Jellyfish on 3Dmax

Here is my animation of a Jellyfish! I'm really proud of this little guy!
Although I must say there is plenty of room for improvement, I think he needs to have a little more fluidity (I think I just invented a word there) in his movement, he still looks a little bit like a robot. No worries though, i'm sure i'll improve as I go on! - hopefully! Roll on the tutorials!! :s

Life Drawing - Week 2

Here are the pictures I drew from my second attempt at life drawing. I am a little happier with these pictures of a male model but there is defiantly still room for improvement. I still need to look at proportion, Hue taught me a trick using a pencil as a ruler, this helps with proportion.
I'll have to try it again next week.

Kids Street Play

I have volunteered to help third year multimedia student Bindni, who chose the AV pathway, with one of her projects using a live client. Her project involves several interviews and filming a parade on the topic of Children and how important play is for them.

I am very excited about this project as it is a brilliant opportunity to gain experience within multimedia on an extra-curricular level.

Today we had a training session on using the Sony HD camcorders, this was really good, I am now confident using this equipment and I now have a greater understanding of how the production will run. I am going to be meeting with Bindni to finalise my role within the production and there will also be a short catch up session with the camcorders before we start the production.

(I will try to get the footage from todays session onto here for you to see)

First 3DMax Play

Okies, so here is the very first thing I have done on 3DMax. Its a lovely little animation of 'Sam' jumping ever so energetically into the air! woop woop!

My Own Practitioner Development

As a budding practitioner it is important that I continue to observe the world around around me and reflect on it to develop myself. Outside of university I continue to draw to develop my skills, I have been drawing since I was young and I have improved just by continuing to draw different things, practising with different materials too. I am now taking advantage of the life drawing classes that the university hold in the evenings. Up to now I have only been to one (the pictures are posted earlier on my blog) I am looking forward to developing my skills in this area as the weeks go on as at the moment I think I am a bit rusty. As well as drawing in the life drawing classes I am starting to use techniques learnt in my first term to display the drawings, I am also including them in stopmotion videos so people can see them as a working piece right through to the finished image. Up to now I have only done a small pencil drawing using this technique but I hope to develop this to paintings.

As well as drawing, I also play on my playstation. This gives me a great understanding of character representation and the different environment created in the games. I also get to see how different adverts have been used within the games, usually as the game loads or in a menu section.

I also love to watch films, this develops me as a practitioner by seeing the use of camera, character representation and techniques used within the film to portray the story.

Beyonce Music Video

Just a quick note on Beyonce - Single Ladies music video. When I first saw it I really like it, I think the use of colour, black on white made the dancers the main focus which is important in this video as the dancing is the main focus. I thought the choriography between the camera and dancers is fantastic, a lot of long shots have been used as the camera rotates around the dancers who themselves are rotating. Also as the dancers, and of course Beyonce, are the main focus throughout the video, I think they always are really well framed in this video.

Take a look: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=8mVEGfH4s5g

Identities Layout Ideas

I've had a few ideas for the layout of my Identities project.

The first Idea is to place the items that are meaningful to me around a tree, the user will navigate themselves around the tree and its branches to come across my objects. My objects will then respond in some way when selected by the user. For example if I put a row of CD's on a shelf attached to the tree, the user could click on them and progress to a page that showcases my favourite music. As a new CD is selected, a part of a song will play.

Another idea I had is to place my objects inside a snow globe, i've liked snow globes since my auntie bought me a special one as an easter gift. There is a winder under it that you turn for it to play a tune. I could have an animated view of a snow globe to intruduce the viewer to my objects. It would be as if a camera was swirling around the snow globe moving closer as it does, settling on a view of what is inside, which will be my objects.

I could even use both ideas together and put the tree inside the snow globe, this might be really interesting. I will try to sketch out my ideas to get a better idea of how it looks.

Life Drawing - Week 1

As a creative practitioner I need to develop my drawing skills, therfore I am going to go to life drawing classes every week.

These are most of my drawing from my first life drawing class. I think I am a bit rusty at the minute, i've not done any life drawing for ages! - I am eager to see an improvement throughout the coming weeks.

Second Life

Woop Woop! I managed to change my outfit!!

Journal Task - Online Interactivity

I have looked at several different websites, thinking about how they look, the purpose of them, the content, how the design reflects the company, how they reflect the philosophy of the companies brand and how successful the interactive elements of the website were.

To be able to do this I chose to look at three different websites that each have a different purpose.

