Day 42 - Photoshop - English Project (10) - The Cellist Character Creation

What I did:
Today, I finished using photoshop on my blog. I will most likely not use Photoshop in a blog post again because there is nothing else that is new that I need to focus on.  I will do all the  Photoshop stuff off this blog. However, Today, I finished the final major character in "The Cellist of Sarajevo" which was the cellist himself. In the book, the cellist only has one chapter dedicated to himself from his point of view and that's the prologue so most of the info is given to us by the characters about the cellist when they see him. He was the character  I wanted to create last because the whole story is based on him so it just made sense.

The Cellist  Creation:

What I learned:
Today, In photoshop,  I tried finishing up learning about distorting. Distorting is an option with many other options in the panel to help you decide what you want to do with the picture. Today, I learned what I wanted to finish learning which includes the wave and the zigzag options.

1. The zigzag tool had multiple options when selected. It had the "amount" which was used to show the amount you wanted to zigzag the image and the "ridges" which was used to zigzag-ize the edges of the image.

2. I also learned about the wave tool and this one is really neat. It gives you a bunch of options on what to do.  If you've every taken precalc or any high-level math course, you've  learned about waves and amplitude. This tool allows you to change the wave amount and all that including the amplitude and it really gives you a lot of options to customize to your liking.

What I plan to learn tomorrow:
Tomorrow, I plan to start with the Sony Vegas portion of this project. I'd say we are about 40% done with this project on this blog. I still have to create a script for the animation and  I still want to make the basics in sony vegas like the intro and end. My goal for tomorrow is to start with that. I will be working on my script alone and off blog. I also have to find backdrops that match what I want the places to look like when the get the characters moving.

Day 41 - Photoshop - English Project (9) - Side Character Creation (3)

What I did:
Today, I created some more side characters from "The Cellist of Sarajevo." I created the man in the hat from Dragan's story arc and I also created the young man also from his story arc.These characters were pretty simple to create since I've been creating them for a while now. I believe I am done all the important minor characters and I just need to create the Cellist himself.

I created these to characters today from  Dragan's story arc in Photoshop:

What I learned:
Today,  In photoshop,  I learned about shearing and spherizing in photoshop. They are both in the "distort" option and they can help you distort things, obviously. So the shear tool allows one to move the image to one side if you want to. The spherizing tool does exactly as it sounds. It spherizes the image. It brings up a bar and you can adjust the bar to your liking and it will sphere it.

Shear tool:

Spherizing:

What  I plan to learn tomorrow:

Tomorrow, I will finish up creating the characters on this blog. There are still some very very minor characters left which  I will create on my own time but tomorrow is when I create the Cellist himself.  I will plan to finish up learning things in Photoshop because tomorrow might be the day I stop using photoshop for this blog. I plan to learn more about distorting and some other things. I will go in-depth and it will work out well, hopefully. I plan to see you all tomorrow. 

Day 40 - April Analysis and May Plans

What I did and learned this past month:
So, this month I did a lot of different things. I didn't just focus on a single area of interest like I did in February and March but I just focused on different things. I used Sony Vegas and Photoshop. Early on this month, I was planning to learn about cinemagraphs and I attempted to make one in Photoshop but it didn't turn out well. I also realized there is no point in me making cinemagraphs because it doesn't help me in the endeavor to becoming a youtuber. You can learn about what happened with the cinemagraphs here.

After that disaster, I went on to start my final, final project which is going to a montage. I only made one on it this month, however, because I want to take my time with it plus I needed to start on my English Project. The thing I did in the montage post is just choose the music and set markers there so whenever there is a pop or something intense happening, I can make the gameplay match it. You can check that out here.

Next, I worked on some Sony Vegas things like colour correcting and colour splashing. I did this so not every post I made was repetitive. I wanted to space out my projects that I'm doing so I decided to learn things in Sony Vegas as well. These things will actually be helpful in the future for my Youtube and my montage so I'm not wasting my time while doing this. I also learned other things in Sony Vegas like freeze framing and colour fading and masking. I spread these things out so I wouldn't get bored of Photoshop.

After that, I decided to start my English Project which involves "The cellist of Sarajevo" which is a book based on the real siege of Sarajevo which happened between 1992-1995. This book shows the struggles of survival for all the people living in Sarajevo. There is a final project for English which involves creating something for "The Cellist of Sarajevo" which shows your understanding for the book. I think this is a good idea because I will get double credit for it. I plan to create a sony vegas animation which involves me creating sprites and using them in sony vegas which is something that I have been learning new things about in the past few months. So for atleast 8 days this month, I've been creating sprites for the characters in the book. It all began here where I made the templates for the sprites.

