Light Bulb Clicked On

A finished version of my website can be seen at...

http://members.optusnet.com.au/~wardpa/

Lightbulbs

The light bulbs – as I’ve mentioned in an earlier post – will be the navigation of my maze. They will be animated, light up and even blow up on occasion. I was even hoping to have a roll over of some kind but unfortunately, I wasn’t able to fit it in. Here’s just a basic sketchy idea of how the lights will be animated:

This sample, however, looks a little to springy/bouncy to me (even if it is just a sample). By drawing up this it’s helped me refine the animation of the light bulbs.

In my maze I want the light bulbs to swing down from above. To make this swinging motion look as realistic as possible I’ve tied an eraser to a piece of string and dangled it in front of me a couple of times and used this as a comparative for my final light bulb animation which you’ll be able to see in my maze.

Sometimes when you click on a light bulb it will ‘pop!’ or ’blow-up’. I made a sound to accompany this by slapping a ruler on my desk and it sounds awesome! Also, when the light blows-up, there will be lots of scribbles over it as my simple way of saying – it got busted. Also, some lightbulbs may flash a little or become hazy - this is another way of describign what happens in the idea process ;)

These three light bulbs are a very vital part of my maze as they describe me. How? Each light bulb represents the idea process (well, an idea process which I feel I live with). At any time I will have a number of ideas and by clicking on one light bulb or a new set of light bulbs (or more ideas) will appear. Some light bulbs will even blow-up which represents that some of my ideas either stop or never get completed and some will just link back to the start as way of saying I’m starting over again. Eventually an idea will become complete thus leading to my three images of inspiration in this case. These three inspirational images will be discussed in my next entry :D

Backgrounds

This past week I have been refining the background which will be the basis of my whole maze. Observe:

This took heaps of work and I found my self coming back to it many times over the past week with having new ideas on how to change and improve it. The background is a very important piece for my website which is why I’ve been coming back to it so many times. One important decision I had to make on this image was the colour. I felt I had two main options but I still tried many other colors in its creation just to be sure I wasn’t missing anything. As you can see here:

These were some colour combinations. The two main choices were either red-brown or blue. Blue because it is my favorite colour and has been since before I can remember. I try to buy accessories in blue, stationary in blue, clothes in blue – I even want a blue car. I did my personal portfolio website in blue – so this colour definitely describes me but for the overall composition of my maze this colour wasn’t really working too well. I even thought of having no colour in my maze except for in my three images which describe me as it would make these images stand out more prominently when the user finds them. However again, this didn’t work with the composition not the colour of my dangling light bulbs Hence, I decided to go for the red-brown colour combination.

I feel that not only does the red-brown version bring a subtle warmth into my maze (which I feel relates to me) it helps make my light bulbs look more illuminating. Also, I feel reminded even more of tea when I see the image and tea is something which inspires me.

Another aspect of the background is the line work. Personally, I’m very proud with how this part turned out. I like the texture and rough/messy-ness of the lines and how eventhough they look quite random, they all join up together quite nicely. I’ve also used photoshop to make the line work appear as though it were slightly bleeding into the tea-stain background really nicely.

To make the line work I extracted it from what I had drawn earlier and scanned into the computer and played around with the gamma, hue and saturation levels until I found the right colour. Next I made two copies of this and blurred the layer underneath and made that transparent. Finally I merged the two together and stuck them on top of the tearstain background then converted the image to a .png file to use in Director.

I’m very happy with the overall simplicity and juvenile-ness of the image. I feel that this partially describes part of me as I like (and best understand) things simplified and also like to not act my age most of the time ;P.

How the maze begins….

This week I have been putting some thought into how my maze will introduce itself to the user. The best idea which has been really exciting me as of late is having each of the light bulbs swinging/dangling down from above (almost simular to dangling a cat toy on some string to entertain your pus-pus ;P). As each light bulb (three in total) appe
ars, the room will become better visible. I got this idea after playing around with the glow tool in Photoshop – it’s very effective and makes a really cool glow almost simular to a Star Wars lightsaber. This glow effect has also helped me decide further on the overall composition of my website…

In my last blog I was undecided over what colours I was going to do the maze in – White drawing on black or black drawing on white – I have put much thought on this and have decided to go black on white. This is because I reckon I can better implement a glow effect with a white background as opposed to a black one. After experimenting with the glow effects I’ve found that it looks better if it’s made more subtle in a drawing – having a high contrast with a glow effect makes it look fake and crappy (kind of like a flashing sign in font of a strip club or something…). So the white/brighter background is going to stay.

