Daily projects, 2015–2016
519 days of illustration, animation, modelling, sketching, writing, and even… some music?
In the spring of 2015, as I was studying at the Hochschule Anhalt in Germany, I began a series of daily projects. I was likely inspired by beeple and many other talented artists and designers and I honestly had no idea how long I’d be able to keep it up. In the end, I kept at it for 519 days!
Below, I simply want to showcase my chosen themes and a few of the best pieces from each month. Los geht’s!
April 2015: vector illustration
Springtime in Germany. Beautiful weather for classes and biking during the day, and in the evening, cooking and illustrating. Starting off, I mostly took inspiration from things that were around me, but by the end of the month, I was producing some more creative pieces.
May 2015: 3D modelling and animation
I was working on a couple big 3D projects in school at the time, so I also had 3D on the mind at home. And if you couldn’t already tell — I was all about that low-poly.
June 2015: animation
This month, I wanted to try as many different forms of animation as I could. Rotoscoping for the first time gave me a huge appreciation for animators who work with this method 😮
July 2015: patterns
I didn’t have a lot of time this month, as I was finishing up my semester in Germany, then flying to rural Italy to stay with family for a week. But I had just read a big book on the philosophy behind patterns throughout history, so I let that seep into my work this month.
August 2015: monochromatic iconography
Again, even less time this month as I made my way back to the States and made preparations for my wedding! Keeping things simple here.
September 2015: art from my Pathfinder campaign
Back in Rochester and starting my final year at university — by playing tabletop roleplaying games!
October 2015: 3D animation
In among the animations of this spooky month, I tried to pull off some optical illusions, or at least optical interestings.
November 2015: generative art
I had used Processing back in Germany to set some animations to music, but I never really got the hang of it, so this month I dove back in and tried to make some interesting results. I mostly didn’t.
December 2015: pencil sketching
Relaxing over the holidays meant I could unplug from classes and my computer for a bit… well, until it came time to play through the last Life is Strange episode!
January 2016: character design
This entire month was an exercise in character design, from concept and backstory to modelling and texturing. Never did get her rigged and animated though. I wrote about the process in more detail here.
February 2016: guitar
Never played an instrument before in my life, but I was inspired to pick up a friend’s guitar due to, of course, Life is Strange’s amazing soundtrack.
March 2016: user interfaces
Life was getting hectic at this time, as I was working on final projects for a couple different classes, as well as a tabletop board game concept with a few friends for a game jam.
April 2016: 3D scanning and printing
Final projects still ate up most of my time, but thanks to some interesting classes and RIT’s amazing resources, I was able to dabble in some 3D scanning and printing, taking my models into the real world!
May 2016: motion graphics
These are mostly bits and pieces from my group thesis project’s intro video. And some custom LEGO sets I built to unwind back home after graduation. 😊
June 2016: iconography
Working hard to find a job! The icons below were used in my presentation at a couple of interviews I did. Somehow, I still had free time to replay Spore, which led to the fictional level cards underneath.
July 2016: vector illustration
No, I wasn’t in Turkey at the time (I was actually in Hong Kong!), but I did follow the news closely, having visited twice before. This was intended to be a motion graphic explainer, but, well, I got a job instead.
August 2016: storytelling
While getting visa paperwork sorted out and trying to settle my life in Hong Kong, I could tell I wanted to wind down my daily projects. So this month, I did a bit of illustration, but mostly just tried to keep my mind creative by coming up with some story threads (could you tell I’d been watching Black Mirror?).
After worldwide bee extinction, companies raise high-yield bees in farms in low-earth orbit. One such farm is under attack by a competitor’s AI.
You awaken as an AI who just gained sentience. How long can you hide it and can you even survive?
Urban explorers on mars find an old refinement facility to not be as deactivated as they thought.
Space botanists must think fast when radiation kills all other life forms aboard their remote space station.
A programmer tasked with debugging machine-written code realizes he is just being kept busy so it can take over the system and escape.
Augmented eyesight is common, but a rogue AI threatens to flood humanity with advertisements.
And beyond…
At this point, I know I won’t have the time required to keep up my daily projects in the future (and honestly, they had begun to feel like a chore months ago). So, time to put the whole operation to bed!
Time to start a new job and a new chapter of my life in Hong Kong!
If you’re interested in seeing all 519 pieces, you can view the whole archive on my tumblr here: http://amicidesigns.tumblr.com/archive
