(a very rushed) self-portrait!

Concept:

To be frank, I didn’t have the luxury to be creative with my self-portrait because I was running dangerously low on time; actually, creating a mini version of me with my (very) limited knowledge of coding seemed almost impossible.
So in hopes of keeping the assignment as simple as possible, I focused on the main central characteristics of myself: the colors of my hair, skin, eyes, etc., my general build, and my most common facial expression. Although I initially hoped to focus on the details of my face specifically, I quickly realized the limits of my current coding experience, which mdae my drawing very basic.

Process/Coding:

Thankfully, I was able to gather bits of coding techniques from Professor Shiloh’s lecture notes, specifically on shapes, colors, and the background. Some struggles that I’ve faced during this project were: 1) figuring out the RGB color codes manually until I realized that I can use a tool called “color picker” to generate the codes without having to try out a bunch of different ones, 2) positioning the shapes in the desired spots, which also took a lot of trials and tribulations, and 3) creating arcs, which was honestly the hardest part of this project. Because the arc was the most challenging for me, it’s also the part of my project that I’m most proud of.
Here’s the code that I used for it:

fill(252, 28, 3);
arc(x, y, 70, 100, radians(30), radians(150), CHORD);

Despite the numerous complications (and the frustrated growls I’ve made while creating this), I did have some small wins as well, such as being able to master features such as “fill” and “function draw,” as well as learning how to create the general shapes such as a rectangle, ellipse, etc.

Here is my final product:

Reflection:
There are so many new skills that I want to try out for my upcoming projects that I didn’t quite have the time (and energy) to master yet. Although this one wasn’t exactly a satisfying end product, I’m compromising with myself by believing that given time, I’ll be able to come around to the world of coding and unlock all the cool, fun techniques that I can use to express my creativity! I’d like to make a non-stationary product next time, because I’d like to experiment with coding that generates movements, etc. But for now, I’m glad with this quirky little character that I’ve made. 🙂

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