Subtle… FAKE!!!

This is where I say less is more, subtle is better J plus, the glow effect on the left brings a slightly more homely/sensitive feel to my maze, so I’ll definitely stick with it J J

Backgrounds!

So, now that I’ve decided on the lighter background I need to start looking at textures that would make good backdrops for the maze. Ultimately there is only one background through the whole maze (the room) so I have to work extra hard on this part because it is what the viewer will be seeing all the time (* Sarah freaks out*). These are some textures I have been creating out the back…

I’ve been playing around with splatters. I feel that having a messy drawing over messy paper will be perfect for me because I’m a very messy person – thus, the room will say something about me -

Sarah = mess

So, the messier the paper, the better. I’m actually thinking of having a collage of rubbish stuck everywhere on the background too.

Project ONE Research - Room [_]

For my project the maze will be a room. Within this room there will be three light bulbs suspended from the ceiling all lit up (at first). The objective is to click the light bulbs and submerging the room in darkness and then light up once again. The maze will be to switch on the correct lights to find the three items which relate to me. So here’s the current plan:

9 rooms – these will be for the maze to get lost in

3 rooms – have an object inside them relating to me

12 rooms – total

Three object/room brainstorm:

For the objects relating to me I still haven’t decided what these will be however, I have some possibilities…

1) For one of the items, I’m thinking of maybe having a television which produces random images or static. This way I can incorporate some of my awesome new Adobe After Effects skills and have an excuse to create something unusial and exciting. The TV may have either static, animations, weird noises, me drawing or all of the above. This is going to be an awesome item if I go ahead and make it.

2) Having an old grammar phone with DaDa language spewing out of it – this would be a personality item which displays my ‘occassional loudness’ :P

3) I could have maybe four items relating to each of my personality types in that online test (INFP = Interverted,

4) A canvas with a picture drawing it’s self – my passion to draw…

5) A tv with a CPA (Certified Practicing Accountants) commercial and an art movie playing – fighting each other to be on the tv longer – I’m currently struggling with the decision to stay in art or become an accountant – this would be a really great item for future ambitions’.

6) Have a room full of name brands of food, products, generic and imitation brands, foreign language stuff, lolly wrappers – any logo stuff which looks kinda retro, gimmicky, cute – the kinda stuff I like – If I did this I would have the whole room just completely covered in wrappers on the walls, window, ceiling, floor – everywhere!

7) Pictures of things I’ve drawn/enjoy drawing – at the moment I’ve been developing a huge addiction to drawing skeletons – any type of skeletons, dinosaurs, humans, exoskeletons – they’re really exciting me at the moment for some reason…. I think I like the idea that every thing evolves/grows off the skeleton and it just fits inside our bodies (and animals’ bodies) so perfectly and balanced…

Even though this is turning into a great list of possibilities I have one general rule for these personal/personality items that I’ll eventually choose – they all need to have a common theme – if they’re toooooooo random then my point may be lost in the work. Oh, I’m all open to random-ness like having a lamp, sock, and live brain as the three objects, but I would only choose those objects if they could be linked some how – eg. Items I like to sleep in bed with :p. See, having a simple explanation like this to join them together brings the art piece alive in my opinion and displaying this at the end of journeying the maze would be a great way to finish it of I think (e.g. physically showing all the objects on a bed snuggling under bed covers.)

- So far I think I have two categories I’m subconsciously catagorising stuff into here (which I just realized L) They are things I like and things which describe me. I think I should open myself more broadly, maybe list things I hate, or places I go most often, or obscure things like the t-shirt I wear most, or the colour I paint my nails – things like this. I think their semi-good themes…

Nine Room Brainstorm:

All of the above is a massive brainstorm on what 3 or 4 items I could have scattered in my maze, but what about all the other nine rooms? I’m still undecided if I want to make these nine rooms all the same (the perks being, less work so more time for designing the main room and making it look really good) or having some landmarks in different rooms for example:

- scratched/graffitied walls

- different weather outside the window ß This could work in both scnaroes and sounds like a GREAT idea! :D

- Some lamps/candels instead of light bulbs ß another fantaz-mic idea!

