Blog Archives
Michonne The Good Luck Voodoo Doll
I am SOO honored, yet again, to have another one of my pieces featured in the hallways of Full Sail University!
I was very excited to see my Voodoo Doll project placed in the showcase yesterday. This was one of my projects from Art I and was an exercise in texture. I had a lot of fun with this project and it was so cool to see her come to life. I wish I would have taken more pictures of the process of making her, but I was so into it, I forgot.
I also had to create a short story about the Voodoo Doll to describe what kind she is.
Michonne the Good Luck Voodoo Doll
This Voodoo doll is not your traditional Voodoo doll. Her name is Michonne and she is a good luck Voodoo Doll. She has the powers to get rid of any negativity by sacrificing herself. You can use her pins that she carries in her little pin purse to pierce her while stating out loud the negativity you wish to get rid of. She uses her powers for good but don’t cross her. It is ultimately up to you to keep that negativity away from you and out of your life. Michonne has a very vindictive attitude for people who wish to use her powers but then do nothing afterwards to make those negatives stay away. If you allow the negative that she vanquished back into your life she then reverses her powers and it will come back double fold.
Welcome to MCR “Model Creation” I missed you Maya – Garage Scene
Welcome to MCR Week one!
I am very excited to be back in class after my long 2 weeks of Vacation time. My new class is Model Creation and we are working in Maya again. Oh how I have missed her, I did forgot what a Bitch she can be, but I am learning to tame her all over again. We have a great teacher, Frank Cordero. He is showing us all the short cuts that Steve Gold didn’t show us. We learned how do bevel edges so we can start making things look more realistic and less boxy.
First project is designing props to put into a garage scene using all the tools we know and all the shortcuts we are learning. Unlike 3DF, we are getting a LOT more detail out of these props. I was able to make all my props on time for the soft due date today and got an automatic 100% and extra credit towards my final project.
Here is my final results of my props I made in the garage scene.
Next up, a Cafe scene, More props and better quality! I will keep you guys updated with my progress.
2014 Starts off AMAZING!! ARTII Ends MCR Begins
Well, It has been a little bit since I have updated you. Art II was a BEAST of a class. Art I was a Beast as well, just in a different way. Art II was a lot more detailed work, plus we had to cram a 4 week class into 3 weeks due to the holidays. I did get an A so I am still rocking the straight A’s!! WOOHOO!!
I am so honored to have one of my pieces on the wall!
In Art I, I had 4 of my pieces of art chosen to be featured on the walls of the art building. This was a HUGE honor for me because I remember walking around Full Sail on my Behind the Scenes Tour and seeing the art work on the walls and being amazed and intimidated at the same time. I remember wondering if I had the talent to ever be as good as the other students who got their work featured. In 6 short months, I DID IT! During Art II, I walked in one day and this is what I saw. Hopefully my other pieces will show up soon.
Gladiator Robot Snow Man
My final piece for Art II was we had to design a character from scratch based on “Winter Themed” We had to draw a charter sheet to help figure out all the details of what your final charter will look like when we sculpt them. After that the sculpting began. It was a very fun yet challenging assignment. I was even not happy with how he was turning out in the beginning, but I kept pushing forward and making changes. After a few days he really started looking pretty cool. We used Sculpy, which is awesome because we could cook it right in the oven and was much easier to work with over ceramic clay. After baking him, we could paint our character for some extra credit, so of course I started laying down some paint. I felt the paint job is what pushed my piece over the edge and I was honored again, he was chosen to be put into the halls of the art building. I can not believe that so much of my art has been chosen to be shown off to everyone who walks the halls. I know there will be someone looking at my art work when they are on their Behind the Scenes Tour and I hope it will inspire them just as I was.
I had a GREAT Christmas and a Happy New year. But I just had to share what I got for Christmas!
