Thursday, May 5, 2016

Opera into a Game?

One of the few things I forgot to blog about.

Let's take an opera and do something crazy with it. Why not turn it into a game?

I choose an old Chinese opera by the name of Madame Butterfly! Why? Cause it sounded cool!

In all seriousness it had the perfect setting for an RTS style video game with a lovely story to fill in the blanks between missions. You would take control of the US Navy lieutenant in fictitious battles, while the story between him and his love is told in between missions. As the story progressed you would be able to choose key points in the story that could change the final outcome.

Would the love of your life cheat death? Or would she succumb to the inevitable fate of the story? Only you can decide that.

Monday, May 2, 2016

Mischief

Yet another advertising for an art program.

Mischief isn't as useful as Black ink but it offers something that nothing else does. A truly limitless canvas. The possibilities are truelly endless when you are presented with a canvas that never ends. Because of how the program handles loading and chunks, it's able to store a vast amount of data off screen meaning that your computer doesn't need the processing power to run a city in order for the program to function.

Limitless possibilities for a limitless imagination.

Black Ink

Another new program that has surfaced is the high tech Black Ink.

Black Ink is a very strong art program that is available for single purchase, meaning it already has an edge on Photoshop's required subscription. Black Ink gives users a full array of tools to make high detail art with their tablets, sch as unrealistic brushes to help paint pretty much any fantasy painting you could desire or to create a perfect portrait. The possibilities are limitless when it comes to it's brush strokes. It also offers a much needed high speed render, something almost all modern day art programs lack.

Hayao Miyazaki.

A legend among animators, this man is considered to be the Japanese version of Walt Disney. Being a man in his 80s who just recently retired, Miyazaki chose not to embrace the new ways of animation and stuck to the originals. With horrendous arthritis destroying the tendons in his hands, Miyazaki continued to draw all his animations out by hand and even respond to fan letters in his own handwriting. It's often quite rare to see an animator such as himself, not willing to embrace the often easier way of doing things.

Practice

Sort of a filler but I feel like it's a necessary thing to say.

It isn't just practice that makes perfect, but perfect practice that makes perfect.

What I mean by this is, don't just keep drawing the same thing over and over again, but be bold and expand your horizons. Try new mediums and new styles. Take up a new method of sketching and try to see how far your abilities can take you. The only limits you honestly have are your own self esteem and the onset of arthritis. Always keep on practicing no matter what stands in your way and keep striving to do better than all the rest. That's how you'll get good, especially at being an artist.

Web Comics

Getting started with webcomics should be fairly simple whether you are doing it just for fun with doodles or professionally with a set art style and story. Many photo sites make it simple, name the comic and upload a picture to get started. They handle archive pages and anything else. To really make the site your own, however, you need to get a domain name. Then you should find beautiful templates made by others for the site, then customize it with your own images.

The site should be fairly simple now, but it should be stunning as a simple webcomic page. The webcomic pages do not need to be detailed. If you are getting started just for fun then you can leave the style for yourself. If you want to go for a stylized comic, then do so. You will want to decide who your characters are, what the story is, and how big to make the pages. You don’t need to do any of this, but it works for most comics. Make your comic your own.

Video Game Art

Video games are really just big art projects if you think about it.

I mean look at all the concept art that goes into a video game nowadays, the amount is atrocious to look at and most of it isn't even used. All the characters move through hours of animation that was drawn up in a storyboard design. The backdrops are all made by hand, an artist paints them out in a digital program like Photoshop or even sometimes the backdrop is just a big piece of art scanned in.

I can honestly spend hours looking through this stuff.

https://www.google.com/search?q=halo+reach+concept+art&espv=2&biw=1920&bih=955&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjvrcmDir3MAhXDox4KHS5zAdMQ_AUIBigB

Cosplay

This was something I always wanted to touch on when we were discussing theater but never got the chance.

Despite what some people may say, cosplay is a legitimate form of performance art. It involved people dressing up as their favorite video game, anime or cartoon characters and then acting like they would for the entertainment of others. To me this sounds just like theater but on a much smaller scale. However, saying that people truelly don't get involved is wrong. People will spend hundreds of dollars on a costume, take countless hours to put it together and lose nights of sleep learning a routine.

But...

When you enter the convention center, your heart thumping and suddenly everyone's eyes turn to you, you get an overwhelming feeling. Their faces light up with smiles, cameras flash and people ask you to take a picture with them.

The feeling of completely making someone else's day is priceless.

Better than MS Paint

Google released a new paint software for the HTC Vive allowing you to paint in 3d space with virtual reality called Tilt Brush. Tilt brush makes use of the HTC Vive controller support and the accuracy of the strokes is wonderful. If you have space 4’x6’ or an entire 30’x30’ working area you can make stunning art or download finished works. The software includes effects that bring whatever you are drawing to life, from glowing paint and patterns to a fire brush and water simulation.