That is everything I did this past month in Independent Studies. I really liked using two different programs so I wouldn't get burned out on them.

What I plan to learn in May:
So this next month I plan to work on my English project and hopefully finish it. For the next few classes, I plan to finish up the sprite creation and hopefully find some backdrops for the video. Then, I plan to create a script for the video and then finally make the sprites move in Sony Vegas. I can't animate everything in Sony Vegas like the arms or the legs because Sony Vegas isn't made for that, but flash is. I can't use Flash though because that's not what this blog is about and it would take much much longer than one month to create an amazing animation in there especially when you're working solo. If somehow, I manage to finish this earlier than expected, I will start working on my montage again which is my final project this year. However, I doubt I will get to that this month because I want to perfect my English project.

One last thing. I know for the past few months, I've only done the minimum amount of posts for the month and hopefully this month will change that. I am taking AP Calculus right now so it's really hard for me to make a post every single day so I've been confined to doing multiple posts over the weekend and posting them throughout the week. However, all the Tuesday and Saturday classes for AP are going to stop on  May 9 and I will have so much more time to focus on Independent Studies.
I am also playing badminton on Mondays and Tuesdays for 3 hours so it really does suck but I have managed my time so well that I've been keeping up with all my classes and I'm proud of that. See you next month.

Day 39 - Photoshop - English Project (8) - Side Character Creation (2)

What I did:
So, Today, I created Edin Karaman and Nermin from "The Cellist of Sarajevo." They are the last two side characters that I think I needed to make. There are still a few minor characters left and that's what I'll be doing next month but today I finished creating the two characters from Arrow's story arc. I went back to the book and looked at their descriptions and  I think I did a pretty good job at creating them.

1. First, I created Nermin, Arrow's original commander. In the book, at a certain point, he starts having bloodshot eyes and ends up getting really creepy so I gave him a creepy look. I tried to follow the description as closely as possible and since he's a part of the army, I gave him an insignia as well.

2. I also created Edin Karaman who is Arrow's next commanding officer. He's old and has gray hair so I applied that. He's also a part of the army so I also gave him an insignia. The description states that he has brown eyes so I gave him those too. 

What I learned:

Today, I learned about pixelation. To be honest, it was boring. Like really boring. I'm probably not going to use this again but I thought there would be more options for pixelation but I guess there's not. I didn't go through everything though because I got bored but I did learn some new things.

1. First, I learned about about halftone colour and to use it. You can decide how big you want it and it changes the picture heavily like this: Notice the badge:

2. Then I learned about crystallization. After you open the option, it gives you another window and you can decide how much you want to crystallize it by moving the bar. 

3. Finally, I learned about pointilizing. It works just like the crystallization option but it changes it differently in that the colour is different and the pixelation is also different.

What I plan to do tomorrow:
Tomorrow, I plan to do my April Analysis post. It's going to be the post in which I explain what I did and what I plan to do next month in Independent studies. I will explain everything that is going to happening in the next month which is basically just me doing the english project. However after tomorrow, I plan to continue creating side characers in Photoshop. I am done most of the characters and I only need to do a few more so I'm nearing the end of the photoshop phase.

Time: 40 minutes

Day 38 - Photoshop - English Project (7) - Side Characters Creation (1)

What I did:
Today, In photoshop, I created two side characters from "The Cellist of Sarajevo." The character's I created are Emina, from Dragan's story arc and Ismet from Kenan's Story arc. Now, these two characters are more heavily described then Dragan and Kenan were in the book so that's why there is more detail on Ismet. I also learned how to use the blur option and the. These characters are actually in the book quite a lot, especially Emina, so that's why I needed to create them.


1. First, I decided to create the character, Emina from Dragan's arc. We originally meet her during the second reading with Dragan. She's described as wearing a blue coat so I made sure the arms and body are blue. I also moved the arms behind the coat to make it seem like she's wearing something big. Also, they didn't go into detail about her eyes so I just gave her some random eyes and I think the sprite actually looks really good. She also has brown hair in the book that is tied back. This is closest to what I could find to having tied back hair.

2. Next, I created Ismet. Ismet is a soldier in the army described as wearing a green uniform. He's Kenan's longtime friend and also wears an insignia that is muddy. The insignia was originally red but since it's muddy, I painted it to have a brown color. He also has hair the colour of "coal" and since coal is black, I gave him black hair as well. The brown pants go well with a green uniform so I also applied that. 

What I learned:
Today, I learned how to use the field blur tool and how to use the diffuse option under the stylize option. Since I just make the characters nowadays, I also want to learn how to do new things so that's what I did. I learned the complex part about the blur tool and how to use it. The field blur looks really complicated but the diffuse tool but pretty straight forward.

