About Ash M.
Ash M.
Capstone Idea
Capstone Update 1 (9/29)-(10/1)
Capstone Update 2 (10/1)-(10/13)
Capstone Update 3 (10/13)-(11/1)
A) How has your Capstone experience been to start the school year?
My capstone experience has been very good! I am pleased with what I’m making and working on it has been lovely. I have only got burned out on it once or twice but other than that, it’s been a good experience. I’m having fun writing and enjoying the characters along the way.
B) What positives and negatives come with working on a year-long project?
A positive is if you are doing something you enjoy, it will not feel as burdensome then if you were forced to do something. Be mindful and wary of what you choose! A negative is if you are tired of working on it then it’s hard to find motivation to keep up with it. Sometimes you have to transition into doing something else that is needed for the project as well or entirely take a break for a bit to regain your motivation and or focus.
C) Areas that you have improved and grown / Areas you want to continue improving upon?
Areas I have improved upon is writing my story out. I have gotten better at asking for student reviews and making notations in my book to decide what I should change, keep, revise, and more. What I want to continue improving on is writing since I am still making errors and I want to improve how I draw and sketch out my illustrations. I believe they are good but drawing illustrations take a very long time and I need to get better at sketching them out in a shorter manner.
Capstone Update 4 (11/17)
Capstone Update 5 (11/28)-(11/30)
The only difference as of right now is I’m working on redesigning Zeke’s hair because his hair will be too complicated to illustrate when I get to do illustrations. However, I’m hoping this change will help with that issue.
Capstone Update 6 (12/14)
I finished designing the new Zeke. I changed his hair that way it would complement more of who I believe he is! Not only that but illustrating him will be a lot easier for me. I had also given him the additional accessory of a beanie for fun! It could also cover his hair if I didn’t feel like drawing his hair out in one or more illustrations.
Capstone Update 7 (12/25)
Moving on to talking about what I have changed and added when it comes to current characters!
The new character I was talking about is here. Introducing the one and only David Smith! He will be known as a supporting side character and mentor in this story. What I didn’t mention was there is another side character that I had planned to introduce, I had thought I would design him later, but he is here now. His name is Parker Rivers, his role is meant to be a side character, but he is still very important to the story!
Now it’s time for me to explain what I had done with Morgan and Zeke. I did say I completed working on Zeke’s design, but I won’t lie, I ended up not liking it. It was less about his hair but more so about his face as a whole. I discussed with my friends and the two problems that I had fixed were how big his eyes were and how small of a forehead he has. As those problems kept coming up, I ended up fixing them and adding more length to his hair to boot, both for his beanie and non-beanie version. I will say, I am now satisfied with his design. As for Morgan, I had changed their eyes and tweaked their coloring a bit. It’s nothing noticeable and the problems with them had been a long time coming. I’ll be honest, I just didn’t feel like it as their design issues was much more manageable to deal with then the way I felt about Zeke’s. As of now, that’s all I have to say about the updates on my capstone!
A) How has your Capstone experience been to start the school year?
My capstone experience is very good! I will admit, it’s challenging more so as the deadline gets even steadily closer, but I am enjoying it! My writing skills overall have been challenged and my illustrating skills are improving with each minor mistake I make. By ‘challenged’ I should clarify I had to rewrite the beginning dialogue four times. I am having a hard time, but my experience hasn’t been tarnished.
B) What positives and negatives come with working on a year-long project?
A positive is if you have two separate tasks but both reach towards the same goal you need to accomplish then it becomes less burdensome to work on your year-long project. For example, I am working on writing and illustrating and while doing either or is enjoyable if I am burned out on working on one, it’s easy to still be doing work but not having to continue doing something I can’t do at the moment. A negative is with writing and illustrating, I have to put a lot of effort into how I want them to come out. With writing, I’ve had to change and add dialogue to make the natural flow of things go way more smoothly in the final script then what I’ve had to previously write in the draft. With illustrating, I’ve had to try and learn difficult subjects like 2d perspectives that easily can be a challenging task if you have never tried it before.
C) Areas that you have improved and grown / Areas you want to continue improving upon?
