create your own monster assignment

Create your own Monster

GAME INFO Create your own monster is a fun online creativity game to create a unique monster-shaped character. Choose the shape and color of the monster's body, legs, hands, mouth, eyes, antennae and tail. Combine the different parts to create a funny monster or a scary monster.

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Create a Monster!

In this activity, activity overview, template and class instructions, more storyboard that activities.

• This Activity is Part of Many Teacher Guides

Monsters and myths are very entertaining, and they are also prevalent in literature and pop culture. For this activity, students will create their very own monster with its own powers, likes and dislikes, strengths, and weaknesses! This assignment is perfect for Halloween, and students should be encouraged to share their completed monsters with their classmates! They can use one of the creatures in the Monsters & Myths category, or they can select aspects of any of the characters, animal, human, and monster alike, and show off their spooky creation!

(These instructions are completely customizable. After clicking "Copy Activity", update the instructions on the Edit Tab of the assignment.)

Objective: Create your own Halloween monster.

Student Instructions:

• Click "Start Assignment".
• Think about what your monster looks like and find one in the Characters tab or create your own with search items, characters, and more!
• Create illustrations for each of the boxes in the template. Add a description if desired.
• Write a short story about your monster if you want!

Lesson Plan Reference

Grade Level --- N/A ---

Difficulty Level 2 (Reinforcing / Developing)

Type of Assignment Individual

Type of Activity: Use Storyboard That All Year Long

(You can also create your own on Quick Rubric .)

Halloween Classroom Activities

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Create a Monster Frankenstein Lesson Plan: High School Lesson on Analylzing Frankenstein Characters

• Trent Lorcher
• Categories : High school english lesson plans grades 9 12
• Tags : High school lesson plans & tips

Frankenstein Character Creation Objectives & Preparation

Any time you decide to have fun in school, you better have clear learning objectives; otherwise, somebody might find out your class enjoys learning and you could get in trouble.

• Students will read, discuss, and analyze <em>Frankenstein</em> characters.
• Students will write about Frankenstein characters.
• Students will discuss and analyze character motivation_._
• Students will make predictions and analyze plot_._
• Students will review major events_._
• Students will use textual evidence to support opinions.

Supplies needed: construction paper of various colors, glue, scissors, writing instruments.

Vary these procedures to fit your class dynamics:

• Read at least until the part where Frankenstein brings the creature to life in chapter 5. For best results read past the point where the monster tells his story to Victor in chapter 16.
• Divide students into groups of 3-5.
• Give each group the exact same supplies: 2 pieces of colorful construction paper (each group can have different colors), a glue stick, and a pair of scissors.
• Each group must construct a creature. Give no instructions as to what the creature should look like. Let them be creative.
• Write a poem about the monster.
• Write a poem to the monster from another character.
• Write a poem from the monster to another character.
• Make a characterization chart of the monster, using specific facts and quotations from the story.
• Make five predictions about what the monster will do in the remaining chapters.
• Present the monster and the poem(s) to the class.
• Nurture the creature so he doesn’t come back and ruin your life.

This post is part of the series: Teaching Frankenstein

These lessons will help you teach Mary Shelley’s classic.

• A Book Review of Frankenstein for the Teacher
• Unit Test on Mary Shelley&rsquo;s Frankenstein
• Teaching Allusion in Mary Shelley&rsquo;s Frankenstein
• Frankenstein Lesson Plan: Create a Monster
• Decision-Making Lesson Plan For Frankenstein

How to Create Your Own Monster Character in 9 Simple Steps

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links. That means if you buy something, we might get a small commission at no extra cost to you ( read disclosure )

• 1.0K shares

Have you ever wondered how to create your own monster character design from scratch?

Until in my third-year university one of my professors decided to give us an assignment about creating this crazy monster design! I was super excited, to be honest!

He also gave us a couple of choices of different few sentence story passages that describe our character.

My favorite was called “ The Ice Cream Man” which described this half-dead tall person with crazy teeth that wants to eat you alive!!!

