STA Blog

Quick Text Update on RUS412K

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Quick Text Update on RUS412K

Just a text update today! As I’ve mentioned, I’ve been working on a bunch of PPT Video edits for the previous 2 semesters of the RUS online course. Those videos are in their final stages! I’m sending Dr. Rice the last videos for her to approve before she gives me the notes of which videos are being split into two parts. After the videos that need to be split are complete, the RUS406/407 videos should be complete and we can begin on the RUS412 Videos.

I also met with Dr. Rice on Friday to show her all of the wonderful assets that everyone has created for the animations, and she was super pleased with how everything was looking! She loved the backgrounds and variety in characters! Preproduction is almost complete for this first set of animations and I’m excited to get them finalized. I’m meeting with Dr. Rice on Friday to go over the next set of animations!

Week of 7/16

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Week of 7/16

Last week I sent out the latest batch of “This is Democracy” drafts. I had to replace the Capitol building with the Lincoln Memorial, so I retraced the new building and played around with the composition. It was a bit difficult since the Lincoln Memorial’s overall shape is a lot different compared to that of the Capitol – it’s way more boxier and fills the space differently.

 

On the left, we have it zoomed out, which I think makes the monument more recognizable, but there might be too much empty space. On the right, the Lincoln Memorial is more zoomed in, but I feel like it’s a little too cluttered. My personal vote goes to the first one!

UPDATE: I just found out that I’m to make a draft with the Lincoln statue instead, so unfortunately the ones of the Lincoln Memorial above probably won’t be used…

It’ll look something like this. I still have to trace it, but I wonder if it looks like Lincoln is sitting there mediating the two characters’ discussion? (Is that a good or bad thing?)

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I also created these bus symbols for RUS412. This assignment was relatively simple since I just had to trace over the bus reference image.

The wheels are separate symbols so they can rotate. I made the wheels from the back view symbols too, but I’m not sure if they can be made to rotate?

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Another task was to update the banner for the Humanities Department on Cascade, since their original one had a blurry logo and was cropped the wrong dimensions. Here is a screenshot of the final version, uploaded on Cascade:

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Finally, I’m still working on my RUS412 illustration. Kathy, Suloni, and I have changed Oleg’s bedroom to a forest den, which is much more cozy for a hedgehog :^) I still have to line the students in the lecture hall, but everything is slowly coming together! (The Olegs are just there as placeholders for now)

I spent wayyyy too long on the perspective for that classroom, since I kept trying to stick with my original sketch lines but they were so far off! It’s an interesting composition where Oleg’s den in the foreground is more of a flat perspective, while the lecture hall dream has a way more depth. I also plan to make the den setting darker (nighttime) while the lecture hall will have bright light illuminating it, so that the illustration will have even more contrast.

A Digital Watercolor Background

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A Digital Watercolor Background

For the new semester of Russian Animations, I have decided to do watercolor style drawings in Photoshop for some of the backgrounds, especially “revamping” the ones I created last semester. Here’s the cafe set I’ve been working on!

On Creating Animation Tasks

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On Creating Animation Tasks

 

So none of this is actually my art! I just wanted to show how I’ve been framing animation tasks for other STAs. I try to be as descriptive as possible; telling STAs specifically what I would like to see incorporated with each reference image I provide them. I also give them colors to use or explicitly tell them that they can choose a color themselves. I also usually provide instruction for how the file should be organized, especially if the task is a little more complicated!

Some Russian Backgrounds

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Some Russian Backgrounds!

I wanted to include some backgrounds I’ve made so far for the RUS412K Project. These were hand-drawn and painted on paper and then scanned into the computer. There’s still some coloring the paper illustrations will need. Also, they will need to be sufficiently flattened before the final scan (since the paper tends to bend you paint it with watercolor) and the backgrounds touched up in photoshop! All of these backgrounds are based off of real Russian spaces, a step up from last semester!

RUS412 Project Update

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Another RUS412 Project Text Blurrrrrb

Things have been moving forward with the RUS412K Project. There are always so many different things I have to do for the Russian Online courses that when the project is in full swing I feel like I always have to be on my toes! We’ve been working on editing the previous semesters’ powerpoint videos, switching videos from different units, removing/adding audio and so forth and I found out last week that I’ll be taking on some of Samantha’s responsibilities for keeping the project on track while she is away for 3 weeks! So I’m working with multiple new google sheets and a more direct communication with the professor, as well as keeping the Box storage for the project organized. But I also have a video STA helping with some of these edits and he works really fast on Premiere so hopefully we’ll complete these edits soon! The preproduction for the RUS412K Animations is chugging along as well, and hopefully I’ll have some pictures to post on my blog by the next STA meeting! We already have a number of new characters and objects created and I’ve drawn 4 or 5 backgrounds!

 

ALSO!!! The Chinese powerpoint video project is officially complete! So nice to hear:^))))