My Art: Galatic Federation PED Marine

This is a drawing I made in Photoshop and Illustrator of a Galactic Federation Marine as seen in the Metroid Prime games. I made extensive use of the gradient tool to color in the sections. This is my first serious attempt at making digital art (not counting my quickly drawn Samus) and I'm most pleased with it. I'll be quite now and let you take a look at it.

Artist Focus: Paul Vermeesch

Paul Vermeesch is a 17 year old homeschooled artist who works with the mediums of photography and Lego.

This was a commission of the Charlevoix Public Library, which is located in Michigan. It's highly detailed and very faithful for the accuracy compared to the real building.

This is titled Star Wars: Relativity, and is based off of the classic M.C. Escher's print. It has working lighting and tells the classic star wars story in counterclockwise. The variety of building techniques used is quite astounding and I think I can safely say that Paul has constructed a very visually interesting and funny piece of art.

 

This photograph was titled Equine Sunset, and depicts a horse grazing in a field with a truly stunning sunset occurring in the background. I really love the effect Paul captured.

 

  

 

If you are interested in seeing more of Paul's work, it can be found here: http://paulvermeesch.com/

My Art: Unfinished Link Riding Epona

This is a picture I drew roughly one year ago, but for one reason or another sadly never got around to finishing. I'm hoping to complete it someway but have yet to get around to doing so. It does need some refinement here and there along with more coloring, but I think it will look nice when/if it ever does get finished.

Launching the Imagination: Chapter 9 - My thoughts

Chapter 9 of our book was on the basic elements of three-dimensional design, and overall this was a large chapter that mainly went over information that a student should already know from previous art classes.

Topics such as form (and the various types of form ranging from reliefs to free standing works),  line in its relationship to 3D space, and plane were all early topics. Volume and mass were discussed in how they can effect how we view a piece. Texture was briefly discussed in how just changing what the surface of an object is like radically changes how it is perceived.

The chapter ended with discussing both light and color, which are very closely related. Lighting is extremely important for work shown in installations or for adding value to sculpture, so it is something that should be put into consideration. As for color, it is truly amazing just how much specific artistic choices while using it change the dynamics of a piece. The right color scheme is absolutely essential to convey the message that you are trying to deliver and can communicate information in subtle but influential ways.

The majority of the information of this chapter was simply a refresher, although I will admit that it was nice to have one for a change after the last few chapters that covered more complicated topics.

My Art:Legend of Zelda Sketches

These are two sketches I made for fun a while back. The first image is a Goron, a humanoid creature made of stone (sort  of like a golem but not really).

 

 

 

This ferocious plant is known as the Deku Baba. It resembles the real-life Venus fly trap, but it is large enough be a threat to people. Of my two pictures, this is my favorite due to the interesting colors and dynamic pose.

 

Artist Focus: A second visti of DarklordIIID's work

Surprise! I decided that even though I had shared three of DarklordIIID's renders in my previous Artist Focus that there were more than enough to show three more. Without further ado, let's take a look.

This was titled Taking a Breather, and it depicts the Legend of Zelda's hero Link taking time off from saving the Kingdom with his partner Midna to take a break next to a river. There are many things I like about this, where do I start? First off, it's very symmetrical, with a bridge with sloping banks on both sides making up the foreground. This symmetry makes the piece subconsciously more peaceful to viewers. The colors are all very natural looking and the lighting is basic but does it's job. I do appreciate the detail DarklordIIID put into this, it looks fairly photorealistic. Finally, this image clearly demonstrates the bond between Midna and Link that has developed slowly but surely during their quest.

This is titled The Kingdom of Hyrule, and features the famous Hyrule Castle located by a large body of water that is likely Lake Hylia. I do believe that the effects of the sun setting in the background are downright gorgeous and quite realistic looking. The water is believable enough, although I must say that the castle's location relevant the landscape does make it seem rather isolated. Anyway, I think that this is a good atmospheric picture that features some excellent color.