I thought – great!

But how do I make it my own?

What’s the background story that I will give this character?

Overall, the step by step process is very simple! So go ahead, follow along and see where it took me 🙂

Step 1: Have a basic idea ready.

For me, it was easy as I already had the basic idea given to me by my (super awesome ) prof! But where do you start yourself? I have done many other character design later on, and it always helps me to think of something that:

A) Would look cool and be very fun to draw at the same time!

B) Taking something from every day and adding a bit ( or a whole lot) of creepiness and your own-sort-of-weird to it!

C) I’ve been inspired by previously! ( and of course please don’t copy anybody’s ideas! But rather personalize them and get inspired by a lot of different ideas at once!

So now, think a little about your topic (you don’t have to know everything yet), and have a basic idea of what you want to achieve. Later on, you can change it and go any route you wish in order to make it better! But we all need to start somewhere.

By the way, my own Character prompts generator is great for monsters as well and it’s completely free to use. Check it out!

*you can also watch a video of this tutorial !!

Step 2: What’s the backstory?

Now, when you approximately decided on where you want to go with your character, figure out a way to bring them to life by creating a backstory for them! The backstory might not be 100% delivered to the viewer, but believe me when I say this – IT HELPS! Because it leads you to a more specific and believable character and looks, rather than just generalized idea that has been done in some sort all the time!

So maybe it would help to answer the 5 “W“: Who? Does What? Where? When? And Why? And I also like to add my 6th “W” – What brought them here?

(Sounds like you are back at the desk in English class yet? 🙂 )

For example, the story I came up with for this character (after approximately having the idea of him from Step1) is:

(Who?) The Ice Cream Monster Man

(does what?) in a peak of showing off his huge mouth and eating ice-cream mixed with blood and body parts.

(Where?) For the sake of the project I am focusing on the character rather than the environment, so I decided to have an abstract mysterious color lighting.

(Why?) In order to create an effective and appealing character design with creepy features to it.

(What brought them here?) That’s my favorite part of the process, where I get to come up with a history of the character that led them to become who they are now.

The Ice Cream Man is an ice-cold creature with a mouth the when opened is bigger than his head.

Once a nice teenager named Joe who decided to make some money becoming an Ice Cream Truck driver, and stuck in such position for the next 40 years. People laughed at him and humiliated him, made the guy feel pathetic and a loser. The jokes of kids and neighbors were cruel – they threw food at him, pointed fingers laughing…

One time a bunch of mean kids decided to play a cruel joke on Joe and tricked him into coming in a freezer room where all the ice cream was kept…Then they locked him for fun and forgot about him. Poor

Joe froze to death… And…Awakened again, but now in the form of monster later known as THE ICE CREAM MAN. As his revenge, Joe now eats all the kids and adults who used to make fun of him when he was still alive.  Mmmmwwwwaaaahahhhahahah .”

So that is my way of creating a story, but feel free to do it in a way that’s comfortable to you 🙂

Step 3: Quick Sketches

So now that we have all the ideas in place and ready to go, we begin experimenting with sketches. Make them silly, quick and fun! You don’t have to show anyone and be embarrassed (like me right now) if you don’t want to! I know how scary it can be to put your worst stuff out here.

Then more sketches-the better!

Also, if you feel like after this tutorial you are not quite sure what to do yet – don’t worry! This comes with A LOT of practice, and A LOT of studying!

So if you are just at the beginning of your journey, I recommend learning some skills from Skillshare .

It’s a paid platform with a lot of valuable courses, but because you are so awesome, by following this link you will get 2 free months 😉

Related Articles:

• How To Get Better At Drawing From Imagination – A 3 Step Process
• 100 Modern Character Design Sheets You Need To See!

Step 4: Looking with a different set of eyes o_o

Now, I’m going to ask you to do something that sounds very easy but isn’t always that way if you are not used to it – look at your artwork as though you have no knowledge of the original idea. Now tell me, what is it that you see?

