Describe
any problems or difficulties you encountered during the creation and editing of your avatar. (These may include; technical difficulties, corrupt or missing
files, difficulty with Photoshop tools etc;
During the creation of my
avatar, I had difficulty with the quick selection tool as whenever I got to a
certain point in selecting myself out of the green screen, it would select the
whole picture. So, I stopped as far as I could possibly go and used the Lasso
tool to carefully go around the outline of my hair. In some ways this was
easier to use than the quick selection tool as I could leave parts of my hair
out. Although, it is obvious that I’ve manually selected the areas around my
hair but this wasn’t too noticeable once I moved it to my background. At first,
I had trouble with some of the basic things such as taking out parts of photos
which I later found was because I didn’t create a mask on the layer.
Did you undertake
any additional Photoshop tutorials to help with your project? If so what new skills/techniques
did you learn;
Yes, I did watch plenty of
additional photoshop tutorials especially out of school so I wouldn’t have to
keep asking Mr. Andrews for help as a lot of people were in need of assistance.
I learnt how to use the burn tool to darken any blood marks/stains, I learnt
how to create the effect of black eyes by using the pen tool to carefully select
the outline of my eyeball; the area I wanted to be black. I learnt shortcuts of
tools that I didn’t already know before or even just remembered what they were
as I was using them so much. An example of this is the free transform tool
(command + T). I learnt the shortcut to this during class but remembered while
watching the tutorials as I would always need to use the tool. I learnt how to
use the Transform tool on the top right to distort the dripping blood in the
way I wanted it to be and also to make it look more realistic. I also learnt
that clicking on multiply would get rid of the white background in the blood
splatters or marks instead of having to create a new mask and manually delete
the white background using black. It was a faster and more efficient way and
saved me at least half an hour of time. I also learnt how to use the refine
edge tool from watching tutorials on youtube.
Explain how
your planning (personality profile, ideas and reflections) helped to create the
avatar in Photoshop;
I believe that my
planning helped me a lot to create my avatar in photoshop. After completing the
avatar, I now understand that it is very important to plan before you do
anything. Without the personality profile, I wouldn’t have had something to
refer to just in case I forgot what I had in mind for the avatar. Also, looking
for images on the internet from shows or movies that relate to zombies helped
me get a clear idea of what a zombie should look like which I took into
consideration while completing the personality profile and creating the avatar
itself.
Clarify
any time-management issues you encountered during the process and describe the
steps you implemented to improve in this area (Did you have your images ready
before class? Did you have your USB each lesson? Did you work on the avatar
outside of class time?);
As I was
looking through all of my layers in the folders I had created, I found that I
named some of the layers wrong as I was rushing myself because I thought I
would run out of time. I didn’t bring my USB in one lesson from what I can
remember. So, in that lesson I continued looking for images to use on the
internet and Flickr so I wouldn’t have to do too much at home. I worked on the
avatar outside of class time more than I did during class and I spent a lot of
time looking for appropriate tutorials I could refer to on YouTube out of
school so I would have time in class to use the things I learnt on creating my
avatar. In relation to blog posts, I didn’t save some of the work I did in
class properly so they didn’t get put up on my blog.
Discuss whether
you undertook sufficient reflection to throughout your project. Have you provided
enough evidence to support your work? (Look at your blog. Does it reflect a term
of work);
I think that my blog shows sufficient
reflection throughout the avatar creating process, I had a total of six lessons
worth of blog posts relating to the avatar project. But, I did not complete all
the other task exercises on the checklist mostly because I was away for some
lessons and I require help in order to do things properly so I couldn’t just
follow along with the tutorials on blackboard.
List any
skills, techniques or tricks you have discovered during the project.
Naming
layers and creating folders/groups was one of the major things I discovered was
helpful during the project. There were so many things in my avatar that without
the groups I created and naming the layers, would’ve looked way too
overwhelming and I probably would have gotten very annoyed if I hadn’t made
groups and layer names.
Discuss
your feelings about the Avatar task:
Are you satisfied
with the final result?
Yes, it turned
out to be exactly what I wanted it to look like.
Does the
completed Avatar look like you imagined?
Yes,
I envisioned the avatar to look exactly like what it looked like when I
finished. Without the personality profile, I don’t think that the avatar
wouldn’t have turned out half as good as it did.
Would
like to change any aspects of your avatar?
I could’ve added more blood splatters, drips and etc to make it look even
scarier and also adding dark under eye circles and maybe even a vein popping
out on my cheek and down my neck would’ve made it look even scarier.
If you
could start the project again what would you do differently?
I would use a different way of taking out
the green screen. The way that Mr. Andrews showed us during class would’ve been
more helpful but I wanted to learn something new and try out something
different. I would also have softened the edges in the character and spent more
time softening the edges of the blood splatters and the dead person in the
background to make it look even more realistic.
Are you
pleased with the progress you have made in using Photoshop?
I am really pleased with
everything I’ve learnt in photoshop during this term. I experimented with a lot
of tools and learnt how to use tools to the best of my current ability. At
first, photoshop confused me as there were so many tools to choose from but as
the term progressed, i learnt where everything was and if I ever had any
trouble with the tools or didn’t know where anything was, there were always
tutorials to watch or Mr Andrews was there if I needed any help. I feel like I
will be using photoshop out of school and assignments as I would like to
further improve my abilities and get better at it.