My first day of MCR Model Creation was AWESOME! I am excited to get back on the computer and working with Maya. We will be doing some amazing looking things from what I have seen from some of my friends who have taken this class already. I am so excited to get started and will be trying to make sure I update you with everything I will be working on. The cool part from day one was the Lab… This class room was so amazing I remember it from my Behind the Scenes Tour because we have Dual Screen Macs to work on. It feels so professional and feels like I have a job in the industry already.
Glad to see my friends too!
The path has been paved… Now I walk that path.
I am sure many colleges talk about how people graduate and get jobs in their industry all the time. I am sure they claim all kinds of success stories. How many of them actually have those success stories back to show you that all your hard work will pay off in the end. Full Sail does it so often I can not even make it to each guest speaker. Today, I made sure I didn’t miss this one. I got to meet Dean Johnson who had the same dream as I do. He came to Full Sail, kicked butt, and went straight to the “BIG LEAGUES” after graduating… Microsoft! To see someone do exactly what I would want to do lets you know that these dreams are obtainable and the idea of graduating and getting that dream job can be done. I know it isn’t the same for each student, but I strongly believe I have what it takes to be that special case just like Dean. It reinforces that all my effort now will be worth it in the end. Thanks Dean for taking time out of your vacation to come show us that the light at the end of the tunnel is very bright and worth all the struggle.
Update time!! (BIG One) Sorry for the delay… 3DF had me busy this month!
First off I would like to say “REALLY?” 99.9%? They just couldn’t give me perfection that I strive for so hard… But, no worries, I am very happy with my final grade for 3D Foundations. This class was soo much fun yet VERY challenging. So for me to basically ace this class makes me feel so good that I am capable of learning such an in-depth program such as Maya in such a short amount of time.
So to catch everyone up to speed on what I had been working on in the past month.
Storyboarding! This was my model I made in Maya to get the idea of my story that I would be working on over the month of class. My idea was to have a character creeping through a dark city street, dodging the light, doing jumps and rolls till she finally reviled herself with a pair of guns and shooting at the camera.
Then I had to draw out the storyboard. I used my new Waycom Tablet with my new program SketchBook Pro to create these storyboards.
Afterwards I had to use PhotoShop to import them into a template to make them into professional storyboards standard to the industry. Feel free to click on each one to get a closer look at them.
I also had to make a Prop. I choose to make street lights since I know those would be part of my main light source. This was a fun yet challenging part of the assignment. There are so many things you have to think about, Keeping everything quaded, Making sure you are not going over the poly count, trying to make it look realistic while making it from one starting piece and extruding it all from one single piece. I feel it turned out great considering my limits I had to stay within. I also did other props for my scene as you will see down below.
I then had to work on creating my own character. I choose to make a female character. Once again, we had lots of limitations that we had to follow. She was constructed out of one square and each surface had to be pulled, extruded, adjusted into place.
This is my final results of my character I created 100% on this one too!
I also had to create a head for my character. I didn’t have to use it in my final movie but we had to show that we knew how to create a texture. This was my final render of my female character in a ski mask.
We also had to add color to our scene. I choose to put my character in a Bikini style outfit… Sure chics run around with twin Desert Eagles in Bikinis, RIGHT?? I also colored everything else in the scene even though in the final you lose a lot of color due to lighting.
Finally we had to light the scene showing multiple different lighting schemes and shadowing. Since I choose to do a dark city street I wanted to fill my scene with light from Lamps, windows from the buildings, and slight moon light. I lost a lot of detail that I put into my scene but the lighting effect was well with it.
Last but not least the final 6 second movie I created using Maya, Photoshop, and After Effects!
WOW!! That was a LOT!! I know… Think of how I felt all month doing it… But what a fun class and I would like to give all the credit to my wonderful teachers that helped me through the whole process. Steve Gold, Sarah DeBaar, and Brian Belz, they did an AWESOME job helping me and all my peers. They have the patience of saints because I know what it is like trying to walk someone through something that you are a professional at and the other person has zero clue.