- Hidden compartments?

- New holes in walls/floor?

- CREEPY NOISES!!!! ß why am I always addicted to scary/creepy stuff? These wouldn't just be normal random noises, they would have meaning (e.g. me saying how to navigate yourself out of my maze but having the audio flipped so i'm saying it backwards ^.^)

The Clicky Lights:

To navigate my maze clicking on one of three lights suspended from the ceiling will determine the user’s fate. As said earlier, whenever a light is clicked all three will turn off and turn on again moving the user to another room – and the process will continue until they find an item/’special’ room ;p. Here are some concepts…

I know I want them drawn like this because I really enjoy seeing messy two-year-old drawings on expensive-looking monitors – This is honestly not a plea to avoid work! :P This is the overall style I want to see my maze in. At the moment though I’m in a real dilemma as to whether I want everything with a black or white background – sometimes I lean towards one, then the other… (NEWS FLASH IDEA!!: Have ‘9 maze rooms’ with black background and ‘3 special rooms’ with white background <-- Sarah will consider this…) Either way, I have to decide what combination best suites me…

And with the lights, I still have a few ideas on what I want them to look like. I have thought of having lamps and other types of lights instead of the common basic light bulb on a string but I feel these give off a nice surreal type of feeling. As another one of my quirks I’m attracted to slightly random objects – I also find antiques fascinating – here were some objects I doodled this week – I’m unsure as to whether I’ll scatter them through out my maze or not (maybe make a scavenger hunt out of it?

Oooh, and at the moment, my favorite light bulb styles’ are #’s 2, 4 and 6. I may try testing with a few more mediums and textures until I've found an overall style I want the maze to be in...

QUESTIONS:

(Just incase this idea is looking a little too random at the moment…)

Why the dusty drawing style if I can do really high-grade drawings? (In my opinion :P)

As said earlier, I like the idea of seeing low quality images on stereotyped ‘advanced technology computers’. It just seems kind of ironic to me that although technology is progressing faster and faster (as though some unsaid progress must go on or the world will collapse on itself) some things don’t have to become ‘better’ or progress futher – they can just stay as they are. This was also an image which heavily inspired me to do something like this:

(and yes, it’s my current desktop wallpaper background thing :P) < – hey, I like honesty ;)

Why room?

This project has to be a very personal one. It will depict how we see ourselves in the world and to do this we need to stand back and get personal. The bedroom is an example of this. Our bedroom – or where ever we live or sleep – has lots of tell-tale signs of what kind of person we are. For example, a messy room may represent an unorganized person. (OR DOES IT!? lol). I feel by presenting a maze in a room I can channel aspects of my own room into it and better associate the maze with my personality (I will stick up some images of my room for next post). Your room is like your internet avatar image – a personalisation of you! (That’s what I like to think anyways.)

Will there be any other additions – or is this it?

NoooO! There will be HEAPS more put into this project! I have yet to scratch the surface. I want to have lots of small animations in this piece and I want the rooms to be textured (the next post will be full of texture research!) and I reallllly want my suspended light bulbs to jiggle slightly when the mouse rolls-over them (detail rawks!). I have heaps of other things I need to consider and want to add as well but I think they’ll be better explained in future posts…

Other images and works to link my methods to my madness...

A page of notes - link

An artwork by me in a slightly simular style into what I'm thinking of (note the line work) - Link

A subtle image on my randomness for an online portfolio I made last year. (You can see a lightbulb in it and lots of the textures there are what I love too! (notice the Japanese newsprint in there? *huggles* I love my website! - now to physically upload it... -_- ) - Link

Many hopes this is looking like research and not random babble!

Two things...

There are TWO main things in the world of which I like and feel I gain a certain inspiration from. In this post I will discuss what they are, why I hold a ceratin attraction from them and what direction I hope they will lead me in for both Project 1 and in Internet & Digital Media.

