytryna CAmmd

HiLoMMD

UtauRueCross

    

Reflection

I am unsure if I can pull this off, but I am very much so confident in my abilities to do so right now, My plan is to make the base a singular color and then shade in whatever I need to for skin details, clothing details are not hard in my book just shading for folds. I am mainly worried about the face and eyes not looking what I would want them to look like.

Work Log:

Monday: Dress

Tuesday: Arm

Wednesday: Clean up

Thursday: Looking for textures

Friday: I don't remember

Clothing

                               Introduction

Clothing is the main part of a character, my main clothing inspiration is Hanfu which is a traditional Chinese dress in ancient times. It is very similar to the kimono from Japan and has many cultural influences and different vtubers often wear traditional Asian clothing.

Inspiration

I've always liked watching anime and due to my own heritage of being Chinese, I was already familiar with the clothing style and aesthetic. I also found other vtubers with many different kimono outfits and I knew that personally, I wanted one that with more uniqueness and my personal touch.

Brainstorming

I went through different types of clothing and poses when trying to find the ones that could. I looked at many different references when making clothes. I decided that I did not want to make this too complicated for me so a simple top, skirt, blouse, and other accessories would work together. I also understood that I did not want the clothes to look like it was sewn onto the character, rather than just placed on.

Experimental

Throughout my processor making anything this was the first time I did it without a tutorial.  Honestly I think I did a decent job from looking at reference pictures and making what I thought looked right. I  also just alt + selected every body part I was starting it off of and extending it. Overall I am very satisfied with the work I did this week. And I should be done with her clothes by the end of this week.

Process

Reflection

There were some parts that confused me such as the skirt of how poofy it was suppose to be. The arms I just started to work on and honestly I am really satisfied with how they are beginning to form.

Work Log:

Monday: Bodice

Tuesday: Bodice

Wednesday: dress
Thursday: Dress

Friday: Dress

District Arts Festival display plan.

 As of right now, I am planning on sticking with my plan, maybe it will change within the month of May. My best hope is that it does not and I can continue with my original plans for the time being. My plans are not set in stone, perhaps I will change up a few things along the way. The pieces I am planning on printing out are.  

PUDDING

And my kitchen scene with my pendulum^^ I also wanted to put more of my Vtuber models

District arts Festivial

1. Triangle Display!!

2. I hope to have at least 3 prints and 4 is my max since I do want to display the other fun works I've done within the last year. I also plan to bring in my monitor from home. I want to set up 2 looping videos of my character waving and smiling on the monitor.

3. I want to hang my name down like paper letter blocks possibly, this is subject to change. My display color palette is a more sage green and peony pink due to how most of my objects are a lighter color and more pink and green. I will have one end table for displaying phone charms that I plan to sell for fun! I also will have a stool to hold up my monitor for my video connecting to the school laptop.

MP3 Reflections

The 3rd marking period check helped me see what my other students were up to. I'm glad to know that many of my classmates were almost in the same boat. I tend to enjoy watching the progression of our class it's very interesting and fun to watch. 



Aaliyah Alvarez

I really enjoyed reading Aaliyah's script in class, I can understand the hard work she put into scriptwriting although I have never written a script myself I understand the stages of having to change the format of writing into a script to add in all the camera angles and speaking dialogue with voice over or not. Also, in every written scene that describes the setting, I could imagine seeing every single set on the stage. It was very cool and fun to read her script in class and I love seeing her hard work go noticed!

Makayla Forbes

Another member in my class I read and enjoyed was Makayla!! I loved her concept of the Seven Princes of Hell and making them into characters. I am a big fan of this idea and making it yourself. I totally understand her reasoning when she said she only wanted to make three. I also can relate to her on struggling with the eyes of the character models and I was glad to give her some tips when she asked me to!

Austin Bennett  

I was super amazed by Austin's progress with his models and the animation of his models^^ I also loved his idea to 3d print his characters as mini marketable figures!! They're super simple and easy shaped so I totally understand why he would. Overall his animation test was great and everything looked super smoothed with his characters. I also understand him when he said he was getting kind of tired and lost a bit of inspiration when it comes to making his models and videos. I also have a brain blockage.

Overall, I loved reading and watching everyone's growth within the last marking period! I learned a lot from this marking period and saw the improvements of everyone!

