Final Project (Book)

UGH! That's pretty much all I have to say about this project. A lot of that is my own fault for not starting sooner, but for the record, I HATE InDesign. Next time, I'm just going to paste everything into Photoshop! Unfortunately, I don't have time for that now. I'm gonna have to try and post the pages I made in Word along with the front and back covers I made.
I'm pretty sure that most people who look at this will find it impressive or interesting. I will forever see it in the opposite fashion: missed opportunities abound here, not to mention an extreme lack of focus. For a project that we were given roughly five weeks to complete, this is UNACCEPTABLE.
On the other hand, what I DID put together here strikes me as interesting, and if my test group (3 people at RCC) is to be believed, it's interesting to the readers as well.

This is my cover. It's very different from what I originally planned to do. I was going to make it several different images that were partially transparent directly over each other, includinga picture of myself. But that was before I ran out of time and also before I made the decision to include only one essay in the book.

This is the back cover. It's very similar to the front except that I included real life people in it. That was intentional. I was trying to distinguish the stuff that fascinates me in gaming from the stuff that fascinates me in more serious subjects like politics.

UGH!!!! Mr. Arellano, I'm sorry, but I can't get the other pages uploaded. I went back to GP right after our class ended and I had to make a stop off at the courhouse about a citation. By the time I got back here, there was no time for me to translate my word pages into Photoshop JPEGs. My only real hope now is that you give me your email address so I can send the document to you. MY email is derangedgamer2@gmail.com.

REFLECTIONS:
The term is over. Thank christ. I am SOOOO stressed. To tell the truth, I don't know if I'll be over it for a couple days. That's how much this drained me, due in no small part to my own "do-it-at-the-last-minute" attitude. This was a HUGE mistake. Generally I work better under pressure than not, but this was one time when--for whatever reason--I was just ready to stop long before the term ended. (Not an excuse; merely an explanation.) I will need to fix this next term and if I ever wind up doing a project like this again I'm gonna need to budget my time more effectively. I MIGHT have been able to hammer something truly incredible together if I'd started earlier, even if I DID take it up to the last minute. Instead, I wound up with something that feels completely unfinished, even if it looks otherwise.
When it comes to the skills I used most, many of them were skills I already had. I'm very good with transparency and cropping in Photoshop. Those were the primary things I used. The wolf in the background is actually something I put together in Illustrator and ported over. Everything else is pretty much internet pictures. If I can think of any skills I learned and applied here, it would be the use of flat colors in effective ways.
In terms of catering my design to my book type, I was pretty lazy about it. I pretty much planned on presenting a text-heavy book with some pictures mixed in for good fun. The cover and back were supposed to be the primary picture pages and the rest were supposed to be white with lots of text. Along the way, however--and Mr. Inada knows why :) --I decided that my regular pages needed to be spruced up as well. It may be questionable, but I decided to give them all the same background formatting. The title, "Your New Name Is..." was meant to coincide with different names for the different essays. The phrase itself is taken from one of my favorite computer games: You Don't Know Jack. In the case of the one essay I got into the project, the response was "...Clueless Pat Thompson." (Hopefully you will actually get to SEE the essay!)
So now what do I do with it? Well, if I was going to get it back before the break, I'd probably set it somewhere and try to forget about it for at least a few weeks. I certainly wouldn't burn it though. It's not like it's a TERRIBLE project. But I don't think I'd gift it or sell it either. (I aint' selling my essays until there's actually more than ONE in the book.)
Anyway, thanks for an interesting term. I'm going to take away a lot from it. :)

A Pathetic Attempt at Progress

I am SOOOOO lost on how to handle InDesign. Combined with most of the week being devoted to handling my Video Production project and the limited time I can allot due to the hour and a half I must waste traveling to and from Grants Pass, I have found myself with virtually nothing to show for an assignment this week. I have only a single page template for InDesign, but I haven't had a chance to print it or export it to the right format. I'm going to try and remedy this situation on Monday. Until then, I've pretty much got nothing.

