I used a jpeg background Sarah put up online to test some colour lighting. Using analogous colour theory, I made two versions of the lighting exercise. The first was a triumphant colour scheme consisting of yellows that seems reminiscent of meeting the divine, or the dawn of a new day at the end of a movie.

The second thumbnail used a much more eerie colour scheme using reddish purples to create a more bleak, apocalyptic world for the scene. This exercise taught me about how to convey a mood in a scene using different colours for lighting techniques as well as using more than two different colours to demonstrate lighting.

I then made a new illustration using the analogous colour scheme, and using a black and white image, used reddish pink lighting to signify my character’s determination to finish her work. The villainous character to her left is shaded in a much darker tone of red, to signify her more villainous persona, while the protagonist character herself is illuminated in pink to show her determination and to signify her as the hero.

This week, I made thumbnails in Sarah’s class that made usage of tonal values. I had to come to understand different tonal values, such as complimentary, monochromatic, triadic and analogous. I had to take note of the lighting of my scene, and worked with some of my classmates, such as Luka and Scott, to make more believable lighting for my scenes. In addition, I also learned to use references, as most of my scenes normally came from the top of my head.

These are some of the thumbnails I made. I chose monochromatic tonal values for them.

I also made some traditional drawings in one of my sketchbook that also practice tonal shading. Each are connected to the world i have in mind in the illustration below.

I also made an illustration based on the world that we were creating. In it, my character is facing the embodiment of her failures along with an agent that is the embodiment of her fears.

I participated in an icebreaker that involved taking pictures of several different things from around the university, and also contributed several things of my own from my own computer. I went outside with my group to take pictures of architecture around the University, such as the play park. I also got to know the members of my group, such as Lee, Luca, Cate, Scott and Shan. They were very helpful and took pictures of some of my contributions for use as part of the icebreaker. They even allowed me to send them contributions from my own laptop.

Here are some examples of the contributions I made. I gave them examples of pets, both fictional/digital in the form of Pokémon in Pokeball Plus, and photographs of dogs.

We then jotted down 100 ideas for a world we were going to build as part of our coursework. I put down most of the ideas and also got some suggestions from the others. We then chose 5 ideas from the list that we liked and put them down on a sticky note.

I put down the most ideas onto the whiteboard, such as Distant Future, Wild West,  multidimensional rifts, and many others.

We then participated in a call on Discord the following day.

We settled on making an animation based on our biggest fears and using different avatars of ourselves trying to combat those fears.

I chose the fear of failure for my part, as my bad habit of procrastination has made me weary of the consequences of going to deep into it, coupled by a deep desire to succeed in my semester.

The first week of Ulster University began with induction and simply getting to know the tutors and students. I was put in with 4 other members of my group to discuss and create a small, unmarked group project where we had to create a 7 second intro for Toody Threedy, a monthly event which was about to restart operation. The names of my group were Jack, Oisin, Sweeny and Amy. We talked about ideas of characters to use for this project of ours.

Eventually it was settled that we would use one of Jack’s characters. Thanks to some advice from the tutors to make them more distinctive, we had a good character to use for our project.

Next, we decided on how we could incorporate the 2D and 3D aspects of the event. Only Oisin had any experience in 3D whereas the rest of us didn’t. So, it was eventually settled that four of us would animate them in 2D while Oisin made a 3D background.

Each of us had to draw the character in each of our own distinct styles for at least one second each. Jack did the first part, Sweeney did the second part, I did the third part and Amy did the last part.

The finished animation was presented by the four of us the following day. Jack did not participate, as he was off.

My part of the animation involves use of follow through as the hair stops moving after the body finishes moving, and the sleeves also follow through from the shirt. My part is very short and is easy to miss, and lacks the antennae that the other parts had, but that was because I was working on a tight schedule and the software was a bit buggy.

As part of the homework that we were set for this week I finished and posted art of three different characters from three different intellectual properties. I gave each of the characters unique poses and then broke them down into their individual 3D forms.

The first is Rainbow Dash, a very famous character from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.

Rainbow Dash is one of the main Protagonists of the G4 My Little Pony series. I chose her as part of my homework due to an interest in giving her a dynamic pose and through watching fan music about her reciprocating a crush on Rarity by Vylet Pony. She is representative of the element of Loyalty in the series, and a highly competitive and self-confident Pegasus who wouldn’t give up on her friends for her heart’s desire, unlike some dumb old cowboy doll…

Rainbow Dash Best Moments Season 1-3 – YouTube

Rainbow Dash Takes Scootaloo Under Her Wing (Sleepless in Ponyville) | MLP: FiM [HD] – YouTube

The second choice for my work is a Pokémon called Blacephalon.

A fire/ghost type Ultra Beast formerly exclusive to Pokemon Ultra Sun, it slithers up on unsuspecting people and surprises them by blasting its own head into an explosion of colour. Then it steals off with their vitality. Described as being stage players who love performing, it uses its own head as the basis for its performances, though it uses a lot of its own vitality in the process. Regardless, this makes them known for their love of dynamic poses.

I chose this Pokémon due to its playful and performance focused competitive nature, and due to a recent fixation on Pokemon GO, right around the time they were advertising Ultra Beasts.

Shiny Blacephalon Using Mind Blown in Sword & Shield! – YouTube

Blacephalon vs Xurkitree-Blacephalon Performance! – Pokémon Episode 78 – YouTube

The last choice for my work is the Earthen Heart Shifu, from a very old game called LIVE A LIVE.

The Earthen Heart Shifu is a very old master hailing from Imperial China, who at the start of his chapter is desperate to look for a new student to pass down his teachings. He finds on this journey a kind-hearted and intelligent boy named Yun Jou, a brash and hot-headed girl named Lei Kugo, and a fat simple minded man named Hong Hakka.

LIVE A LIVE – Imperial China Full Walkthrough Gameplay Nintendo Switch No Commentary – YouTube

I chose the Earthen Heart Shifu as part of my assignment as the shifu being a martial artist means he has many combat ready poses to choose, on top on I having recently played LIVE A LIVE and completed all of its chapters. LIVE A LIVE has the distinction of also being distributed on SNES with a fan translation.

Each of the characters poses follow a line of action that makes their poses more distinguishable. Their forms are then overlayed on these line of actions, and then they are coloured and rendered in turn.

This process first shows the line of action, then the forms, and then the forms overlayed with the line of action.

I then broke down each of their poses into their respective shapes and models.

Overall, I found this exercise to be quite insightful, as it taught me how to look at the believability and overall structure of my poses. In addition, each of the characters, aside from being different species, all have different shapes and sizes to their bodies and limbs to make them distinct from one another and to better reflect their personalities.

We also were tasked with creating various lines and shapes without stabilizers in Photoshop. I found it a bit difficult, but I also found it quite useful in allowing myself to step out of my comfort zone of using the smoothing tool to create my brush strokes.

Lastly, we created a flour bag and did different expressions with it. I learned a lot about making a character look expressive through this exercise, and using this simple flour bag as an example, I was able to make it emote and feel expressive.