06/04/2014

The beauty that is Sin City

So recently I did a presentation for critical studies based on art direction, I decided to choose one of my favourite films "Sin City" to talk about. Over all it went well, I mean I didn't throw up which was the best thing. So i'm just going to talk a bit about the film in general, I will try not to drag on or give too many spoilers :)

Sin City was created by a man named "Frank Miller", Miller is one of my favourite writers, comic artists and film directors of all time. My all time favourites are the Batman year one and the dark knight returns comics and films and of course Sin city the graphic novel and film. 

Batman year one comic panel
Sin City was filmed using a green screen then the backdrops were added in post production, This film also uses colourisation techniques; They used a black and white filter on high contrast to create a comic book feel and then used bright colours for certain objects, this makes the colours used have high symbolism. By using this method of editing it keeps the original theme as the graphic novel.
Green screen to colourised film to graphic novel
When thinking about composition you might not think that it is thought about much when creating films, however with Sin City all of the shots are beautifully thought about; this might be mainly because of the majority of shots being exactly the same as the comic; It almost being used as a storyboard for the film. In this image bellow it is obvious that composition has been thought about.
This still follows the golden spiral, the main focal point is her cold white flesh and her golden hair, The light on her body and the sheets draw your attention to the left side of the image more. Your eye then follows the shape of the sheets and the angle of her arm through to the shadows of the sheets and finally the shadowed out man on the right; This shadowing shows the solemn and dark mood of this character. 

Lighting is a very important feature in this film, even though these two elements were shot separately they used back lighting on the character to make it seem realistic. In this image the glaring lights of a car with the harsh dark silhouetted buildings create a very dark, mysterious and dangerous atmosphere. Where the character is slightly silhouetted as well shows that she is the target, the way the headlights surround her also show this; the dark colouring in this scene also connote that she is in danger.

In this film colour is one of the main factors in creating mood; the choice of colour used on certain objects in Sin City have hidden meanings, some more obvious than others. Red is used to show death and power;

The Converse and the Cadillac are owned by the same person; he has both of these things in red to show his true power in the film, It is also used to show his role in the film; which is being a killer.
The use of red for the sheets is not necessarily used to show love but to show the death of the woman. The red used on the lady's lips and dress are to show her power she is soon killed after by an assassin because of this power, therefore also showing death.

Yellow in every day life is seen as toxic and dangerous; normally seen on warning signs and such, therefore in this film they have used it for the same purpose. 
The deformed paedophile is bright yellow to show how poisonous he is he also uses a syringe of yellow liquid that is also used to portray a dangerous toxic substance. 
These two images are less obvious; the golden hair and eye are used as a warning to show that they will be dangerous later on. The woman is seen as dangerous due to her being murdered and the male being framed for her death.

In each occasion blue is shown in the film information is passed from one to another. The characters shown in blue are also corrupt, whether it be due to them being a traitor, a murderer or a corrupted cop.
The woman has bright blue eyes, this is because of her being an informer and giving information to the wrong people. The scene at the bottom flashes different colours such as red, yellow and finally blue showing the characters anxiety; it is only when the scene is blue that the dead character starts to talk.
Green is used sparingly in the film it is mainly used to portray jealousy and envy through the use of green eyes. This is linked closely to the seven deadly sins due to “the green eyed monster” which is the personification of jealously.

The colour of the blood in the film have different meanings:
White blood leaks from the bodies of the villains where the heroes are around their bodies. White shows heroic things such as the weapons used to kill them.
Red is to show that the person wearing the blood is powerful and strong whether it be there's or not.
The yellow blood is used to show that the paedophile was rotten to the core; this can also be seen as toxic blood where this then leads to the suicide of the male wearing his blood.
This is also done to make the film less violent but also adds another element to the colours used.

I personally find Sin City a beautiful film and feel that the way they made it as close to the graphic novel as possible make it incredibly impactful and memorable.

If you haven't seen it already I highly recommend watching it, the second one is coming out in the cinema soon so pre book your tickets now :)
Cheerio for now.

