Very special Cyber Jam on 9/17!
Very special Cyber Jam on 9/17!
We are very proud of our Student National Mentors and Fellows, many of whom stay active in our Youth Digital Arts community even after graduating from college. This special Cyber Jam features the return of at least three of our Student National Fellows to share how Youth Digital Arts gave them skills that they continue using for work, fun and as entrepreneurs. Jenna, for example, will share how she uses her art skills as a graduate student in avian biology, with a focus on population genetics and conservation.
Our current SNMs and SNMFs are super excited to jam with our returning alumni and share the amazing projects they're working on. Max will demonstrate the original video game students create in our new IMVGD101 course, Internet and Mobile Video Game Design. What's super cool is that all attendees will be able to play the game at the same time on their phones and computers. Kierstin just completed our new 3DDRW101 course in which students create the super cool 3D artwork shown above. Max and Kierstin worked all summer on our new courses and are excited to share what they learned.
We are also excited for Amelie's first Cyber Jam. Am is a talented young sixth grade artist from Pennsylvania and our newest SNM!
Come jam with us and watch the sparks fly across the internet!
Click here to enroll and for all the information.
Fall 2020 Course Catalog!
Our completely online courses can be taken from anywhere at any time: from school, home or anywhere.
Enroll your third grade through high school students in our three digital art course tracks illustrated above. Learn all about our courses and programs in our Fall 2020 Course Catalog, Single Page Flier and Quick Enrollment Guide.
You can download and print them from our home page at www.YDACS.com or from our Cyber School page at www.YouthDigitalArts.com.
We hope you enjoy the excellent student works of art throughout our catalog and we look forward to your students joining us in the Youth Digital Arts Cyber School.
Battling Coronavirus With Comics – Katrina – 12th grade – California
Battling Coronavirus With Comics - Katrina - 12th grade - California
[you can leave positive words of encouragement for Katrina by clicking the title of this post and scrolling down to add your comments.]
Katrina just completed our high school visual arts course series.
When Katrina started her second semester VAMCGS course she wrote:
When I was little, I loved to look at and read comic strips that came in every Sunday newspaper. I love to create characters and imagine what they do in a certain situations. I'm actually trying to make a comic, so I think this class will help me improve on how to make simple ones. One thing I hope to learn in this course is how to make smoother transitions between scenes.
One of her assignments was to design an advertising campaign for a theater or dance production, or any other event held at school, creating images that represent characters and major aspects of the event or production. Since all school events were closed due to coronavirus she decided to create a comic to help an Orange County California organization called Making Masks Central OC.
Katrina sent her comic to Making Masks Central OC and requested their feedback. Annie Cwieka from Making Masks Central OC posted Katrina's comic on their Facebook page, shared some powerful words from Mr. Rogers that all of us should keep in mind during this pandemic and praised Katrina:
Dear wonderful Face Mask Making Tribe! We are very proud to share the work of Katrina, daughter of our prolific seamstress, Kimiko. Katrina was asked to produce a "comic ad" for a class project. She choose our group as her inspiration.
Mr. Rogers once shared that his mother told him, "When times are scary, look for the helpers." These are scary times - particularly for our children. Know that they are watching. And what they see modeled by you is resilience, caring and strength. Thank you for being "the helpers."
And thank you Katrina!
Katrina said: "I am happy that other people are enjoying my comics. I loved their message too. Hearing their praises encourages me to do and post more online for others to see."
We're glad that Katrina experienced the positive impact her artwork can generate. We hope this launches Katrina into creating many more works and inspires other potential junior artists to follow in her footsteps.
Katrina far exceeded what she originally hoped to achieve in VAMCGS. She wrote:
Dear YDACS,
I have completed VAMCGS! Thank you so much for providing this course and helping me. I really enjoyed learning more about making comics. I learned the different techniques used in comics. I also loved making the comics for the various assignments. I really enjoyed this course!
