GLOBAL LIVE PROJECT : PART 3
- Serrell Tafari
- Mar 31
- 13 min read
Updated: 1 day ago
WEEK 5 : 31.03.25
OUR NARRATIVE : A VIRTUAL WALKTHROUGH
" A virtual walkthrough of Birmingham, Chicago and Kyiv, through the past, present and speculative future, with the help of a Solarpunk robot guide "
Today is the last day of March, and we’ve just had a long discussion about where to take our project next. One idea we explored was creating a virtual walkthrough of a sustainable futuristic version of our city using Twinmotion, possibly with some narration to bring it to life.
It’s an exciting concept, but I do have some concerns. Our experience with software like Twinmotion is proven to be tricky and time consuming, and it might be hard to capture the full vision we have in mind. On top of that, we’re still learning how each of us interprets “solarpunk”- that open-endedness is goodl, but it also makes collaboration a bit more challenging.
We also talked about using AR or QR codes to access virtual environments. But honestly, that direction by itself is a bit underwhelming to me. It leans more towards architectural design, while I’m more drawn to the artistic side - things like world-building, concept art, and character design. That’s where I feel most inspired. Of course, we know we can’t do everything. This project is also about compromise, trying new things, and figuring out where our strengths lie as a team. Honestly we felt a bit worn out from all the brainstorming. With the time we have left, we really need to focus on something that’s realistic and achievable.
OTHER IDEAS WE HAD :
VIRTUAL EXHIBITION PORTAL
Another idea I had was creating a virtual gallery or portal, inspired by This Is the City That Shaped Us - a performance I attended on Friday, March 21st at the BCU Conservatoire. It was an orchestral event, and in the background, there were projected photographs showing Birmingham and its people, taken by local photographers whose work was also being exhibited nearby. It was a really beautiful experience that got me thinking: what if we replicated that kind of exhibition virtually, but through our speculative lens? It could be a small, curated digital space reflecting on how far we’ve come and imagining a more sustainable future. The “photos” could actually be concept art we made - vibrant pieces that capture our imaginations. For this assessment, we’d only need to develop one area, like a section of Digbeth. Viewers could click on an image, and it would lead them into that part of the Twinmotion walkthrough. This direction is nice because it adds a strong narrative and emotional layer, though it may be challenging to complete given our small team size and limited time. We're still waiting to collaborate more with Bell too, which I’m confident will happen soon.
FILM
The other ideas we had ranged from a short film, be it like a one-minute film, where it's like GIFs, Procreate GIFs, back-to-back, or actual videos we've taken around the city, and we've added like little animated bits to it on Procreate. I think that'd be very simple. The AR is definitely a lot more immersive, so it's very difficult trying to choose between AR and the VR. Like, I'm trying to think, what are we capable of completing, but it's also good, like it's a strong idea, a strong project, because we want it to be strong, but also completable.
I don’t want the final result to look tacky - we want it to be aesthetically strong, something that actually looks good. When I think of solarpunk, I picture the kind of concept art we’ve saved from Pinterest - those dreamy, vibrant visuals that blend fantasy, identity, nature, and technology. That’s the kind of style I’d love to recreate, especially for Birmingham, to set a strong example for how Kyiv and Chicago could do the same. There’s a real gap in research and representation when it comes to cities like ours—particularly Birmingham and Kyiv - so this feels like a great opportunity to authentically fill that space.
INTITIAL DESIGNS
These are our initial ideas in chronological order, first two by Sydney, next two by me, the samurai by L. I took inspiration from each to make the finalised concept designs for our Birmingham guide.
01.04.25
WELCOME, GREEN MAN
BIRMINGHAMS DESIGN
My virtual guide is called Green Man because it's based on the local Green Man mural in Digbeth - a community staple that many Brummies are familiar with. Its a traditional symbol of nature ( spring, growth, renewal, rebirth ) drawing back into the 2nd century BC. The Green Man's origins are intertwined with ancient pagan beliefs and figures, often associated with nature, fertility, and the cycle of life and death. As a concept and motif, its believed to be at least 2,000 years old, yet the term "Green Man" itself is relatively modern, with its usage popularised in 1939, the underlying symbolism and depictions of foliate heads or figures surrounded by foliage have been present for centuries. It’s a great way of connecting past and present while imagining the future.