This piece was titled Waterfall, and it depicts the character Ilia taking a relaxing nap next to a spring deep in the forest of Ordon. I'm of the opinion that it's a very peaceful picture. The twin trees add balance to the work, the colors are all cool, and there is little drama occurring. Ilia's pose if fairly natural and I think the lighting is pretty decent. If I had any complaint it would be that the titular waterfall looks far less realistic than the rest of the semi-realistic artstyle of the picture.

Launching the Imagination: Chapter 8 - My Thoughts

Chapter 8 of our book is titled Constructing Meaning, a subject I admit I admittedly have occasionally found difficult to achieve with my work. The chapter opens with a discussion on how to create a relationship between one's work and the audience and demonstrated exactly what is needed so that when art is seen that it's meaning will be conveyed. Stuff like whether or not any symbolism that one has used in a piece can be understood by the audience is something that definitely needs to be kept in mind.

Next up was both Context and Connections, which are similar and both relate the art with something else in the world. For example, a piece of art might reference a famous person or have a representational metaphor. These are a good way to make the meaning of representational art clear. The book does go over aesthetics, but I am of the opinion that as long as they are not abstract that virtually any aesthetic can be used successfully if used thoughtfully. That is not to say that one can simply use any aesthetic carelessly or at random, but that a wide variety of styles can succeed, albeit not necessarily conveying the message in the same way.

Finally, the chapter closes with a short discussion of drama, which I think is rather important. Drama is what draws our interest in a piece of art, and if there is none even the most powerful messages loses its ability to attract an audience.

Overall, I thought this chapter was good even if it was on the short size compared to some of our previous reading.

Artist Focus: DarklordIIID

 

Time for yet another artist from DeviantART. DarklordIIID is an artist who works exclusively with 3D models and rendering, and he is known for his Nintendo work. the following are 3 of my favorites.

 

First we have Into the Breach, a render of Link approaching the entrance to dungeon built into the side of the mountain. I believe that he did a rather nice job with the lighting of this picture, the shadows contrasts well with the glow of the fire and the reflections of the water are almost believable. Finally, the color is great, featuring both literal warm and cold colors in the duel between the fire and the pond.

This is titled That Feeling, and depicts the ninja like Shiek tracking our hero as he explores a ruins. Once again, I think the lighting is well done and really captures the look of sunlight. The textures and models of the environment are also well done. I will say that it does seem as if Link is just a tad clueless, but besides this silly issue it's a good looking piece.

 

Finally, we have Zelda on the

Veranda. I really like the bright and bold colors seen in this picture which really help make it pop. The lighting is nothing special, but I do think that the environment is quite convincing, with some great depth and detailed models being used to create an illusion of reality.

 

If you would like to see more of DarklordIID's work, feel free to look him up on DeviantART. I will not be providing a direct link due to the fact that some of his art is NSFW.

My Art: Samus Aran

After posting the artwork of Samus, I decided I might as well show you all by own doodle of her. It may not be nearly as impressive as thiago-almeida's work, but I'm still proud of it as it is pretty much the first picture I have ever drawn using nothing but a computer.

Funnily enough, this started out as a quick doodle in between classes at my school. I enjoyed to process of making this image and am now working on a significantly more ambitious project using both Illustrator and Photoshop. Stay tuned!

Artist Focus: thiago-almeida

Today's artist focus is one another person from DeviantART: thiago-almeida

He is mainly known for his highly detailed black and white sketches of various monstrous fantasy creatures or mechanical humanoid figures. However, I will be showing two of his less common pieces: full color artwork. There were many to choose from, but I went with two of pictures of the sci-fi bounty hunter Samus Aran from Nintendo's Metroid franchise. She is one of my favorite fictional characters due her not only having awesome armor but that she is a strong female character who doesn't exist simply to be eye candy like so many other women in video games.

