Talk:Denny Tsai

Denny described his process of creating his avatars in a profound and vivid manner. While creating his self-avatar, Denny described the process as tedious and relatively hard. This is due to the software, i.e. evolver.com, not having enough features to create a portrait that looks exactly like Denny. Some of the features that Denny said was hard to create were his face, hairstyle, and the clothing he wears on a day-to-day basis. Another issue that Denny pointed out with self-portrait avatar creation process was that while he was creating it he tried to spend more time on it because it is on a more personal level. His peers, close friends, etc. can identify him more easily, and if the self portrait avatar was critcized, it's almost like critcizng his identity in real life. I also liked the outside example he brought up with Warcraft 3, and how he tied that with creating his personal avatar. In Warcraft 3, everyone has a profile of their win-loss percentage. If their win-loss percentage isn't too good, then their self-identity might be lowered. I thought that was a very good point he brought up because creating your self-avatar and managing your personal profile on Warcraft 3 are both related to your identity in real life. Now, with his fantasy avatar, he also did a pretty good job in explaining how he created the portrait. He said it was less tedious to create and I also liked how he utilized his outside source with playing Halo. While creating his fantasy avatar, Denny tried to make a picture of him playing Halo. He tried to make his face based on the comments others gave him. Overweight, lives in moms basement, etc. Furthermore, I like how he utilized a zombie face because of less exposure to sunshine while sitting in the basement playing video games all day. One thing he could elaborate a little more on is at the end, he said he wished he had an XBOX controller in one hand and a mountain dew can in another. He could elaborate by saying, I wish the software had stuff like putting a mountain dew or soda can in your hand. But overall, I think he did a great job on this project. – Z. Butler

Denny used Warcraft III as his example for an outside influence. He was comparing a user profile in-game which displays your rankings and win-loss ratio to his self-portrait avatar. I felt he did a good job noting their similarities and significance such as the desire to appear impressive. No one wants to be thought of negatively but a person's flaws is what makes them human and realistic. These flaws can be displayed in a self-portrait as well as a combat record in a video game. Both are supposed to be accurate representations of you. Denny's avatar, like mine, has only a slight resemblance if anything which isn't saying much. The faces don't look realistic enough to have such few options. I feel the less detail a program has for modifying a face the more options it should have in other fields. For example the xbox live avatars look very cartooned but you can make a relatively accurate avatar by clothing choice and height/facial feature placement. I agreed with Denny on most if not all of his points about creating a self-portrait avatar. The program is extremely limited especially for minorities. These lack of options made creating an accurate representation difficult. I found it interesting that both me and Denny chose the same face for our fantasy avatar despite going in different directions. We both had video game based influences for some of our avatar choices which could have contributed to this coincidence. -L. Cobb