#unit 8

Look at that! And we're only half way through 2025. My disaster bingo card is already nearly full, and this is one I don't often get to daub.

Week 1: Blocking 

For the first week of this unit, we chosen the animal for this project and gathered as much references as possible.  

I chose black grey wolves as the key reference because the photographs made them look unique and the fur looked interesting to model. Afterwards, we began to block out the basic structure of the animal. I used dog anatomy drawings for this stage since it had a close anatomical and muscle structure to the wolf. 

Week 2: Sculpting 

After blocking out the main muscle groups, we remeshed and began the sculpting stage. For the details which I did not include during the blockout, I used the dog models on VFX Grace as reference, as well as close up photographs of wolves. 

For the 2D component, we did live drawings of various quadrupeds to be more familiar with identifying main masses for the design stage later, as well as four poses of the animal.

Week 3: Topology 

After sculpting, we moved on to topology in which the model is made for the parts to be arranged and interrelated for animation. By adding edge loops at the correct places, it prevents incorrection deformations when the animal moves. The shrink wrap modifier also allows the topology to follow closely with the sculpt. 

We were also tasked with creating a character design of our chosen animal 5 million years in the future. For this component, I imagined the wolf in an environment that is damaged from climate change and global warming. With the temperature in the day too hot for survival, the wolves have become nocturnal predators that hunt in the dark. Hence, I began looking into other nocturnal mammals as reference for designs. I also tried doing a few sketches based on my idea for the small nocturnal wolves. 

Week 4: Fur 

Using particle systems, we began adding and grooming fur onto the animals. By splitting the parts of fur into different particle systems, the roughness and clumping of the fur is more manageable. 

For the 2D tutorials, we continued to work on live drawings of quadruped with focus on the muscular and skeletal structure.

Week 5: UV unwrapping

For the texturing of the wolf, we did UV unwrapping with UDIMS and the process was made easier with the use of clone stamps, photobashing and stencilling. After this step, the model was ready for rigging.

Week 6: Rigging

We used a premade rig with a blender addon for the animals. Since I was animating a wolf, this step was quite straightforward for me and so the rig was quickly generated.

Week 7

I also did some sketches for the 2D creature design during these few weeks. The final creature would be a small wolf resembling long haired chihuahuas with the adaptation of lemurs such as tarsiers. I continued tweaking the design for the creature to have a more feral and unstable attitude.

Week 8: Motion tracking, light and shadow 

After the animal rig was completed, we recorded videos around the campus to use as footage for the final video. I recorded mine at the corridor as I wanted to setup a scene with the wolf running towards the camera and knocking the cameraman over.

We also had a tutorial about light and shadow on Photoshop. Using tarsiers as reference, I drew my wolf easing a lizard using greyscale.

Week 9,10: Animation, character design

The last two weeks were mainly focused on the animation component and final design of the creatures. For my animation, I wanted the wolf to have a dog-like attitude skipping its way to the lockers before inspecting it by interacting with the environment. The keyframes for these scenes was referenced with videos of wolves and huskies.

However, as the running sequence did not turn out well it was removed in the final video. The animation of the first two parts were also slowed down for pacing.

Afterwards, the character design was also finalised with the turnaround and pose sheet. I decided to keep the feral form of a small animal for my evolved wolf, and changed the eyes to one resembling more of cats to give it a fiercer appearance as predators.

For the colour drawing, I decided to depict the wolf caputred by a person's flash camera during sunrise, as if the creature was caught off guard before it hides back into tunnels during daytime.

UNIT 8 - THE TEMPEST

Taking the shakespeare play of the Tempest and making it your own, focusing on conceptuality, movement, and narrative shown through the costume. I am exploring the concept of identity and culture broadly under colonialism.

FINAL IMAGES

Big thanks to my model Ellie for being such a good sport

NEW YEAR’S EVE (34 ADP)

The couple sat on the steps to the cathedral, watching as an elaborate fireworks display fired overhead. Melody leaned into Joci’s shoulder, nuzzled her neck, and whispered. Joci blushed. She pat her inamorata’s thigh, eyes never leaving the skyline. It’d been a tough holiday season for her, spent between a trip to her brother’s Estate, a jaunt to Ironforge, and hours upon hours in the Stormwind Cemetery. Thankfully, her brother had stayed buried. Her mind played over the spat and — what she had thought to be — productive conversation with the Director. She’d hoped it’d make a difference, even —

“Where are you, Joci?” asked Melody, concerned.

Joci took a deep breath. “Jus’ finkin’...”

“Is this about that goblin in Ironforge? The one who asked if you wanted to taste his smoked meat log?” Melody chuckled, hoping to lighten the mood. It garnered a lop-sided smirk. Better than nothing, she thought.

“Ain’ nevah bin wit’ a goblin. Too ‘spensive for ‘em.”

Melody laughed. She believed her about the first part, though had no idea about the second. “What’s going on?”