Distinguishing the Different Types of Entertainment

    As an individual with mild asperger's syndrome, I am constantly trying to break things up into discernible, unmistakeable elements to try and make some sort of sense of the almost endless, inherent complexities of life. I have tormented people demanding they make completely clear what they mean when they talk because I can't pick up on all social cues. I have passionately argued that the way we talk to be geared more towards people like me so that a condition that is ultimately not our fault doesn't cause us to be "left behind." (Yeah, it's selfish.) I have also developed a theory about the human condition that objectively speaking, we cannot better anything and no options are "better" than others. They are simply alternatives with equal upsides and downsides, and I've come to identify many behaviors that society cherishes as being similar to other behaviors that society frowns upon. For instance, I have been arguing for years that confidence and arrogance are at least more difficult to distinguish from each other than most would have us believe, and at worst two sides of the exact same coin. (The only clearly distinguishing factor between the two seems to be that when one succeeds at his goals or turns out to be right, s/he is called confident, and if s/he does not succeed or turns out to be wrong, s/he is called arrogant.)
    I feel that most entertainment or "art" falls between two extremes: substance and style. Neither of these can dictate whether a work is considered "good" or "bad"; they simply describe the work. This is how I define them:
    Substance is the technical specs and the literal, clearly distinguished aspects that do things differently from other works. Innovation is one of the primary words associated with it. Depth is another. Characters that feel realistic and are not generally cardboard cut-outs--especially with regards to being good or bad--tend to populate movies, books, and games of substance. Some examples of substance-oriented entertainment include the movie "Pan's Labyrinth," the Zelda video games, most Mario games, and classic novels like To Kill a Mockingbird and A Tale of Two Cities.
    Style is a bit harder to define. I think the best way to describe it is that sort of "popping off the page" effect. It's kind of like taking elements that have already been done before and presenting them in a way that just comes across as appealing. In forms of entertainment like movies and video games, it involves things like matching up music with what's happening on screen and--in the case of action films--creating unpredictable choreography. In the case of literal artwork, it involves the inclusion of little details that make  the picture "come to life," such as bright colors and shadow effects. In books and movies, it more often contains characters that are less lifelike, more simple, and the reason for this is usually because the focus is on the quick pace of the story or the action on screen. Some examples of entertainment focused more on style are many Disney films, particularly the action flicks of Jerry Bruckheimer (Pirates of the Carribbean, Deja Vu, National Treasure), the Indiana Jones films, the video game series Devil May Cry, many anime TV shows such as Dragon Ball Z, and the Dirk Pitt Adventures written by Clive Cussler.
   Virtually all entertainment is not clearly defined into one category or the other. It all falls somewhere between pure substance and pure style, even if each work tends to lean more in one direction than the other. An almost perfect balance of the two is extremely rare. While it doesn't always lead to this, many works that fall in that well balanced area come to be regarded as the finest entertainment works of our time. Some examples of entertainment that I consider well balanced include the phenomenal movie "The Dark Knight," the video game "Final Fantasy X," and the novels of Michael Crichton and Dan Brown. (To be fair, many of the characters in Crichton novels tend to be interchangeable with characters in his other novels, but the mere scientific feasibility of his ideas is, for me, so engrossing that I can't say I really care.)
   In case I haven't been clear about what I consider substance and style to be, I'm going to present a metaphor that I think is quite accurate: relationships. The "substance" of a relationship with someone you love is the compatibility, the similarities, the appreciation for the individual's personality and values. In a relationship composed exclusively of substance, the significant other also tends to be your best friend. The "style" of a relationship is the fiery red hot passion, often associated with looks. It is the part that is more likely to be driven by hormones and sexuality. In a relationship composed exclusively of style, the significant other is--for me at least--something to obsess over and desire constantly in the sexual sense. The best relationships, naturally, fall as close to the middle of these extremes as possible. To summarize, in a relationship of extreme "substance" but no "style," there's a meaningful connection as friends but no desire for each other, and in a relationship of extreme "style" but no substance, there is desire for one another but not much else.
