Third Day

Well, today is the last day of the SST-NTU Flagship Camp. I already finished up the last part of my digital painting so this is how it looks like:

There are some challenges that I faced when I painted this: 

1) Its hard to paint the fine details of the wolf's fur.

2) I kept painting at the wrong layer.

3) It's challenging to add in the darkening and lightening.

So, you might be thinking that what have I learnt during this 3 day camp. As I had mentioned, I learned a few basic skills of Photoshop such as Multiplying, Darkening, Lightening etc. During the process, there are a few disciplines learned.  Example, during Digital Painting,  there are some times that I felt like giving up on doing the fur as it was quite hard to clone the fur onto its arm. But nevertheless, I continued to keep drawing and with a little help of the Professor, I finished it up. 

How can I apply this in real life? Well, I can paint more other characters when I have the time or maybe if I am really interested in Arts Course, I might take it up in university and my basic skills might help me with my work.

This 3D2N camp is really fun and I reall enjoyed it, I hope the school can have more of such camp not only for the Seconday 2 pupils, but students from other levels too, so that we can try out different projects. 

Second Day

    

    After a long night rest, today, we set off to the School of Art, Media & Design for our first lesson. To show what projects they did there, Professor Martin showed us some pictures of the digital painting done by students, before and after. So, as said, I managed to take a photo of myself with the help of their photographer and used it to photoshop into a character I want, which in this case, is a werewolf. 

   So firstly, the when we entered the class, the Professor briefly explained the simple tools that were needed to come up with a basic picture. So, tools like darkening is good to create shadows and we would need to mask the picture we want and so on. But, the most important thing is that we CANNOT copy other artist's works as is not original and frowned upon. So, I guess today's takeaway was quite a lot as I became more skillful when using Photoshop as I learnt shortcuts and more complicated ways to improve and make the picture more realistic. I also learnt that different type of tones represents different type of moods and the colors cannot contradict each other if the picture was to be nice. 

  I felt that today is interesting and fun, The professor was kind of humorous and was willing to help those in need. The best thing is that I got to create my own artwork! Its like a one in a time chance that will ever happen. Its a brilliant piece of artwork created and I’m very proud of it :) (Picture Below) 

This project had dramatically improved my patience and insights to want to learn. As when we are using Photoshop, we need to be patient as things may not work out and the computer might lag and we can’t just give up easily when it does not work out for us. We must have the passion to learn so that we can gain more during sessions/meetings and have the curiosity to further the studies. These few qualities mentioned can be applied to real life in our working years. 

This project also had me to acquire the creative thinking aspect as we were to rack our brains to find a theme and character that we truely want to draw out. Its basically making it original, and thinking of more then one way to express our thoughts and fantasy. 

I also learnt that what we learn in Digital Painting can be applied in real life. They can be for commerical use, Advertisments, Posters, etc. Overall, its an interesting experience. 

That's about what I learnt, all that is left for me to do is to compile everybody work to create a slideshow for the last day presentation. I hope I can win something! :) Goodnight! :D

First Day

   Well, it had been a exciting day for me today. Before the camp, I wasn't expecting much out of it. But, I was eager to actually stay in the Hostel and try out the project that I choose, which is Digital Painting. 

   

  But, first let me share what I learnt during the three fruitful Plenary Sessions. For the first session, it was about Earthquake Research on the Coral Reefs of Sumatra. During the session, I learnt that Stratigraphy & Sedimentology tells us about the past tsunami and the difference in size and number of sand/sediment tells us how big or when was the tsunami. There were 48 GPS in Sumatra to monitor the Earth's Movement and Tectonic Deformation. For the second session, it was about IT Animation. During that session, I learnt that there were different type of animation: Stop-Motion, 2D Animation, 3D Animation. Everybody can be an inventor and we need to identify and analyze the problem such as to help others. After evaluation, we need to provide effective solutions through Science and Technology/Arts and Creativity/Passion and Determination. Some challenges of 2D Animation are: Skilled Artists are needed, Beautiful are forms are needed, and high labour costs. For the last session, it was about Innovation Breakthroughs in Nano-Science and Nano-technology. For that session, I learnt that nanometre = 1 billionth of a metre and that the diameter of the human hair is 80,000 nanometer. Nano-technology was to actually micmic what is in nature. They are also Biological Inspired - Cell Motion, Self-organization, Lubrication, Adhesion. 

    The most important Takeaway in these three session is that its not all about how high we get or what courses our parents want us to take. Its about finding our 'medium' in a elective that we can fit into, to do something that we truly enjoy instead of being forced into it for the sake of getting good marks or carrying the family tradition. 

  So, back to my Digital Painting Project, the fact that we are learning to customize our own special design into a superhero/villan is a great and exhilarating experience for me as I have never done such a thing on Photoshop before. I mean its like I'm trying out a university course and my friends from other school can't get a chance to. I mean it might prepare me for University if I decide to major in Arts. Plus, since my group was all boys and I'm the only girl, I didn't have high expectations but of course I will try to work with them and come out with the work. 

I think I can learn how to use Photoshop and further improve my Arts skills (e.g. Draw additional stuff on the first layer). Well before we start the course tomorrow, I have some questions: What skills can we gain from it? How can we apply such skills in real life? How does this skills benefit us? Is there any other software to create the superheros/villans? What are some other activities that undergraduates do when they take such a Art Course.

That's all for today! :D Hope to gain more knowledge and experience tomorrow! :)