Then, find the one you like and try to improve it, while also getting as close to the original idea as you see fit. ( By the way, if you like one of your new ideas very much, you can make another project out of it, but try to stay with the original though just for the sake of seeing where it could lead you!)

For me, an improvement I decided to make is fixing the hands! So far they are not telling any story and I want them to be meaningful!

Step 5: Get a LOT of reference images!

Try making a piece of art without a reference , and then with. The results are so different it blows my mind! (Unless you are a professional artist with years of practice from your head).

Now, I know you heard the concept before, but I will say it anyway – don’t COPY and don’t use only ONE reference! Have A LOT of them! The more the better! From different angles, so you can feel the 3D form of the object you are trying to portray!

Have references for styles, colors, and treatments of objects that inspire you. Have references to each piece of your image. It will only make it better! And the idea is your own, so there is no way you could possibly copy anything! But trust me, the reference will guide you to the right place, and will make sure that you are drawing everything the way it is in real life, and not the way you think it is .

It can be as simple as googling your subject and/or looking on Pinterest 🙂

Or if you are looking for pose references specifically, then check out “ Best 9 Free Pose Reference Sites To Practice Figure Drawing Online”

Step 6: Find 1 more way to make it better!

When you think your image is as good as it gets, please do this one thing for me. Try VERY HARD to make it EVEN BETTER! You won’t regret it! Add something, or take away things, or improve the idea or posture! Anything at all!

Our brain works in a way where we tend to pick between the things we see and then the one that looks the best turns PERFECT in our head! But we can’t possibly know if it is unless we experiment with it just a little more!

So here I changed the position of hands just a little more!

Step 7: Think ahead!

In some way, we all do! As you can notice on the image below I’ve added some notes- just random things and ideas that go through my head when I decide on what to add while I’m painting like colors, textures, blood stains, saliva etc.

Step 8: Adding Colour

Colouring is not easy, but a very effective tool! If using poorly it can damage your lineart in a terrible way, or add it some kind of meaning that you didn’t originally plan.

If you are not sure on how to pick colors effectively, I recommend checking out  Color and Light: A Guide for the Realist Painter (James Gurney Art) for some quick and awesome content that will save you years of figuring it out yourself! I know it helped me a lot 🙂

Now, when you are all ready to go, it’s time to make your image come to life! Good luck! 🙂

Step 9: STILL IMPROVING

So, at this point you are done, and happy! Good job (pat on a shoulder!). But how do you know if it’s the best that you can do? You don’t!!!! Unless you check again and try using “Camera Raw” Filter in Photoshop, or the Adobe Lightroom Software.

Here is a screenshot of me playing around in Lightroom on my Ipad Pro 🙂

If you play around, but you still like the original better – great! You are amazing!

If you see the improvement after playing around – high five and welcome to the team! I always use these options right after I’m done, and that’s when I really like the result <3

And we are DOOOOOONNNEEEE!!! Congratulations!

I hope you enjoyed the “How to Create Your Own Monster Character in 9 Simple Steps” tutorial.

Now you are ONE STEP AHEAD of people who are just starting out because you have the knowledge you can use in practice! Go ahead! Try it out for yourself 🙂 I would LOVE TO see what you come up with!

Post your finished Art Piece to “ Your Art Path” Facebook page and/or in the comments below for FREE feedback, and simply to show off your amazing stuff! Please write beside your artwork your backstory and #feedbackplease if you want me to personally comment on your art piece 🙂  I can’t wait to see what you came up with!

Also, check out “ Thumbnail Sketch Examples, Definition and Free Templates “ tutorial that will help you with improving your art piece even more!

And don’t forget to subscribe to our email list at the top of the page for FREE tips and updates on new blog posts!

Also, follow us on social media:   Facebook , Twitter , Pinterest .

So we can communicate and be even closer!

• How To Draw A Dragon – Tips From 5 Artists
• Making Black Panther Fan Art – Digital Painting Tutorial by Moutaz K. Maudy
• How To Practice Drawing Effectively
• How To Make an Easy Animated GIF using Photoshop

Thank you for reading!