    The kind of enjoyment that can be gained from each type of entertainment is something that I feel can be distinguished as well. For me, entertainment that leans more towards substance provides a nice steady warmth that you can usually rely on to last for the entire duration of the experience. Often, good substance keeps something from getting dull over the "long haul." For me, entertainment that leans more towards style provides something that hits really hard and fast, often eliciting a response from me like, "Oh wow! That's awesome!" In the case of action movies--a genre that I believe frequently features more style than substance--it is accompanied by adrenalin rushes. The catch for style-oriented entertainment is that, despite providing a bigger high than the substance-oreinted stuff, it's often a one-trick pony. For instance, most action flicks I see are really fun the first time, but on second viewings have lost most of their appeal. Why? In my opinion, it's because now I know what's going to happen in the car chase or how the choreography is going to play out. In summary, substance provides a low but steady high similar to what one gets reading a good, lengthy novel, and style provides an abrupt, intense high akin to using cocaine or other drugs.
    I think it's easy to see why an entertainer should strive to straddle the fence between the two types.  Create something with too much substance in it and you'll wind up with something so fleshed out that no time is spent drawing in the consumer. In many cases, you could lose the consumer in the plethora of details that leave nothing unexplained or to the imagination. Create something with too much style in it and the consumer will be drawn into a world that is alive but seemingly unfinished or cliched.  Create something that balances the two extremes, and you wind up with something that starts at a lower high, sometimes goes to abrupt, intense peaks, and then goes back to the lower high. You get something that contains enough technical prowess to feel fleshed out and enough life to keep the consumer involved.
    Let me remind you, the reader, that this is just the general method I think one should follow to create something that has greater potential to last and please more consumers. That, however, does not mean that leaning in one direction more than the other makes your entertainment less worthwhile; it merely make it worthwhile in different ways.
    One of the things that often frustrates me about entertainment critics is that they seem to be almost exclusively interested in substance and give little credit for succeeding with style. It aggravates me even more because stylized games like Devil May Cry score so well with critics while other stylized games like P.N. 03 and 3D Sonic the Hedgehog games get panned, despite each containing the same rough amount of substance. Many Jerry Bruckheimer films get a lot of criticism too, while superhero flicks with similar amounts of style like Spider Man and Spider Man 2 score well, despite having almost identical frameworks. The only genuine explanation I can come up with for why is because entertainment critics are incapable of seeing when they've gotten so absorbed in something for its abrupt, intense qualities and when they're having fun because of more substance-oriented stuff. As such, they seem to group games like Devil May Cry and films like Spider Man with other things of substance. My more cynical and angry side likes to think this is because they don't want to admit that they've fallen for something of style cause that would mean looking in the mirror and acknowledging that they're attitudes aren't always right. Thank heavens I'm not alone in my appreciation of style. If it weren't for the many consumers that enjoy stylized things, we'd probably see a whole lot less of them. And frankly, I think it's a shame the critics can't appreciate what style brings to everything. But then, given how elitist many of them seem to be, I guess I shouldn't be surprised.
    I'd like to conclude with one final comparison for those who might have remained lost for the entirety of this essay:
    -Substance causes us to say "Neato" repeatedly for a long time
    -Style causes us to say "Awesome!" a few times for a short while
  
