Comic Ideas and Development (College Work)

During multiple tasks in college, we had to create our own story by using the tasks we experienced before hand, and making a detailed and understandable idea of a certain concept I would like to create for the final piece. We would do this task and do it in a comic related format with some sort of interactivity or a chosen point and click adventure. I picked the Comic as I felt it really fit with a certain story I had in mind before. From this idea, I built diagrams of the characters, the dilemma in the story (all stories happen to have a dilemma in them in some stage) and the possible animation which I could place into it, to appeal to the viewer.
This story was originally about a girl who is shipped away with a guitar that has important paper work inside, but the idea was scrapped as it was too complicated to make it such a short story. In the end I decided to go with a story called "Himmelblau" (German word; "Blue Sky") which is about a girl who grows up with a park managed by a creature. I thought it'd be a fun story to play around with and get people who are reading it, interested in what the story is intending and what it's clearly about.
I am in the middle of processing and completing this story to it's finished glory, but I am really in love with how much detail I have added to the whole idea of Himmelblau. I believe if I had more time and was able to publish it, I could make it into a German tale some day. The name Himmelblau was based off of a song made by a band called Die Arzte, the first track from the Jazz ist Anders album. This band has been around for many years, (since during the 80s) and have a very good ideal of the world, and this is by picking on certain funny parts of the world, and writing them into song. But in Himmelblau's case, this funny side does show up in certain cases, but it is quite the serious but true song. It's about hope in your life, and everything is achievable some way or another, or that there's other paths to achieving just one goal. 

(This is the sketchy styled background I am working on currently.)

 

The characters will be drawn in flash so I am able to edit them in frame by frame, and the Photoshop work shall be the backgrounds I will copy and paste into the frames them selves. This is the most simple way which I can complete this task, and it will look effective to have two different styles on top of each other, but go well with the whole story in general. I firstly planned to do the background neatly and perfectly into flash, but I scrapped the idea when I thought about the qualities which Photoshop could give me. 

 Comic Idea Sketches

Here are my sketches that I did for my final piece. These were just the guide lines of what I would like to end up with when I have finished the product its self.

Kinetic Typographical Animation (College Work)

A project was set in College, where a certain audio clip is used to create a piece of Kinetic Typographical Animation. This means only using the movements of words and letters to form a piece of animated artwork medium to appeal to a certain subject which the audio expresses. Many people who create advertisement use this style to easily get their own point across easier then just images and actors which could cost more then a simple yet fashionable illustration.

I had decided to do something quite personal to my self, and choose a Musician I have pretty much known all my life. Grant Nicholas is a guitarist and lead singer of a band called Feeder, an Indie Rock band, playing with a bassist called Taka Hirose and the current drummer Karl Brazil. The whole band started their journey on the road in 1990, but were really known during 1991 as they preformed outside their comfort zones. During 2002 a unfortunate accident lead the band to disband for a while, caused by the devastating news they had recently heard about their own original drummer Jon Lee, who committed suicide in his Miami home. So, 6 months on, Grant him self did a interview to say that the band was still around, and they were taking a break because of the unfortunate events, yet still writing tracks for their new album which was yet to release called Comfort in Sound, which was tributed to Jon Lee him self. 

So, here is part two of the interview which Grant happened to do in October 2002, for a Dutch Online Multimedia;

One part of the interview its self I took an interest to was near the end, where he quotes; "People also look so deeply into stuff, you know? And it's completely not how it was. But isn't that great though, isn't that what music's all about?" I took an interest in this because it was I liked how he put forward this simple quote, yet it's quite commonly true for not just music, but for art and other mediums. This would mean everyone would relate to this simple quote in some way with their own hobbies in life. I personally feel that this effects my self, as I also try and interpret what the original lyrics are trying to peruse, yet when an artist or developer happens to comment on it, it's completely different and out of context. This adds to the mystery of artistic pleasure its self, and that is why it's so addicting to viewers, even if they can't see it personally them selves.

To make this into a Kinetic Typographical Animation, I would have to grasp the mood and information, to suit the atmosphere. What I was thinking is use a series of images prosessed by words them selves, to create a shape of an object its self. Maybe shapes of guitars to symbolize music and keep the connection between Grant and his own profession. Either way, to have a connection with my idol is the biggest reason why I would like to do this quote. I believe Grant is a very talented Guitarist, to become like him would be my dream (Yes, there are much better guitarists out there, but to be able to grow up with his music has been an amazing experience). This will add more to the atmosphere if interest is shown.

Typography (College Work)

Typography is a subject and design theory in which expresses itself in words, just like what icons and diagrams do, but in a worded scale. Typographers or Typography Artists manage and ensure that the spacing, colour, texture, and ideal of their own typography image is set out in a giving way, to make sure their own idea is viewed as an "image" in its self. Typography was founded in the late 1800 BC, using concentrated dyes, stencils and punches to create their own work in stone and in paper parchments. These days, we are known to use the printing press for such things, to create a fine and finished products which creates images in our minds; We see these Typography Information Posters everywhere in advertising, it doesn't even have to be on paper, it can even be animated, typography doesn't have to stay a still image. The usage of Typography is quite a broad area, and can be mistaken or not seen as Typography, but it is there.

So, to use the whole idea of Typography and the way it effects people, I created Four images my self, by just using one text block. I used a Haiku poem, which is more then enough to express your own image across, making sure I used heavy font to show the words in which matter, and formed a few words themselves to give depth and curiosity to the viewer. My Haiku was as follows;

Stomping on the ground.

