Course Director: Joe Hambleton
TA: Ilze Briede
Provides a foundation in 3D modelling using state of the art render time 3D modelling software such as Maya, Blender, and 3DS Max. The course will provide a survey of various modelling techniques and approaches with an emphasis on modelling used in 3D art, 3D animation and games. Topics include photorealistic rendering, scene building, character modelling, and the use of 3D graphics in simulation and visualization.
A New Toy
Elyssa Lam
A New Toy is a representation of self-acceptance of what makes me who I am. As a child I wasn’t really into things that every other kid liked, instead I was more of the odd one out and often was made fun of. I was always hiding the fact that I liked anime. Keeping it in and pretending to like other things like Barbie or Hot Wheels, but I’ve realized that there should not be a need to hide the things that are a part of me. Reaching out to catch this unusual toy amongst all the other common ones is me actively showing everyone that this is what I like and this is who I am. I no longer pretend to be someone I’m not, instead I’ve learned to be true to myself and the things that I enjoy.
Falling Pieces of Dreams
Hoi Tung Wu
This artwork comments on my identity, and I decided to focus on my own beliefs, personality, and my type of motivation. By illustrating the 3 dreams of what I want to achieve, they seem too hard to accomplish under the pandemic. The star conveys the distance to reach my dreams, and the size of diamonds (dreams) emphasizes the importance of what I want to achieve first in my mind. Firstly, since I am majoring in Information Technology, and with my personal identity to the LGBTQ+ community, my biggest dream is to have my future IT career be in a friendly and safe workspace and allow me to be creative. Secondly, being a fan of J-POP and K-POP, my motivation is from fangirling idols; one of them is Okada Nana (from AKB48). From my perspective, fangirling idols bring people happiness while experiencing a hard time managing all sorts of daily life problems and mental health. I am thankful for being a fan of my idols. Lastly, traveling is one of the best ways to relieve stress and feel that I am enjoying my own life in a place I love. Unfortunately, everything is unsure with the pandemic, and I feel like everything is falling apart. And I want to capture these feelings in my artwork.
Reflections of Growth
Christina Thuch
This 3D modelling piece is called Reflections of Growth. It features an older figure gazing into the mirror, looking at their younger self. I primarily used warm and natural lighting to give a nostalgic feel, and I chose to add colourful, illuminated boxes around the character to help bring out playfulness. Often times when thinking about the future, there is a lot of worry and anxiety. Most of the time, we feel that we are fighting against a time limit. With this piece, I wanted to make something that stops time, something that makes us reflect. I thought back to my younger self, specifically how most children have big dreams growing up. I thought of how many things I wanted to achieve, and how many things I wished to learn. At that moment, I had no idea how I would achieve these things and it felt more like an unrealistic dream. Looking back, I realized how many of those things have been accomplished. Instead, of worrying about the future, I felt inspired by trusting the process of life.
Hot Pot?
Philip Nguyen
Hot pot has been a staple in our family. We have old photos from before I was born depicting my family and relatives eating together around a hot pot. At the center of the table, there would be a butane stove with a pot of hot soup on top. Garnishes and uncooked meats lay around the stove in smaller bowls ready for everyone to cook and enjoy together. However, this has been a rare sight lately. Strewn about and hung with strings. I’m reminded that the imperfection and vulnerability I find in life and in myself don’t have to be pushed away.
Sea of Troubles
Stephanie Pugh
This work, based around identity, is a visual commentary piece on trauma processing. It is a personal piece that represents the process of leaving an abusive household and how trauma can manifest beyond an initial environment of abuse. Trauma makes new or unfamiliar life experiences seem like dangerous tasks that one has to be cautious of for a fear of being hurt. This artwork portrays the feeling of quiet entrapment, fear of the unknown, and the grief that surrounds trauma processing. In the artwork, a large hammerhead shark, representing trauma, looms over a woman; it wears armour and seems indestructible. The scene is dark, threatening and dissociative. The woman must choose to wade through a sea of troubles if she wants to escape the hurt that has manifested in her mind; represented by a glass mind prison. Attached to the prison is a pair of bright arms that reach toward the woman, trying to help her break free. These arms represent the hope to heal and move forward from traumatic experiences.
Paint Passion
Ammara Khalid
Paint passion is a piece about one’s passion for their hobbies. For this artwork, I demonstrated my own hobby of painting nails through 3D modelling. As creating nail art is an outlet for me to express my creativity, I decided to add a fantastical element to the piece, that is, the floating nail polish. The heart not only represents my love for my hobby, but also represents the vast possibilities of art I can create using nail polish as paint and my nails as canvases. Surrounding the nail polishes are all the different tools I use to help me with my process, like the cotton swabs, nail art brushes, nail polish remover, cuticle oil, tissue box, and tweezers. I also added my headphones and my phone to the piece because I love listening to music while painting my nails for inspiration.
Toxic Gamer
Ashley Thong
Have you ever played a game and it brought out the absolute worst in you? As video gamers hide behind screens and are consumed by competition, giving and receiving trash talk is a norm. I am no different. The monster sticking out it’s tongue into the monitor is a visual representation of what I’m like when gaming as well as many other gamers out there. The demon hiding inside of me comes out, I open my mouth and start spewing unkind things into the communication system provided. All of this done behind a screen, sharing only mean words and nothing else. Gaming may be fun but it can also be quite toxic. Sometimes even the fun comes from being toxic.
Memoryscape
Sydney Simota
At its core, identity is a collection of memories- memories that warp each time they are brought to mind. Memoryscape is a representation of this memory reservoir set in an ambiguous location between the earthly and celestial. Floating center frame is a character I modeled for a previous project based on the sky bison, Appa, from Avatar: The Last Airbender. I first watched this animated series in elementary school with my sister and have rewatched it several times since. Hence, this character conjures up many fond memories and appears as a relic of sorts hovering between two ledges- a statue commemorating past joy. But like all memories, fond memories are naturally distorted, and this is reflected in the model’s shaders. Marble, chrome, smooth, and textured, the patchwork is meant to embody the reconstructive nature of memory. And just as the spectral figure in the middle ground reaches out to the towering animal, I continuously summon my memory to know who I am.
Return to the Digital Media END OF YEAR SHOWCASE 2021 • 2022