1. First, I learned how to field blur and how to use it. After you go to field blur it gives you a wheel in the middle of your image to adjust how much you want. It also gives you three lines which you can rotate/adjust as well. Moving the lines determines how much and where the blur is. Like if you move a line it can blur one side but it might keep the other side completely normal.

2. Next, I learned about the diffuse option in the "stylize" option. Diffuse lets you dark or lighten the object which you are stylizing. The options do different things depending on what you pick. They also kind of texturize the object if you choose to diffuse them so be weary. 

What I plan to learn tomorrow:

Tomorrow, I plan to continue creating side characters. The characters I want to create tomorrow are Nermin and Enid Karaman. They are both from Arrow's Story arc so it makes sense putting them together. If I have time, I would like to create the cellist but I might not have time so that's for another day. I also plan to learn something tomorrow and that is how to pixelate in the filters option in Photoshop. It's just something that I plan to learn while I continue my journey in English.

Time: 40 minutes

Day 37 - Photoshop - English Project (6) - Kenan Sprite Creation

What I did:
Today, I created the Kenan character in Photoshop from the "The Cellist of Sarajevo." In the book, the author doesn't go into too much detail about Kenan's character description so I just had to go off on my own. If it turns out the character description is actually there, I will go back and change the character. Today, I also learned how to skew, distort, and how to use perspective.

1. Today, I created Kenan. I added the hair and decided what color I will make the clothes. I'm not sure how long his hair is nor do I know what he looks like because of the book so I just mentally judged it.

 2. Then I moved the eyes to the layer under the hair layer. I'm not sure if I will keep this though.

What I learned:
Today, I learned about the skew, distort, and perspective tools in Photoshop. I learned what each one of them due and how they work. I created Kenan today but I've already created the characters so there's nothing more to learn about that other than some things that I could learn like these new tools.

1. First, I learned about the skew tool. This tool is used to change the angle of the thing you're skewing. So, I tested it out on the arm and I couldn't really edit it diagonally but I could edit it left to right and bottom to top.

2. Next, I learned about the distortion tool. This is used to make the shapes look all weird just like in the photo booth app where you can distort your face and things. You can do that in Photoshop with an object like this:

3. Finally, I learned about the perspective tool. This tool is used to change the perspective of how you see things. It also applies the change to all of the things you're trying to change the perspective of. 

What I plan to learn tomorrow:

Tomorrow, I plan to create the side characters in the book like Ismet/Nermin/Emina. These are the characters that I plan to create over the next few weeks. I also plan to learn about the filter options such as solarize, distort, etc. I want to learn something new every day instead of just creating characters and not learning anything. Those are my goals for next class. 

Time: 40 minutes

Day 36 - Sony Vegas - Masking

What I did:
Today, I learned how to mask in Sony Vegas. Masking is used to separate an image from the background so if you have someone standing in front of a house, you can mask them and have the same image of the person in front of a beach or something. In my case, I took a picture of a warlock in Destiny and cropped out the background to make it look like he was standing in front of beach/ocean area.

These are the steps:

1. First, I loaded in the picture to the composition.

2. Next, I went to "event pan/crop" and clicked the mask button on bottom left.

3. Then, I learned how to mask, by clicking around with the anchor tool. 

4. Finally, I added the background. I dragged it to layer that was under the warlock so it would appear.

What I learned:
Today, I learned some new things about Sony Vegas. I learned that you can mask in it like you can in Photoshop. In Photoshop, it's obvious that masking would be a thing because it has everything to do with pictures. However, Sony Vegas can also remove backdrops off photos by masking. I also learned that you need to connect the all the dots when you're masking to have the background be removed. This process took me a while because I kept messing up and I finally figured out what I was doing wrong and that was that I wasn't connecting the dots. I also learned that if the dots are too close together while anchoring, it will start another layer of dots so that also messed me up because I couldn't connect them to the first layer thus having me restart multiple times. Finally, I learned that you need to be using the anchoring tool to do this or it won't work. The anchoring tool is the tool that creates the dots so you can mask.

What I plan to learn tomorrow:
Tomorrow, I plan to continue with my English Project and my goal for tomorrow's class is to create the character known as Kenan. Kenan is one of the main protagonists like Arrow and Dragan and he is who I'm creating tomorrow. The thing I plan to learn is how to skew. If I'm just creating a character, there is nothing to learn because I've already done that so I plan to learn about skewing just like I learned about warping. If I can't learn to skew, then I plan to learn something else  tomorrow.