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!

MP2 Production Progress Point

 Intention Definition & Exploration of Ideas: 

History and Folktale 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: I first started researching online and going to a very reliable source, Google, to find out how exactly to make a Vtuber in a blender. I first found this one YouTuber named "Mako Ray", he had a multi-series on his channel which is very beginner-friendly for new blender users and teaches us tips and tricks on his videos. With Mako Ray, I also
watched Shonzo and had received lots of inspiration from Yoolie

. I wanted to make my character look more anime and polish since I wanted my character to look 2D while being 3D. Yoolie was a great source of
inspiration because they have made models for bigger YouTubers such as MerryDawg
and Lost Pause. As I was watching Ray I decided to make a Pinterest board

of everything I wanted my character to have, color scheme, face, hair, clothes, etc. Shonzo helped me with hair and feminine body and having an actual video step-by-step time-lapse of all his work. I also had multiple faces and body references so I can trace them over when in production. 

All the tutorials I took and learned from:

Producing: 

11/15/21 week

11/23/21

Face with new bangs

Current Progress

Legs and Torso

Evaluating: So as of right now, January 9th, 2022 I am barely done with the model. I still have to edit her clothes and body, textures, then rig her arms. I am upset with my progression, I was hoping by the midpoint of marking period two I was done with the modeling and on to making textures. Most of this is due to me making some progress and hating the progress and starting over again the next week. I wish I did a bit more research on how to do more specific parts of the model such as hair, eyes, lashes, sockets, and mouthparts such as tongue and teeth. Even though I am a bit still unsatisfied with how it looks right now, I need to understand that it is not the final product yet, and texturing will change how it looks.

Integrating:

 Reflecting on my work progress and my old blog post I really wish I managed my time better. I want to make a work schedule for myself after this Midpoint checkup. I also wish for myself to stop nitpicking and actually ask for help. Personally, I have a lot of trouble asking for help, I've always been like this so I want to be able to do that soon. I wish to collect my thoughts and work on my project outside of class too. I know that I personally work best at late hours in the night it helps my brain think since I am in my room and by myself, my brain has time to stop and think. I also want to take the time to find more resources than just the first photos or videos I find mostly because I know there are some hidden gems on the internet. Another thing I wish to work on is my ability to ask for help, the second Mr. Bomboy helped me everything just clicked and the process went a lot smoother. I know I am not the first person to make a model, but everyone's journey is different, just like different versions of folktales and stories.