Animation

Cartoons and animation have been a very large source of inspiration for me over the years. This may probably be due to the fact that I was virtually raised in font of the television for most of my primary school life :P. I like how expression and emotion can be condensed and exaggerated in hand drawn characters and the way an audience connects with them. The whole process is also fascinating because when viewing a cartoon, you’re not actually watching something move, your watching a pile of static images which your brain is connecting together for you.

I always enjoy getting an old VHS or DVD out and pausing each frame to see how a character, object or special effect has been animated. It’s a fantastic feeling to capture the exact frame when you know the animator has achieved creating a certain expression or feeling in a character; or how an explosion is orchestrated with a series of flashes or scribbles (depending on the style of animation).

I enjoy 2D animation a little more than 3D as I find it easier to read expression in a 2D piece. However, having said that I also really like seeing the two mediums mixed together to create a whole new world of beauty and effects. The animations which push the animation media to extremes are always the more remember able ones. For example, I can bet more people would remember the 3D animation Toy Story as opposed to a movie like Open Season as Toy Story was the first feature length movie to incorporate 3D animation for its intirety.

In my art piece and through the course of Internet & Digi-media I hope to incorporate a lot more animation in my pieces and learn heaps of new skills to conceive some wonderful pieces. At the moment I feel I just don’t know enough on how to create that special effect of flow-of-movement, so I really want to learn heaps.

Illustratoin

Another field which fascinates my interest is the power of illustration. I enjoy the way a new world can be created in a single image and how even the style the image was drawn in can give it meaning or emotion. For example, an image in black and white often has a slightly more danker/older feel to it then something in colour. And it doesn’t necessarily matter how well the image was drawn/created either to create an emotion or effect.

Even still life illustrations are very enjoyable because if you know the person who drew them, you can gain some insight into their personality and find even more meaning in their drawings.

Illustrations’ also have an entertaining power to bring new meanings to old. And do this far more effectively than words. Observe the following:

This is an illustration depicting running out of time – quite latterly! I really enjoy small things which illustrate common everyday things/meanings – It’s just so fascinating! :D!

I really hope to bring a degree of the ambiguity of hidden messages and personality in drawing into my project. I think its also great to know something about your project which no one else is familiar with – its like having a diary which everyone can see but can’t completely decipher for :D

Assignment 1 research - a little about me..

This is reasearch for assignment 1. Here are some things that I feel express me and stuff that I like. There are also some ideas scattared around here that I think I may use in the assignment (i.e. creating a small website with 3 pages which is 'maze-like').

I feel that I am sometimes loud....

and have a huuuge attraction towards anything on a screen/moniter/LCD/plasma etc.

Two of my most favorite arts are digital media and drawing - I love combining the two because there is just a range of possibilities to explore as opposed to using each on its own. I'm a bit here-and-there so this small info thing about me may not make too much sense - I don't know best how to de-construct myself into small sections and describe them, so talking about the things I love (and hate) most might help :)





Drawings:
I like drawings which have a semi-rough feel towards them (as though they were boardly scrawled during a boring lecter at school or something) and have a huge attraction to pen drawings displayed on computer. I like the idea that you can get these doodles full of mistakes and improveThese are some pictures I have created in my short time on the globe with these qualities...

And these are some other images accross the internet which I also appreciate! I really like the dirty grungy-ness and black texture - that real feel that they were made years ago...

This artwork, for me, makes me think 'street art' and I really like that kind of stuff because it's intresting to think that so called "hooligans" who are sterotyped as destroying and grifitting stuff on the street can produce some really great art. (Not that this image really shows that) but thats the feel I get from street art - Its always fun to think of something in a different light i think :)

















I also like colourful strange cartoon-like images - the more colour and strangeness the better =^.^=






Some other things I like include...

- Disney movies
- Japanese anime animation
- Unusual uses of 3D animation
- Quirky illustration
- Hidden meanings
- Certain images which inflict surreal feelings
- Extreme uses of any medium (e.g. drawing photo-realistic images with a stick of charchole)
- Things which facinate children
- Looking at everyday things from different angles (e.g. running out of time - as in someone walking out of a watch or something ^__^)


Things I hate and loath (but there isn't that many I don't think...)...

- People who don't listen or give new things a go (although, I'm sometimes guilty of that ^.^! )
- Ack, I'll add more as I think of them...