She shook her head. “Nah. I donnae wanna ruin th’ night.” She felt Melody squeeze her hand. “‘sides, tha’ meat log be th’ funniest thing I hear’ in awhile.” She, too, started to laugh — tentatively. After a moment, fireworks blasting in the sky, she turned to Melody. “Ya know why I brough’ ya ‘ere? Ta this spot, this stair?”

“Hmm...” Melody met her gaze. “Holy ground to escape the meat log and still see the fireworks?” She winked.

Joci chuckled. It was faint, but there. “Nah. Elunara tol’ me a story ‘bou’ me bruv. ‘Bou’ ‘ow ‘e an’ tha’ ... tha’ woman, th’ one ‘e loved ... ‘ow they sat ‘ere. Somethin’ ‘bou’ him goin’ on an’ on, tha’ ‘e was sure she was th’ one fer ‘im, col’ ‘earted bitch.” She shook her head, eyes returning to the sky. “Somethin’ ‘bou’ ‘is bes’ frien’ ... an’ ‘ow she died no’ e’en a week latah, killt savin’ th’ group they was in... an’ ‘im. ‘ow devasta’ed ‘e was, an’ ‘ow ‘e blamed hisself. Ne’er was righ’ aftah tha’, she tol’ me. Start’d down a dark path.”

Melody squeezed Joci’s hand tighter. “So you’re trying to experience what he experienced? Connect like that?”

She sighed. “No, no’ so much.” Her hand began to sweat in Melody’s. She was nervous. The booming didn’t help. “I go’ ta finkin’ ‘bou’ ‘ow I need ta live me own life now. Et’s mine. I paid fer et wit’ blood an’ body an’ soul. I earnt me freedom, an’ I donnae evah wanna lose et again. I’d rathah die.”

“Joci...”

The crowd, thinner than years prior, spaced into tiny clumps of friends and family, began to count from fifteen.

“I’d do anythin’ fer th’ Director. I’d take a bullet fer her, poison, blade, wha’evah. Same goes fer all th’ ladies in th’ Unit — well mebbe no’ Fishke — tho’ ‘specially Director Hawke or Quinn or Nikki or Myz... each o’ ‘em ‘elpt me in some way.” She bit her lip. “An’ tha’s no’ e’en coun’in’ frien’s who be me family now — Zeehva an’ Missus Stanley.”

The bell tolled midnight.

“And me?” asked Melody.

“I’d pu’ me own life intah th’ Nethah, th’ shat’ered sky, anythin’ fer ya ta live on, yea?”

Melody turned Joci’s face toward her, locking eyes. “I’d do the same for you — you know that, right?”

“Mel—”

“Right?” she repeated, more assertive — a skill she’d gained from Elunara during her stay in House Au’llon’s Elwynn manor. She clutched at the locket round her neck matching Joci’s charm bracelet. “You’re too important. You ... you have too much to do. I know it. Your Director knows it. You should know it, too.”

“Bu’—”

“This is non-negotiable...” she said, before changing the wording slightly: “No compromises.”

Joci set her jaw. “Fine,” she said. “Tho’ I donnae wot I got’a do.”

Melody shrugged. She leaned in. She could feel Joci’s breath on her lips, anticipate the taste of the champagne they’d been drinking. “That’s ok,” she said. She could smell the perfume and the leather, the cedar from the chest she had bought her as a Winter Veil gift, the soap and the cleanliness. Her heart beat faster. “Just go with it.”

“Quinn.”

The young woman sits on one of the dock posts in Stormwind harbour, looking out over the sea.  There’s a sound of clinking glass, perhaps from a nearby ship deck.

“Quinn?”

She sits on a rooftop in Old Town.  The sun sets in the distance, the sky dimming as the smell of whiskey from the thermos fills her nostrils.

“QUINN!”

She jolts to attention, blinking bleary eyed a few times as her shoulder is shaken and she finds herself standing in the Pig and Whistle behind the counter, the glass in hand overly polished by this point. “Where you been girl?  Off in yer head somewhere?”

Still a bit dazed, Quinn sets the glass beneath the bar with the other clean ones.  Nose scrunches up, lips tightening with a chagrined look on her features.  “Sorry Reese...Mister Langston.  Not enough sleep yesterday I’m supposin’.  Was daydreamin’ a bit.  Won’t happen again.”

Reese Langston’s hand claps her shoulder.  “Yeah, hope not luv.  Look, I’d just send you home to get some rest, but I just got word Elly’s a bit under the weather and you know I’m not goin’ to push her too far.  We got crowd enough tonight that I can’t have you just standin’ here polishin’ glass.  Can you take the floor?”

Teeth drag across Quinn’s lower lip as she sucks it in, brown eyed gaze darting over the assembled patrons, before she exhales slowly.  “Yes sir, yeah, I can take the floor today.  Sorry, that’ll keep me movin’ and focused too.  Thank you.”

Not but a nod given in return as the Tavernkeep turns attention back to serving those at the bar.  Quinn snags a pad of note paper and the bar’s one good pen to stride out amongst the patrons.

