The Secret Language of Comics

Sketch 1: Avatar

One of the reasons I chose this avatar was the increase in the use of technology every year. Considering this trend, I wanted to use technology to create an avatar with my characteristics. As a result, I used Samsung’s ‘AR Emoji,’ a program that makes a 3D animated version of a photo taken of me. When I created my avatar, I chose this typical hairstyle, a famous hairstyle in Korea, to show my nationality. The energetic gesture of my avatar indicates that I am interested in learning new things and that I am excited to learn more about comics throughout this course, which is a field that I have never explored before. I inserted my name in an autograph to appeal to myself as a professional in this area. I didn’t have much difficulty making my avatar, but I expected it to take longer to sketch it on paper because I am not a good artist.
I am looking forward to doing some drawing in the future and listening to feedback that would eventually improve my skills in critical thinking.

Avatar Design

For my avatar, I decided to draw a panda for numerous reasons. For starters, it is one of my favorite animals as they are adorable and just lovely creatures. The other reason is because in Chinese culture, the panda represents peace and friendship- one of the two things I cherish deeply. As a child, I tend to be the student and person to really care about people and their feelings. As I grew older, so did my values towards friendship and peace. I would try to assist my friends in thinks they need, as well as give them advice or try to cheer them up when they were in need of it.

The panda helps represent a series of beliefs and ideology that correspond with my life. Everything mentioned helped shape the character I am, a character in a book that is still being written. I know I am still growing in terms of mentality components, but I am glad to have been shaped to my present self.

  • Luigic14

Avatar

For my Avatar I wanted to create an image that would reflect what I like, what does comics mean to me, and what I hope to achieve through this class. I used my own pictures of my uncle’s cat and the plants I grew at home as the basis, and I also searched up a few mushroom pictures on Pinterest as references.

The focal point of this image is a black cat playing classical guitar, which basically represents me. I’m particularly fond of black cats’ bright yellow eyes that seem to secretly observe and keep a record of everything, and their sleeky furs which look like silk. And my uncle’s black cat Boby is just one of my best friends and I’ve been using its photo as my social media profile picture for years. In terms of classical guitar, I’ve been playing it since high school, and even though I’m still bad at it, it’s one of my favorite leisure activities. The music notes float in and out of the door, symbolizing that music allows me to temporarily detach from the real world.

The door at the back of the cat represents the boundary between the real world and the illusory land of imagination, dream, and art. It also represents how I feel when I’m reading or creating something of my own — which is what I’ll be doing in this class. Here the imaginary world is overgrown with giant plants and fungi. Even though I’m a terrible gardener, botany has been my favorite drawing subject.

Except for the pale green color in the background, I only used black and white in this image since I particularly like illustrations that look complex and a bit out of order at first glance, and the easiest way to achieve it is through delineating details through fine lines. I usually add more layers of shadow, but for this assignment, I want to keep it simple and retain a relaxed free-hand-doodle quality.

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Link to pics for reference:

https://pin.it/6K45ol7

https://pin.it/50DgZ0Z

Avatar

This avatar represents a large aspect of what I consider to be part of my identity. Since young, I have always held an interest in cooking: during summers I would enroll in cooking classes at the local community college, I would volunteer for bake sales at the local church, and I would burn through several hours under the tutelage of my maternal grandmother. Although different cultural foods interest me, what truly captivates me is the savory Mexican cuisine I grew up with and continue to expand on.

Throughout the process of creating my avatar, I had trouble with the measurements and navigating my way through pixlr. After spending some time on the site, however, it became much easier to understand. The image was cropped into a perfect square, the lines looked smoother, and the shading more saturated. I feel that with enough practice in this site, the task of uploading images into WordPress will be done in a more timely manner.

Avatar

My avatar’s motivation came from my most beloved British Shorthair cat. He’s a British shorthair, so I decided to use gray and black color. Additionally, I believe in the “less is more” principle in Chinese traditional painting when it comes to drawing, so I want my avatar to consist of simple textures and figures. That being said, I utilized “monoline” and “floral pencil” brush to approximate the impressionist and simplistic stroke while preserving the character’s countenance and character. The big ears were the only part I combined two strokes because I intended to emphasize it as the cat’s defining characteristic.

My greatest difficulty was that I don’t know how to even start, because this is literally my first try in almost 8 years. For some technical reason I couldn’t use procreate for free so I tried three different applications. However, I guess I could build on this style further in this class.

Sketch 1: Avatar

Due: 1/16

Tag: sk1

Objectives:

  • Very basic photo editing
  • Introduction to the concept of Creative Commons
  • Uploading and publishing to your new WordPress site
  • Visual images as representations of complex conceptual topics

Avatar

Once you’ve created your web site, you need an image to represent yourself and/or your site for the class: an avatar. Your avatar can be whatever you want it be but try to create something that both reflects your personality and speaks to the topic for this class in some way.

Start by choosing one or more of your own photos as the basis of the avatar, drawing something yourself and scanning it, or finding one or more Creative Commons-licensed images on Flickr that you can modify. (Make certain to keep a note for yourself of the URL for the photos you use if they are not your own.)

CC-licensed images

Creative Commons licenses work with copyright law so that creators can share their work in a way that allows others to use it with attribution. The video on the left gives a good overview of the concept of Creative Commons licensing. The one on the right gives more explanation of how they work. They are short and worth watching.

You can find CC-licensed images by choosing licensed images on Flickr or with an advanced Google image search.

Edit Photo

Crop and otherwise edit the photo(s) in a photo editing application (like Photoshop or Pixlr). You can create a layered or collage effect, if you’d like. Add your name on your badge in such a way that it’s legible — it can be your full name, just your first name, or the nickname you want to be called this semester.

Your final badge should be square and at least 512 pixels wide and high. Please make certain your badge is square so that it will fit into the design on the student sites page.

Publish

When you’re done, you’ll need to put the image two places, with an optional third:

First

Load the badge into your Media Library and publish it to your site in a blog post. (If adding it as a feature image means that the entire square image won’t display, then also insert the image into the post itself.)

Include information and links in the post about the source(s) for images included in your badge.

Write a paragraph or two about why you chose those images, what aspects of yourself and your interests are represented in your badge, and/or what difficulties you faced in creating the badge.

Please tag your post with the tag “sk1,” plus any additional tags that you think are appropriate.

Second

Go into your dashboard to Design > Customize > Site Identity. Load the image as your site icon (not as the logo).

Finally

If you do not already have a gravatar, create a gravatar account and load your avatar there. From then on, your avatar will show up as your picture when you leave comments here and on other students’ sites.

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