Full Body Fitness

This weeks project featured  ASCII art. I've never worked with this kind of art before but I have seen it before. I actually loved making some of it and it was actually really easy to do with the help of two different programs. The first pictures that I have with this post are of my Mustang. The original picture is on the left and the other is ASCII through text-image.com. I played around with the settings from and changed the text to "Mustang" just to clarify the car in case if anyone wasn't sure what it was. The second picture is the same that I used for last weeks project of a cow. This picture was transformed into ASCII through glassgiant.com. Between the two, I think I prefer text-image.com just because of the customization factor. Everything that I was able to change was on the same page so it made trying different combinations super easy. Both sites give you the chance to change up your pictures a bit. All-in-all I think they turned out pret...

There is one thing that I will always own up to: I am not an artist. I'm terrible at drawing and don't even think about asking me to paint. I never put much time into drawing as a kid because sports dominated most of my free time. I didn't mind drawing as a kid but it didn't come as naturally to me as sports did. My latest project for Digital Media had me trying to fight through this and make two pictures that at least somewhat resembled something. My first picture was "traced" of a cow using ScribblerToo.  I don't think it looks terrible, you can at least tell it's a cow! The second picture we were supposed to get a bit more creative and draw something without a picture in the background. I gave my best shot at a penguin but I'm not sure how I feel about it.

My Digital Media class this semester has been full of exercises that have been an absolute blast to do and make. The last assignment was to compose a small piece of music using online software. This week, we were to create a mashup video of any public domain video we could find, include our music, and make a coherent video. Why my geeky self has never thought to do this on my own before, I will never know. I actually ended up making a couple of mashup videos throughout the two weeks that we were able to work on this. I've done small bits of editing in the past with iMovie for POV videos while I played hockey, but this was taking it to a whole other level. I ended up deciding to create a mashup of Game of Thrones and Star Wars. I'm a huge fan of each series so it made it super easy to pick out a focus for the video. Finding content was a little bit harder just because both franchises are creating content. Not much of it has been added to the public domain. I used archive.org...

I got to try my hand at making some music through a website called Soundation. I absolutely love music and listen to it at about any available time, so when I found out that this week I was going to be able to put together my own music/beat I was stoked. It completely held up to my expectations, too. The website was easy enough to work with and didn't present any huge problems. I may just find myself wasting away at time on Soundation from now on. The mix that I put together isn't the greatest in the world but I've never done anything like this before and was having a bit of sensory overload with my excitement. Hopefully I can take some time in the future and refine my skills with this a bit more. If you'd like to listen to what I made just click this link .

My next assignment for class was to make a typology, which is a group of pictures that are similar but different. It didn't take me long to figure out what the subject of my pictures was going to be but the editing to get them to all come together gave me a heck of a time. As you already know if you've read my earlier posts, I'm a HUGE hockey fan. I collect all sorts of memorabilia, one of them being bobble heads. I picked out 16 different ones to use for the pictures and I thought I was in the clear. Little did I know I would be sitting at my laptop for a few hours working with the software and attempting to figure it out. Even with the help of videos I was having a rough time. Eventually it all seemed to click and I was able to put together what I think is a pretty decent final project.

The past few weeks I've spent learning how to edit and produce a short video with pictures that I have taken around my hometown. With the help of Flikr and Animoto I was able to upload, edit, and make this short 30 second clip that I've embedded onto this page. This little project was my first time using both of these programs, but I think it turned out pretty good. I've used other forms of editing and video production before, like Premier Pro, so I'm not completely new to the whole idea. The process was super easy to follow and I would definitely recommend both programs. They're user friendly and make working on a project a breeze.

Hi, I'm Taylor. I'm a senior at the University of Toledo, and as you might be able to figure out from the name of this blog, I'm a workout enthusiast. I've been an athlete my whole life. I played softball and basketball year-round on travel teams since the age of 8. Some kids loved playing video games and I loved playing sports. It's pretty much always been the main focus of my life, whether I was playing sports or talking about them. Since my competing days are over, I've been forced to find out what to do with my free time and how to satisfy my need to feel like a part of a team and get exercise. That led me to find my two new favorite hobbies: full body workouts and hockey. Hockey has become my getaway and escape for 4 years now. The cardio involved is unlike anything I've ever done and I've made so many great friends from playing. My team (pictured above, I'm in the dead center) is like a family and we've won back to back championships in ...