Assignment 1: Myself as a character

As mentioned, for this task the class had to produce a drawn image ofourselves as a character from a video game series of our choice.
The game series I chose was Sonic the Hedgehog by Sega. The reason for this is that I'm a big fan of that series.

Before picking Sonic I thought of a few other series. One was Grand Theft Auto by Rockstar games. I soon realised that drawing myself as a character from Grand Theft Auto would not be very different from a normal drawing of me as the series imitates and satires real life.
Another series was Pokemon, made by Game Freak. I didn't choose this series as I felt that to make it look like pokemon, an actual pokemon would have to be drawn. I didn't think I could draw a pokemon that well being so early in the course.

For the image I drew myself as an employee to Dr Eggman, the main villain to the Sonic series. I couldn't draw myself as good as all of the good characters are usually animals. I had a lab coat, a spanner to mend robots and a shirt that says "Eggman Land" on it.
There are two versions of the image, one draen on paper, one drawn in photoshop. The one drawn in photoshop is cleaner but the one on paper has more details linked to the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise.

Here Is the new image. The main difference being that the second one iscleaner as it was done on photoshop. I'll upload the older image later when it's available for comparison.

 

Creative thinking overview

It's time to talk about my portfolio. I'm typing this on a phone so I don't have the pictures available at the moment.

I'll go through the assignments in order with a brief description of each. There will be a blog post for each later with the images included.

Assignment 1: Myself as a character - For this assignment it was asked that I drew an image of myself as part of a video game series. It was to test my ability to draw humans in proportion.

Assignment 2: Photoshop Test - As few people in the class had used photoshop or a tablet before, this was used as a practice of proportion (like assignment 1) in photoshop.

Assignment 3: Colour and Light - This was where we learned about colour and shading, depending on the location of the light source. I drew the head and sholders of a man. He had grey hair and a white shirt with an orange tie. I'll go into more detail in that blog post.

Assignment 4: Shape and Silhouette - Here we learned that the overall shape of a character can determine their character. We also added the idea that you could create a character easily from a silhouette by erasing away the detail.

Assignment 5: Working in 3D - Up to this point we had only worked on photoshop so had not really considered different angles and such when designing our work. So, we were tasked with creating a model using fimo clay, wire and tinfoil.

Assignment 6: Heroes and Villains - I've already posted the partially complete villain but part of the assignment was to also create a hero and a backstory for both.

This Cat is Evil

Here is the villainous Cat For the Heroes and Villains assignment, found out that only one of the characters had to be coloured, but here is a concept of the main villain who has yet to receive a name. He also has no legs. I'll post a little more information on him when I post the hero, Mr Nefarious.

Not a lot going on here

I haven't written much on this section of the blog. I will post art when I have a starter portfolio prepared, which should be next week.
This year, there will be work to display based on myself as a game character (anatomy), using photoshop, colour and light, silouettes, sculpting and heroes and villains.
There should be posts of the work by next friday.

3DS Max First Assignment

Here are the texture and model I've been working on as my first assignment in 3DS Max. Texturing was the most difficult and time consuming part. Here is a link to the images, models and textures: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/2gnkr4gh3idxcmb/N7hYZA9wxp

Historical Design Essay Skeleton Draft

Futurism: The Art Movement that Looked to the future and Never Looked Back

Here are the main points my essay will take:

References will be put at the end of the essay in the actual thing. The references for people are wikipedia for now, but will be changed to appropriate websites when I research more into the people behind Futurism.

- The origins of the movement:

+Italy 1909, The main creator was Filippo Tommaso Marinetti.
(http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/365371/Filippo-Tommaso-Marinetti)

+ Marinetti said the phrase came from his emphasis on discarding what he conceived to be the static and irrelevant art of the past and celebrating change, originality, and innovation in culture and society. (http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/glo/futurism/)

+ He wrote the Futurist Manifesto (http://masi.cscs.lsa.umich.edu/~crshalizi/T4PM/futurist-manifesto.html) which notes down the aspects of the movement.

+ The manifesto was first published on 5th February 1909.

+ Artists Umberto Boccioni, Carlo Carrà, Giacomo Balla, Gino Severini and the composer Luigi Russolo. Joined Martinetti soon after the manifesto was p[ublished a second time on the 20th February 1909.

- What the movement meant:

+ Marinetti hated things which were old and admired new technologies such as cars planes, trains and machinery in general. This was the main influence of futurism.

- Futurist Architechture:

+ Antonio Sant'Elia  was the most famous futurist architect -

Perspective drawing from La Città Nuova, 1914.

+ Futurist Architecture has extra features which seem useless but add to the aesthetic appeal of the building.

- Art movements influenced by Futurism:

+ Art Deco: Futurism forms derived chiefly from Cubism were used to represent rapid movements and dynamic motion; showing hostility to traditional forms of expression (http://www.richeast.org/htwm/artists/AC/artdeco.html)

+ Constructivism: This movement came around the Russian Communist revolution, where radical change was seen as necessary and so, constructivism took some inspiration from futurism to highlight modern life at the time.

+ Surrealism & Dada: Both of these movements came about and were popular at arround the same time as futurism. As these movements had influence over a lot of Europe, it was obvious that these movements would meet and take inspiration from one another. These movements where French, whereas Futurism was Italian, being so close together meant that influence between them must have happened.

- Futurism and controversy:

+ Futurism has had links to fascism.

+ Futurists liked change even if it is violent, such as both world wars which were welcomed by them.

- Modern futurism:

+This is futurism after world war 2.

+ Modern futurism is more of a philosophy than an art movement, suggesting where society should go and how it should evolve. Through violence.

+ An art Exhibit called Futurism 2.0 is based on modern futurism.

Historical Design Essay Plan

Futurism: The Art Movement that Looked to the future and Never Looked Back

Both of the other two art movements I looked at briefly on my blog are directly related to games. As this essay can not be related to games, the only option is the early 1900's futurist movement.

As stated on my blog, I like futurism because of the fact that I like industry. I used to sit in history and think about how boring it was and how it would be more interesting to learn about the future (if that was possible). The way in which futurism disregards most of the past and tries to look towards the future is a good way to live. The only problem is that sometimes you may need to look to the past for the best inspiration. Even researching futurism is looking into the past.

Futurist architecture is great as it throws out all of the old rules of design and decides on what is new and different. The look of the building is a key part of futurist architecture, they look aesthetically pleasing and offer a feeling of industry and effort.

I guess you could say that I like futurism as I share the same admirations it possesses. They are technology such as cars, aeroplanes and other machinery which came around in the early 20^th century. It was a good time to be alive in terms of progress, as many things changed in the world in the first half of the century, some for the better, some for the worse.

Futurism is also interesting as it has so much to talk about. For example, according to www.futurism.org/ , futurism is a religion in which scientific endeavours and new technology research are western cultures biggest goals/priorities. Futurism also had links to fascism before world war 2 as it shared some of the same ideals.

Futurism avoided being influenced by the past, and managed to influence other great art movements of the future. These are: Art Deco, Constructivism, Surrealism, Dada, Precisionism, Rayonism and Vorticism.

Key Research areas:

The futurists manifesto – this shows what the first people within the movement thought of it and where the movement started from inside them. What inspired them. From the words of F. T. Marinetti , one of the founders of futurism.

http://masi.cscs.lsa.umich.edu/~crshalizi/T4PM/futurist-manifesto.html

Wikipedia for bare bones information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futurism

Information about the religion based on futurism: www.futurism.org/

Futurism 2.0 - A modern look at Futurism: http://www.futurism2-0.com/

Wikipedia page on futurist architecture, my favourite aspect of Futurism:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futurist_architecture