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Valorant 34: Deathmatch

Byjack

My initial attempt at deathmatch:

Watching Tenz’s deathmatch

Some reflections:

  • I’m not back at deathmatch at all
  • I need to get better at flicking
  • Tenz tries to micro adjust to one tap, strafes for 1-3 shots then crouch sprays
  • Takes more time on the people who arent looking at him

My second attempt:

Its much better, but I do feel more pain in my finger from the pressing the mouse and it my biceps.

Some more thoughts:

  • Add more movement into the aiming to make it more smooth
  • Flick faster
  • Work on using less force when pressing the shoot button

Some thoughts:

  • I definitely have a really good feel for DM and my mechanics are fairly good
  • I can use DM to practice thinking about angle advantage
  • Tenz is calmer, moves a little slower and intentionally moves crosshair to hold specific angles instead of swinging everything
  • I need to keep a focused crosshair on one area unless I’m swinging
  • Think of everything as holding angles, even swinging, you are swinging to hold another angle
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Valorant 33: Brimstone Pearl

Byjack

This idea of finding the same type of gameplay in a pro or radiant player was really interesting, and so I decided to take it into my next vod review.

My vod:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T05HsudTzvQ

Main takeaways:

  • I’m mad about getting one tapped, but that actually happens at all ranks, Valorant is a quick time to kill game
  • Controllers don’t smoke as quickly as I do, and they often use them selfishly (smoking mid if they play mid to establish control over the parts they want to take control over)
  • The smoke on B site creates a wall from pushing onto site, I guess I didn’t know what kinds of smokes would be useful
  • In terms of playing around smokes, they move quite slowly in and out of smokes
  • Generally play wide and out in the open for better angle advantage, I play scared and close to the wall
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Valorant 32: Washed

Byjack

Yesterday I returned to Valorant and I wanted to learn a few things since being washed before I get back fully into the Valorant grind.

  1. I want to learn how to have comfortable hand positioning
  2. I want to have greater certainty of where all the enemies are at any point in time and a clearer understanding of the game

Class One: Hand positioning (90 minutes)

UNIT ONE: Figure out why

UNIT TWO: Explore Movements

UNIT THREE: Explore aids and relief

Class Two: Greater certainty (3 hrs)

UNIT ONE: Document VOD areas of stress and find equivalent situations in ranked

UNIT TWO: Try to predict decision making

UNIT THREE: Document another VOD

Class One: Hand positioning (90 minutes)

UNIT ONE: Figure out why

I’d say I have a little golfers elbow along with just muscle fatigue. No carpal tunnel syndrome or trigger finger syndrome thankfully.

UNIT TWO: Explore Movements

My perfect position seems to be legs balanced on the floor, chest forwards, armrest angled outwards and level with the desk and pushed backward so I can sit farther forwards.

The results on my sheriff-only account:

I feel mild soreness in my hand and forearm. My whole body feels a bit cramped as well. Overall, massive improvement.

I used a new aiming mentality, which I call the “Zoom In” Method where you pretend you are zooming into where your crosshair is and on the target, sort of getting mental blinders on. It seems to help especially with aiming for very far shots.

Then I played a rank match:

My “greater certainly” class was me looking up at how Som played vs me.

I was really helpful to see the util usage. I ended up using a lot of this information in future matches.

However, I spiraled after playing ranked because I was so frustrated with how I was performing. I ended up playing non-stop from Friday until Sunday sleeping not as much as I would like and always livid from anger that all my opponents were so hard to beat.

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Knee Challenge: Looking Ahead

Byjack

I completed my knee challenge in terms of going hiking in Zion national park. I felt like I succeeded in a big way but still have a long way to go in terms of getting where I need to go.

What is next for me? I know in the long term, I want to be very physically active. I want to be able to practice martial arts, do a little parkour and gymnastics. I know it will take a lot of effort and time to get there and it feels quite overwhelming for me.

I’m going to set a few large goals and then look at some of the very short term goals getting there.

2 year goal – the ability to practice martial arts, parkour gymnastics and skiing. My goal isn’t to go too hard in any of these areas, just to be able to do them safely.

1 year goal – to get back to preinjury levels

1 month goal – be able to sleep, walk, stand and light exercise with zero discomfort. I will call this goal little freedom.

I don’t really know what the next step in my process is. It feels too soon to set a schedule yet.

I just want to slowly rest and explore for now.

My feelings are that challenge videos make for really good productivity but I need to slow down sometimes and feel the feelings.

Maybe I will write a poem:

Creaky Knees

When I bend my knee

It feels like I’m grinding

Hinges made of old stone

Like the kind in movies

That open secret magical passages

And grate against themselves

I say that I want to be able to do martial arts again

But the truth is

I don’t know what I want

I am afraid to dream again

Of a world where I can be active

I’m so used to being scared

Of clutching my knee close

So as not to hurt it

I feel like I’m too old to have these dreams anymore

Of flying

Like I did when I wanted to learn parkour

Everything scares me

I feel that

I need to understand this part of myself first

Listen to what it wants to say

“Everything is a danger”

It tells me

The protector of my knee

Of my body

It feels safe to not move at all

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Sova Fanart 10: Final Stretch Unit Two

Byjack

UNIT TWO: Create a unique drawing

There is one drawing that I’ve always wanted to create, and luckily, I already have a photo reference for it!

I am eager to use my skills on this new pose as well, but the intricacies of Sova’s outfit is definitely making me nervous.