FINALLY got my Wacom Intuos Pro Digital Sketch Pad
I am very excited that I finally got to pick up my Wacom Tablet and my first art book for my art classes. This thing is AWESOME and is going to make me a much better artist. I was going crazy last month watching all the “Full-Time” students getting theirs and bringing them to class while I had to sit and just droll at them. I can not wait to start posting my art that I create with it.
Art History Update, Field Trip, Finally working with PhotoShop!
Art History has been a very fun class so far. We have crammed 35,000 years of art into 4 weeks! I know sounds it impossible and it really is, but I have loved every day of class. We get to look at all different forms of art that are considered very important from Prehistoric to modern art. Some I completely enjoy and some I look at and say “WHY?” We started off with Prehistoric cave drawings and my teacher recommended this really cool Documentary on Netflix called Cave of Forgotten Dreams which is this awesome movie about these French explorers that found the oldest known artwork in history and they found it in 1995 in the south of France. Worth watching as it is very interesting. We then moved through the ages stopping at the Egyptian, Mediaeval, Renaissance, and Bourque time periods. All these time periods had some very interesting works. It’s not until we get into the modern art time period when I start to question what “art” really is. for example:
Marcel Duchamp “Fountain”
This is considered “Art” and is displayed in many different museums. So basically this artist in 1917 decided to be avant-garde or just a Smart-A$$ (not sure which) and submitted this Urinal to the Society of Independent Artists but was rejected, yet this piece has since become considered a work of art. All he did was sign his name to it, so if you are looking at it, like I did, wondering where the “Art” aspect of it is, stop looking!
Then we did get to my favorite artist…
Salvador Dalí
Growing up in St. Petersburg, FL my whole life I was blessed to have the Salvador Dalí Museum right in downtown St. Pete and have visited many times. He was a Surrealist painter who had such a crazy yet amazing mind. Every time I do research on him I learn something new about him or find a piece he did that I hadn’t seen before. Nothing beats going to his museum in person and seeing his most famous pieces right in front of you. I could spend hours there staring at each piece and finding something new each time to study.
These are just a few of his pieces that I find interesting.
We did get to do a field trip this month in Art History class. We got to go to the Orlando Museum of Art
I had a great time here and we even got to do a scavenger hunt for the museum. They gave us a sheet with clues on it and we had to find 14 different art pieces based on the clues and write down the name of the piece and the artist. I enjoyed seeing all different genres of art that was on display but we had to pick out our favorite and write a paper about the artist. I had a strong liking to a Japanese artist named Honda Syoryu who does basket weaving art. I know that sounds a little boring, but take a look at these. Very amazing!
One of the best parts of the Art History class is we have finally gotten into using our PhotoShop and making some art. Now I understand most people haven’t used PhotoShop, but I have been self-taught so I was a little past most of the students in class and they had to have us do very simple projects to get used to it. I spent most of my time just helping the students seated around me making sure they knew where things were and were on the same page as everyone else. The first was our cave painting. We had to simulate a cave painting using PhotoShop to give the impression of it being a painting that was found and here is mine.
I choose to draw a Rhino for many different reasons. One as you may or may not know the Rhino is one of my favorite animals. Second I was surprised to find out that the prehistoric man drew rhinos in the caves in southern France. So this was my simple Rhino cave drawing I did.
Then we got to do a Tiled Mosaic painting from an image we found online. You guessed it… I did a Rhino again!
BEFORE
AFTER
So I know this has been a lot and I will try to keep you updated on a more regular basis so there isn’t a ton of stuff to tell you, but things get pretty crazy around Full Sail. I am already looking forward to my next class 3D Fundamentals of Art 1 which I really hope is when I get my Wacom Tablet for drawing. Thanks for reading about my past few weeks.
Amazing event @FullSail with Barry Hawkins from Riot Games!
First off, I have to say this was the largest event I have attended to date at Full Sail.
They were lined out the door almost 200 strong to see Barry Hawkins!