The first website I looked at was for Netdiver Digital Magazine. The purpose of the website was to 'uncover reviews and to publish outstanding work by the International community involved with the industry' (digital design). So the main purpose of the website is to share information with people, to try to connect poeple throughout the industry together. The website is very easy to use, the navigation bar at the top makes it easy to follow. The context is clear and contextualised so the user can easily navigate around the website. The website has a white background with red subheadings and thumnail images. So text is easy to read and images are easy to see. However I did not like how the content was all layed out in a thin column to the left of the screen, I felt that that meant there was a lot of unutilised space. I understand however that this layout may be to accomodate people who used hand held computers to view the internet. The website does reflect the company, as soon as you log onto the website you see links to work and reviews on practitioners.

The second website I looked at was the Currys (electrical retailer) website. The purpose of this website is to sell the companies products to the user. Straight away the website is colourful and attractive to make it appealing, this is important as the user will feel good about what they see putting them in a better mood to purchase from them. The website is very easy to use, the navigation bar is on the left contextualising all the product to make it easier to understand. A search bar at the top means that people who know what they want can go straight to it so there is not frustration. All the leading deals are posted on the main page to act as eye catchers and to appeal to the user. This website has been positioned to the left of the page, I believe this is to accommodate people viewing the website on all screen sizes. The style of the website reflects the company as Currys is an electrical retailer selling products for all households. This means the website is designed to be very easy to navigate and explains fully the extra services that the company provides such as delivery, installations etc. Anyone would be able use this website and understand it easily.

The third website I looked at was the GCSE bitesize revision site by the BBC. This site is there to provide a service to young paople by aiding them to revise for their exams. The website is very colourful, making it appealing to young people which automatically helps against bordom. Calming tones of blue white and orange have been used which helps people use the website so that they can actually absorb the information that they are being given. The large navigation bar at the top helps the user navigate the website with ease, they can easily find the area of study. It targets its users by breaking the subjects matter into a language they can understand. As well as textual learning the users can download audio to aid them with them with their learning so the website is catering for students with different learning needs. The website also has a great level of interactivity by having a noticeboard for students to get in touch with each other and descuss the subject matter. This website reflects the BBC as it is utility for young poeple to use to aid their learning, the BBC are controlled by the government and this aids with the process of the exams which are laid down by the government.

Drawing Kelly

Here is a little animation I made of drawing my Niece.

Identities

I came across several different artists who use found obejects in their work.

Joseph Cornell.

I could use this approach to display my objects, put them together as they are, each object adds to the balance of the piece on a whole.

Mark Dion.

I love this layout for the objects, they are all strategically placed on the tree. I could attempt this layout in my virtual identities project. The user could navigate their way around the tree (or another item similar) to come across the different objects I choose to include. It would give the website a theme or a purpose.

Louise Nevelson.

Another approach would be to paint everything the same colour when put together to add a sence of unity between the objects but I think this would take away meaning from the indevidual objects rather than add.

Peter Blake.

I have always liked how Peter Blake adds objects to his compositions. They make the pieces personal to Blake. One of these images displays pictures that his classmates produced.

Researching Cabinets

As part of the holiday journal tasks I have been looking a different 'cabinet' websites, where different objects are used to together to create an image for a website and also are used as liks for the user to explore the website further.

I remembered JK Rowling's own website, years ago when I visited it it was designed as a desk full of objects that could be clicked on and would react in some way or open up another page of the website. I remember you could only open one part of it after collecting clues and at a cirtain time in the evening to get a sneek preview of some of the Harry Potter pages before the book was released.

Now the website has changed in its look a little but the idea is still there, I especially like how she has a photo in the bottom right hand corner, it adds a real personal touch to the look and feel of the website.

Second Life

Over the holiday (in between working millions of hours for DSG) I have been logging onto Second Life, creating a virtual character and exploring the world created by other on the T'interwebb.

I created a lady named Paige Skute:

Using Paige Skute I began to explore the virtual world around me, Of course I joined an Irish Pub and had a boogy on the dance floor.

Learning how to fly was great, I managed to get lost loads of times which was fun. I'd find relly cosy spots in the middle of nowhere.

I also found plenty of art galleries where people have uploaded work for others to view.

After exploring things did start to get a bit boring really but then I started IMing several different people. One guy was really helpful and added some landmarks onto my list where I could go to get some new clothes etc and he said he'd be happy to help so that was nice.

The whole website was very detailed, I found, there are lots of buttons for different things which I thought was a bit confusing. I suppose the more I use it the better at it I will become, hopefully.