    Thanks for reading. :)

My Book Proposal

    In the world today, there is way too much one-sided thinking, even among those who are smart. It has infected, it seems, most everything in our culture, from politics to entertainment to even our personal lives. While it can't always be avoided, it's rather frustrating to me just how little people seem to care or how unwilling they are to at least try to keep an open mind about things. I have--over the years--written a bunch of essays on various subjects, many of which relate to this topic. They question typical arguments made by people about political attitudes, critical talking points about video games and other entertainment mediums, and even feature an essay about why people shouldn't have to clean up their room all the time.
    Because I'm being lazy and want to tie this into some other projects I'm working on, I'd like to propose taking these essays and compiling them in a book. It's not the most creative idea, I know, but with a little imagination I believe I'll be able to come up with something creative for my cover. I'm thinking something that will be simple and yet convey a lot. How I'll do that I don't know, but I'll figure it out.
   If this proposal is unacceptable, I COULD use this as an opportunity to get myself to finish--or at least continue--writing one of my stories. If that works better, I'm thinking of doing a cover with anime characters should the story be a fantasy or a simple photograph with some window dressing of some kind if I'm writing a romance.
   Anyway, that's my pitch. Let me know what you think. :)

Reflections on Poster Projects

    Alright, after an embarassing performance last week, I'm back. Sadly, due to trouble sleeping and a lack of discipline, I had to take it down to the wire again. But I'm MUCH happier with my work this week, and that's what really matters to me.
    I chose to do a movie poster and a propoganda poster. Why? Well, the first major idea I had basically just fit well into the whole "movie poster" idea, though technically, it's NOT for a movie, but a TV show. My reasons for choosing the propoganda poster amounted to my limited time. While I DID have an idea, the reason I ended up doing it is because I knew I could do it quickly with a limited palette. This has resulted in two posters that one could argue are polar opposites to each other, but DO cover the same general subject.
    Here we go:

    So here's my first poster. I specifically stole a bunch of photos and logos, roughly half from liberal sources and the other half from conservative sources. Then I took a picture of myself with my arms thrown up in a kind of "Who do I believe?" gesture. To make this poster work, I intentionally piled on a bunch of pictures to provide a sort of sensory overload that tends to catch MY attention. I presumed it would do the same for others. At the very least, the plethora of familiar faces on the poster should catch someone's eye. My reason for creating this poster is because in general, I've become quite frustrated with everything our media tells us that we're supposed to take without question. I'm even MORE aggravated by how anything that doesn't conveniently play into somebody's closed-minded view of the world can be dismissed with the possibly legitimate argument that it is the result of corrupt or biased sources. Even what's taught in our schools today is allegedly colored by a "liberalized" agenda. Some even call it brainwashing. Most of these people conveniently disregard the possibility that the same thing has happened to them, which is more than I can say for myself.

    Anyway, that's why I made this poster. I REALLY wish there WERE some sort of rational person who specifically went through the thousands of hours of stuff spewed by our media every year and separated the garbage from the facts. One could argue that that's precisely what many of those sources I list are doing, but in my opinion, virtually all of them has shown a significant political leaning, so I don't think they're reliable as unbiased sources.

    It might seem weird that I used colored text to convey the name of my show and the time it's on, but I had good reasons for it. The first is that a less colorful text would have been harder to read against the chaotic background I made. The second is that it conveyed something a little less serious, which goes well with my expression on here. The show itself is supposed to be one of seriousness mixed with comedic elements, which come from making fun of the things said by these various establishments.

   It may be a bit chaotic, but I think this poster works well.

   

    You see all those little specs surrounding the different pics in this poster? That's how down to the wire I was making this. I had to put it together in an hour. As a result of necessity, this turned into a fairly simple poster. Fortunately, that's precisely what propoganda posters are supposed to be. For me, the key to this entire thing, however, is the filter I put over it. It's called Chalk and Charcoal. Every one of these pics was colored before I filtered them with it. This ensured a limited palette. I put a gradient across the back to add to the effect, and the letters in the text each had an individual shade I chose to make sure they were readable.

    I was planning to put the blue and red colors of Obama's campaign posters across the back, but I didn't have the time to remove all the color from the pictures and make them transparent against the gradient. I had to settle for black and white. Truth be told, I actually think this worked in its favor. I had to use the magic wand tool a great deal more than my other projects. There was a ton of stuff surrounding the basic pictures of the subjects that I needed to remove. As you can see, I didn't get all of it.

    Sadly, there actually ARE people who compare Obama to Hitler. Even more aggravating: they have some legitimate points. If you search Google for propoganda, you will find many of his posters among the results. To suggest that Obama is a Hitler strikes me as extreme, but the open-minded person must always consider everything.