The fantasy aspect was partly inspired by Levi from Scavenger’s Reign, one of my favourite characters from one of my favourite shows. Levi’s design framework really resonated with me, and I used that as a base for Green Man—who actually took the longest to develop. Once I had that foundation, I used it to more quickly model the other two characters.
Symbolically the Green Man represents some of the the core ethics of solar punk - community + sustainability, which adds layers of personal depth to our cute futuristic guides.
I think it would be a powerful connection if Kyiv and Chicago did something similar-bringing their cities to life. The idea was to take a local monument or something deeply meaningful to their community and reimagine it as a solarpunk character. I asked the group: If your city could speak for/or introduce itself, what would it look like? I encouraged them to consider symbolism, monuments, fantasy, technology, nature, and community—and to draw inspiration from our Figma and Pinterest boards.
WELCOME, MOTHER UKRAINE
KYIV'S DESIGN
I really liked Bells take on the Mother Ukraine design. She is graceful and ethereal which pays homage to the real Mother Ukraine monument. I didn't want to offend or risk appropriating such a cultural symbol so I have to give a huge thank you to Bell for creating this thoughtful design, because it's perfect. The minimalist floating quality is an especially nice touch which makes it unique to the other two characters. Honestly, once they sent me their version, it made the rest of my job much easier.
WELCOME, DR1FTW00D!
CHICAGO'S DESIGN
Felix provided me with prompts, which I used to design the character—drawing inspiration from the sites he recommended, like the garden rooftops of Chicago City Hall and the Chicago Picasso. I originally named the character "Chicasso," but Felix suggested "Driftwood," which turned out to be a much more fitting name.
I did a bit of research into the city's identity, from is demographic, in which Chicagoans are often considered enthusiastic, to its associations with music, performance and art, and Syd pointed out its nickname—the Windy City. I used all of that to guide the design. That’s why Driftwood has this energetic, musical vibe, and headphones that literally blow bubbles using wind turbines. It’s a playful yet meaningful way to anthropomorphise Chicago.
01.04.25
WEEK 6 : 07.04.25
Now that we've collectively agreed on a design for Green Man, I began sculpting him in Nomad.
this is the first time I have sculpted a whole characters body from scratch, as well as a non humanoid character.
EASTER BREAK
CREATING OUR PROTOTYPE
Over the Easter break, we made an effort to stay in touch, discussing ways to develop our narrative further. After many late-night phone and video calls, we came up with a plan to create a virtual walkthrough using Figma. This decision was made based on Felix’s recommendation—he’s experienced with Figma and had suggested it to Syd as a useful tool for our prototype. We decided it would be a strong alternative to Twinmotion, which we had initially considered using.
We ran into issues with the idea of using Twinmotion. Based on past experience with earlier projects in this course, we knew it was quite time-consuming and difficult to use effectively. It would have set unrealistic expectations and we if felt overused so tried something new. Figma presented an exciting opportunity to explore a different platform, and Syd took the initiative to learn and build our prototype from scratch. She had never designed an app before, so this was a big leap out of her comfort zone.
We stayed organised by dividing tasks and setting short deadlines, which helped us keep things on track. We divided our roles accordingly - Syd focused on building the virtual prototype and contributing to the narrative, along with some landscape designs elements. I took on character design, bringing each city to life by anthropomorphising them into unique characters that represent their respective environments and reach a target audience of young users. L worked on their time-lapse painting that speculates future Birmingham, which adds a strong fine art element.
Bell roamed around Kyiv taking beautiful photo's and videos, then put them all into this One drive folder along with their timelapse drawings. :
The style of their timelapse drawings inspired me to continue making my own for Birmingham. I tried learning through some process videos towards the start because I have never properly explored landcapes and environments, I mainly do characters. However, I never got to continue with my drawing, thankfully the others made enough amazing pieces. Bell even shared the online procreate brush and textures pallette they used for theirs to help me with mine.