With that said, I knew this was going to be a great event to attend. Barry was one of the most articulate speakers I have seen come through Full Sail’s doors, since I have started. He brought the business side of the video game world in his speech that he prepared. It was nice to hear about the nitty-gritty business side of the video game world and not just the glitz and glamour that a lot only speak about. Coming from my business background, I could tell a lot of stuff he was speaking about might have been going over some of these kids heads, but I was soaking it all in like a dried out sponge. He spoke a lot about how a video game studios, like Riot Games, operates and their structure. My favorite part was the Riot Games Manifesto;
1. Player Experience First 2. Challenge Convention 3. Focus on Talent and Team
4. Take Play Seriously 5. Stay Hungry, Stay Humble
It is nice to know some companies still worry about the user’s experience before profits. I hope to work for a company that is like this when I graduate.
Yet again, I am blown away by how much my school works to get these amazing people, in our industry, down to speak with us. These guys take time out of their schedules to come down to give us n00bs a fresh and honest perspective of what we can expect when we graduate. BIG thanks also goes to Rob Coble for putting these events together. I get the feeling that he is the main reason most of these people come on down to Full Sail.
I am so glad I choose Full Sail as my college, because I KNOW there is no way I would have had this much networking opportunities at any other school.
I got to meet Elbert Perez tonight at Full Sail University
Today Elbert Perez who works for Microsoft and is also an Indie Game designer at OccasionalGamer.com joined us at Full Sail as a guest speaker. He had a lot of great information to share with us about getting into the gaming industry. He is a well-respected alumni of Full Sail who graduated in 2005 and has had an illustrious career in the gaming industry. As an Indie Game creator who has over 2 million game downloads under his belt, he had a lot to speak about in the Indie Game industry. He shared with us his experiences of getting his games published and the pros and cons of the different methods. The thing that always sticks out when these greats of the industry come in and speak is, NETWORKING! I have yet to hear one person who is in the industry say they just filled out an application and they got the job. Every person has said they got to where they are due to who they knew prior to the job. So, I will continue to network and hopefully in 3 years I will have a great Rolodex of some of the most amazing people in the industry.
The thing I love the most about these guest speakers and Q&A sessions that Full Sail hosts, is that we get to see the direct results of our efforts in action. Most of the speakers I have seen have been Full Sail alumni or they got their degree in something similar. It really inspires me to see these people come and give back to Full Sail, not just for the love of the school, but for the love of the students who are in the very seats they sat in just a few years ago. It shows us that we CAN do it, and we CAN be just like them and in hopefully a few years after graduating we can be a guest speaker that the new students of the future will want to come see.
Thanks to Elbert Perez and Rob Coble for doing this for us!
Glad to be back on Campus! Got to meet Rob Schneider today!
Today I started my 3rd class Overview of the Media Design and Technology Industries, which seems to be pretty awesome and will be a very interesting class. But of course that was quickly overshadowed by being able to sneak in at the last second to meet Rod Schneider who was on campus today doing a Q&A session that I couldn’t make it to, because I was in my class. Luckily we got let out early from class since it was the first day, so I ran over to the auditorium and got in just as they were whisking him away. He was kind enough to stop for one last photo with me.
Now back to class, We were placed in our new groups and I am very pleased with my group this time. Each member of my team seems willing to contribute to our group project. We decided on a team name by drawing names out of a hat, and I quickly whipped up a logo for us.
We also did this really cool team building project where we had two decks of cards and we as a group had to build a structure as tall as we possibly could make it. Our team did pretty well with this and we got pretty high, but unfortunately in the last 90 seconds ours collapsed, but I did get a good picture of the winning teams tower. They did a great job coming up with such a cool structure in only 20 minutes.
Hopefully this class will be a lot more exciting and it will keep me very active in updating you on this site to let you know how things are going. Having a Lecture and then a Lab right after works perfect for me. I am so blessed that so far, I have not had any of these crazy schedule times that I hear about, Like classes at 1am. Wish me luck!
My Full Sail Journey.com 