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!