Dejah S. Smith
Dejah is a senior Animation Major at Fairleigh Dickinson University. Her major is concentrated in 3D Character Animation with a minor in Graphic Design. For two and a half years she was a member of the Florham Programming Committee and has been a member of Graphic Design Club all of her undergrad. After studying abroad during her spring junior year in China, she became a student ambassador for the program. During her free time, she enjoys reading, improving her art skills and hanging with friends. After undergrad she will continue with graduate school for another year and afterwards hopes to animate her own cartoons or anime like Steven Universe, Avatar: The Last Airbender, InuYasha and create the art as well. By doing so she hopes to promote more diversity in all aspects of film whether that be art, digital media, production, music etc.
Connected
The inspiration behind this piece is for my Graphic Design Children’s Book Class. In this class we were tasked to illustrate a children’s book of our own choice. I choose the original Beauty and the Beast by Gabrielle-Suzanne de Villeneuve. Not only did I choose this version, to make it more of my own I decided to reverse the gender roles of all the characters. I based the book off the stain glass prologue from the animated Disney film that goes by the same name. I completed this concept in Adobe Illustrator by using reference images and my own sketches and drawing over them using basic shapes. I then colored the images by using three to four different shades of each color and with the sponge effect I was able to create glass effect over my own image. Finally, with gradient mesh and overlay tool I was able to pinpoint different colors throughout the image giving it reflection of light effect. I enjoyed creating this so much most of my newest pieces are in this stain glass effect.
Dejah's Work