MP3 End blogpost

 Intention Definition & Exploration of Ideas: History and Folktales have been a part of our lives forever, people use history and stories as a way to teach valuable lessons. History has been one of my favorite subjects for as long as I can remember and I remember in elementary school I would go out of my way to read fairytales. History and stories will always be in art and the media, video games, books, movies, paintings, sculptures have been made based on stories we've read in our history classrooms. We all know stories such as The Little Mermaid, Snow White, Cinderella, Hansen, and

 Gretel, etc. They are timeless and have been rewritten and told for years and will continue well past our time on this earth. This is not just limited to U.S. stories, across the globe there are multiple versions of stories we've heard million times before and even their own cultures' unique ones. Chinese folktales and history have piqued my interest for years now, I grew up knowing stories of the Lunar Zodiacs and the Monkey King way before I knew what Goldie Locks and the 3 Bears were. I felt as if a big part of my childhood and identity was not as well known as I thought, because upon asking my friends who also were Chinese they have not heard some stories I had thought were ironic in Chinese culture. I have wanted to make a 3D modeled character since my first day of 3D Modeling and Design, so when I reached profilio I knew this is what I wanted to do. I thought to myself, why just make a character when I can rig it and use it on myself. So I turned to the internet of course. I spend an unhealthy amount of my time on the internet, specifically youtube, and being an avid anime fan it was not long before I knew who Vtubers are. At first, I was a little bit weirded out, but then I began liking how their characters look and how much fun they looked they were having on the screen so I wanted to make one for myself. 

Planning: So after my last blog post I started deciding what I wanted to do for the majority of my work. I decided to work on the body this time rather than the head. I finished the body and went back onto the head as of late and have made decent progress with both aspects. I decided I was not going to make feet for my character due to time and mostly my character's feet would not be seen usually because her dress is supposed to be floor-length. 

Producing:  

Evaluating: I am really happy I finally have a concept sheet. I commissioned an artist to create one for me and I found her through TikTok. I was quite nervous for my first commissioning someone I had no prior knowledge of knowing. The concept art really helped with my mind and I could clearly see what my character suppose final to be. I believe I could have taken less time to do the body, but I am overall glad I choose to do what  I did for them.

Integrating:  So, moving forward I would like to work out of this outside of class more. I have worked on it a bit outside of class here and there but I want to dedicate more days of my life to making my character model. I am really happy I almost have the hair done and then I just need to make clothes and texture then rig and I would be done. Although it might sound a lot I believe this will be significantly less difficult than modeling. Maybe I am underplaying it in my mind but as of right now nothing seems too bad. I am prepared to work on 

Character design!! abd Commsions!!

                               Introduction

Once again I talk about character design. But this week it's different. I would like to talk about specifically, commissions. Throughout my journey in finding vtuber and certain artists, I learned about commissions and what they all are entitled to.

Inspiration

So I saw a tiktoker who had just started his vtubing career in 2021 and showed his concept art and explain where he requested his commission for his model artist and rigger. He drew his own concept art and then commissioned others for his actual model. It turned out wonderful and I wanted to commission someone for concept art for me.

Brainstorming

I tried using multiple different methods, Using the bases of other characters, making a Pinterest board, and other art templates. I now most understand I am more of a visual person and actually needed a photo image of my character. So I just needed a concept art. But I can not draw nor did I have an extra 50$ to spend on a commission. I understand that commissions take a lot of money since some artists do live off of commissions. So I had to find a budget and affordable artist who does concept art.

Experimental

 

On my tiktok fyp I stumbled across someone named "Ramuchii" They were a 16-year-old Korean American girl who was offering her services for a cheap and low price since it was a hobby rather than work. Her art was amazing I finally now have my own personal concept of a character. I used a doc and a Pinterest to help her visualize.                      

Process

Reflection

Overall, I was very satisfied with my purchase! I also learned a lot about trust and how commissions work! link to my google doc!

Work Log:

Monday: finger done!

Tuesday: workin on arms

Wednesday: hair

Thursday: hair

Friday:none

Hands

                               Introduction

Mori Calliope

    So hands and arms are sometimes not needed for a Vtuber, but I would really like my character to have hands so I can add a controller or an object to be seen as my character mimicking me better. It was something I wanted and planned to have since the beginning of my project.

Cyyuvtuber

 Inspiration

 There was not much inspiration I can say when it comes to hands. I guess Cyyuvtuber would be
my main inspiration for wants hands since his character pulls up a little controller and I think it is super cute and a fun bit to add on. Mori Calliope is also another popular vtuber with hands on a controller!

Brainstorming

Of course, in Blender, my character would be 3D and I understood that. I honestly would prefer this way because then my hands would do more than just hold a controller, it can also follow me. There wasn't much I wanted to do with my character's hands, maybe painted fingernails, but no other extra accessories such as rings or tattoos.

Experimental

So I have not done much this week as my process, mostly due to 2 rest days of the Man pageant set up and watching them during our class. I was having a hard time with my hands since I had to make more vertexes and figure out how exactly to make hands

Process

Have not started the process.