It’s a fairly normal crowd, the usual assortment of ne’er do wells from about Old Town.  Owners of nearby businesses stopping for a drink before calling it a night.  And of course, a few travelers who don’t seem to have gotten the word on what kind of hole the Pig is, and decided to stop by.

Quinn’s mind begins to drift once more, daydreaming about other things, unfocused on the Bar work as she goes through the rote greetings, drinks, and food specials.  Pen scratches out her chicken scratch on the pad, her simplistic notation of drinks, not that she needs to write any of it down really.  In practice part of what makes Quinn good at this is her memory.

“...cut to pieces and strung up like some kinda display.”

She’s ripped once more from her idle thoughts by the sound of a voice nearby.  What they’d been talking about before hadn’t even registered, but those words set off warning bells.  There’s no real outward change, she’s good at not letting sudden reactions show on her features or in her posture, but no longer is she daydreaming.

“Don’t know what we’re supposed to do to make a living now.”

Quinn finishes taking her current order before feet carry her the distance towards the table with the two men.  Both of them with dusty faces, large arms, short sleeves, the sort of ruggedness to them that makes them look like day laborers of some kind.

“Havin’ a rough go of it fellas?”  Quinn asks with sympathy slipping across her malleable features.  “Overheard you might not be able to work for a bit?  Tell you what, doin’ a special today only.  Give me a story worth hearin’ and your next pint is on the house.  We like stories around here.”

“Aint one you’re gonna believe gorgeous,” the man who had spoken first replies.  “But sure, I’ll tell it.”

“Don’t have to be true, just got to be good enough to be worth hearin’” Quinn teases back, glancing back down to her notepad.  “So tell me your tale and what you’re havin’?”

“Shorter than he makes it out to be,” the second man replies first.  “We been hired on for summer work at Grayson’s Lumber yard, out east end of Elwynn.  Gets like that this time o’year, bring on a whole mess o’summer labor to finish before the hot season gets goin’ proper.”

“Sounds like you should be payin’ for your drinks just fine then,” Quinn flashes her brightest smile.  Inside she’s mentally urging them to get to the point.

“Yeah well, that’s the thing lady, bunch of us been let go,” the first man speaks again.  “Owner runnin’ the yard and his two sons turned up,” he blanches a bit looking up at Quinn, and then, in trying to spare the woman, “not livin’.” He finishes a bit lamely.

“It’s got to have been bandits, only ones who’d be twisted enough to cut folks up and then hang ‘em on display with wire like some sick Darkmoon puppet or somethin’ right?”  The second man pipes in eagerly.  “Only the foremen are convinced one of us must’ve done it, let us all go, sent us home and closed the yard.  Maybe they got to...vestigate or somethin’ like?”

Quinn doesn’t bother to hide the downturn of her lips, the furrowing of her brow.  “That’s terrible, there got to be guards sent out to look into that right?”  She also feels her stomach turn a bit at the description.  No wonder the first guy tried to spare her the details.

The darker skinned man, the second, scoffs at that comment, “Miss, now m’friend and I here are good upstandin’ people.  But you got to know what sort of people tend to do day labor out there.  They got to take whatever they can get to move them logs, and not everyone they toss coin to is on the up and up righ…oof.”

An annoyed grunt from the second as his friend kicks him under the table.  “She don’ need to know all that.  Anyway Miss, there you go, not too excitin’ a story but there it is.  Man passed away, and now we’re all out of work.  Even if it aint what you were lookin’ for, that’s got to be worth a pint right?”

Quinn scrunches up her nose, eyes rolling to the side as though waffling a bit on whether or not to reward the story.  Inside she’s already recording the details she’d gotten, making a note that it’s time to make a new report to Vyn.  Been too long since something worth noting has crossed her ears. “Yeah, alright, two pints of lager comin’ up,” pen works on page, taking down a rough description of the two gentlemen rather than their order, that seems more worth noting right now.  Those writing lessons are paying off.

Then once more the din of the tavern takes over, and she lets her mind drift as she returns to the simple pace of work.  For now, she still has this job to do.  Tonight, it’s time to do the other half of what she’s paid for.

Some examples of the different industries within the Creative Media Sector are:

Advertising

Marketing

Architecture

Crafts

Product Design

Graphic Design

Fashion Design

Film

TV

Radio

Photography

Video

IT

Software

Computer Publishing

Cross industry ownership is when one company has stakes in many different Creative Media industries. The BBC for example was started as a news broadcaster and now deal with TV, Radio, News, Music, Film, Online Content etc.

Cross industry ownership means that most content will gain a wider audience than otherwise, and costs of production can be reduced dramatically. This kind of ownership also means that it can become easy for companies to stick to who and what they know and create industry bias. This can become quite restricting for the industry and leave little space for smaller organisations, as the big companies take over.

The creative media sector is a very cooperative industry. Take making a film as an example:

Storyboard artist (Graphic Design)

Producers

Director (Film/TV)

Cameramen (Video)

Costume (Fashion Designer)

BTS photographer (Photography)

Logo/ title design (Graphic Design)

Editor (Video)

Radio advert (Advertising)

Bus advert (Advertising)