Good luck on Your Art Path,

Your Art Bud 😉

Related Posts:

How to Know if You Are Good at Drawing: Assess Your Skills

Is Drawing from Reference Cheating? Debunking Art Myths

What is Space in Art? 2 Types, Art Examples

7 Responses

This is awesome! Those rules are honestly applicable to any art project. I’m an artist myself, and I mostly prefer paints and brushes, but the way you create your art inspires me to expand my skills! What is the app that you work it? And where can I see more of your art work?

PS scaaaaaary monster, good job!

Thanks so much, Soby!

The App I use is called Procreate and you can purchase it in AppStore. I use it on my iPad Pro, and I’m not sure what else you can use it on!

Hope you find that helpful 🙂

Also, you can find more of my pieces on Instagram: artofanya.s 

Good luck in your creations! And stay inspired! 🙂

That is one scary looking monster and how you created it is fascinating and impressive. I really like the fact that you have provided a great video tutorial and a written tutorial outlining each step in finer detail as the project unfolds. Will be following your work and I look forward to see more.

Thank you for such a supportive comment, Jared! 

I’m glad you enjoyed it ! 🙂

This is an amazing tutorial! Thank you so much!!!😁 It’s like, learning how to do concept art, by learning the tools in making a character. With a story about this antagonist. You have done well with this blog, and I definitely took notes about it.

Dominique, it was a fun one to write for me as well 🙂 I love sharing my process work and the story behind-the-scenes. I’m glad you found it helpful!

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• Published: November 15, 2017
• Updated: February 29, 2024
• Character Design , Digital Art Tips & Tricks

Hello and Welcome! My name is Anna, and I’m the owner of YourArtPath. Art is my passion! I graduated with BA Degree in Illustration and hope to share my love for art with you <3

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Creating a monster - help sheet

This writing frame supports students who are looking at the crucial moment in the novel when the creature comes to life, in Chapter 5, as inspiration for their own monster's awakening. There are two versions of the scaffold, one of which includes sentence starts for students who need support.

This resource would work well as part of a unit looking at Gothic writing.

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Creative Writing Prompt - Create Your Own Monster

Creative Writing

Grade 9, 10, 11, 12

About This Product

This resource is a Creative Writing Prompt - Create Your Own Monster.

Students will decide if they want to work on their own or with a partner on this assignment.

There are a set of requirements that students will follow to create their own monster.

Then students will write about and illustrate their creative monster.

What's Included

1 PDF with 3 ready to print pages

Resource Tags

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• Monster Builder Application for Children

Monster Constructor App For Kids

Are You Using a Touchscreen Device?

This game is published as a web application, which is embedded in the page below. When you interact with the screen via touch the screen may move. We also publish this web application as a stand alone app. PLEASE CLICK HERE to use the stand alone alone app designed for touch devices.

Game Screenshot

Game Description

This application allows kids to quickly build a custom and cute monster which they can then save and export.

Game Technology

Almost every game in our collection was created using a game building tool named Construct. These games are rendered using JavaScript and a mobile-friendly HTML design, so they work on desktop computers, laptops like the Google Chromebook, tablets like the iPad or Amazon Kindle Fire, and mobile devices like the iPhone. You can play this game on computers powered by the Microsoft Windows operating system, the Apple OS X Mac operating system, and mobile phones like the iPhone powered by iOS or Google Android powered Samsung. Try the game in it's own window by clicking here .

How to Play

In the bottom section of the game there is a list of options for many parts of the monster. Clicking on the first circle, for example, reveals the 10 torso body designs for the monster. There are 12 options for eye design behind the next circle, then 12 mouths, 12 arms, 12 legs, 12 tails, and 12 ears.

This array of options means there are 29,859,840 design options outside of considering placement offsets or leaving some features blank.