Yet another program to rival the great power of the mighty Photoshop.

Performance Video

My performance video.

Some editing was done to make this upload to blogger. the end scene has been shortened and the resolution was reduced significantly to allow for an upload.

Art is what the artist says it to be.

By being performers, we are all artists, one way or another.

Another huge thank you to the lovely cosplayers of Pax East.

Drone Art?

I pot this blog more as a question than as a legitimate blog in order to get some inquiry about this.

Is it actually possible to make art with drones? If so how?

I suppose my own answer would that a whole bunch of drones could be aligned up so that when their picture is taken from a specific height it makes a large scale design much like that of earth art.

Or as another possibility, there could be lights attached to the wings of each drone and they could be scripted to but on a light performance for viewers late into the evening. I would pay to see this...

What do you think?

3D Printing

The big one. 3D Printing.

This is a subject that could literally be talked about for hours upon hours. It's good and it's bad at the same time. It's complex but simple as well.

3D printing is our future it seems. At a pace that is almost incomprehensible, 3D printers have been made small enough to simply fit into the space of an office and now pretty much anyone with a few hundred bucks lying around can just go get one from Best Buy. 3D pritning is something that allows the imagination to run completely free and allows the creations of our mind to find a tangible form in our hands. Beyond being able to make a tiny version of the David sculpture for your table top game, it also allows a variety of useful functions such as making copies of lost tools on the ISS.

Need a new wrench because yours fell into orbit and burned up? Just print a new one!

Pixel Art

We have all seen amazing works of art created by amazing people using oils, pastels, charcoals and many other mediums. But what about the creations on the digital spectrum?

Let's ignore Photoshop for a bit and focus on something much more simpler. I'm talking about something that is akin to the 1980s, and that is Pixel Art. The creation of art though little tiny squares of color that forms wonderful pieces hardly imaginable on such a small scale.

Don't believe me? Have a look for yourself.

http://skull--kids.tumblr.com/

Pixel Art is an art form just like any other and it allows us to communicate ideas and thoughts through a truelly gorgeous and nostalgic way.

Photoshop

Adobe Photoshop CS 6.

That's the current version of Photoshop available to most users nowadays. When Photoshop first began, it required only a few mbs of ram (about 2 to be precise, a lot of people had to actually upgrade their computers to run the 'intense' graphics) and could do very limited things. Those things however were considered witchcraft at the time. Now Photoshop has the ability to turn a slice of pizza into a beautiful model. Has Photoshop gone too far or is it just getting started? I really cannot wait to see where it goes in the next ten years. Being an avid user of the program has be hoping for more and more intelligent UI in the program and I'm excited to see what sort of amazing creations come from Adobe next.

Digital Art

I wanted to touch on this at least once seeing as how the subject was rather short in class.

Digital art has come an increasingly long way and I plan to write a blog or two about the different programs involved. We know have the ability to make art on computers and it's pretty astounding to say the least. The fact that I can now write out a few hundred lines of code and have it generate a crazy design that would have taken me hours to create and animate with other programs truelly shows that the field of digital art is expanding rapidly and with all the new technologies available every year, this process is sure not to slow down anytime soon.

Holo Lens

I recently watched an exposition provided by Microsoft of their new holo lens technology and how it could immerse the user in an entirely virtual space within the comfort of their living room. This quickly goes back to my blog about virtual reality and how I was wondering what the future would be. Could this very well be it? Imagine equipping the lens, picking up a simple rod and having it transform into a paintbrush for you to apply paint where ever you felt like without the mess. There could be programs for different types of paint and you wouldn't ever need to worry abut screwing up. You could even have a high quality printer make prints of your work when you're done and there's no need to buy paint supplies when everything is provided by your holo lens.


Just food for the painterly thoughts in all of us.

VR

Something new recently caught my eye during a trip to the Dali Museum.

I'm an avid gamer, working with companies and developers often to try out new things and virtual reality has lately been the discussion for most of them.

When I visited the museum, sitting right before me was a virtual reality headset. Once you put it on, you were brought into the world of Dali's paintings and could immerse yourself in them. Was this also going to become the future of art? Would we now be viewing art in a 3D space around us instead of just looking at a sculpture or a painting? Only time will tell us...

Burlesque

Burlesque...

A term that is often associated with stripping or lewd woman, it couldn't however be farther from the fact. Burlesque is a literary, dramatic or musical work intended to cause laughter by caricaturing the manner or spirit of serious works, or by ludicrous treatment of their subjects. In other words, it was just simple theater that featured more woman roles instead of men. It originally started in England before moving to the Americas after becoming successful in New York City's theaters. However there was a rapid decline in these sorts of theaters following the era of prohibition. In burlesque theaters, alcohol often flowed free and with the ban, these sorts of establishments quickly closed up or became speak easy's.