I have improved upon how I transfer from writing in a narrative-like perspective to writing in a script-like perspective. The transition from writing a narrative to now writing a script was very daunting. It proved to be very difficult as the first day I was struggling immensely on how to make the characters sound very casual and friendly. They sound very robotic and not at all like a human! However, now that has immensely improved! Areas that I want to improve upon are how I start my illustrations. I need to plan ahead of time how I want illustrations to turn out otherwise I will struggle a lot with trying to plan out the scene that I want to capture. Sketching these illustrations is not too bad but I need to try multiple ideas along with different perspectives to see what will make this scene grab the reader’s attention the most. They also are proving to take a lot of time, which if I have learned anything, taking a lot of time is not a good thing.
Capstone Update 8 (2/29)
Moving on to talking about what I have changed and added when it comes to current characters!
The new character I was talking about is here. Introducing the one and only David Smith! His name is pending as of right now, since I feel I chose a very basic name that does not connect with his name to who he is as a person in this story. As I have said, he will be known as a supporting side character and mentor in this story. What I didn’t mention was there is another side character that I had planned to introduce, I had thought I would design him later, but he is here now. His name is Parker Rivers, his role is meant to be a side character, but he is still very important to the story!
Now it’s time for me to explain what I had done with Morgan and Zeke. I did say I completed working on Zeke’s design, but I won’t lie, I ended up not liking it. It was less about his hair but more so about his face as a whole. I discussed with my friends and the two problems that I had fixed were how big his eyes were and how small of a forehead he has. As those problems kept coming up, I ended up fixing them and adding more length to his hair to boot, both for his beanie and non-beanie version. I will say, I am now satisfied with his design.
As for Morgan, I had changed the size of their eyes and tweaked their coloring a bit. I’ll be honest, I didn’t think I would do anymore tweaking to their design. However, I have noticed one thing about their design and it’s their hair. Their hair when I had first designed it was heavily referenced from a photo of a black women. Next to the references the hair looks fine but without it, it looks noticeable strange. After realizing this, I had changed their hair entirely. I had redone their kinky hair and gave them bangs to help cover their forehead since I didn’t like their forehead being shown. After fixing this major design issue, I feel I am satisfied with this report on my capstone! Also, yes, I did give them a nose piercing for funsies.
A) How has your Capstone experience been to start the school year?
My capstone experience has been very lovely. I will say, I overestimated how much I could do in one year. My goal was very ambitious, but I do not regret doing it by any means! It proved to me what my capabilities are and not only that, but it also showed me how challenging it is. As much as I don’t like challenging things, this proved to me that what I can take on with the time given. Writing and illustrating as much as I originally wanted to would be extremely difficult, but I am still glad I did do it. It showed I have a certain amount of writing I can do along with how many illustrations I can do within the given amount of time.
B) What positives and negatives come with working on a year-long project?
A positive about working on a year-long project is seeing how many changes you could make over the year. I know people might say that looking over your work and realizing where you did a poor job is bad, but I don’t think so. I have looked over my writing and illustrations a lot of times and I’ve come to appreciate my mistakes a lot more. When it comes to what I have written, I have come to look back at where I started and appreciate myself for realizing that ideas and the execution of events wouldn’t work. It shows my thought process and how I was working out the details in my mind. A lot of those details will never be seen or executed but I appreciate the effort and passion I poured into the project. In addition, I feel the same way about the illustrations I have drawn. I have noticed all the changes I’ve made to the main characters, along with the idea of how they are meant to look in illustrations. I have changed Zeke’s design multiple times and I have tweaked Morgan’s hair a lot from the original. A negative when it comes to working on a year-long project is how ambitious you may be. As much as I am happy for being ambitious, there is also a feeling of frustration. As much as I am happy and proud about the work, I have achieved it’s also about me not reaching my intended goal. I may have achieved writing my final script and doing illustration, but it feels like I had a lot more time to do more and should have made it to my goal by the end of the year.
C) Areas that you have improved and grown / Areas you want to continue improving upon?
I have improved when it comes to drawing my perspective illustration for my script. I have struggled with trying to understand how to transfer a 2d character in a perspective 3d space. However, I do feel like I have improved after hearing what my friends and my teacher have said about my illustrations. Not only that but I have improved on how fast I can write something. I have noticed that I can write about two pages a day in two hours, which I didn’t used to be able to do.
Capstone Update 9 (3/27)
Moving on to talking about what I have changed and added when it comes to current characters!