 

This first picture is simply titled Samus. I really like the colors and lighting used here, with strong contrasts between both the warm of the orange and the cool blue of the background to the strong difference in lighting that really makes this piece pop. I must say I also really like the dynamic pose.

Thiago-almeida's second piece is titled Super Metroid, and features the monstrous alien Kraid approaching our hero in the distance. I appreciate all the detail put into the armor and think that the lighting is wonderfully creepy. It's sort of a cool, sick blue-green that serves to make the corpulent form of Kraid all the more intimidating. The fact that Samus is seemingly still unaware of Kraid adds tension to the piece that is lacking in the first image.

If you want to see more of his work I've included this handy link: http://thiago-almeida.deviantart.com/gallery/

Launching the Imagination - Chapter 6:My Thoughts

Chapter 6 of our book was titled Cultivating Creativity and was how to help ourselves be more creative. Honestly, this is an area that I need to work on, so this chapter felt like it was almost written for me. It really got me thinking of exactly what my personality is and how I related to the examples given.

There was this little illustration on positive and negative loops, which brought to mind a negative loop I had been stuck in a few weeks ago for my schoolwork. I had gotten sick which slowed down my progress, causing a snowball effect of falling behind more and more. This lead to me becoming increasingly depressed and feeling like I should just give up. It wasn't until my teacher helped me with goal setting that I got on the positive path of catching up that I'm currently on.

There were many small categories of attributes of creative people, and while individually they may not seem important, when put together they allow one to function at their full potential. I myself would like to improve in many of these categories to help aid me in improving my present and future work. Everything from making the most of my time to thinking outside of the box are just a few of the areas I would like to grow in.

Zelda Demake: Making a Retro Game Even More Retro

While browsing a Zelda fansite recently I stumbled across an interesting article about a programmer named Ben Purdy who recreated the classic game The Legend of Zelda in 48 hours. However, the way he did so was interesting, as it was a demake. Demakes are when a recreation of a game purposely programs the game to be more primitive than how it had originally been. In this case, the game is incredibly pixelated, even compared to the original which was made in 1986.

As you can see, the game uses the absolute bare minimum amount of pixels needed (16x16) to allow the played to understand what is occurring in the game.

 If you are interested in finding out how he went about creating the game or would be interested in trying it for yourself, I have included a handy Link.
...
Ok, that was a pretty bad pun.


http://www.benpurdy.com/blog/2014/3/demaking-zelda

Launching the Imagination - Chapter Five: My Thoughts

Chapter five of our book was titled Problem Seeking and Problem Solving. Just as the name of the chapter says, it is about how we as designers have to identify issues and then how we go about coming up with ideas of how to meet said issue. The first example of how the Eames team came up with a solution to make a comfortable chair for indoor use that took up minimal space was an excellent way to show off this concept. The author of the book gave same excellent criteria for what characteristics a problem should have,  such as being significant (worth the time and effort to deal with) and being comprehensible (able to be understood so that effort isn't wasted).

After this, the chapter got into something I had never heard of before: convergent vs divergent thinking. Convergent thinking can be summed up as a linear method of solving a goal one has in mind from the very start. Having a very clear idea of the issue and what the game plan to solve it is essential for success. On the other hand, divergent thinking is more creative and less set to one given path of how to solve an issue. The benefit to this method is that it can be very effective at coming up with unconventional solutions, but it can suffer from a lack of efficiency. In general, convergent thinking is the better option for collaborative efforts while divergent thinking allows independent artists to come up with groundbreaking ideas. I'm able to see how I use these techniques without realizing it in my life, with group projects at school being very organized compared to the more freestyle like quality of my individual work.