Burlesque has however made a return to the american theater scene and has become popular once again, even spawning a movie that was meant to sensationalize it.

Broadway

Broadway is always a topic in the art world.

Broadway, a place where the best performers dreaming of putting on spectacular shows for the enjoyment of an audience. Performing is an art just as any other and Broadway is perhaps one of the best places to go see that happen. I've seen a few Broadway shows in my life and from what I have seen, it's quite a spectacle.

For me however, it isn't the performance that interests me, but instead it's the costume design that I really get into.
The amount of time and effort that goes into the design of the costumes is intense. Hours are poured into a single dress to make it look just right for the performance and each piece needs to be perfect.

The one performance that I saw that really stood out to me in the costume department was Wicked. All the costumes that the actors wore really brought the whole performance together and it gave me quite a nostalgic feeling towards the old Wizard of Oz movie.

Body Art

I'm not really sure if this falls under installation or projection art but it comes to mind when talking about the two. Body art is something that is always very mesmerizing to view and always captivates it's audience.

I'm not talking about tattoos here but instead body art that is painted onto the individual. This is art that is created by applying paints to the surface of ones skin making designs and art that is illusionary in nature. This is art that has been wildly seen on the internet and often makes its rounds through the occasional Facebook post.



Video Projection

Another form of installation art, video projection art has also been something of interest for me lately. Video projection involves putting a video onto a surface that enhances the piece to make a scene. I haven't actually seen this done in real life but I have seen videos of it before and needless to say I think it's pretty amazing to watch. My favorite forms of projection have to be those that are on large scale objects like buildings that can provide a very surreal experience.

I have included below a link to one of my favorite video projections of all time. I the video, a projector is able to take full advantage of the building in front of it, making it transform and shift in a large variety of ways.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=699NBQp6Jfg

Stencil Art


We were tasked in class to make a stencil. Yet again I found myself doing something that I had never done before...

So, in order to prepare myself for this, I did what I could to apply what knowledge I already had and my own resources in order to make a decent stencil. I used Photoshop to make a stencil outline of a Shy Guy from the Mario series and then printed him out, carefully extracting him from the surrounding paper with an exacto knife. I then tapped him to a piece of cardboard and went to work with a can of black spray paint until there was a think layer. Unfortunately, it bled a little under the stencil itself so there is some mess but I think it came out pretty well for my first time ever using stencils.

If it has any sort of meaning, I guess it can relate to the silent majority of the country who have to done masks in order to speak out for fear of losing what they hold dear.

Installation Art

A few days ago, I took an interest in what was called installation art.Installation art is not only something I knew very little about but it was also the name of a class I happened to be taking next semester so I figured I had better get acquainted with it. What I learned was actually quite interesting.

It seems that installation art is a pretty broad subject that can really encompass a lot. It's art that can be set up in any area and then viewed by anyone. It's art that takes advantage of it's environment to create something out of the normal. The more I learned about it, the more I came to realize that I had actually been involved in several installation art projects at my old college that I went to. I never really understood the purpose of it then but now I feel like I have a greater understanding of it.

Below is the only image I have of the piece I helped create three years ago.


Tuesday, April 19, 2016

Performance Video Artists

We were tasked to find and write about performance artists so here it goes.

For my first artist, I guess a major one would be Miley Cirus. She's a person who is consistently seen as acting out or is always making headlines with some outrageous action or outfit. I think she's a performance artist because what she claims to be doing is making art. Art is anything that the artist makes it out to be so if she claims that her actions and her stunts are art, then it's art.

Another artist who is no longer with us would without a doubt be Robin Williams. Robin Williams is someone who constantly used his art and performance skills to entertain people both on the set and in his normal life. There are many instances where he has used his Mrs. Doubtfire costume to fool and confuse people on his gender and identity. 

Yoko Ono is the other artist I would pick as a well know performance artist. She has done and continues to do performance art as a way of showing her thoughts and as a way of protesting touchy subjects to the public. One can simply search the Internet and in a matter of moments find something about her or one of her many performances.

Monday, April 18, 2016

Flip Book

This was an interesting one.

Instructed to create a two hundred page flip book, this quickly became a very difficult task for me to accomplish. I had so little inspiration when creating a flip book.

Hours I spent looking at my papers and having no idea what to do, but then I just started to draw. Nonsense turned into more nonsense and soon enough I had two hundred pages of nonsense being passed in front of my eyes by relaxing my thumb.


