Thursday, December 17, 2015

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.

Monday, November 23, 2015

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.


Thursday, October 15, 2015

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.


Sunday, September 27, 2015

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).

Tuesday, September 22, 2015

Testing This is a paragraph
Testing to see if I know this
stuff

So far it works. I don't remember how to make a link


Male
Female
Male
Female

Monday, September 21, 2015

Thumbnail sketches

I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing for my letter "I".

Test post, please ignore

Day 1: Jacky's computer doesn't work so I have to lend him this one. I would use my own laptop but I don't think that's allowed for this class. Oh well. Also, hi Ms. Lee