Twitch Plays Pokemon - A Fascinating Internet experiment

Odds are, if you've read any sort of technological related news over the past week or been on social media, you will at least have heard of Twitch Plays Pokémon, which has rapidly become an internet phenomena. If you're wondering what it is, I can give a quick run down. Basically, Twich Plays Pokémon is an online emulated version of the classic RPG Pokémon Red given multiplayer capabilities. The catch is that instead of multiplayer referring to each player controlling a separate character, all those involved are corporately controlling ONE character. the creator says that he made the game as a social experiment to see how large numbers of people can cooperate together.

As there are tens of thousands of people trying to play at any one moment, this obviously has resulted in massive lag and some truly derpy actions to have taken place. There is a mix of those who want to complete the game, those who simply play for fun, and trolls who enjoy messing up progress just for laughs. Memes are quickly sprouting up in relation to some of the more amusing events that have occurred.

What I find most interesting about it is the ability for players to vote between playing in "anarchy" and "democracy" modes, the difference being that anarchy ids a free for all where the game accepts all input while democracy only decides to do the most popular button chosen. There has been real debate over which is better, with democracy advocates preferring its effectiveness while anarchists believe that their favored mode is more in the spirit of the experiment regardless of it being less effective. It will interesting to how players continue to progress as game difficulty continues to ramp up while critical mistakes occasionally occur. This type of experiment hasn't really been before and I am fascinated to see how things will turn out.

The Lego Movie: how they made it.

I had the chance to see the Lego Movie this weekend, and I was quite impressed not only with the story and the humor but for the interesting visual designs and animation used to make it. The effects did a fantastic job at resembling a world made entirely out of Legos, so I was a bit curious of how the artists and programmers came up with them. This video below gives a cool look into just how they accomplished their task.

Warner Bros. Announces no bug fix for Arkham Orgins, instead plans paid DLC.

Warner Bros. Arkham franchise had been on the path of success, with the first two games of the series being excellently designed and critically acclaimed. However, their most recent release, Arkham Origins, felt like a step back to many gamers and consequentially received mixed reviews. However, perhaps more importantly is that unlike the other games in the franchise, Orgins is riddled with bugs, some of which are game breaking. This is inexcusable after being on the market for four months. However, instead of working on creating a patch to fix these major issues, the developers are instead working on paid downloadable content to try and get some extra money from fans of the franchise. Oddly enough, they went as far as to say that they currently have do not plans to fix the issues after they release the DLC, seemingly content to leave the consumers that purchased the game with a semi-broken product. Personally, I see this as bad business ethics and a major slap in the face to their dedicated fan base.

 Beyond this, as the Wii U version of the game didn't meet sales projections they are entirely cutting support for that version, even going as far to cancel the DLC. There is already a backlash over these decisions and Warner Bros. may be facing damage to their sales of future games in the franchise as a consequence.

Source: http://www.gengame.net/2014/02/warner-bros-games-montreal-too-focused-on-dlc-to-fix-game-breaking-arkham-origins-bugs/

Launching the Imagination - Chapter 4: My thoughts

Chapter 4 of Launching the Imagination covers the illusions of space and motion, which could be easier said as perspective and kinesthetics. Basically, it gave some semi-scientific explanations for how perspective worked with some helpful illustrations and then began to unpack a series of examples of how it is used. I was impressed with a two page example from Disney's Mulan showing the wide variety of shots and how the various perspectives influenced how we perceive the events. The section on kinesthetic (the study of movement) was also great, and helped me understand how to better imply movement in a still image. Overall I thought this was a nice, fairly short chapter with some information that goes a bit beyond what is taught in a basic art class.

Artist Focus: uniqueLegend

I like many different types of art, and digital art is definitely one of the categories I like most. Combine this with my favoritism of semi-realism and my favorite video game franchise and we get artists like uniqueLegend, a skilled deviantARTist known for his Zelda work. He is a 23 year old Australian artist who began drawing at an early age, yet has only been working with digital media for the past 4 years. He uses a combination of Correl Painter and Adobe Photoshop and is a personal inspiration for what I may be able to do when I grow my skills at digital media. With that said, let's see what art he makes!