Select and arrange the head, arms, body, legs, and face attributes you like for a monster to build a custom monster. If you dislike a particular element you can delete it by pulling it to the top of the screen. When you are done building your monster you can click on the save button at the top of the screen and click on the picture button at the top of the screen to take a picture of it.

You may play this game embedded in the above iframe or click here to view it in a separate browser window by itself.

Enjoy Playing Monster Constructor? Rate This Game

Your Feedback Needed!

We do not have any ads in our online game arcade and we have published hundreds of games which may not work in some browser configurations. This game should work in almost any modern web browser like Google Chrome, Apple Safari, Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, Opera, Brave or Vivaldi. If you are having issues getting this game to work, please leave a comment below mentioning the problem and your software set up so we can investigate the issue.

Do You Have Feedback or Comments?

Please share your feedback about this game using the comment box below.

All feedback and commentary is moderated to ensure this remains a child friendly resource. :)

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Character Design Monster Lab

Learn how to design monsters from the ground up! This character concept course teaches you the process of going from a sheet of brainstormed ideas to a compelling piece of digital art. Along with learning the fundamentals of monster design I'll also be focusing on teaching you my shapecarving technique. You’ll get to see how I iterate on concepts and choose specific elements to zero in on and learn why the devil is in the details. Finally, there's advice sprinkled throughout the course to help you adapt this process so you can make it your own for any concept design jobs you tackle in the industry.

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How to Write a Myth

Last Updated: April 1, 2024 Fact Checked

This article was reviewed by Gerald Posner . Gerald Posner is an Author & Journalist based in Miami, Florida. With over 35 years of experience, he specializes in investigative journalism, nonfiction books, and editorials. He holds a law degree from UC College of the Law, San Francisco, and a BA in Political Science from the University of California-Berkeley. He’s the author of thirteen books, including several New York Times bestsellers, the winner of the Florida Book Award for General Nonfiction, and has been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in History. He was also shortlisted for the Best Business Book of 2020 by the Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 426,856 times.

You might know the stories about Hercules and Zeus , or stories from the many other mythological traditions around the world. These stories explain reasons behind natural events or cultural traditions, or the characters in them are examples or counter-examples of how you should act. Whether you're creating a serious mythology or writing a silly story to entertain people, myths fuel the imagination of both writer and listener.

Brainstorming Ideas

• Why does the moon wax and wane?
• Why do vultures have bald heads?
• Why do people prepare and eat foods in certain ways, or on certain holidays?

• The hero succeeds only when he follows the advice of elders or gods — or alternatively, only when he is self-reliant.
• The hero must be clever to succeed, solving problems in creative ways.
• Some myths even teach that luck can be more important than skill. It can be fun to hear about an "ordinary" person who gets rewarded, or entertaining to hear about a complete fool who somehow becomes king. [1] X Research source Meletinsky, Eleazar, ed. F. Oinas and S. Soudakoff. <i>The Low Hero of the Fairytale</i>. 1975.

• If you're having trouble coming up with a mythological explanation for the topic you chose, write down a list of words that remind you of snow. If you want to explain how snowstorms happen, write down "cold, wet, white, snowman, ice cream, clouds." Maybe snowmen live in the sky and sneeze snow down to earth, or maybe the clouds try to give us ice cream that melts on the way down.

• Is the hero super-strong, super-intelligent, or incredibly talented in one area? Some heroes have "superpowers" such as shooting a bow with perfect aim, or the ability to knock people over with the wind from their breath.
• Why does your hero have these special talents, if any? Did the gods bless the hero, did the hero train hard, or was the hero just born that way? Which kind of person would you admire, or which do you think matches the real world best?

• The hero is overconfident, and ignores advice or turns down an offer of help.
• The hero is greedy or lustful, and tries to steal or take something that doesn't belong to her.
• The hero is arrogant, and thinks he's better than everyone else, or even better than the gods.