You can learn about our high school visual arts course series in our course catalog. It's comprised of two courses in the first semester, Digital Manga 101 and either Digital Photo Painting 101 or Digital Drawing and Painting 101, and VAMCGS in the second semester. VAMCGS translates to Visual Arts - Manga, Comics, Graphic Novels and Storyboarding.
Amazing Student Testimonials!
Amazing Student Testimonials!
Digital Animation 101 - DA101
Chance - Grade 9
I've finished DA101. I learned a lot about how to use digital animation software, and about the principles of animation. I had fun taking this course, and I plan to use these techniques in my own animations.
Revin - Grade 9
I enjoyed the class and liked learning how simple some animations can be but yet they look so good.
Chase - Grade 11
Moho is a great software, it is slightly different than anime studio but the lesson videos still showed almost the exact same features so it was easy to follow along. I used version 12 by the way.
If anyone is looking for digital arts classes I highly recommend using this site and taking the courses, the videos give exact instructions allowing you to get used to and comfortable with the software in no time.
Thank you YDACS!
Digital Drawing and Painting 101 - DDP101
Kierstin - Grade 10
My goodness this course was so amazing! I really enjoying making my work posts for this course. I learned how to shade and fill in new ways and also learned new techniques, such as burning and dodging, as well as more effective ways to use the tools available.
Katrina - Grade 12
I have learned a lot from this class. I enjoyed learning from different people; that is one part of the course that I loved the most. Shading was one of my favorite parts to learn too. Thank you so much! I really enjoyed this class!
Digital Manga 101 - DM101
Lidia - Grade 6
I really enjoyed DM101. I loved the part when the teacher was teaching about drawing, simplifying the drawing, using fill to color, and using the gradients.
Yusuf Sharay - Grade 12
I really enjoyed the lessons and how they were very easy to understand.
Damon - Grade 12
I really liked this course. I have enjoyed learning how to draw manga. Something I thought I could never do. Now I have the confidence thanks to this course. The videos were very informative and helped a ton. I can't wait to start the next course. Graphic Arts is fun for me so far..
Platform Video Game Design - VGD101
Payton - Grade 8
I've Finished VDG101 and i really enjoyed it. the super knight was the first video game that i ever made.
Jayden - Grade 12
I've just finished VGD101, and I can say that I've learned so much. I learned how to create frames, events, conditions, and so much more. I had so much fun with this class, it was incredible… I couldn't help but do multiple chapters in a row! I'm really happy with this class, and will make sure to use what I've learned to make incredible video games.
Tariq - Grade 12
This course was awesome for learning about how to use Fusion.
Aidan - Grade 12
I loved this course. I have always wanted to learn how to code video games. I have learned many things throughout this course. For example, how to add commands with other commands.
RPG Video Game Design - VGD102
Grant - Grade 7
I liked the freedom that I had to shape it any way I wanted.
Jayden - Grade 12
I feel like I've learned so much! I learned about creating complex enemies, about making power-ups, and how to design a world map. I absolutely loved this course, and was so glad I could take it. I really feel like I'll be able to use this knowledge to make a great video game one day! Thank you so much, YDACS, for everything.
Internet Video Game Design – IVGD101
Brien- Grade 10
I've Finally finish MY GAME!!! Some parts were a bit confusing but I think I managed to make everything correct and work properly. I enjoyed spending time working on this Video Game, and I want to continue creating my own video games!
Kierstin – DDP101 student – 10th grade – California
Kierstin just completed Digital Drawing and Painting 101 and posted some excellent works, including her Agapanthus below, along with descriptions of the skills and techniques she learned in DDP101 and applied to this work. You can click the title “Kierstin – DDP101 student – 10th grade – California“ and then scroll to the bottom of the page to leave positive comments for Noah.
“MY FINAL WORK POST! This took a really long time and it turned out better than I expected but still very different from the original paper drawing i did. None the less I am happy I have finished yet another YDACS course”
Our New Fall Course Catalog Is A Work of Students’ Art
Our New Fall Course Catalog Is A Work of Students’ Art
We are excited to announce our new Fall 2019 Course Catalog, Single Page Flier and Quick Enrollment Guide. You can download and print all of them at www.YDACS.com or from our Cyber School page at www.YouthDigitalArts.com. We hope you enjoy the student works of art throughout our catalog and we look forward to your students joining us this semester.
