I love learning random things and then going for it. Here is a sample of art things I’ve done just for fun or for fun clubs.
UIUC Game Builders Studio – Artist
I have been an artist at UIUC’s Game Builders Studio since its first semester in Fall 2022. Game Builders Studio is a student-driven studio that makes one game per semester with a team of 14 – 20 people. Students must apply and can join one of four teams: design, art, audio / music, and programming, that collaborate and work together. So far, we’ve created two games: 1.) Sugar & Slice, a roguelike game where you beat up monsters and steal their candy, and 2.) Beetle Bistro, a kitchen co-op game where you play as insect chefs in an insect world.
As an Artist on the team, I’ve created several props and character models and materials for both games as well as some concept art. Select pieces are shown to the right.
Chocolate Statues
In high school, I wanted to make my friends birthday gifts that they would never forget, so I decided to make them chocolate statues of their favorite animals. I got the idea from building gingerbread houses in Home Ec, where I thought, “Well if I can use the ‘glue’ icing with graham crackers, then what’s stopping me from using the icing with chocolate bars?”, and thus, the idea was born.
I started my design process by making 3D paper models of the statues. This would help me optimize the best way to arrange the chocolate bars to be both efficient and stable. Also, I used them to help me figure out how much chocolate I needed to buy and the dimensions of the individual pieces.
I then cut the chocolate pieces using the paper model as my guide and made the “glue” icing. I then “glued” the pieces together using the icing. Oftentimes, I had to make slight adjustments to my original design due to unforeseen construction difficulties. Afterwards, I put the finishing touches on the statue, such as hair, eyes, etc.
I have made a cat, a zebra, a lion, a horse, and a giraffe chocolate statue. With each one, I improved my design and construction technique, which allowed me to tackle more complex designs.
Side Note: The giraffe chocolate statue went to a friend of mine who was vegan, so I had to use different ingredients. This provided a unique challenge since the vegan icing was significantly less viscous and much harder to handle.
Piñatas
I really enjoy designing and making piñatas. It all started in high school when my Spanish teacher was looking for someone to make a piñata for Spanish club. I always thought piñatas were fun, so I decided to step up to the plate.
My goal was to create a piñata that was fun but also large, stable, and recyclable. I decided to start out with a simple llama. To make it recyclable and large but stable, I used empty pop boxes to make the body, neck, and head, and I used old newspaper for the paper mache part. Then, I added the final touches with some streamers.
My favorite part of the piñata process was definitely the design aspect. It was fun and challenging to come up with different ways to use recycled materials to make the shapes I wanted while also keeping the materials’ stability and use of handling. Designing the place where the rope was attached to the piñata was also an interesting challenge. I wanted the area where the rope was attached to be both strong and easy to implement. If the rope ripped out of the piñata after one hit, it wouldn’t be much fun, would it?
I have made a llama piñata, a Minecraft spider piñata, and a Minecraft creeper piñata. They were all extremely fun and interesting to design and create.
Ryuko’s Wooden Sword
One day I was watching YouTube videos when I was recommended a wooden sword tutorial. It sounded interesting, so I watched it and I thought it was so cool how these people could turn a plank of wood into an extravagant sword. Of course, I thought it would be a fun project and decided to try my own hand at it, making one of my favorite swords of all time: Ryuko’s scissor blade sword from Kill la Kill.
I started out by finding a drawing of the sword that I could use to trace for dimensions and curvatures. I found one clear drawing, but I thought the proportions looked off. As a result, I used Photoshop to make the drawing look how I envisioned it. Next, I researched the best woods to use. I decided upon Maple since it’s strong, sleek, and very hard.
Since the Maple wood plank was not large enough for me to cut the sword out all in one piece, I decided to split the sword into two pieces: the blade with handle and the hand guard. This worked out for the best since the varying grains made the sword stronger. I used a jig saw and vertical band saw to cut the pieces. I had a little bit of experience with a vertical band saw through Seismic Design, but it was very different. With Seismic, the largest piece of wood cut had a cross-sectional area of 3/16″ x 3/16″, which is a lot smaller than a wood plank.
Next, I used a planer saw to make the blade taper and a router to round the edges. I then used a belt sander, a drill press sander, and hand sanders to make the blade edge and make everything smooth. After applying two coats of lacquer, I spray painted the sword red.
I enjoyed this project immensely and could see myself doing more woodworking projects in the future.
Animated Rainbow Cat
I made this Running Rainbow Cat GIF for fun. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do. : )