• If you're out of ideas, try reading collections of actual myths, or modern books that use mythological characters. Percy Jackson and the Olympians is a good example

Writing the Myth

• This tends to make the plot move pretty quickly. In one version of the Herakles myth, the hydra is introduced, tracked down, and killed in just eight sentences. [3] X Research source

• Use iconic symbols. These vary between traditions, but often include the numbers 3 and 7, animals like the raven or the seal, or characters like the prince or the trapped faerie.
• Use the same structure for several sentences in a row. For example: "Seven days he went up into the sky, and seven days he walked down to go to Xibalbá; seven days he was transformed into a snake ...; seven days he was transformed into an eagle." [4] X Research source Florescano, Enrique. <i>The Myth of Quetzalcoatl</i>. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1999. Print.
• Give people a short, descriptive epithet. This is especially popular in Greek epics, which often use epithets that refer to other stories, such as "Dionysus the wolf-repeller" or "Apollo, carrier of the bay branches."

• Set the myth in the distant past, or a distant land. Think of all the stories you know that begin "Once upon a time," "Far, far away," or even "A long, long time ago."
• Describe the kind of hero people expect in myths. For instance, a youngest brother, a king, or a woodcutter are all common heroes in folk tales. For more epic myths, start with a famous hero or a goddess instead.

• Coyote notices people shivering in winter, and they plead for a way to warm themselves.
• A queen ignores her suffering subjects. The gods send a plague to her daughter, and the queen must learn to help people in exchange for their assistance to cure her daughter.

• Introduce a new character. This can be a god, a spirit, a talking animal, or an elder. The character might describe the next challenge to come and how to overcome it, or give the hero a magical item that he can use later.
• Create a new challenge. Just when everything is looking good again, have the hero make a mistake, or send a monster to undo the hero's good work. This is useful if you want the story to go on longer.

• "And that's why the sun gets hotter and bright every summer."
• "And ever since then, people brush their teeth to a shine every night, so the tooth-stealing goblins are scared by their own hideous reflection."

Fill in the Blank Template for a Myth

Community Q&A

• There are many great sources of inspiration online, where you can read about Chinese legends, Slavic folk tales , Aztec mythology, the Norse Poetic Edda , and myths from many other traditions. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0

Tips from our Readers

• Playing video games can actually help with writing! I was playing Pokémon Legends: Arceus and was wondering why people in the Pokémon universe worshipped Arceus. That gave me the idea to write a myth/origin story for Arceus. So, video games can give you ideas as well as broaden your creative sense.
• When you're first starting out, try writing a myth about a natural mystery, like how planets were made or why leaves change color. It can also help to draft the myth from a third-person perspective (he/she/they).
• If you need some inspiration, I would recommend reading books that are inspired by classic myths, like Percy Jackson & the Olympians by Rick Riordan.
• Have a pair of heroes rather than just one. That way, they can rely on one another throughout the myth.

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• ↑ Meletinsky, Eleazar, ed. F. Oinas and S. Soudakoff. The Low Hero of the Fairytale . 1975.
• ↑ https://www.museums.cam.ac.uk/sites/default/files/CopyofDesignyourownGreekmyth2.pdf
• ↑ https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Apollod.+2.5.2&fromdoc=Perseus%253Atext%253A1999.01.0022
• ↑ Florescano, Enrique. The Myth of Quetzalcoatl . Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1999. Print.
• ↑ https://penandthepad.com/stylistic-elements-legend-10020604.html
• ↑ https://writingcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/reading-aloud/

About This Article

Since myths tell how or why something in the real world happens, the first step is to decide what your myth will explain, and decide what kind of moral the story will have. Then, make sure you include some things that could never happen, like a tree that grows spaghetti. As you write your myth, make it sound more mythical by re-using the same type of sentence structures or giving characters short titles, like “Fido, fetcher of sticks.” Finally, remember to set up a problem for your hero to solve by the end of the story! For more advice, like how to give your hero specific attributes, keep reading! Did this summary help you? Yes No

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Make a Monster Genetics Lab

Background and use.