You can share any comments you may have about our new documents by clicking the title of this post and then adding them at the bottom of the post.
You can also always contact us directly by using our contact form at www.YouthDigitalArts.com.
Please share this announcement with everyone you know.
Wishing everyone a great school year!
Give a young person the gift of exploring the digital arts and maybe even launch a career!
It always starts with an interest, a curiosity, or a passion for the digital arts. Students may be fascinated by a particular art form and curious how they’re made, or they may be inspired to jump in a start creating their own original stories and artworks.
Caleb started his digital art exploration in our Video Game Design 101 course eleven years ago. After becoming one of our amazing Student National Mentors, and then a Student National Fellow, Caleb went on to excel in the Digital Animation Program at CSU Fullerton and was one of 30 out of 10,000 worldwide applicants selected for Nickelodeon’s prestigious Digital Animation Studios internship. Caleb is now a Team Leader with Sony’s PlayStation Division.
This semester, like so many YDACS.com students before her, fourth grader Anaiya enrolled in Digital Manga 101, DM101, along with the assistance of her Grandmother Lita who learned as much, and ended up loving DM101 as much, as Anaiya.
When Anaiya just completed DM101 she said:
“DM101 is such a great course for kids because it pushes them to limits and lets them be as creative as can be. Also, I enjoyed the videos they were very helpful and short like 15 minutes and under! I really liked the color wheel ( it has every color you can THINK of ). Next, I learned about opacity which makes objects look transparent. Last, I also like layering, putting objects behind other objects. Thank you, Anaiya”
Evelyn is a Junior in high school and one of our amazing Student National Mentors. She was just like Anaiya when she took DM101 in 7th grade, When she finished DM101 she said:
“I really enjoyed Digital Manga 101. Although I did find it fun to learn techniques in the chapter videos, my favorite part was definitely creating my own characters in Inkscape! It was interesting and useful to know how to make drawings look excellent through slight tweaking. Thanks to the mathematics of Vector Graphics, I enjoyed my first Inkscape experience because I could move and change images easily and quickly. I am glad that I learned how to make some really creative works on the computer and I hope to use these skills in later years.
Thank you, YDACS!
Sincerely,
Evelyn
Evelyn has gone on to become an amazing young digital artist. You can even wear some of her 8th grade artworks by purchasing a t-shirt featuring one of her designs in our store.
One of the things we love the most is when our students integrate their digital art skills with other subjects. This is an excellent example where Evelyn used the digital art tools and skills she learned in her YDACS courses to illustrate a group parachute design for her physics class, all the way from brainstorming to the final design.
Micah, another of our outstanding Student National Fellows, started with DM101 and is now studying animation at Evergreen Valley College. Micah also teaches our DA101 and DA102 courses and has been researching and evaluating free and open source animation programs for possible future courses. This is what Micah said when he completed DM101 five years ago:
“Hello!
I finished DM101! This course was pretty awesome! I really enjoyed it! I liked how Inkscape works and how you can edit things by skewing and node control and you can import it into other programs! I can’t wait to start making animations! Thanks YDACS!”
Several years later, like Caleb and Evelyn, Micah is doing what he had hoped in his DM101 comments. This is an experimental animated GIF of an inkscape self portrait that he imported into Krita: a free and open source program he is researching and evaluating.
Mackenzie is another of our amazing Student National Fellows. When she finished DM101 nine years ago she said:
“I have finished DM101 I really liked learning how to make your art look better using nodes.
Thank you for a great course.
Mackenzie”
Gwee the dragon was one of Mackenzie’s DM101 works. Yes, Mackenzie, we still love your Gwee the dragon.
