Killing time in class with a fan project
I’m a huge fan of a certain dark fantasy manga. During a boring lecture, I had this cool idea to make a digital version of the main character’s iconic weapon. It’s basically a huge sword that’s way too big for any normal person to use.
I opened up my document editor and started playing around. Turns out, you can make a pretty decent version of the sword using just text! Here’s what I did:
- Typed a bunch of lowercase ‘a’ letters in a row
- Underlined all of them
- Changed the colors to make it look more sword-like
It’s not perfect, but it’s a fun little project. Has anyone else tried making fan art using weird tools like this? I’d love to see what other creative ideas people have come up with!
thats pretty creative dude! i tried making anime characters with emojis once. didn’t turn out great but was fun. ¯_(ツ)_/¯ maybe we should start a thread for DIY fanart hacks? bet theres loads of cool ideas out there
That’s a clever way to pass the time in class! I’ve done similar things with document editors, but never thought to recreate iconic weapons. Your description of making Guts’ Dragon Slayer is pretty ingenious.
I once tried recreating pixel art characters using the cell formatting in spreadsheet software. It was tedious, but the result was surprisingly decent. Each cell became a ‘pixel’ when I colored them.
Another time, I attempted to make a basic animation in a presentation software by rapidly flipping through slides with slight changes to shapes on each one. It was choppy, but got the point across for a school project.
These creative exercises really make you look at everyday software in a new light. It’s amazing what you can achieve when you push the boundaries of what these programs were originally designed for.
Interesting approach to recreating Guts’ Dragon Slayer. I’ve experimented with ASCII art in text editors before, but never thought to use document formatting features creatively like that. It’s a clever way to bring a 2D element into text-based art.
One project I tackled was designing game maps using only symbols and characters available on a standard keyboard. It required some creative thinking to represent different terrain types and landmarks effectively. The result wasn’t visually stunning, but it was functional and oddly satisfying.
These kinds of exercises really challenge you to think outside the box with the tools at hand. It’s remarkable how much can be achieved with seemingly limited resources when you apply some imagination and problem-solving skills.