The new character I was talking about is here. Introducing the one and only David Smith! His name is pending as of right now, since I feel I chose a very basic name that does not connect with his name to who he is as a person in this story. As I have said, he will be known as a supporting side character and mentor in this story. What I didn’t mention was there is another side character that I had planned to introduce, I had thought I would design him later, but he is here now. His name is Parker Rivers, his role is meant to be a side character, but he is still very important to the story!
Now it’s time for me to explain what I had done with Morgan and Zeke. I did say I completed working on Zeke’s design, but I won’t lie, I ended up not liking it. It was less about his hair but more so about his face as a whole. I discussed with my friends and the two problems that I had fixed were how big his eyes were and how small of a forehead he has. As those problems kept coming up, I ended up fixing them and adding more length to his hair to boot, both for his beanie and non-beanie version. I will say, I am now satisfied with his design.
As for Morgan, I had changed the size of their eyes and tweaked their coloring a bit. I’ll be honest, I didn’t think I would do anymore tweaking to their design. However, I have noticed one thing about their design and it’s their hair. Their hair when I had first designed it was heavily referenced from a photo of a black women. Next to the references the hair looks fine but without it, it looks noticeable strange. After realizing this, I had changed their hair entirely. I had redone their kinky hair and gave them bangs to help cover their forehead since I didn’t like their forehead being shown. After fixing this major design issue, I feel I am satisfied with this report on my capstone! Also, yes, I did give them a nose piercing for funsies.
A) How has your Capstone experience been to start the school year?
My capstone experience has been very good. Even as the end of the year comes, I am still enjoying my capstone experience. I may have not finished what I initially started but I’m glad to have done a lot of this work. A lot of this work shows what I am capable of doing in a school year, which makes me feel very proud of myself in a way. I hope to take this project and continue to work on it even after I graduate because this experience has been nothing but good. At times it has been challenging, I won’t lie but I have thoroughly enjoyed most of what I’ve been doing for this project.
B) What positives and negatives come with working on a year-long project?
A negative that I am experiencing right at the moment is burnout. I feel extremely tired from working on my writing and illustrating my characters, as much as I love them. I am hoping to feel better once I can take a longer break from this project and come back to it after a well-deserved break. A positive I am experiencing right now is being able to critique a lot of my old work or redo my old work to help improve my vision of this story. It’s very satisfying to redo a lot of my old writing or illustrations, as I feel I have mentioned that before.
C) Areas that you have improved and grown / Areas you want to continue improving upon?
I am repeating myself, but I have improved when it comes to drawing my perspective illustration for my script. I have struggled with trying to understand how to do a perspective in a 3d space. It’s hard to make a flat drawing in a 3d space but I feel I have gotten better at it. However, I do feel like I have improved after hearing what my friends and my teacher have said about my illustrations. Not only that but I have improved on how fast I can write something. I have noticed that I can write about two pages a day in two hours, which I didn’t used to be able to do. As of recently, I have not managed to write quickly or illustrate any drawings because of my burnout but I still have noticed a lot of progress in these two areas.
Capstone Update 10 (5/9)
Morgan and Zeke have been fully planned out and their designs remain the same as I had posted. They are complete. With Parker I had managed to finish his design which I am happy to present and show, sadly, David will have to be finished another time.
As for the writing portion of what I had done, the story made it to the rising action. I am very happy it made it there! As for the final script, even if it didn’t get anywhere near done, I found I had accomplished enough with writing the pre-introduction. It tells a lot about where the story is possibly going and shows what a great deal of effort I was putting into it. The planning was brutal at times but at least in the final, it feels worth it to see.
As much as I feel satisfied with the result now, I did struggle a lot with the writing and illustration. I took on a lot of work when it came to doing both. I struggled planning certain events out and had to entirely change things at times, however, it was well worth it. Illustrating was hard because I had to teach myself about perspective and how the proportion of your body looks in certain situations. It was rough. The writing was difficult as the dialogue was something I had to constantly redo since it didn’t sound ‘human enough.’ Not only that but I had to make sure the characters didn’t come off as too harsh and had a sense of friendliness as Zeke and Morgan are meant to be close friends.
All in all. The ups and downs I experienced were ultimately the most enjoyable parts when I finally found the solution or turned my struggle into something great. As much as it all could be hard, it taught me so much and allowed me to be creative with something I loved. There is such little time you have with Capstone but if you make it worth it, it can easily be so enjoyable and relaxing.