Mackenzie has gone on to become an incredible 3D modelling and animation artist. She is currently enrolled at Drexel University studying animation and visual effects Here is one of several posts in our blog featuring her works. You can click each image to scroll through larger versions in a slide show.
Each of these amazing emerging young digital artists began with an interest, a curiosity, or a passion for the digital arts. At www.YDACS.com we feed hungry young minds and grow digital artists.
You can give a young person the gift of exploring the digital arts and maybe even launch a career by enrolling them in any one of our three course tracks. You can download and print our our Fall 2018 Course Catalog, Quick Enrollment Guide, and Single Page Flier which includes a visual diagram of our three tracks.
Students can enroll in our courses at any time!
You can also fund a digital art scholarship for your favorite school or youth organization. Please let us know if you are interested or if you have any questions by by using our contact form at www.YouthDigitalArts.com or email us at info@YDACS.com.
Micah – Student National Fellow – College Junior – California
Micah is one of our outstanding Student National Fellows now studying animation at Evergreen Valley College. Micah also teaches our DA101 and DA102 courses and has been evaluating potential free and open source animation programs for possible future courses. This is an experimental self portrait animation he created using Krita.
Integrating the Digital Arts with Physics! Evelyn – Student National Mentor – 11th grade – Michigan
We love it when our students, and Student National Mentors, integrate their digital art skills with other subjects. This is an excellent example where Evelyn used the digital art tools and skills she learned in her YDACS courses to illustrate a group parachute design for her physics class, all the way from brainstorming to the final design. This is her explanation of her illustration:
“Here’s something small that I have done recently with Inkscape. I love it when my schoolwork can utilize the program! Our project was to design a parachute for physics, and diagrams needed to be included in the report. Inkscape made it a lot easier for me to neaten up my sketches and present them in a clean-cut format. Not a super artistic example, but definitely a mode of design.”
Please join us in giving Evelyn positive feedback by clicking the title of this post and adding a comment at the bottom of the post page.
Noah – New Student National Mentor – 4th grade – California
Noah just completed the 4th grade and is our newest Student National Mentor. Noah took DM101 and DPP101 in 3rd grade and then completed DDP101 in 4th grade. Noah and Luke are featured in this month’s news email.
Noah is busy working on his art and applying the techniques he learned in DM101, DPP101 and DDP101.
“My name is Noah. I am 10 years old. I really like making digital artwork on my computer at home. I like making digital art because I want to maybe do something with it in my adult job and it is very fun in my opinion. I have taken 3 YDACS courses which include, DM101 Digital Manga, DPP101 digital photo painting, and DDP101 digital drawing. I thought all of them were very fun and interesting and before taking them I didn’t know a thing about digital artwork on the computer. DDP101 Digital Drawing was my favorite because I thought I learned the most from that course art wise and how to use Inkscape. Thank you for enrolling me to be a SNM.”
Here are some of Noah’s works:
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- The first thing I’ll post is a couple drawings of a character that I kinda made into my “avatar”. I have three right now witch I just took screenshots of. One character is white other than its shirt. I don’t really know why, I just tried to try something different that I normally don’t do. This character I will probably update in the future. I drew these characters in inkscape.
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- Character #2 (With color)
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- Here is some more character designs that I have recently finished. I called them Mr. Cheese and Ms. Cheese. They are suppose to be camera people. I am not that proud of them. They didn’t come out as clean as I wanted. Here they are.
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- Here is some more character designs that I have recently finished. I called them Mr. Cheese and Ms. Cheese. They are suppose to be camera people. I am not that proud of them. They didn’t come out as clean as I wanted. Here they are.
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- This is a house design that I have drawn. First I drew it on paper than traced it and colored it in Inkscape. I tried to make the windows look a bit real by putting a reflection effect on the windows. I was inspired by a person called “Musketon” http://www.musketon.com. He is a full time illustrator. He made a book called “Vector City” which is 100 drawings of shops, houses, big buildings that he has all put together to make one big city. Here’s my the house.