Reflection

Overall, my hands look promising, it's coming along okay. I need to make the pal a bit more realistic/noticeable because as of right now my hands look a bit chubby and VERY flat.

Work Log:

Monday:fixing chest area

Tuesday: man pageant set up

Wednesday: arms and hands

Thursday: fingers!! and vertex clean up

Friday: watching man pageant and making finger tips

Chest area.

                               Introduction

To put it frankly I have been trying to work on the boobs of my character. I have NEVER realized how hard exactly it is to make a breast. I personally felt very very uncomfortable when doing this, But this is our human anatomy so I had to learn one way or another.

Inspiration

There is little to no inspiration other than I had to. The chest area is one of the main parts that make a woman, a female. Other than her double X chromosomes haha. Shonzo does a nice job with his work, but I still tend to get confused with his making. I also realized that he makes his base with a circle of 16 vertexes a radius rather than 32. I decided that I do not want 2xs the number of vertexes so I sized mine down to his.

Brainstorming

I knew that I wanted it to be on the smaller side. Mainly because Chang E was depicted to be a beautiful Chinese woman which therefore she would have more of a slim body and small chest. Also realizing that making a bigger chest means making my life more difficult I am very happy with my choice.

Experimental

Every second I worked on this I felt so uncomfortable as if I was doing something bad. I also sit right in front of 3 guys in your class so that made me feel even more uncomfortable. The more I tried to fix the shape of the character the more her breasts looked like pyramids.  

Process

Reflection

I really thought this was going to be an easy process. It was not, I'm never underestimating anything in Blender again. I will say I am happy that I was able to make them somewhat circular. This could look a lot worse. I want to continue and practice making it look a bit more realistic? Just whenever I am satisfied. 

Work Log:

Monday: Started arms they were noodle-like

Tuesday: Realized I had way too many vertexes restarted the body.

Wednesday: Finished body again^^

Thursday: Did knee caps :D and Started chest area

Friday: Worked @ home to refine the body shape and chest area because doing it in class made me uncomfy.

VR chat

                               Introduction

VR chat is essentially 3D models used to pretend it is yourself or make your persona a character. Many people use MMD or make their own character. I do not have a VR headset but one day I want to be able to use my character in an online chatting forum.

Inspiration

So I recently was watching TikTok and saw funny videos of people using Genshin Impact characters on VR chat. I was really interested in the process of how a character qualifies to be a VR model.

Brainstorming

To make a VR Chat character you have to have a rigged model of course. Many people also rig the eyes in the mouth so people can have lip-sync. Not only this, but character models have to be in VRCA files, which are their own personal files that are compatible with their games. Also in VR Chat, there is NO physics at all so if my clothing is hanging on my arms such as a long sleeve they will stay in place as if it was glue.

Experimental

Although I haven't really done much for making a separate model or character for my VTuber, I had thought of other clothing ideas to make it since the clothing I want for VTuber would not convert well in VR Chat, Clothing that is more simple and fitted to the body teends to do better.

Process

https://pin.it/1wuj7Qk

Reflection

Overall, I think that this would be a nice little side idea for me to do in case I ever want to release my model publicly or just want a more modern theme to my historical one. 

Work Log:

Monday: finished shoulders

Tuesday: lines fixing

Wednesday: arms ^^

Thursday: async    

Friday: off

Torso

 Introduction

We are still learning about the human anatomy!! How fun, not really, but it's a learning experience. The torso will most likely be a two-part blog post since I just started to figure out the body shape of the people. Everyone comes in different sizes and shapes and I just had to figure out what I want. 

Inspiration

Genshin Impact/ Mihoyo would be one of my greatest inspirations for this. They have 5 different main body types in Genshin, Each body type looks a bit different from another, but there are way more in the game too! For NPCs, there are at least 5 other ones in a total of ten! 

Brainstorming

So what exactly did I want as my character's body type? I had in my mind from the beginning for my character to have more or less the same body type as Hu Tao, But that was at the beginning of the process. I now wanted a taller and teen-like character model rather than one who look like a petite girl. A model that looks more like Miku Hatsune, a Vocaloid character. Although they aren't much different their torso aren't alike. While Hu tao has more of a rectangular type of build Miku seemed more of an hourglass figure than a square build, her shoulders are also not as wide compared to Hu Tao and have more legs than torso which allows her to look taller. 
  

Hu Tao

Miku Hatsune

Experimental

So, I knew ith the face I would have the same troubles of trying to keep the edge lines straight to match up with each other in order to make my faces and vertexes look smooth than wonky. It's safe to say I did a better job this time around, but it still felt a bit more sloppy than I would like to admit. I did somewhat succeed on the body type and mesh so that was an achievement. 

