The Zenith project is a way for students to try something they’ve never really tried before or to do something they are passionate about. The project allowed for students to be independent and create their own timeline and goals which is something that we don’t often get to do in school. We worked throughout March till the start of May on the Zenith project and presented our works to peers.
Zenith means “the high point” which in our case would be the best work that we will produce in Freestyle. The goal of the Zenith project was to create something we were proud of and is the best thing that we produced at Freestyle.
For my Zenith project I decided to do a short comic. I’ve always wanted a way to tell stories with art and having been introduced to comic making during the summer of my Junior year of high school, I figured that would be a good way to improve that skill. The final piece was originally meant to be a day in the life of one of my characters but I unfortunately did not have time to do the entire thing and ended up only doing the first section.
While I ended up doing a comic, my first idea was actually an animation but due to time contraints I knew I wouldn’t finish so I dropped the idea about halfway through the Zenith to go with my comic. Time management was probably the most difficult part of this project as I often found myself procrastinating on it. Something I want to improve on is being able to manage my time better as I believe I could have finished the entire comic if I had managed my time better.
In my Animation II class, we learned 3D modeling and animation. I used the program, Autodesk Maya, which is a 3D modeling software, to create 3D background models to use in my comic. I figured that if I tried to draw all the backgrounds one by one without some kind of reference it would take too long. After modeling the backgrounds I needed, I positioned the camera to where the viewer would be looking in the comic panel and rendering it. I would then take the rendered image and import it into my illustration application, Procreate and trace over it. Details like, items on a desk/floor, were drawn in by hand rather than traced over as it would be faster than trying to model every little detail in 3D.