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- One of these characters I have already posted but I put backgrounds in back of them. What I did is just draw the backdrop very quickly then blurred them to make it look like its focused on the character. I don’t know, Here it is.
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- I called this character “Sailor”. To create her I used the program Inkscape. First I got a reference pic of a real person doing this pose and then tried to draw the pose in Inkscape. Next I decided to make her look like a Manga/Anime character (Mostly the shape of her face) After I wanted to design her clothes so I also googled, Anime girl clothes ideas.] finally I added the details and her hair and boots with a strip of pink in her hair to capture the pink vibe of the character. This Character is also on the YDACS Blog but recently updated her to make her look a bit more professional.
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- Here is one more character that I have drawn on paper than traced and colored in Inkscape. I asked my sister for her thoughts and she says that the character in her opinion reminds her of a sheep. I guess the hair looks like a sheep she said. Here she is.
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- One of these characters I have already posted but I put backgrounds in back of them. What I did is just draw the backdrop very quickly then blurred them to make it look like its focused on the character. I don’t know, Here it is.
Mackenzie – Student National Fellow – Drexel University
Mackenzie is one of our Student National Fellows who is currently enrolled at Drexel University studying animation and visual effects.
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- The first piece is my organic modeling final. The assignment was to design a hybrid creature using aspects from at least 2 real animals. My creature is what I like to call the tortaffe, a giraffe tortoise hybrid. I created this creature using Modo, to model; zBrush to sculpt details; and Redshift in Maya to render.
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- The second piece is actually from over a year ago, it was a collaboration with a couple of other students for one of my CGI classes. We conceptualized a person and then designed a “workshop” for that person. Our person was a 1940’s detective so we made his office. This scene was modeled in Maya, textured in Mudbox and Photoshop, and rendered in Renderman. I was responsible for the filing cabinet, lamp, typewriter, cigarettes, files and papers, ashtray, globe, windows, and blinds.
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- A digital paintings I created in my spare time using Procreate on the iPad Pro.
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- A digital paintings I created in my spare time using Procreate on the iPad Pro.
Isabel – DPP101 student – 10th grade – California
Isabel just completed Digital Photo Painting 101 and has posted excellent works along with her descriptions of the skills and techniques she learned in DPP101 and applied to her works. Be sure to click the first image to view her slide show. You can also click the title “Isabel – DPP101 student – 10th grade – California” and then scroll to the bottom of the page to leave positive comments for Isabel.
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- This is one of my more simple works. I used the blur technique. I wanted the focus to be on the building.
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- This is defiantly my favorite of my works. I used the cartoon filter and changed the color to a softer tone.
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- For this edit I used a picture of my sister. I used the mosaic filter. It was fun to experiment. I also changed the color a little.
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- For this work I used the splash color technique. This one was a little harder for me but it was really fun to work on!
Mikayla – DPP101 student – 6th grade – Michigan
Mikayla just completed Digital Photo Painting 101 and has posted excellent works along with her descriptions of the skills and techniques she learned in DPP101 and applied to her works. Be sure to click the first image to view her slide show. You can also click the title “Mikayla – DPP101 student – 6th grade – Michigan” and then scroll to the bottom of the page to leave positive comments for Mikayla.
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- I used Inkscape to make the chickens, I saved them and used photo 4. I made it more bright and made the chickens small.
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- I used photo1 and the fuzzy select tool to color it.
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- I made the picture black & white and I painted over the picture with the paint brush tool to make it more interesting.
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- I used the whirl & pinch tool on the blue bird and I used Gradient flare,and Perspective, Wind, Cartoon, and Motion Blur.
Wenavi May – DM101 student – 7th grade – California
Wenavi May just completed Digital Manga 101 and has posted excellent works, including our first Taro attorney, along with her descriptions of the skills and techniques she learned in DM101 and applied to her works. Be sure to click the first image to view her slide show. You can also click the title “Wenavi May – DM101 student – 7th grade – California” and then scroll to the bottom of the page to leave positive comments for Wenavi May .