Process

Reflection

Overall, I was somewhat satisfied with what I have done this week, I did everything to the best of my availability and I tried my best. I am afraid of what comes head since I will be working on the chest area next week and shoulders and hands. I can not wait to start on feet either.

Work Log:

Monday: worked on bottom half and backside of torso

Tuesday: Finished back of torso and started the side

Wednesday: Finished side and started the front.

Thursday: Cleaned up my lines and made sure everything looked about right made the torsos into a more S shape because spines are S shaped

Friday: Finished the torso started on the shoulder blades and will work on the chest part next week.

LEGS

                               Introduction

I decided this week to focus on character bodies than head and hair since it was stressing me out. I have little to no knowledge of the body and anatomy. I was just going with the flow. This week while learning a bit more about the human body. Legs were always a struggle for me as a child and I didn't even start the feet yet.

Inspiration

It's hard to say what inspired me to want to learn about anatomy more. I always wanted to learn how to draw characters and people so I always had a general idea of how legs and thighs look without much issue. Calves are bigger than upper arms and thighs are bigger than calves, easy as pie! Right?  The character sheet I will be basing the body type off of is Hut Tao from Genshin Impact, also Shonzo did something similar to me with using another character for the body model then applying his own twist.

Brainstorming

Before I did and based off my legs on a 2d art, but I felt as if it did not match the face as it was a softer and gender-neutral type rather than a more mature and feminine. Mihoyo has a lot of female characters in the same body type since he also likes reusing moels in his game, But for me, I just chucked along with what I thought was right. And I personally think it turned out okay. 

Experimental

I struggled once again to start sub-division and get my mirror modifier to work. But I eventually got it correct. I soon started my legs but I tend to get a bit confused with how knee caps work. I still could not figure it out by the end of the week even trying to learn frame by frame with Shonzo. My brain could not wrap around it so I decided for the sake of my sanity I would do it after I finished the body. 

Process

Reflection

I am happy I started the legs for my brain to take a break on the legs, but I really need to figure out the body and how the legs are more round than just flat on the back

Work Log:

Monday: Hair and attempt the top of the hair

Tuesday: Hated the top attempted the bun

Wednesday: I got stressed about the hair again so I watched youtube of vtuber making and decided the body would be a better option

Thursday: Started legs struggle with knees and start the bottom half of the body.

Friday: I had to work all day but I just started my blog post

MP2 reflections

The marking period 2 progress check was an eye-opener and a fun time to view what our fellow classmates have done throughout the year compared to our own works. Needless to say, I was nervous and excited to share my work with my peers, but dread the criticism that was followed. Overall, I enjoyed viewing my classmates' works and am glad I was able to share mine. I was particularly inspired by Austin's work. We both do the same thing in Blender, but I absolutely love the thoughtful planning and character designs he had for his emotions. I can learn a thing or two from the way he sets up his setting and his ally way textures and scene building is just magnificent. The hallway also looks like something straight out of a video game, I felt as if I had a sense of deja vu from all the games I played seeing the hallway.

Another student I was drawn to was Nyair! Nyair and I had somewhat similar ideas about creating characters and animating them. Although our themes were drastically different, hers being "Looking Inward and the Human experience" and mine being "History and Stories," she still brought in aspects of HIstory and story into her project which I found cool. I almost love her planning and all her sketches to show her thought process and character design sheet. Nyair and I had the same idea, but I feel like her energy and ambition to work hard on her project are leagues ahead of mine. All of her early concept art is super good and detailed I feel as if I can already see the final product. Even having interior concept and design on record to review and her character builds are usually similar which she can reuse and deduct time from her progress. In the end, seeing Nyaur's work made me have more inspiration to continue my work and see how it pans out!

Lastly, Abigail's blog post was very interesting! Although I knew what she was doing throughout the semester I never had like a here is what is going on update. Throughout the semester I had tried helping her with her grass particles and texturing. I had known exactly what was going to be on her blog post, yet I was still very much impressed with all the work she had done even with her grass particles not working. I feel as if out of everyone who was doing Blender she had the hardest time working on her project and she allowed nothing to stop in her way. Even when her textures didn't work the way she wanted or when her grass particles didn't and started crashing her program she still took the time and continued working. I also love her choice of the story with her theme which is something I want to work on more. From the moment I saw her two different colored trees I  knew her theme was Nature and change. Everything was lovely to a few and from Abigail, I learned to be more persistent allow myself to work, and not let problems get in my way. 

From my fellow 3D model classmates I can learn so much from them that encourages me to move forward with my VTuber!