This is titled Hero's Shade, and it a portrait of a long-dead hero's spirit that still lingers trapped with regret between the natural world and the afterlife. The balance of this piece works well, and the simple background helps the Shade stand out. The colors work together well and the value helps sell the illusion that this ghost is three-dimensional. The vegetation on the armor also adds just enough variety to ensure that this picture is visually interesting.

This piece of artwork is titled Final Day, an obvious reference to the macabre apocalyptic event that is soon to occur. A surreal moon with a disturbing face is coming crashing down on a walled human city known as Clock Town and there seems to be absolutely no hope for its survival. The balance here is near perfectly symmetrical and the atmospheric perspective helps give a sense of scale. The color here gives a very dark mood to the art and the implied line of the moon's gaze to the helpless structures bellow makes the picture all the more ominous.

The final work of uniqueLegend's that I'll be showing is titled Challenge Awaits, and shows a heroic Link determinedly marching forward towards some unseen threat. If there is one thing I like most about this piece, it's absolutely the color. Everything is vibrant and looks very bold, and there is a sublte light area around him to help his body stand out better. The flame makes for a undetailed yet intense background and our protagonist's entire body is facing offscreen, making him a massive implied line to our left. Overall this is likely my favorite work of uniqueLegend.


For a further look at uniqueLegend's art, you can find the rest here: http://uniquelegend.deviantart.com/

Launching the Imagination - Chapter 3: My thoughts

Chapter three of our book was about two-dimensional design and all the bewildering array of little factors and considerations go into it. I had already learned many of these things (such as balance and rhythm) from previous art classes, but as in the first two chapters it was a good refresher and there was plenty of stuff I had not been taught before. Gestalt psychology was one such example, and I'm pleased to report that I now know a new way to analyze art. As in previous chapters, the illustrations massively help keep the read both interesting and understandable. After reading this chapter I feel I have a better upstanding of how to compose art I make for future projects, both recreational and for school.

Artist Focus: Mark Kelso

I've decided to share one of my favorite lego builders with you: Mark Kelso. He is an adult fan of Legos in his 40's known for his detailed landscapes and massive spaceships. His photography and editing skills are pretty good as well. With that said, let's get started.

This is a waterfall background Mark made for a collaborative project. It's absolutely chock full of advanced techniques such as SNOT (studs not on top) and has a very clever method for the falling water. The greenery adds just enough varied textures to make this truly excellent.

 

Besides natural landscapes, Kelso is known for being able to build impressive buildings, the most famous of which is his replication of Lord of The Ring's Minas Tirith. This truly massive model isn't built at the same scale as seen in the movies but it manages to do an excellent job at capturing the likeness of the "real" city.

 

Finally, Mark is most famous for his spaceships, many of which are easily the size of an adult male. His Invisible Hand is no exception, a near perfect replica of the bad guy flagship from Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. At the scale he built it at and with all the hundreds of hours put into designing the ship, it is difficult to tell that it is even Lego without a close up picture.

 

If you would like to see more of Mark Kelso's work, he can be found here: http://www.mocpages.com/home.php/5708

My Art: Link

This is an example of some of the hand drawn and digital art I like to occasionally fit into my busy college life. I don't make art that often due to the large amount of time required but it is definitely a hobby of mine. This picture is of Link, the hero and protagonist of Nintendo's The Legend of Zelda franchise. The digital model is his most famous weapon: the Master Sword. Keep in mind that it is untendered so the graphics are a bit rough.

 I'm pretty happy with how they turned out and they were a lot of fun to make.

Launching the Imagination - Chapter 2: My thoughts

This week's chapter was on color, and it covered virtually all aspects of the subject ranging from the difference of additive (light) and subtractive (pigment) color to how color influences the way we perceive art. I was impressed with the variety of color wheel models, there are actually quite a few, some of which are far more complex than the standard design. There were a good amount of examples in the book, many of which were able to be interacted with in some way. Like last week, some of the information was rather elementary, but it definitely went into further detail than a basic art class skimming over the topic of color. Beyond that, the examples that they used covered about every type of art you can imagine, and showed how color effects them all. Personally, the most interesting fact was that "warm" colors are often physically warmer besides being psychological warmer. I enjoyed this chapter, so far the authors have done a good job and I expect the book to continue to be informative.