Biology students often struggle to understand how it can be that the same two parents will produce genetically different offspring.  This lab exercise is a very visual way to demonstrate the "making of a monster" one gene at a time.  The resources include a full sheet of vocabulary and instructions, plus a data table to record the crosses.  For advanced students, you can take the activity further with a sheet of follow up questions.

This resource is fully open license, so you can change any feature, instruction, etc.  I also have a version of this activity that has students make an elf, that I use if we get to genetics before Christmas break.  

Resource Files

_______________________________________________________________________________________

 _________________________________________________________________________________________________

LET’S MAKE A MONSTER!  Data Table      Name of Mother:____________________        Name of Father: ________________________

                                                                                             Name of Monster: __________________________________

Virginia Science Standards of Learning 2018

Learning Domain: Biology

Standard: The student will investigate and understand that there are common mechanisms for inheritance. Key ideas include the variety of traits in an organism are the result of the expression of various combinations of alleles.

Degree of Alignment: Not Rated (0 users)

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Create your own monster

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Detective Clare Mackay Series 3 Books Collection Set By Marion Todd (Lies...

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'Create your own monster' is a game where you can create, color, interact and play with spooky and funny creatures designed within your imagination. The game is available on iOS and Android, with different languages, including English, Spanish, French, German and Italian.

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The Odyssey: Create Your Own Monster Activity

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Description

A creative activity that encourages students to connect Homer's use of monsters in The Odyssey with modern personal and/or cultural fears. The goal of the assignment is to help students understand how monster imagery in society, throughout history, is often a reflection of larger cultural concerns or fears. This activity is best utilized after reading/discussing Book 12 of The Odyssey and includes some pre-reading and post-reading discussion activities with teacher notes and suggestions to prepare students for the creative assignment.

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Jumping Monster

• Practice using if-statements.
• Learn how separate parts of a program can perform different operations without interference by using if-statements in several forms.

Getting Set Up

You will be asked to design your own monster for this assignment. However, to make more effective use of your lab time, you may start early on the rest of the lab by using this default monster . However, your assignment submission MUST be with your custom monster!

Step 1: Create Your Monster

Start this assignment with a drawing canvas of width 500 pixels and center your monster in the middle (around an x-position of 250 pixels).

Create your own customized monster — it should have its own function with parameters to control its position. It should have at least 1 leg and at least 1 eye, but everything else is up to you.

Some inspiration is shown below, but remember this monster should be your very own and not a copy of someone else's. As usual, please sketch your ideas on paper before you start to code, and, if it helps, label some points.

Step 2: Set Up the Pages

If you haven't already set up your window and background color, make sure to clear your background in draw() . Create an int variable at the top of your code [?] named page and initialize it to 0.

Add the code below into your draw() function, replacing the comments about your monster function with actual calls to your monster function:

Make a call to your monster function underneath the comment asking you to do so. Note that this gets called on both page 0 and page 1 as it is outside of the if-statements. Also note that the noStroke() and fill() commands will apply to both the rect() and ellipse() .

Step 3: Changing Pages

Now add the code below to the bottom of your program:

Now when any key on the keyboard is pressed, the value of the page variable toggles between 0 and 1.

Try it out – you should see it flipping between a square and a circle.

If it works properly, these shapes in the upper-left of your drawing canvas can be used to let you know which page your program is currently displaying!

Step 4: Moving the Eye(s) (Page 0)

• Begin by declaring a new float variable, called eyeAdjust [?] . eyeAdjust should be declared at the top of your code (i.e., not inside of a function) alongside page . When we change the eyeAdjust value in the code, we will change it by 0.5, which is why it must be a float instead of an int .
• In your monster function, add eyeAdjust to the eye's x-position. (Before proceeding, try initializing eyeAdjust to 10 and to -10, and notice that the eye is looking right or left! Set eyeAdjust back to 0 afterwards.)

Moving the eye requires if-statements in the page 0 code block ( if (page == 0) , right under the comment about moving the eye). We'll write two if-statements that move the eye(s) left or right, but not so far as to have them leave the head, which is why we will use min() and max() :

• Write an if-statement that tests if mouseX [?] is greater than, say, 300. If it is greater, set eyeAdjust = min(eyeAdjust + 0.5, 10); . If not, do nothing.

