Shape_to_Symbol_Gif_

Reflection_:



         I think that the most frustrating part of creating a gif with photoshop is working with each individual frame/layer. This is most frustrating to me because some slight movements will throw one frame out of order, and when there are 50 different frames to work with it is extremely difficult to find the incorrect frame and even more difficult to place it back in line. Even my gif above is not perfect; I am sure that there are some frames that aren't in order, but, hey, once you stare at a screen for 50 minutes straight, you just gotta give up at some point.
         Having finished this project, I think that I am most confident in using the magic wand tool. At first, this tool frustrated me because I could not get it to select a certain gradient of a very faint color. However, after playing around with it and pestering my Graphic Design Teacher for a while, I was able find out how this particular tool functions. It turns out it was pretty simple, since all I needed to do was adjust the tolerance value. Now I feel kinda stupid.
         I really wish I was better with the timeline. It turns out that messing with layer visibility will mess you up as well. On some level, it will mess you up emotionally. The frame will only capture the topmost visible layer, but I didn't know that. I ended up making many frames repeat or skip a layer, which resulted in some choppy animation. I really wish that I knew how the timeline worked so my animation could probably have been a lot smoother, but hey, I'm no Time Lord.
        Now that I have been opened up to the wonders and potential of Photoshop, I think that I'd like to make some more simple frame by frame animations.

Gif_

This is something I put together in the SFM. The grenade is actually fully animated, and I just exported the animation as a poster every 2 frames.

Concept Board

I originally chose posters as my graphic design concept because I thought it was very interesting how something as small as posters can convey a message much larger and more effectively than the message itself can do. The visuals in a poster, specifically propaganda posters, can bring out a person’s emotions like guilt, or passion. Many wars have used propaganda, but I decided on WWII because it required an extensive amount of effort to keep up in the war. Propaganda in WWII was not limited to recruiting; it extended into civilian lives and promoted the assistance of contributing to the war effort through any means - by rationing, producing war materials, growing one’s own food, buying war bonds and saving fuel. It is estimated that the United States produced 200,000 different posters during WWII, which is more posters than any other country produced in WWII.

So WWII Propaganda may have helped more in the early to mid 1940's, but it has influenced graphic design today by allowing the use of art to convey a message or to advertise. We see advertisement everyday, but while it may not be propaganda per se, it has the idea of propaganda - to convince somebody to do something.

Links:

-http://www.nationalww2museum.org/learn/education/for-students/ww2-history/at-a-glance/propaganda-posters.html

-http://guity-novin.blogspot.com/2010/05/chapter-29-propaganda-posters.html#Eleven

The Board:

Good Graphics, Bad Graphics

So the title says "Good Graphics, Bad Graphics". Well, it's kind of a lie because I will only be showing one example of what I think is considered "good" graphics. This was a homework assignment and I'll be honest; I forgot that this was assigned. Naturally, I did what any teenager in junior year would do: I winged it, and I winged it with food. But I still think this is an example of good graphics:

So this is a Kraft Mac and Cheese box. Big whoop, am I right? Of course I'm (you're) not! This box is the finest example of graphic design there is. The person who designed this was a genius. While Issac Newton was too busy fondling around with calculus, the real genius of all time had created this masterpiece: something a high school student might appreciate instead of dread. So why on earth would I like this? Because it's about food, dummy! The real genius lies in their depiction of the food. They make the mac and cheese look so elegant and smooth it gets my appetite up and running. It makes me want to cook it, and that is something I cannot do. When I cook mac and cheese, it ends up looking something like this:

Pleasing right? Anyways, if an artwork can make me want to cook even when I know I can't, I know it has pushed me, and that's good graphic design. Catch you all later, and peace out everybody.

Things That Inspire

We all have some sort of music that we enjoy. For me that's music without human voices. For the most part. Music helps us relieve stress or even motivates us - or at least for me. I'm not sure how music functions for everybody else. You probably guessed what inspires me. Well, it's something that inspires me. Music isn't all that inspires. Because that would be kinda sad. One of the songs that pushes me forward in life is ROBOTS! by the Valve Studio Orchestra.

Here's the Piece:

If the video decides not to play, here's a link to it.

So why's it so important to me? Well, it's time for some background info. The music is used in, you guessed it (unless you didn't), Team Fortress 2, which is an FPS game that features a Co-op mode called Mann vs. Machine, which pits a group of up to six players up to a horde of robots. The robots are divided up into waves. During the start and end of each wave, short segments of this track play. For some reason I like to relate the world to games, so when I have a series of tasks, I think of it as a horde of robots that need to be stopped. I may or may not require psychiatric help. But anyways, when the tasks become too much, the music encourages me to move on to the "next wave". So that's my inspiration. That's it until my GD teacher assigns me another bleg_post to write. Take care everybody.

Letter Project Reflection (Trash Reflection)

1) My first step in this enterprise was creating a few thumbnail sketches of different ideas. I only liked two of the 20. I then proceeded to make larger and more detailed versions of the two. The two only initially contained the shape of the letter and no background, which I decided to add later to try to enhance the image. Afterwards, I decided on one and decided to add color to attempt to further enhance the image. Using thumbnail sketches really helped because I could see how the overall image would have panned out if i did decide to chose said image.

2) When thinking up the design of the letter W, I immediately thought of things that began with "w". I soon began to expand the idea into things that could naturally, or close to naturally, form the shape of a W. I narrowed my ideas down to two choices - a waveform and a Walking Dead-ish themed design. The Walking Dead design was more complex than the waveform, and because I usually go for the challenge (and because I love The Walking Dead), I decided to go with the Walking Dead-ish design. For that design, I used a walker and an person to represent the W by having the walker bend back, and the person laying on the ground with his legs bent at the foot of the Walker.

3) The most challenging aspect of the challenge was coloring. Later into the project, Decided to incorporate the background from a poster about a game called The Last of Us, since it had an apocalyptic aspect, which fit well with the Walking Dead. I tried to imitate its colors, including a vibrant sunlight in the background and shading. Needless to say, I could not successfully do it. A shame.

4) So am I satisfied with the project? Absolutely not. I think my project came out as a disaster solely because of my background and colors. They just were not emulated correctly and completely clashed, throwing the letter off focus. The coloring is more disastrous than the elevator lines at my school. Heck, it was more disastrous than the Maginot line. My creation makes me cringe.

5) If I could do one more thing to my project as it is, I'd throw it away. If I could change anything, I'd remove the background entirely and possibly kill off the coloring. Or choose my waveform design. I would do anything to prevent this heap of trash from happening.

Apparently this website doesn't like landscape formats, so you're gonna have to tilt your head

Here's a draft of my project:

And Here's the final project (trash):

So that's it. I'm gonna go sit in a corner and tell myself that I knew this was a bad idea. Hope everybody has better luck than I do when working with art. Take care everybody.

Things I've Done

When I play around with the Source Filmmaker, I don't actually make animated videos. Sometimes I might experiment with animation techniques, but I don't make videos. Even if that is the purpose of the SFM. I might in the future. Probably not. Anyways, I make posters instead because they're easier to make. In my posters, I love to play around with aperture and lighting. These are some of my works:

 Actually, now that I think about it I have made one video. It's short and doesn't show any characters, plots, or anything; I was mainly playing around with light animations:

Welp, that's it for now. Take care everywhere!