Stance Project Blog Reflection

       Original Concept/Idea Thing                      Final Project

Questions: 
-Do you believe your stance clear within your poster? Defend your answer- image, fonts, color, composition, etc. 
I do believe my stance clear within my poster.  The large, colorful words at the top of the poster are meant to draw the eye, but also direct the viewer to the thing that these words are a part of: video games.  

-From your initial thumbnail sketches to your hand drawn draft- Do you feel you were successful in re-creating your poster idea digitally? If not, do you like the new visual outcome? 
While my final project did not come out the exact same as my hand drawn draft and thumbnail sketch, the idea behind it was still presented. The poster also managed to look very similar to how I originally imagined, and I personally feel that it looks better in some ways than it would have if I made it match the sketch idea. 

-What were the changes you made from your first version to the last version of the poster? Explain why you made those changes?
For the first version, I wanted the body of the figure to contain all of the video game related images while there would be many more words appearing to come out of the open head. This was changed to using the images as the background, and minimal but eye-catching word usage. The reason behind this change (aside from the fact that I needed something to fill the background), was that I felt it would be easier to see the pictures if they were larger, and it would be interesting/more appealing to have them behind the figure. I also cut down on the amount of words more out of necessity than desire, since the page would be too cluttered and the words would get lost in the background images if I had too many and tried to get them all to fit.

-Looking over your rubric, which category do you think your project is strongest? Explain why. Which category do you feel the least confident? Explain why.
Looking over the rubric, I feel that the category I would score highest in/did the strongest in is the design category. The colors that were chosen contrast against one another to make each stand out, as well as managing to blend in with certain background pictures so the view is not too overwhelming. The display of the background also creates very clear and distinct leading lines, directing view to the very clear focal point. The font was also pulled from iconic video games, so they easily fit the theme of the poster. However, I feel as though my concept gets lost due to the lack of words present in the image, making that the category that I feel least confident in. 

-What was the most challenging aspect of the project, conceptually? 
The most challenging part of the project, conceptually, was coming up with the concept itself. While I had a plethora of ways to express an idea, I did not actually have that many ideas to work off of. On top of that, coming up with an idea that would properly convey the stance that I had in mind was a challenge, and the end result did not come out the way I expected.

-What was most challenging about the project, technically?
The most challenging part of this project, technically, stems from my dislike of illustrator. I wasn't exactly willing to learn how to use it, and as a result spent much of the beginning portions of the project trying to figure out how to make an object to cover part of my image. 

What's my stance on the upcoming election?

Regarding the election that will be held later this year in November, my stance is one that I believe many people around my age share. The current election includes a somewhat large range of candidates that I don't care for. In all honesty, none of the current candidates seem all that appealing to me, prompting me to spend election day relaxing at home instead of going out and trying to get one of these people in office. I know that it will be the job of the soon-to-be-adult generation to take care of things when our elders are gone, but this year that does not phase me. While I may change my views about voting when new candidates appear, as it currently stand I don't care for voting. Despite this, do not think that I am against voting and/or the process as a whole. It just means that I don't see anyone currently worth the effort to vote for. The process itself, however, I believe is a good idea and one that I do not currently have any major issues with (mainly because I don't too much about the voting process and don't care to learn more about it).

Music Takes You Places

Concept:

-While brainstorming ideas for this project, a constant theme of emotions and music reappeared in a lot of my thumbnail sketches. As a result, I settled on making a gif that shows how the inclusion of music can change the mood and take someone to a different place entirely. To achieve this, the inclusion of multiple music notes to change a seemingly blank mood were included, and the background was changed to show how music pulls a person out of the world they are in.

Final Product:

Evolution:
-The gif evolved slightly from the post-it sketches to the final product. The major evolution that made its way in was having the music notes slide off screen and then reverting the image to the original emotionless, white background picture that I started with. This further emphasized the idea that music really lifts the mood and servers as a positive distraction, since the figure lost his happiness and trippy placement when the music stopped. I also feel as thought the finished product just has more meaning compared to the thumbnail, even though both follow the same structure and similar style.

Jacky of the Hidden Leaf Village

Finished Project:

Concept:

-The concept behind this picture is to merge anime with the real world in a semi simple way. I wanted to have a real person in a real world environment, but add in subtle aspects from the animes Naruto & Naruto Shippuden. I also wanted to try my best to make the moves look "natural" and blend in with the other images instead of being blatantly from a different source. To do this, I had Jacky on a basketball course (reason: ball is life), with 3 different moves from Naruto and Naruto Shippuden; the Rasengan, Rasenshuriken, and the Tailed Beast Bomb.