06/03/2014

The road map to becoming an environment artist

I've been thinking about where I want to go and be when I finish uni and well I'm pretty sure its having a job as an environmental artist. Therefore I've searched around the web and found a job perfect for me (http://hire.jobvite.com/CompanyJobs/Careers.aspx?k=Job&c=qAx9VfwV&j=oYVsYfw3&s=Indeed) however there is some places I need to improve before I can get the perfect job I desire.



This job is entails concepting and modelling for a stylised world, they are asking for:
- A person with strong enthusiasm and understanding of how to build caricatured architectural and organic landscapes with whimsical appeal
- A person well versed in Photoshop, 3DS Max and other 2D/3D applications
- A person that is confident with modelling, lighting and texturing low poly assets for visually memorable worlds
-A passion for games and creating environments
-A good sense of scale and spatial awareness
-A solid understanding of how the environment affects game-play
-A person that is eager to work in a fast paced environment
-An understanding of the importance of scope
-Thrive in a small team environment
-A disciplined person with a strong work ethic
-Someone that sees themselves as a team player
-Being able to model environment geometry from simple mass-out to finished states
-The ability to UV map and paint custom texture sets for levels
-The ability to light environments to enhance and evoke a strong sense of mood
-The skill to finish environments with detail objects, decals, dynamic lights and animated objects
- 3 years of progressively responsible experience in video game environments
The portfolio must also demonstrate a strong understanding of light, value, composition, colour, and staging in environmental design. It must also show fully realised environments that create specific moods in a playful and charming way.



I feel as if I have a few of these requirements such as;
-A passion for games and creating environments
-A good sense of scale and spatial awareness
-A good knowledge of Photoshop and 3DS Max (I also know how to use Maya, Mudbox, UDK (to a simple level) and Illustrator).
-A solid understanding of how the environment affects game-play
-An understanding of the importance of scope
-Being well disciplined
-Someone that sees themselves as a team player
-Being able to model environment geometry from simple mass-out to finished states
-Being able to thrive in a small team environment
-The ability to UV map and paint custom texture sets for levels
-The ability to light environments to enhance and evoke a strong sense of mood
-The skill to finish environments with detail objects, decals, dynamic lights and animated objects




Some of these things I feel like I am good at however they do need to be improved and this can be done by continuing to work on them.

Things I need to continue to work on:
-Photoshop and 3DS Max
-Confidence with modelling, lighting and texturing low poly assets for visually memorable worlds
-Having a strong work ethic
-Being able to model environment geometry from simple mass-out to finished states
-Thriving in a small team environment
-My ability to work in fast paced environment
-The ability to UV map and paint custom texture sets for levels
-The ability to light environments to enhance and evoke a strong sense of mood
-The skill to finish environments with detail objects, decals, dynamic lights and animated objects

The things I need to do before getting my dream job:
-Work in the industry for 3 years
-Become a master at Photoshop and 3DS Max
-Make an outstanding portfolio of lots of work showing off my passion and skill for working with environmental art
-Work on soft skills such as working in teams and the ability to talk in front of large crowds (this can be achieved by doing group projects and presentations at university)
-Continuing to develop 2D and 3D art skills




By doing this process I finally know what to aim to get done for the future, most of this can also be covered in university time therefore if also work on it in my own time I will be able to get to where I want to be sooner rather than later :)

24/01/2014

The vehicle project breakdown and tea with a crazy man.

So being back at uni after Christmas has been hard, there was no rest when getting back and we were pushed straight into work; being given 144 thumbs and 12 finals to do over 2 weeks.... yeah that's a lot of work. Needless to say I still haven't finished them.

Anyway, this week our lecturer Chris decided to run a week of intensive visual design where we were told to pick an object and books of our choice  to create a vehicle out of. At first I was very excited and and eager to get to it; however my lack of knowledge lead me to thinking I had all the time in the world and ended up going out shopping and doing nothing of importance in the time I should have been spending doing this project. So it came to the Tuesday night when I finally got to work and managed to produce some half decent silhouettes of my pocket-watch.

