Mansfield college students help bring Kirkby schoolchildren's monster drawings to life

The 18 pupils at Greenwood Primary School were asked to draw pictures of what they think a monster looks like, using their vivid ideas to come up with their very own weird and wonderful characters.

The project began in October 2021 with design and media learning company specialist Richard Marshall’s visit to the Sutton Middle Lane-based school.

He asked children from year groups 4, 5 and 6 if they would like to take part in the drawing challenge, explaining that his talented digital media students would bring their ideas to the screen following their 3D modelling and design work.

Before the college’s summer holidays, the children and their teachers were welcomed to the Derby Road campus to watch the students’ showreel of their completed designs.

Pupil James Malko, who created a character called Hextravaganza, said: “I created him mainly from my imagination, but also from a game. He has basketball and beatboxing skills.

“The students made him spin the basketball and he moved about too. It looked nice and I loved how they added a scoreboard on the design.

"I love designing games and if I was thinking about coming to college I’d love to come here – it’s amazing.”

Level 3 Digital Media students Ash Walker and Felix Beaumont presented to the group, explaining how they recreated the drawings using 3D digital technology.

Felix, 17, said: “We’ve been learning to 3D model and animate, so we took the children’s images and turned them into 3D models - I’m hoping everyone really likes their monsters.

We created more 40 slides from their work and used the programme called Blender; specially for 3D modelling.

"It’s the main one we use, alongside Adobe Premier Pro which is used to add audio and video effects.

“I’m coming back to college in September to study traditional art and gain more skills before going to university.

"I’ve always liked video games so to work on concept art in that sector would be great. I’ve got my eye on a company in London where I’d like to get a job at.”