Showcase

Hello! I’m Max Tan, and I’m an animation student at Freestyle Academy.
For a majority of my life, I’ve absolutely loved drawing and general storytelling. Whether it’s through illustration, writing, or animation, I love to share my ideas with others. Some other things I enjoy include singing and voice acting, which I also tend to use for stories. Though I’ll admit, I’m still practicing on that! After high school, I’m planning on going to De Anza college. I’m honestly still not completely sure about my exact career path, but I am the most interested in art, creative writing, and teaching. After I manage high school and a webcomic project on the side, I’ll transfer to a four-year college.
Thank you so much for being here to review my work and give feedback. I’d love to hear both the positive and negative sides of my work, what you feel works best, and anything you think I should focus more on improving. I’m especially interested in your opinion of my storytelling, visual and writing-wise, whether it’s tone/mood of a piece or composition and flow. I’m very excited to hear what you have to say!

If you want to reach me, my email is oliver.v.tan@gmail.com

Now for the Senior Showcase, I wanted to share my Listener Lyric Essay and Zenith project, despite the latter being incomplete. They will be explained right below.

 

Zenith Project

The plan for my Zenith project was to make a few sample pages for an upcoming webcomic I’ve had in the pre-production stage for almost five years now. I saw the Zenith project as a perfect opportunity to finally start production, and it motivated me to create a submission ready for possible publishment in mid/late summer of 2019. However, due to a technical error involving the art program used malfunctioning and a lack of any backup, I had lost much of the progress that was made, and I had to rush to the finish to get the project in on time.
Of course, I’m not very proud of that, and very much feel that I could’ve made better quality work than what I turned in. But, aside from colouring and general quality, I’m still relatively proud of the setting, character interaction, and composition. And, I definitely learned a lot from this. I realized, firstly, to back up all of my files. And second, that I should not be discouraged by incidents like this. During the project, I’ve polished art skills and planned specifics for the story that I likely wouldn’t have gotten to as quickly without the project. And afterwards, I’ve continued work, and have slightly changed the plan to upload to a different webcomic hosting sight online. My midsummer deadline remains mostly unchanged, and if anything, has moved slightly sooner.

 The main character of the comic, William Lynne.

 

The setting and style of building, 1600-1700’s inspired.

Sample pages.

A sample page with colour.

 

Listener Lyric

The Listener Lyric was, in summary, an English assignment to write an emotional, meaningful piece based off of the thoughts and perspective of a chosen person’s specific experience. I chose a friend who had been in a toxic relationship. I had talked to this person, and took time with listening to their thoughts and feelings. I wanted to get everything written down as accurately and genuinely as possible, as this kind of personal writing is important to me. I made sure to get acquainted with their point of view, reasoning, and how their feelings changed throughout the entire ordeal. This was a great exercise in perspective, empathy, and lyrical writing.

You can click the link below to get to the page that has just the essay written there.

(Listener Lyric Essay here!)

 

All in all, Freestyle was a special opportunity for me to delve into some interests of mine and develop them in ways I likely would not have been able to if I hadn’t gotten in. And though I may not be the best at managing my time or finding motivation when I’m down, my passion for these types of projects make me work harder than ever to deliver what I feel I could show. Doing these things helps me realize that I, along with many others, have so much to tell, so many messages that could be integrated into fun bits of media.