Launching the Imagination - Chapter One: My thoughts

Well, our instructional book (Launching the Imagination) for our class begins by giving an introduction/review to the elements of art and reads very similar to a compressed Art 101. It went over everything to line, shape, value, texture, ect... everything that composes the basic elements of art. As it has been a while since I've taken an art class this was a nice refresher even if it didn't break any new ground. I will say that they did an excellent job at giving large photographic examples of virtually every concept they went over. The author also did a good job at tying in just exactly how these basic elements tie into the thought process of design. I'm looking forward to upcoming chapters and what new information they have for me to learn, but for the first week of reading this was a good way to start.

Nintendo in Trouble

Well, things had been beginning to look up for Nintendo over the past few months, but a recent financial briefing for the end of their financial year has shown this to be incorrect. While at the beginning of the year Nintendo had predicted profits of  $1 billion and sales of 9 million of their new Wii U consoles, they ended the year with an operating loss of $240 million and only a mere 2.8 million Wii U's sold. Even Nintendo's 3DS division didn't sell as many as they had hoped, eliminating any hope of preventing a loss. This unfortunate news led directly to a heavy -17.04% hit on their stock value, completely erasing the recent gains they had made in stock prices.

There is a multitude of reasons behind Nintendo's recent struggles, ranging from facing new competition by Sony and Microsoft's recently released next-gen. consoles to Nintendo's consistently poor Wii U marketing. Ads for the Wii U rarely do a good job at selling their games to consumers, and even the Wii U's name itself has many consumers confusing it as a Wii peripheral to this day. Their lack of third party support and increasing reliance on first party games has made notable new releases relatively rare, and the fact that both PS4 and XBOX One are significantly more powerful undermine the Wii U's lower price.

I for one, as a long time fan of Nintendo, hope that Nintendo can figure out a way to turn the Wii U's ill-fortune around. It is incredibly important that they improve both their marketing and damaged relationships with third party developers. Beyond this, they really need to release a true system seller like Mario Kart or Super Smash Brothers, both of which are due sometime this year. If they can accomplish these tasks I believe that there is a good chance that they can bring themselves back to profitability.

Sources: http://www.gengame.net/2014/01/nintendo-projects-336-million-loss-for-fiscal-2013-stock-plummets-17/

Net Neutrality Revoked

As some of you may have already heard, US net neutrality was recently revoked. If you don't what that is, in layman's terms it meant that internet providers had to provide all information and websites equally, so they couldn't arbitrarily slow down service or deny access to specific web sites. The companies that had been pushing for this to go through deny wanting to limit the consumer's options, but in all likelihood many internet providers may start to sell internet access in tiered plans similar to how cable TV works, locking specific websites behind paywalls. 

Kevin Warhus, the marketing manager for digital marketing company StringCan Interactive, says:
"Allowing a handful of powerful corporations to decide what websites and information we should be able to access defeats the purpose of this open source frontier. The Internet has always stood as an environment where anyone can make a website or blog and receive equal opportunities to be heard and to grow. By taking away those rights we are essentially handing over our freedoms and going against the foundational values that make The Internet what it is today and what it may or may not be tomorrow."

Honestly, I'm a bit worried that internet providers will abuse this decision, and if they do what the internet a decade from now will look like.

Blog created, hello world!

Hello anyone reading this blog. :)

My name is Matthew, and for one my of my classes at school we were told to make a blog in which we write about recent technologic news, issues, and responses to what we have read. I hope to give some of my thoughts and opinions on these and share them with you. Hope to see you around, enjoy!