CLOSING COMMENTS:

    I'm satisfied--not thrilled--with what I put together here. To date, I still feel that my third project (Type) is my best. This isn't as good as I wanted it to be, but I think it's still good. I just hope this isn't our last weekly project, cause I don't feel I've completely redeemed my prior week's work. LOL :)

Reflections on Picture Project

    Okay, truth time. I stressed myself out way too much this week, putting things off unnecessarily and trying to cobble together some things for my other classes. So I don't have anything really good to show for this weeks project. Every one of these photos has not been touched up or manipulated in Photoshop. So these photos are pretty much my attempt to salvage as many of the points as I can, though I'm pretty certain I will not be able to salvage them all, and personally, given my lack of effor this week, I don't honestly WANT all the points. But enough about my week; let's talk about my photos.

ALPHABET SOUP

    So I was walking down the road looking for stuff to photograph. There were plenty of opportunities that I found, but this one just seemed to genuinely stand out. It's a very unusually shaped mailbox, and luckily for me, it's in the shape of a C. But I think the major reason this one stands out for me is because the C shape isn't so much present as it is implied. The mailbox is actually shaped as the "outside" of a C would look, not the way a C actually is. Yet looking at the picture, it's quite easy to see a...uh...C in it. So this one could potentially be my favorite.

   I walked outside and discovered that my leaves had fallen that way! No, really! Okay, okay. So I set them up this way. But so what? I think this photo works very well. The K is clearly contrasted against the grass due to the color of the leaves. It just looks good.

    Where do you go if you're looking for the letter H? I don't know, but I'm guessing a train track isn't the first choice people come up with. As with the K, this one had to be set up a little. While I was walking the tracks, I found a chunk of wood to lay across the center of two planks. I had to add a slight sliver on the left end to complete the middle of the letter, but it still looks very much like an H to me, and perhaps it's even a little creative.

   Okay, so maybe I cheated here, but if it weren't for the white line running parallel to the letter, I think you'd be forgiven for thinking that this was just something I found on the road to my house. If it's not obvious, it's an R. The white letter has worn down so much that it really does look like it's just part of the concrete.

   Finally, here's a Y. It's quite possibly the least creative place you can find one. But hey, in a crunch, it's a fine place to look for one.

PORTRAITURE

    And this is the last photo I'll be uploading. I simply didn't find the time to take the other two I was supposed to. I am, however, quite pleased with the way this one turned out, and I'll be using it on my YouTube channel when I have a chance to. It does a fairly good job of making me look fierce, which is what I was going for. And my shirt is supposed to be very significant as well. (My YouTube persona is a werewolf named Cachinscythe.) So I'm really happy with this one.

CONCLUDING COMMENTS:

    I did not have time to alter the lighting effects or color in Photoshop. Instead, I simply had to use the light provided by the environment I took the photos in. Fortunately, it provided me with the exact look I wanted each photo to have. I didn't get to crop any of my photos either, which disappoints me. There are aspects that I would have preferred to focus better. Overall, I learned more from the Alphabet Soup portion of my project, if for no other reason than that I did more of it.

    So that's all I've got. Barring some sort of catastrohpic event, I am going to ensure that this does not happen again. Because I am NOT happy with how much got done here or the lack of effort I displayed here.

Reflections on Type Projects

It's time for a new style of essay. Today, instead of doing separate posts for my projects and essay, I'm going to mix the two together. It's probably more efficient that way anyway.  In addition, because I feel like it, I'm going to take the time to explain the processes I went through for each individual image while doing my best to simultaneously answer the reflective essay questions. Enough exposition, let's get started!

This was my first attempt at rasterizing a type to create a picture. As you can see, the letter C was used. It's supposed to be a flower of some kind.  Each C represents a petal. You may notice that I didn't bother removing the stroke from any of the individual C's. I did that on purpose to make clear which letter I was using. While I think the general look of this pic is appealing, I don't really like it. In terms of overall work, this one just feels a little incomplete I guess. Granted, I don't know what I could do to make it better as the entirety of the pic is basically covered with something; I just feel like there's not enough detail. Still, I should probably give myself points for trying to be a little creative in the way I used the C's here.