This is what Wenavi May had to say after finishing her first YDACS course: DM101:
I’ve finished DM101! It was an interesting experience learning how to use a new art program. Vectors are very fun to work with, and were a fresh and exciting way to do art, coming from someone who had only drawn bitmap images up to this point. My favorite part is how you can use the nodes to tweak your lineart; it makes editing and fixing things so much easier! I think I will use Inkscape regularly after this course.
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- This is my first project. It’s a drawing of Eridan Ampora from Homestuck! The drawing was originally on paper, and I traced it in Inkscape with the pencil tool. I also used A LOT of fine node control, copy pasting, and undo and redoing. The fill didn’t work; I think it was because I didn’t close most of my lines, so I just left it as the lineart. His design is a bit weird, but it was fun to draw! This took, I want to say, approximately 2-3 hours.
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- This is my second project. I edited Taro to make him have his hands on his hips and look really happy. I used a bunch of rotating to get his arms in the designated position. I then deleted every part of the eye except the top part of it to make it look like he was closing his eyes. I think it came out really cute! 😀
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- This is my third project. I edited Taro to have the color palette and hair of Apollo Justice from Ace Attorney. First, I ungrouped Taro and deleted the hand with the carrot in it. I then copy pasted the left arm and rotated it to make it look like he’s holding out his hand (he’s supposed to be pointing but I didn’t think there was any easy way to do that). After that, I used the color picker and fill tools to recolor Taro. I took some of the spikes off his bun and used them as the signature two hair spikes on Apollo Justice. I used the stretch and rotate tools to tweak the spikes to make them look more like Apollo’s hair. Also, I added the “Objection!” afterwards with the calligraphy tool, just as an extra touch.
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- This is my fourth and final project. I colored the butterfly wing yellow. I used the fill tool and colored parts of the wing shades of yellow. I then made the fill color a linear gradient. I tried making the butterfly wing look like the sun, and I think I succeeded!
Noah – DDP101 student – 4th grade – California
Noah just completed Digital Drawing and Painting 101 and has posted excellent works, including the first ever lemonade robot, along with his descriptions of the skills and techniques he learned in DDP101 and applied to his works. Be sure to click the first image to view his slide show. You can also click the title “Noah – DDP101 student – 4th grade – California” and then scroll to the bottom of the page to leave positive comments for Noah.
“This is my original drawings drawn on paper and traced on inkscape, but the robot that I traced other then the lemonade tank. And my techniques were, The pencil and learning to do shadows and shading on the robot.”
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- I traced the robot and did the shows and drew the lemonade tank.
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- I also drew this on paper and traced it on the computer.
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- drew this one on paper and then traced it on inkscape.
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- I drew this one myself and then did the high lighting techniques.
Judah – 3DDRW101 student – 11th grade – California
Judah just completed 3DDRW101 and posted these excellent comments and outstanding works:
“I’ve Finished 3DDRW101. I absolutely loved this course, it really helped to get me started with Blender. Taking this course has opened just the right door for me to explore a lot of new possibilities with the incredible Blender interface. Armed with the knowledge that I was fortunate enough to gain from this course, I’m now tremendously excited to try out loads of new ideas on the extremely advanced, yet somehow effortless, program that is Blender. Thank you, YDACS.”
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- I made this ring 3D model, completely from scratch, in Blender today. Here I gave the ring a realistic surface to rest on. I was trying to make the rendering a little less distinguishable from a real photo. I also imported it into GIMP and made a few adjustments with the lens focus, lighting, and coloring.
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- This is an image of a Karambit 3D model that I created in Blender. After finishing the course I spent a good amount of time fiddling around with the tools in Blender and this is what I came up with. I really love being able to create this kind of stuff. Thank you YDACS.
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- I created this 3D model after finishing the course while I was fiddling around on Blender.
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- This is a screenshot I took when I first started working on the YDACS project in Blender.
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- I created this about half-way through the course as I was taught.
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- Here’s it with a BG that I added in GIMP as I was instructed to do in the course.