Q & A:
-Question: Am I happy with the results?
 Answer: Aside from some slight coloring issues that I've been having troubles with from the beginning, I am pleased with the final outcome of my project.

Original Photographs:

Step By Step:

In order to get the above images onto the basketball court, I started by using the quick selection tool. While I had it selected with the "add to selection" option (the two shaded overlapping squares at the top), I held down the mouse button and ran it across the image. However, the quick selection tool also selected some parts of the image that I didn't need, such as the background. To get rid of these unwanted selections, I then selected the lasso tool, and switched it to the magnetic lasso. Using the toolbar above, I changed the mode to "subtract from selection" (the option to the right of "add to selection"). I then slowly and carefully made points with the magnetic lasso around the area that I didn't want, and then made sure to connect the end point back to the beginning. After this was done, I simply copied the selected area (cmd + c for mac / ctrl + c for windows), switched to my project, and pasted (cmd + v for mac / ctrl + v for windows). I was then free to continue changing the picture to suit the background.

Photoshop Mini Lesson project(s)

Project #1

Project #2

Project #3

Project #4

Letter Project Reflection

Brainstorm ideas

Thumbnail sketches

• The above pictures show my brainstorm ideas as well as the thumbnail sketches that I came up with. I found the process helpful because after sitting down and taking the time to think about what to do for my letter, I came up with various ideas (some more creative than others). I was partial to the "I island" idea, as well as the "Eye I". Eventually I settled on the "I island" idea since I personally felt that the "Eye I" would be too simple and I wasn't sure what to add to it. Also, drawing proper/realistic eyes is hard.

"I Island"

"Eye I"

• As I said before, I felt that the "Eye I" would have too much blank space and would not work out so well. And again, eyes are just tedious to draw. In order to give it an island feel, I wanted to add a palm tree, and a shovel (and with Ms. Lee's advice, a pirate ship). Originally, the items that would make up the letter were going to be black bars like those on treasure maps (Ha, "I" marks the spot. Get it?), but I settled on logs instead. 

• The most challenging aspect of this project was getting the angle and sizing of the "I" to be proper. As seen in the final below, the angle is decent enough, however I do realize that I messed up the two logs at the bottom and as a result, the overall letter looks more like a Z than an I. Angling and size was not a major issue with the draft, but since I needed to have a once inch border around the image, it was somewhat harder and I accidentally messed up on the sizing. 

Final Draft

• Am I satisfied with my project? I'd have to say, overall that I am pleased with the outcome to an extent. I personally did I think a good job with the art (albeit it looking cartoony, and Ms. Lee having to give me advice for a lot of it). However as stated above, I would change the size of the bottom two logs to be smaller in order to make the letter look even more like an I compared to a Z. Also, (as Ms. Lee was so kind to point out), I could make various areas of the composition darker than they currently are (Ex. The palm tree). But all in all, I'm pleased with the outcome.

Graphic Blog Homework #1

Introduction:
Hi, I'm Keon, the 17 year old MHS student. Some things that you may not know about me are:

• My favorite color is a tie between red/black
• I have a variety of pets (2 budgies/birds, a turtle, and some fish)
• My parents and a lot of my family are from the Caribbean
• Fun fact: I messed up my laptop hard drive over the summer and I need to get it repaired/changed

The first set of photos are drawings that I made (however I did not come up with the designs themselves). While there weren't exactly from over the summer, I did spend some time over the summer drawing among other things. My reason for posting them is because I enjoy art, as well as making art. I also really enjoy making these kind of "tribal" drawings and showing my work.

This picture is of Frankie (and her daughter), the lady who runs the food pantry that I volunteer at every month. My reason for using this picture is because she taught everyone how to do the jobs they currently hold at the pantry, and without her guidance we would not know what to do whenever she could not be there to supervise us. Her teaching especially came in handy over the summer where she could not be there so me and my dad had to take charge and make sure things ran smoothly.

This last one is a picture of my mother and father on the Sunday after their anniversary. I chose to post it because it means a lot to have two amazing parents that care and love me and each other, and have continued to do so for 18 years (even though I'm only 17 now).