Now THIS is where I started to get my groove. I began this one planning to use the letter Z. I tried several fonts on screen before I settled on this one. I didn't have any idea what I was going to do with it, but once I made my choice and played with it a little, I realized that it looked very much like a little running man. Having already made a mirror of the large letter, I ALSO realized that it was like two people rushing each other. Just like a sports game. And suddenly, I had an idea! I chose two contrasting colors for the two big Z's, put them against a green background, made 11 smaller Z's apiece for each side, and placed them in a football formation. I actually went online to see if I could find some specific formations to base their positioning on, but ultimately I just went with rough approximations. After I'd finished, I felt the picture was still a little empty, so I added a bunch of teammates to function as top and bottom "borders." In terms of creative use of a letter, I'd say this is probably my favorite pic of the ones I did, but as a picture, I still feel like there's some other little detail I should have added. Overall, I'm quite satisfied how this one turned out.

I conceived this one as I was finishing the last one. In considering what letters to use, I suddenly thought of using upside down V's for mountains and little teepee huts. I figured they'd be okay as clouds too. That was the plan when I sat down to start, but on a whim, I tried stretching out the first upside down V I created all the way across the screen, and not only did I like it, but it made me realize that I'd chosen the correct font as well. (There's something about the bottom of this V that just looks right as the peak of a mountain.) So I changed my plan from "mountains" to "mountain." After I had the mountain in there, I went to work on the clouds. They took the longest to put together because I wanted to make sure each was distinguished despite having to use the same letter on each of them. To do that, I spent a LOT of time recopying tiny upside down V's and placing them individually in each of the clouds. In retrospect, I might not have needed to do that, but I'm a stickler for detail. I just wish copying those V's over and over hadn't been so TEDIOUS! Well, after I finished with the clouds, I made some more miniature V's--this time upside down--to put on the mountainside. These aren't as small as the ones I put in the clouds. I have left it up to the imagination of the viewer whether they are tikis or trees. As a picture that genuinely pops off the page with color, I'd say this is my favorite picture. In terms of making creative use of the letter, I'd say this comes in second. However, as an idea for a picture goes, this almost rates on the same level as my "flower." Landscapes--especially of mountains--have been done to death in the art world, I'd imagine. Like I said, though, I DO think the color scheme here works really well and makes it better than it should be, and I REALLY like how the clouds turned out.

Now that I've got three pics in the bag, I'm running low on time, but I don't wanna drop my creativity completely off a cliff to compensate for that. (I've actually only got four hours left before the RCC lab closes when I begin work on this one. Knowing that I've got to get SOMETHING down, I quickly choose a letter that I think lends itself easily to a project like this one: I. It's straight and simple, easy to use for almost any idea you might conceive. Because I'm tired of doing longer shorter pics, I actively choose to make this new one taller and thinner. As I type the I in a font big enough to cover the entire space, I get an idea: marble pillars. I paint the letter gray as a starting point, then copy the thing, change the color of the copy to white, and use free transform to make it absurdly thin and stretch it out vertically to cover the whole "I." In the process, it becomes clear that I'm going to have to draw on some knowledge from my old Photoshop class. See, I want these  white I's to be on a layer above the large gray one, but I don't want them to cover all the space OUTSIDE of the big I. Therefore, when I finish positioning all my white I's, I choose the ones that aren't completely in the lines, got to the Layer pull down menu, and choose "Create Clipping Mask." BINGO! All the stretched out white is gone just like that, and I'm left with a good looking marble pillar. In the process, I discover that the base of these white I's is too tall, effectively making the bottom completely white, so I pick them all again, choose "Free Transform" from the Edit menu, and stretch them out some more. From there, it becomes a simple game of copying the original and downsizing it. Originally, I intended to make the additional pillars look like they were on the same level but farther away. I realized quickly that it wasn't going to be very easy to pull off that illusion. Instead, I just started stacking them on each other. Not very creative, but it ended up looking good. Unfortunately, this is where things started to get a little frustrating, cause more than any of the other pics I did, this one demanded very precise positioning down to the pixel, and this led me to having to do a lot of zooming in and out as well as selecting with the dotted box to delete little imperfections. Given my time crunch, it was the last thing I needed right then. Eventually I figured it all out, though, and after that I copied and downsized the pillars one more time to cover the remaining background space and then put in a dark gray background the same color as the pillars. In terms of overall completeness, effective use of a limited palette, and overall balance, this is my favorite picture. I don't feel like any space was wasted--unlike the previous three--and I'm glad I didn't have to add a third or fourth color to keep things from blending in too much. The level of technical creativity might not be as high for this one, but it's close enough to keep me from being bothered. Yes, I am VERY happy with this little picture of mine.