Test this out by running the code. Start with your mouse in the middle of the drawing canvas and then slowly move it to the right. When does the eye start and stop moving? Make sure you understand how the line of code above accomplishes this.

• 0.5/-0.5 adjusts the speed at which the eye(s) move,
• 10/10 adjusts how far the eye(s) will move before stopping,
• 300/200 adjusts how far to the left or right you need to move the mouse before the eye(s) begin to follow it.

Step 5: Smarter Eye Movements (Page 0)

Your monster's eye will always start looking left because the cursor begins at (0,0) by default. So let's have the user's mouse click determine whether the eye should move or not.

To do this, we begin by declaring a boolean variable called look , again at the top of your code. [?] This variable can only have the value true (allow eye movements) or false (disable eye movements). Which do we want to initialize look with?

Similar to keyPressed() , create a mousePressed() function at the bottom of your code. This function will automatically execute each time the user clicks the mouse. Write the function so that on each mouse click, it changes the value of look ( i.e. switch from false to true or vice-versa – more if-statements!).

Finally, go back and update your if-statements in your page 0 code to only update the eyeAdjust when look is true . We accomplish this using the AND operator ( && ). Make sure that eyeAdjust is only changed when both look is true AND your mouse is in particular ranges.

Step 6: Jumping (Page 1)

These modifications to the program are for page 1. The plan is to make your monster jump. To start, define two integer variables at the top of your code: jumpHeight [?] , which should be initialized to 0, and jumpSpeed [?] , which should be initialized to 7.

To make the monster move, change the function for your monster to add jumpHeight to the y-position for all of the shapes that make up the monster.

At the end of the monster code for page 1 ( if (page == 1) , right under the comment about jumping), add two if-statements similar to the ones from page 0:

• Test to see if jumpHeight is greater than 100. If it is greater, set jumpSpeed to -7 [?] .
• Immediately following that if-statement, add an if-statement that tests if jumpHeight is less than -50. If it is less than, set jumpSpeed to 7 [?] .
• Finally, after these two if-statements, update jumpHeight by adding jumpSpeed to it.

Run your program and make sure that the page 1 monster is jumping around. If it is working, then feel free to adjust these numbers (the 7/-7 and 100/-50) to customize the jumping speed and height of your monster.

Now add to your code so that the jumping on page 1 can be started and stopped by clicking the mouse, similar to the eye movements on page 0. You should use a different variable than look to accomplish this so that jumping and eye movements are independent of each other.

Step 7: Bending the Knees

Jumping monsters look cooler when they bend their knees while jumping. It's a fact. Currently, your monster's legs move down as much as the rest of the body. But if they instead stopped moving at some point while going down, it would look like the knees were bending! This is another application for min() . If we replaced the y-position of the legs with something similar to min(270+jumpHeight, 330) , then they would stop at 330; again you will have to adjust the numbers for your own monster.

Example Solution

In order to better visualize what's going on, extra code was included to display a mouse symbol in the lower-left corner of the image every time the mouse was clicked. Key presses cause the black shape in the upper-left corner of the image to switch between a square and a circle.

• The monster starts immobile with eye in center on page 0 (square showing).
• The mouse is clicked and then mouse movements cause the eye to first look left and then look right.
• While the eye is still active , a key is pressed to flip over to page 1 (circle showing). The monster is not jumping when we switch.
• The mouse is clicked and the monster starts jumping, including "bending" its knees.
• A key is pressed to flip back to page 0, where the eye is still active .
• The mouse is clicked to disable eye movements just before the gif repeats.
• Read through the rubric carefully on the Assignment Page so you know what we will be checking for.
• Submit your sketches from Step 1 ( .jpg , .png , or .pdf ) along with your finished .pde file from Step 7.
• When you get a chance, you should add this program to your portfolio.