One of the classes I took during my first semester at UNCW was 3D Computer Graphics, where I was taught to create digital, three-dimensional models using Autodesk Maya. Our first three projects for the course had certain requirements and limitations, but our last project gave us total freedom to create nearly anything we could imagine. Naturally, I wanted to sculpt a realistic frog, and since I had liked the Cane Toad model I had made for Project 3, I thought I would start by creating something similar. However, I never really liked the completely symmetrical, static pose I had sculpted my Cane Toad in, so for this project I wanted to push myself further by sculpting a frog in the most active, exciting post I could come up with. Thinking back, I could not help recalling the shockingly graceful, arcing leaps of local Southern Leopard Frogs I had witnessed in person, and thought the species would be a perfect subject for this task. If time allowed, I hoped I would even be able to sculpt multiple stages of a Southern Leopard Frog jump.

During my first semester at UNCW I took 3D Computer Graphics, where we learned how to sculpt digital models using Autodesk Maya. Each of our four projects during the semester allowed us more freedom than the last, with our third project uniquely being a partner project. Assigned in October, as a way of celebrating an early Halloween, our task was to create a combined sculpture centered around the theme of “horror.” In other words, each of us would have to create our own “horror” themed sculpture, and then we would fuse them together into some sort of monstrosity as partners. While I had no say over what my partner created, this was my first opportunity to sculpt a frog or toad in this class and I took it eagerly. As for “horror,” while perhaps not the scariest looking frog, few frogs seemed to embody the idea of horror to me more than the huge, intensely toxic, and terrifyingly invasive Cane Toad.