I was eagerly anticipating going into class the next day to see what amazing designs I could come up with; however during the lesson I realised that I can't even draw a box in 2 point perspective let alone come up with an amazing concept for a vehicle, of course this got me thinking about whether this course is right for me and how I am just not a good enough artist, thus spiralling into depression. That night I went home and pushed my pencil around the paper trying to come up with ideas and in the end decided to just give up and go to bed; I then worked on the designs in the morning and went with the best idea I had which was a portable prison, finally with a design I began trying to draw out the shapes and thus my lack of perspective skills left me angered and with a massive problem, I then had an amazing idea to use my 3D skills to make the vehicle and then use that to draw on top of for my digital final. Later that day I got to the cintiq room dreading working on this terrible concept and ended up giving my computer away to another student so that I could procrastinate and forget all about my poor designing skills. 

This is where the breakdown begins, I found myself talking to a friend about his work and how everything has been going and it was going well until he asked me the same questions... I broke out in tears and explained how I felt about my design and how behind I was on work. After a while he gave me his computer and I began work on the project still not 100% about the overall design. After being the last one to leave the labs I got home and found a message from this friend staying "Hey, pointing out the obvious here but you seemed a bit down. Message me on Facebook if you want a cup of tea sometime. We both have a fuck ton of work but its good to take a break sometimes. Good luck with the work.", this immediately cheered me up but it was straight back to work. I opened up my work and started to procrastinate yet again by going on Facebook and by eventually deciding to go out and buy some energy drinks I then texted him and asking how his work was going and that I was going to get some drinks because it was going to be a late one. He eventually told me to come up for a cuppa before I got to work and I couldn't refuse. Whilst with him he helped me realise why I've been depressed and how I can fix it; obviously I cried my eyes out and explained everything, him analysing everything every step of the way (because he is insane) and showed me how he keeps motivated and spends his time correctly with still being able to slack off every now and again. So I thanked him and got back to work with a positive attitude and managed to finish it, and even though its not amazing I am very proud of it because I didn't give up and got a decent piece of work out of it at the end.

The moral of this story is TEA FIXES EVERYTHING!
And get yourself a counsellor like I have, he doesn't know it yet but I am coming up for a cuppa every week ;)

Cheerio for now...

and one last thing I want to thank you for everything! (you know who you are)
oh and research the number on the side of my vehicle (5150) its for you. ;)

22/11/2013

The massive update of awesome...

I've been busy doing stuff! ^_^

Like the archway down by castle view...
The Students Union building...
The Fletcher building...
A study of some trees at Bradgate park...
And finally a study of a dinosaur skull at the Newark Museum...

So yeah! Very busy :)
Had an informal assessment as well and got good feedback from my lecturers, now I've just got to wait until our formal assessments...
Feeling a bit nervous but up for the challenge of facing the angry dragons :D

Haven't posted in a while due to massive procrastination and a bit of depression but hopefully I can kick myself up the butt and get to work :)

Cheerio for now...



31/10/2013

Where did it all begin? Video Games: 1950's-1970's

How far back to video games go? I bet you are thinking the first video game ever made was something like "Super Mario" or "The Legend of Zelda", but surprisingly video games can be traced all the way back to the 1950's!

I personally believe it all started with a game on a cathode ray tube; a missile simulator made in 1947, the game was designed around radar displays from the second world war. I feel that this game pathed the way forward to the games that we all know and love today; by it showing people that there was potential to produce games electronically.

This then leads on to 1951 when "Alexander S. Douglas" created "OXO" commonly known as "Noughts and Crosses"; manufactured for the "EDSAC" computer, it used a rotary telephone for a game controller. With its unique use of a telephone as a controller this led towards the "Oscilloscope" being used to create the pioneering game "Tennis for Two". Made in 1958 by "William Higinbotham", not to be confused with the popular game "Pong"; the objective of this game was to hit the moving ball over the net rather than pass the opponent.
"OXO"

The main revolutionary game of this era was "Spacewar!"; a two player game created by "Steve Russell" and Co. in 1962, the aim of the game was to try and destroy your opponents ship whilst trying not to be pulled into a star located in the centre of the screen. This game was the first of its kind and without it I believe that we would not have games such as "Space Invaders" or "Asteroids"; even modern games like "Zombie Apocalypse" and "Diablo 3" which have the same sort of birds eye view shooting and controlling system.
"Spacewars!" compared to "Diablo 3"
"Spacewars!" is one of the most recognised games of the era due to it being the first to have a unique objective unlike other games of its time; it brought forth the a new genre of space combat simulation. Though the years this gaming style has been improved and expanded on to create the well known games we love today, however these wouldn't have been possible if it wasn't for "Spacewars!".