26.04.25
WORKING GLOBALLY (REFLECTION)
ITS CHALLENGES AND BENEFITS
When it came to collaborating with Sydney : Syd was the only one in the Nature Group to begin with, so they were obviously very dedicated. They're very diligent, and in my past experience working with groups, I felt comforted by the fact that she's hardworking. We both definitely pulled our weight in the project. There were sometimes miscommunications between us, but we talked through those. I think that her initiative to use Figma and create the prototype really brought together all parts of the project - the character designs, time-lapse paintings, and the narrative - giving them purpose, so I commemorate them on that. Despite its limitations, it turned out great. The designs complemented, the script complemented the prototype, and yeah. I appreciate working with her in my last collaborative project.
When it came to collaborating with L : L made good contributions here and there given circumstances. Their great time-lapse painting is the only element of fine art in the project outcome which makes it more interesting and diverse. I took inspiration from their character design as well (hat). They also wanted to expand the world building further, including futuristic fashion design and other elements. Unfortunately, we didn’t really have the time or facilities to fully show that much depth in our prototype, but again its room for improvement.
When it came to collaborating with Felix from Chicago - it was a bit on and off, as he had his own deadlines to manage. He was clearly busy—but despite that, he contributed well to our group.
One of his key inputs was recommending Figma to Syd, which ended up becoming the main platform for our prototype. It might’ve been even more helpful if he’d supported her a bit more with learning it, since he’s quite experienced and it was her first time. That said, Syd still made it work. Felix also helped by suggesting key locations in Chicago, which was really useful since we didn’t initially know where to begin. The places he recommended gave us a strong starting point. He also provided a prompt for the character design, which was great—though there was a small mix-up. I thought the prompt was for me to develop, so I went ahead and designed, modeled, and rigged the character in Mixamo. By the time I finished, he sent over his own version, which was honestly quite funny. Overall, even with his limited time, Felix contributed as best as he could. He was cooperative, joined our video calls, and honestly—is a lovely dude.
When it came to collaborating with Bell: they were honestly such a great asset to our team right from the beginning, given they were the first person to show interest in joining our group, which meant a lot.
Communication overall was okay - they made the effort to stay in touch throughout, even if they were sometimes a little late sending things over (with reason). Both Syd and I were in awe of Bell’s artwork and how much care they put into it. The time-lapse paintings they created on Procreate were absolutely beautiful, and their character design for Mother Ukraine really stood out. It was a strong and well-thought-out concept- ethereal, floating, and minimalist- - that I ended up modelling directly from it. Literally. It was also lovely how they took inspiration from other members of the group. Some of the reference photos they took around Kyiv and shared with us on the OneDrive were also super helpful—especially the ones from the park. Those actually inspired us to make the park the key location for the Kyiv section of our prototype, which we decided on during a video call. Bell offered a unique perspective to our theme, joined most of our calls and stayed engaged throughout the project, which we really appreciate.
WEEK 7 : 28.04.25
MAKING GREEN MAN
BIRMINGHAM
MAKING M.U ( MOTHER UKRAINE )
KYIV
MAKING DR1FTW00D
CHICAGO
I intentionally designed each Solarpunk character to reflect their city’s identity by asking myself: what kind of character would best represent each place?
Green Man was inspired by the Green Man mural in Digbeth—something many people in Birmingham recognize. Its ancient symbolism felt like a great way to link the past with the future, especially since Solarpunk focuses on sustainability, nature, and community. I also took influence from Levi in Scavenger’s Reign, which helped shape Green Man’s more fantasy-driven side. He took the longest to design, but once I had his look figured out, it helped speed up the design process for the other characters.
Mother Ukraine is graceful and ethereal—this pays homage to the real Mother Ukraine monument. And I have to give a huge thank you to Bell for creating this thoughful design, because it was perfect. It’s so important not to offend or risk appropriating a powerful cultural symbol. What we aimed for was appreciation, and I really hope we achieved that.
Driftwood, the character for Chicago, was probably my favourite to make. I experimented with textures, colours, and glowing effects, inspired by some of Felix’s more challenging prompts. for years I wanted to learn how to professionally render and sculpt. Until this project, I’d never gone beyond simple mattcaps and turntable sculpts. But having the responsibility of creating characters for the prototype—and genuinely enjoying the process—pushed me to learn entirely new techniques, and now I know how. It really helped me push my creativity and I'm proud of ending up with these little guys.
