Chapter 1 Response

I thought that reading chapter 1 of the text book would be such a pain, what with all those pages to read.  But it wasn't so bad, a lot of pages were just pictures.  I find it rather amazing how much stuff can be done with digital tools, if I wasn't dead set on becoming a video game developer then digital art would definitely be an option.  There is a trend that I've noticed with digital and analogue photography, and that's how the photographer seems to go to a lot of trouble to set up just one or two pictures.  Like that one picture that was just the paths of lights made by people doing sign-language, there's no way anyone could figure that out just by looking at it.  I've had experience with photography before, in a class for black-and-white film photos, so I know about how dicey it can be to set something up.  Some photographer purists think that digital photography is the wrong way to go, that it's for people that want to take pictures without being professional or some such things but that's not what it's about.  Think about it, with digital cameras we can cut a lot of work from photography out of the equation, making production cleaner and more efficient and also allowing room for new things to be developed.  Another thing that got my attention were those 3D skewed skulls that were done.  It's such a cool and futuristic thing to be able to print things in 3D and could be really useful to me personally, if only I had access to the on campus 3D printer.  I like going to anime conventions, and I often need props to go with my costumes but I'm not much of a crafter.  So if I could just design 3D props on a computer and print them out, imagine the possibilities.  One last thing I'd like to know is if this text book will actually explain how to do any of these things ourselves, but other than that I've got nothing more to say.

Project #2 progress

Okay, so my original idea consisted of taking pictures of Dick Cheney and merging them with images of the Terminator and Darth Vader and whatever else that would show him to be as evil as he actually is.  A couple of problems occured.  First thing, such pictures are actually somewhat common.  Secondly, the images I found just weren't working out.  So that idea has been tossed in favor of another one.  The new idea is a parody of high school stereotypes starring the Care Bears.  I hope it works out, I'm too tired to think of anything else right now.  I'm not even going to bother hunting down a picture of a highschool on Google, seeing as how I live across the street from one or I could go visit my old one.  Maybe I can even talk to students there to get their ideas about clique stereotypes that I could use.  I've already decided on using the jock, cheerleader, nerd, slut, and emo types, but there must be others I haven't thought of.

Parody video (I think...)

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I hope this works, I've never tried to post a video to a blog before.  Not sure it's a parody either, it does poke fun at rock bands and Woodstock and it sort of resembles an Abbot and Costello routine, and while it doesn't have any profound meaning it sure is funny.

Text and brush assignment

After finding a set of lightning brushes, I decided to throw in some lightning-related puns for good measure.

Project #1: She isn't real! Can't make her real...

I finally finished the project.  Here are the pieces that I used to make it with; shown above are just pics I found on Google.  Next, we have the original picture of the doll that I used to finish the project.  I planned on cutting all of her hair off at first, but then I decided to leave some and then give it and all its stuff to one of my little girl cousins.

I finished the project, after doing most of it on a Mac at school, on my PC at home, so I was hindered somewhat.  It's made me decide to buy a new mouse, but I digress.  Here is the completed picture.

The idea is that from the front, Paris, one of many women in Hollywood that supposedly demonstrate what beauty is supposed to look like, looks damn good for certain.  But the mirror shows us something else, shows us the truth behind the illusion.  She's just an empty shell, another puppet of the media used to brainwash the youth of America into believing in their idea of what female beauty is.  Don't get me wrong, I like the pretty girls too, but first of all, my standards aren't that ridiculously high, and second, I get turned off pretty quickly by abrasive personalities.  Now, the bloodstains and the dark, grainy look in the mirror are supposed to reflect (pun totally intended) the scary and masochistic aspects of the pursuit of this falsehood.  Like the fear of not fitting in felt by girls growing up and the scary things they sometimes do to their minds and bodies in order to be accepted by the rest of the sheeple.  And if you think about it, the concepts of plastic surgery and botox and all of that are really masochistic; we are allowing ourselves to be cut, stitched, and injected with chemicals here!  It's been going on like this for millenia in fact, good examples being Chinese foot binding and those painfully tight corsets that women used to wear back in merry old England.  Let's face it people, human beings are a seriously messed up species!  The point I'm trying to get across with this picture only demonstrates one of our flaws, there are so many to choose from.  Be a fake, Barbie-doll beauty for the masses that don't know any better, or be real for yourself; you decide.

Project #1: Hit a snag

Okay, so I checked out that DAZ 3D program that lets you make 3D stuff.  Turns out you still need to download things from their site (sometimes for a price) in order to do anything with it.  To top it all off, I couldn't find anything that resembles a doll/mannequin/puppet on their site and their 3D female characters look way too real for that to work.  So, I'm just going to modify an existing doll and take a picture of it.  Already got Photoshop on my laptop so it's mostly smooth sailing ahead.

New material

This is what I've got so far, I'm going to try to add in a 3D figure mannequin instead of that picture I saved earlier.  If it works it'll be a lot better, and I won't have to do the mirror within a mirror trick either.  Also, I've decided to leave out the film projector.

"Dave's not here man!"

digital art project 1

I found the pieces needed for the project.  My original idea was to set up a picture that showed a film projector "projecting" on an image of a family with a mirror behind them, reflecting nothing at all.  The idea was to demonstrate how contemporary pictures are often associated with memories, but that's all just an illusion.  I scrapped the part about the "family", deciding instead to show the illusion of ideal female beauty.  The family picture I found was of a family that looked so wholesome, so perfect, that I found it unbearably disgusting and couldn't stand looking at it.  The picture did need some level of artificiality, but this was too much.  I briefly read the article that the picture came with, said that the family was heavily Christian; that explains much.  Now I'm working with a picture of Paris Hilton, the most artificial female celebrity I know of (I have yet to confirm her existence as a human), a picture of a female mannequin, a mirror, a film projector, and an empty room.  Unless I can figure out how to flip the mannequin around, I'm going to have to do a mirror within a mirror trick.  Also, I have to erase that face, make it more creepy.

something stinks...

I've got to start going to school earlier in the morning.  I haven't had a problem with late buses yet, but what I do have a problem is that loud, smelly drunk that showed up on the bus this morning.  He was such an idiot, kept yelling and staggering about and flipping people off, I just wanted to break that finger of his.  See, then with it in a cast he'd be flipping people the bird whether he wants to or not, and it would get him into trouble.  Aside from that dumbass, the bus was too crowded anyway, definitely need to leave earlier in the morning.