Selfie Time
This piece was inspired by Naydine Bosman's work on Instagram. When I scrolled past her piece, it immediately caught my eye. I was drawn to the composition and character design and wanted to test whether I had the skills to attempt something similar while adding my own spin. I sketched an appropriate character design on my iPad and began planning the modeling and animation approach.
Modeling
During the modeling process, I explored a few ideas that diverged from my original sketch, which led to the character's final hairstyle. The character is built primarily from simple primitives, with the hands created as a volume-meshed collection of cylinders. I appreciate this minimalist approach to 3D design because it simplifies the rigging and animation process while still producing engaging, playful results. I rigged the character using EJ Hassenfratz's Bendy Limbs Rig tool and animated the selfie-taking motion.
Compositing and Final
Once the 3D process was complete, I brought the exported PNGs into After Effects for compositing. To round out the composition, I drew inspiration from Instagram and LinkedIn's UIs, creating abstracted versions of each in Adobe Illustrator. For content, I drew the selfie from the camera's perspective in Procreate on my iPad and placed it into the Instagram UI. Since everyone loves cats—especially on social media—I drew a small feline companion and placed it in the other social media window. Finally, I applied subtle color correction and added vignetting to unify the piece. The result was a fun portfolio piece that I'm proud of and thoroughly enjoyed creating.