THESE VIDEOS BY DAVE REED HELPED :
LEARNING MIXAMO
BRINGING THE CHARACTERS TO LIFE
I first discovered Mixamo during the first module of this course. Go back in time to Thought Lab 2023, we were given a task to draw a topic from a raffle and then prepare a presentation about it. Initially, I picked Minecraft, and funnily enough, Syd picked Mixamo. We decided to swap since Syd absolutely loves Minecraft and ended up making a legendary presentation with it that I ll never forget! Meanwhile, I’ve always aspired to get into animation, so I found Mixamo really interesting. Now two years later, Syd and I are working together on the same project using that exact software. There’s something really satisfying about that synchronicity, how swapping raffle topics brought us full circle, It feels like the universe has a sense of humour.
This project marked the first time I actually used Mixamo—and my first time working with animation. Since we’re now at the end of second year, it’s a perfect transition into third year, where I'm thinking to explore animation further.
It took a LOT of getting used to..
The rigging system is more sensitive that I thought that even the slightest overlap of limbs (like the grass) could break the rig completely.
The model submerged in preview so I had to re-adjust the figures position in nomad and export the file again with the new position.
It turned out too small. Turns out the more I enlarged my figure in nomad the smaller it appears in mixamo's preview, which is very strange.
IN SUMMARY I HAD TO:
Learn about file size limits.
Discover how to decimate models in Nomad to reduce file sizes ( I ended up doing this to every single sculpt I made since 2022 which ended up saving me 14 GB of ipad storage—down from 16GB to 2GB!).
Understand the correct file types and export settings.
Figure out how to adjust my models into a T-pose, especially for Green Man, so they could be rigged properly.
Navigate the rigging process, which was surprisingly sensitive—even the slightest overlap of limbs could break the rigging completely.
Texturise, colorise, rendering etc..
After Green Man, I became a lot more intentional with how I designed my other two characters, though Kyivs design just floats and has no limbs so theres no need to rig it. Despite the challenges, the results were rewarding. I took recordings of the rigged models and even created interactions between them using screen recordings, which made them look like they were truly engaging with each other. All in all, I feel like I’ve rapidly levelled up my modelling skills - not just in terms of creativity, but in technical proficiency too. It's been an incredibly valuable and fun.
BRINGING THE CHARACTERS INTO FIGMA
EVERYTHING COMING TOGETHER
It turned out Figma couldnt support videos with our current plan so we had to make do. Syd needed PNGs of the characters without backgrounds.
I took screenshots and selected a few poses for viewers to interact with.
I had to manually erase the white edges from my screenshots on Procreate, but using the Photos app’s figure selection and export feature really helped speed things up.
Nomad conveniently allows users to export professional quality renders as Png without backgrounds.
BLENDER
Whilst using Mixamo I have downloaded so many animation files which wanted to import into blender and export into a prototype software ( which can support animations).
SPACIAL
COME VIEW OUR EXHIBIT!
POTENTIAL…
Our prototype focuses on Birmingham, Kyiv, and Chicago but has the potential to expand globally. I would sort of imagine it turning into an interactive interface where people from different cultures connect through Solarpunk avatars that represent their unique backgrounds and imagine positive futures together - kinda like Pokemon Go with a bit of activism, exchanging knowledge and perspectives.
We discussed using tools like Mixamo and Adobe Aero to bring characters to life and add interactivity. With more time and resources, the project could become much more advanced.
The narrative can grow as more people contribute their perspectives. So far, we’ve included views from Ukraine, Chicago, and Birmingham, but imagine hundreds or thousands of people adding to the story.
Part of the project’s goal is also to educate about sustainable practices and how we can work towards a better society, inspiring people to envision and work toward a bright, sustainable future.
WEEK 8 : 05.05.25
OUR FINAL GROUP PRESENTATION
MY PERSONAL REFLECTION ESSAY:
Level 6
I think for next year I want to explore animation because its something I wanted to do for years and this project was a nice way to naturally transition into that. Over the summer I just start messing around with mixamo and other softwares.