Here is my mini syllabus:

UNIT ONE: Create a manikin structure drawing from life

UNIT TWO: Go into the game and use the character model to get the all the sova details and map them in.

UNIT THREE: Create a more refined drawing in preparation for final inks.

I’m too tired to talk much about what actually happened. I spent at least 12 hours on this process.

I did not have the chance to color to perfection, I also sadly left Professor Sova on the draftroom floor.

Professor Sova sketch

Things I learned:

  • It takes a much longer time than I thought to create a pleasing lineart sketch, if it doesn’t look good you probably didn’t spend enough time
  • For lineart, focus on creating forms, not just outlines. Seek to understand every little detail
  • Colors is a whole another beast that I didn’t get much time to practice or focus on. If things were different, I would have spent more time working on my color process.
  • Shadows is still a mystery to me. Need to find a process that works for me.
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Sova Fanart 9: Final Stretch Unit One

Byjack

UNIT ONE: Finish drawings that are close

So before I even started using the syllabus method for challenges, I drew a bunch of drawings:

Professor Sova concept
Perspective, standing above
Second perspective, standing above
Sova portrait study

I want to focus on the Sova portrait study first as I feel it is quite close to a finished product. I can post it on reddit as my sort of test.

The main issue I’m contending with, is how to make it an awesome poster. I feel that it requires some sort of lettering. So I found the Valorant font here: Valorant Font | dafont.com

Here are my main steps. (45 min recommendation)

Unit One: Find the design

Unit Two: Complete the painting

Unit Three: Liquify any strangeness

The steps I actually ended up following:

  1. Make everything grayscale
  2. Add font and play with scale until everything felt right
  3. Added colors
  4. Liquified face until proportions feel good
  5. Refined painting
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Sova Fanart 8: Final Day(s)

Byjack

Today is the final day that I can devote a lot of time to the Sova competition. I might have some time tomorrow as well, but I will only have until 11:59 PM GMT which is basically 6:59 PM CST.

I want to create a syllabus just for today because I feel so overwhelmed.

UNIT ONE: Finish drawings that are close

UNIT TWO: Create a unique drawing

UNIT THREE: Pick an old drawing to revitalize

I’m worried about colors so I found this tutorial:

And I also watched a few others for linework and color:

I thinking more about this challenge. I would like to focus on very small goals working through the endgame of the challenge because anything other than very specific goals will overwhelm me.

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Sova Fanart 7: Class Unit 2 Day 3

Byjack

UNIT TWO: Dynamic Figure Drawing | Day 3 – Animate

Unit 1: Shooting from Vandal

Stick figures
Gesture sketch
Final sketch

Unit 2: Shooting from Bow

Rough sketch
Structural sketch
final sketch

Unit 3: Camera movement (Sova Drone)

Rough gesture
Structural sketch
Final Sketch
  • I noticed in all of my animation attempts that I didn’t really need stick figures.
  • It was nice going back and refining each step before moving onto the next.
  • The structural step was really helpful, I liked marking where the limbs attached to the body with an X.
  • For the structural step I like to make the torso a tapering box and the pelvis a triangular prism.
  • I really didn’t like the final output compared to the structural sketch it looked super awkward.
  • To transform the manikin structural step into the final you need to focus on adding muscles.

I decided to explore the final sketch a little more by doing another drawing:

rough drawing
structural sketch

After getting the basics down, I played with many iterations of the final sketch.

first iteration
final iteration

I realized I don’t really like the linework on the final and it makes the form look very 2d. I decided to really focus on forms instead of lines when drawing. After all, I’m mostly interested in painting not drawing. The forms will help me figure out where the light hits.

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Sova Fanart 6: Class Unit 2 Day 3

Byjack

UNIT TWO: Dynamic Figure Drawing | Day 3 – Animate

Today it is too late and I’m too tired to work on this, but I can create the mini syllabus for this day and maybe even get some preliminary work done.

Est time: 90 mins (30 mins per unit 10 mins per part).

Unit 1: Shooting from Vandal

  • Part 1: Stickfigure thumbnails
  • Part 2: Main keyframes
  • Part 3: In betweens

Unit 2: Shooting from Bow

  • Part 1: Stickfigure thumbnails
  • Part 2: Main keyframes
  • Part 3: In betweens

Unit 3: Camera movement

  • Part 1: Stickfigure thumbnails
  • Part 2: Main keyframes
  • Part 3: In betweens
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Knee Mobility Challenge 3: Fasting

Byjack

Today I fasted and I had mixed results. Fasting seems to create more inflammation as my stomach felt irritated and painful and my body felt hot. The left side of my body felt blocked right where my spleen is. It sort of feels like I have an enlarged spleen. The only thing that sort of helps with this is doing meditation. I’ve been having sweats. My lips are cracking from the dryness.

But I decided not to give up. I am going to address the problems at their root, which is certainly the stomach and the spleen. Digestion issues are not new to me. I started using dance therapy techniques and feeling the discomfort in the spleen as sensual and my body started to move. I started to feel pain inside the spleen area. It feels cold. The pressure relieves a little and I feel a trickle.

I wonder if the stress of the drawing challenge and traveling soon are making my stomach clench. It is certainly possible.

I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again. Dance therapy is like magic. I don’t know why I stopped using it. There is this interplay between feeling the feelings and finding comfort. I guess that might be why I left this technique behind. I left it behind to feel pain. To feel without judgement or plan.