"Maze war" created in 1973 was the first first person shooter, without this game we wouldn't have "Call of Duty"; can you imagine that? A world where we don't have 10 year old boys telling us where our mothers were last night? Nevertheless "Maze war" was played on the "Xerox Alto"; an amazing feature with this game was that you could connect numerous of these computers up together to create a multi-player game. 

"Maze war" being played on a "Xerox Alto" by two players

In 1977 consoles such as the "Atari 2600" started to pop up out of the shadows; the main game of this time was "Pong"; bringing the well known arcade game to the home. This well known game loved by many was a hit and brought console gaming to the top of the market. "Pong" is played by hitting a ball to the opponents side and hoping that they miss it; the success of this game made it obvious to other companies that there was a massive market for video games, this led to lots of games being made which were just a complete copy of "Pong".
 
"Pong" being played on an arcade machine
Towards the end of the 1970's the arcade market began to pick up; by the end of 1978 games such as "Space Invaders", "Spacewars!" and "Bee Gee" were now available to play on arcade machines and by 1979 even more games such as "Asteroids", "Lunar lander", "Monaco GP" and "Flight simulator" were released. This rise in popularity did wonders for video games; people began to think outside the box and create games with different genres and interesting objectives, this really was just the start to a wonderful thing that is video games. If it wasn't for these pioneering games and designers who knows what would have happened, would we still have games if it wasn't for these innovative people? "If I hadn't done it, someone would've done something equally exciting if not better in the next six months. I just happened to get there first." - Steve Russell aka "Slug" on inventing "Spacewar!"


22/10/2013

The calm after the storm...

Went to Bradgate Park today... it was an experience... it rained a lot.





That's our group, looking very unimpressed and wet... after everyone else had gone home; but its not all doom and gloom, I for one had an amazing day. Yeah my feet hurt, my body aches and I got soaked but Bradgate is beautiful! Sometimes when you live in the city for so long you forget that places like this exist...



I learnt a lot today, not necessary about drawing due to me having to put my sketchbook away every 5 minutes because of a down pour but I've absorbed the atmosphere of being in a storm; knowing what the rain does to the lighting, how it affects the land, the way you walk, your emotions and basically just knowing the conditions of that weather. It might not sound very impressive but I know some day that's going to become useful information when creating a game environment.

Another interesting thing happened today, as we were continuing to plough through the day watching other student leave to go home to a nice warm flat, a massive downpour happened... after it finished we were cold, drenched and wanting to go home, however we continued like crazy people. We stayed until 5pm and as we were on our way back to the entrance willing for our taxi to be waiting for us, this happened...



The sun came out and lit up all of the surrounding area; even creating a double rainbow that we could see arch all the way across the sky...



Seeing this just made staying longer than everyone else worth it; knowing that we witnessed something no one else did. It taught me that you have to be there for every moment, to not miss a thing and to take every chance you get because something good will come out of it...




06/10/2013

A little update and The 1st crackpot theory!

Hiya,
Just a little update about the whole Game Art thingy; Just finished my first visual design assignment (picture below) and feeling pretty happy with it :) I know its not perfect but that's why I'm at uni; to become amazing! :D
Final canal drawing.
Amber's Crackpot theories #1:


So I was laying in bed this morning after being woken up by drunk students (that have a social life; unlike me) on their way home at 5am after a booze up; as I was trying to get back to sleep I felt uncomfortable and vulnerable I then realised that my blanket wasn't covering my back... where does this weird feeling on security come from by just being wrapped up in a blanket cocoon? So I began to think to myself, does this come from when we were in the womb? being in a contained warm space? When you think about it it doesn't sound comforting at all, it feels restricting and well rather sweaty... but somehow it makes you feel invincible; feeling like you have a forcefield from ghosts, burglars and that weird hobo that lives under your bed...
That it all...

Cheerio! :D