And now, at long last, we come to my final picture. Let me get this out of the way: I'm pissed off about it. No, not because I don't like it and not because I feel like it's unfinished. It's really the opposite. What happened was this: I had maybe 30 minutes left before the lab closed. I'd already made a decision about which letter I was going to use. With no time to put anything significant together, I grab the "Warp" option from "Transform" in the Edit menu and stretch out my letter, playing with it. I choose a couple colors that have received minimal representation in my prior pics and put one in the background and the other on the letter. Now, with even less time left, I decide that the only significant idea I haven't employed yet that is typical in pics of this sort is a shadow. Recalling what I've learned from my old PS class, I copy the letter, paint it black, and move it behind the yellow one. After that, I start playing with the various transform tools to see what I think would look good. Unable to make up my mind on which would be best, I finally just decide to use THREE of them by copying the black letter two more times. One of these I distort into a shadow on the ground, one I simply shift a little to give a slight 3D impression to the yellow S, and the third I twist with the perspective option creating something akin to a butterfly. And for crying out loud, I wind up with something that seems to work better than any of the other pics I've spent HOURS working on. It is NOT my favorite, but it somehow reaches an almost perfect balance without being too simple, and if the lab aide is to be believed it's the best of the bunch. The idea that my best picture is one I cobbled together in less than 30 minutes is one that infuriates me. What did I waste all those hours for if I could have made something better in a tenth of the time?! And as I said, it seems to be somehow perfectly balanced. All the space is covered, the colors work well, my choice of font gives the picture a lot of character (By the way, it's an S in an old english font of some kind.), and it even has a touch of the unusual in that strange distortion passing for a butterfly in front of it. This has turned otu to be a crowning jewel of sorts to my work, as much as it pains me to admit it.

CLOSING THOUGHTS AND ANSWERS TO THE QUESTIONS:
Every one of my letters in these assignments with very few exceptions got rasterized so I could give them strokes and play with the colors. This benefited my compositions a great deal in my opinion.  The letters themselves were mostly chosen for "functionality" purposes (C was an easy way to start, V was the only way I could make the landscape, and both S and I just seem well suited to doing something like this.). There was only one exception to that : Z. I chose it because my name and family are synonymous with that letter. The typefaces that I used were chosen before I began the compositions, but I did spend a fair bit of time trying out the different faces to make sure I'd chosen a good one before I began any of them. I did not keep track of which ones had serif and sans-serif font faces.

Reflections on Toy Project

I made a decision when I first began this project: I was going to make this as simple as possible for myself.  The reason is because I had homework to deal with in two other classes that was kind of pressing.  As such, when I sat down to work on this project on Tuesday, I quickly decided that I was going to do a papercraft rendition of Samus Aran from the Metroid series.  With the decision of what to do out of the way, I should have been able to do a good job without thinking too much about it.

Of course, my warped state of mind has once again led me to make it more than it should have been to begin with.  The result is in my prior blog, and it feels incomplete.  You might notice that there’s quite a bit of detail put into the left and right arms while the detail in the other parts is scant or minimal.  That’s because I tried to put too much into the project again, as I am apparently incapable of doing otherwise!  Still, regardless of what grade I receive, I feel a sort of joyful satisfaction at my accomplishment, and if I had time, I’d REALLY like to get back into the studio and work on this more.