Unconventional Grid

One of our latest assignments was the create a grid out of items that your normally didn't expect to see a grid made out of. The assignment itself seemed simple enough but when it came down to execution, it became rather difficult in the long run. I had a lot of trouble coming up with ideas for what to do but I eventually settled on one thing.

Candy.

It was so simple. Candy came in so many colors and it could be used in a variety of ways. The next question came to be, where would I get all that candy from? Luckily, I had several bags of Starbursts lying around from when I purchased several bags months back. I laid them out, all facing the same way and with the same side facing up, and slowly built an image out of my favored flavored treats. The end result? A large question mark block signature to that of the Mario series.

3D Toy

I was given the task of creating a 3D model of a weapon that could also be categorized as a toy. To add tot he difficulty of this, I had to make something that wasn't already a toy which turned out to be quite a lot of things. To work around this I made a bullet of sorts but added a shark face design to it to make it more action like and appealing to a younger audience. It is of course not a real bullet but instead is something that is simply plastic. It could fired from a sling shot like device if need be but probably should be aimed at anyone's face.

Here is the image below of the finished product.

Tuesday, February 2, 2016

Ride of the Valkeries

Out of curiosity (and the link being on our Art 211 blog page), I decided to take a look at the Ride of the Valkyries excerpt that the famous song is often used from. Needless to say, I was entertained. I have always known that this song was from an opera but I never knew it was form such a tragedy themed showing. Countless times have I heard this song in movies and video games and shows and have always wondered at it's origins. The music has always been incredibly powerful for me and whenever it started playing, I knew something awesome was about to happen.

It' always interesting when something from our modern age of technology adapts a piece of music or part of an older piece of media, like this opera, for use in modern entertainment because we, as viewers, never know how well or poorly it's going to be used. In all the times I've heard the instrumental version of this song, it's always been a wonderful usage and I hope it continues to be.

Carmen Habanera

Recently, I watched the video of the opera song "Carmen Habanera" as per suggested by the Art 211 blog page. Normally, I'm no fan of opera, having only seen the Phantom of the Opera, but I found this very interesting. This was especially given this song in this opera are often made fun of or spoofed in old cartoons like Bugs Bunny and the sort that I used to watch when I was younger. It was really great for me to finally understand where this song originated from. But not only was it entertaining to learn it's origins, it was also wonderful to actually understand the point behind it's lyrics.

I'll be honest, I didn't really know what was going on the whole time that I watched it but I still found it very engrossing.

For me, I've always been interested in music and learning the meaning behind songs. Opera has always had very interesting lyrics to it and always has a very deep and profound meaning. Normally, one would have to pay an extreme amount of money to go see something like this, but the ease of the internet makes it so that I can watch or listen to such powerful music like this without too much hassle. Technology also allows for people who wish to remake or redo these famous operas for a new age can add more dazzling effects to them to immerse the audience further. A lot of people say that opera is a dying art but in fact, I think it's making a comeback with a new generation.

Art and Music

I spent a great deal of time taking a look through the links that were posted on our class blog page and none of them really stood out to me at all. Some of the links weren't that exciting or really all that great in my opinion. Then I came across one that we viewed in class and the memory was forever stuck in my mind. It was Die Antwood's music video for their song "Rich Bitch." It was way beyond what music I normally listen to and the themes and morals behind it weren't something I could really find myself interested in. But it still stuck out to me regardless. At first, I didn't really care for them or heir music, but then I began to start viewing them in a different light.

Art.

Art was the reason they were doing what they were doing. They weren't trying to make a quick buck off poor lyrics or trying to over-glamorize themselves like some modern day artists. They were only making art, and being artists, they were making art the way they thought art should be made. It really made me take a step back and made me start appreciating more types of artists like this.

Wednesday, January 20, 2016

Art and Technology

I was recently posed with the question of what is the meaning of art and technology. At first, I thought that was a pretty simple question and one that I thought I could answer pretty easily without much thought put into it. However, the more I thought about it, the more it quickly became a question that had no simple answer that could just be written down. Instead, art and technology are slowly becoming interchangeable words in their own respects. In today's modern age, it's rather hard to find new art that wasn't created with the assistance of technology. This could be anything from using Photoshop to enhance a photograph or using the internet to order oil paints. Just as technology has become a part of our everyday lives, technology has now integrated itself into art, making some aspects of it easier and other areas more complex especially in the methods that are needed to do something. And it's not just using technology to help create art, art is being made from the use of the technology itself. Radar and sonar make images on a paper comprised of lines. This, if the artist who makes it says it is, is art. Because of technology, art is now appearing in more places than it ever was before and it makes it even easier for artists to share their works with others across the world. Need people in china to see your painting but you're in Germany? Internet is there to help you. It's amazing to see that something that was once avoided in the art world is now being readily embraced as the new standard and it will be exciting to see where it goes from there.