The colors used here were all stolen directly from photos of Samus Aran. (If you are unfamiliar with the character, search Google for “Samus varia suit” or just use this link: http://www.google.com/images?um=1&hl=en&biw=1345&bih=530&tbs=isch%3A1&sa=1&q=Samus+varia+suit&aq=f&aqi=g1&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai= ) I took four photos of her suit—one from the side, one angled to the other side, one from the front, and one from the back—and posted them on the Photoshop project on a layer titled “reference.”  This time I was a little more careful to make the colors match up and contrast better, but I was more interested in simply getting the colors accurate.  The concepts of hue, saturation, and value did not come into play much, though I did keep my eye on the small color variations when I zoomed in. (If I recall, we were supposed to keep the colors flat.)

Right from the beginning, my vow to keep it simple fell flat, as I found myself delighted by the thought of including all sorts of details.  My approach meant that when I finished the project, I had a really good looking right arm and a fairly good looking left arm, but it also meant that I didn’t have half of the stuff colored and ready on a basic level by the time the RCC campus closed.  I was forced to slap some color onto the legs without any detail at all, and though I did manage to get the breastplate looking fairly good, it had to be cobbled together fairly quickly too.  My approach of “detail first” has left me with a project that is kind of incomplete, even if it fulfills its basic purposes.

I like what I pulled off here, but it's left me all too aware that I need to get some sort of schedule in place that's going to help me finish what I start.

Toy Project (Samus Aran)



In most cultures, this is known as "biting off more than you can chew"



Reflections on Scratch Projects

Sometimes I wish it was possible for me to do something without needing to put in effort that attempts to make it extraordinary, especially when it comes to things I’m not inherently good at to begin with, such as drawing.  But then, of course, I take a look at the results that my perfectionism has provided me with and I remember why it is that I haven’t tried to correct it.  It’s just a shame that sometimes my vision doesn’t coalesce with what the teachers ask for.  A distinct possibility here.

I was faced with a significant problem going into this first assignment, and that was the two year gap between the last time I used Photoshop, which was when I got a C in the class at RCC.  Actually, that was just the first problem.  The second was that I earned an A in Computer Illustration, meaning I was better at using Adobe Illustrator, and since the two applications use similar tools, I found myself trying to do things with Photoshop that I couldn’t.  All things considered, I went into this project thinking that I knew a fair bit about Photoshop, but I wasn’t expecting to feel completely comfortable with it.  Since I pretty much gave up following the aide’s instructions just a short ways into the lab, I’d say it’s safe to say I was either lost or overconfident or maybe a little of both.

Regardless, I managed to cobble together three images I’m quite happy with, even if they would have worked better in Illustrator.  When the lab began on Tuesday, I had no idea what I was going to do for my project.  Playing around with Photoshop got my wheels turning, though I ultimately had to scrap my initial image due to an instance of stupidity. (A NOTE TO THE COMPUTER ILLITERATE: If you want to be able to access your work at a later time, make sure it’s your account that you’re signed into, rather than just using whatever account is already functioning on the computer.) As I found when I did projects in Photoshop and Illustrator back at RCC, I went into each of my images with a basic idea for what I wanted to do but the details kind of fell into place as I worked on them.

Personally, I think the second image I did is my favorite.  It’s the words “scratch project” repeated over and over again in various fonts and colors.  However, I think it’s also the one that follows the guidelines least.  In the spirit of giving the thing more oomph, I probably used too many different colors and went against the “limited palette” rules as a result, including some small technical gaffs in how well certain colors mesh with the background.  When it comes to deciding whether things are finished, I think it’s really a matter of just how you feel about it.  When I felt like I’d thrown enough stuff into the drawing without making it too cluttered and mixing it up properly, I decided it was finished.  It was easier with the other two images, as I had a bit more of a structure in mind with them.

In the end, I made three images I'm quite satisfied with and I'm really looking forward to doing more things in this class. :)

My First Projects (Scratch)

My colorful initials

Some might refer to this as "Being a smartass"

I'm guessing that if you mixed a bullseye with a solar system orbit and an atom model, you'd get this.