Mr. Dino, will you dance,

Fox-trot, Samba, Waltz?

Managing to use the same font for three, and on the last, expressing detail into a design but by using it as a visual effect.

First Attempt;

I found this one easiest to do, but alignment can really mean everything when you create such a simple Typography image. The italics create emphasis on the word "Stomping" which could entitle that it is a spoken out word.

 

Second Attempt;

I felt much more confident when it came to the second typography image, I really wanted to show the word, "Stomping", off as much as I needed to, since I still found it was quite an important word.

Third Attempt;

I decided to mess around with colour, to at least experience some depth into the image, such as this one beside the text. Stomping is quite a moving word, so I scrambled the letters slightly to show a shaking effect.

Forth and Final Attempt;

This final image was the most fun to play around with. The detail I was able to accomplish to make a coloured picture of a Dinosaur, which was funnily enough part of the font which is skirted on the line art of the Dinosaur image its self, which is quite the establishment. I started to play around with opacity to make it have a rough look, as well as using font which looked rough in the first place.

Interactive Media and Game Design Concepts (College Work)

Media, Multimedia or Interactive Media its self has been around for many years, making big progress in employment and audience. Media could be a mixture of many things that can control artistic substances or create ability to make sure that a certain product, style, image, is placed out into the world with ease. The real meaning is basically a subject that involves different or multiple (Hence at the start of Multimedia has "Multi" on it.) content forms that appeal or proses appeal to a user or viewer. It's quite a big subject to get into, and it appeals to many who know about it as it is quite broad. Having quite a participation in actually changing the world and molding it into something which every one can deal with, or proses interest in. Biggest example of hosted media at work would be the World Wide Web. Here, it has sparked interest in many people who want to throw their opinions out into the open, and not get judged otherwise. The examples below are pieces of multimedia that have changed reality its self, as we know it. 


Web 1.0 and Web 2.0;

YouTube is now a Web 2.0 website.

During the oldest stages of web development, Web 1.0 was the serious business, and was used globally in many ways. Although, coding were completely different for browsers that let you do such things around the web, which resulted in Web 2.0 being born much later, but let us leave that explanation later. In some stages, Web 1.0 wasn't user friendly then many others believed, so it caused complications when others wanted to create their own websites and information banks but really enables users to get simple designs down and out in the open.  They hadn't have been the best graphics in the whole, not a lot of storage space was there, yet it was such a big stage in development which is more important to this day in life then you would think it would be. Connectivity was crucial to get each piece of information and data to each machine with internet access, so Web 1.0 was the circuit which would need feedback from the image of the website its self to the computer; this caused updates and developments to come much later then they would in the 2.0 forms. In Web 2.0's terms, it was the complete opposite in both information and graphic detail. The whole point of it was to be obviously better then the first, but more kind and more free to the user who is able to use such a development process in web pages. So, in simple terms, Web 1 and 2 are examples of applications used to express detail, express capability in pages and coding that goes into stations/programs such as 1.0 and 2.0. An example of a Web 1.0 website would be The Well, in which was one of the very first websites to ever be released onto the world wide web. The Well was made to test community accessibility to the internet its self, as it was released, there was such a huge amount of people who logged into it that the people who hosted the server had to make sure it was shut down entirely, to not overload the system. Google used to also be a Web 1.0 product, but has been tweaked and administrated into what is now a 2.0 website. An example of a a Web 2.0 page would be YouTube, a website which can proxy video footage and store data of personal information into their own database. This is a big leap, as it was much harder to process such detail in such a manner back when Web 1.0 coding and processing was still around; not much data was enabled for use.

Website Usability;
Thinking of the whole concept and idea of Web 1.0 and Web 2.0, usability is very important any where, especially when you want to appeal a product to certain people and to put your points and interests across. The internet is a great example of usability, as it has multiple ways to deal with certain things that it would come across. If a person had a disability, or if a person wanted help with a situation or work that they have to do, a website host and provider would have to make sure their website was updated with appealing footage and examples on their own web page. One example is a website dubbed Subtraction, a blog website that is contrasted yet stable to relate to with simple layouts and gorgeous activity. The reason this website is very good to look upon for usability is the fact of simple design and layout that it consists of. A man called Khoi Vinh was the person who created and developed this blog by him self, yet explains that the website has been his own website since the release of websites; 1997. It was basically a portfolio for him to show his less graphical work, until years went on and website development stages became apparent for him to do much more. But, because of how old the website is, Vinh him self has seen a lot of changes in web development to be able to know that there are some people out there who could be hard of hearing, eyesight troubles, or even just general public viewing are important, and it must be usable to present his work.

Example of Vinh's web-blog, Subtraction.

So, because of these two situations; Usability and Website access, situations such as console development came into play. Basing their own facts through machinery that computer products had, they come to create machines whom were able to use these sorts of accessibility and production as the World Wide Web did. 

Video Game Development and Concepts;

Games have been quite a great media product since the day it was finally introduced properly with the resemblance of Pong. Development really went on just the same as the websites own development, but with quite a twist in the graphical division. Games now had to focus on quite a few details to make their own games noticed and played, even known all across the world. The competitive side of the website now stemmed on games them selves, which resulted in different consoles being released, just like when Microsoft and Apple battled it out  and disputed for the first time, as the details of Microsoft's machinery plans were out in the open. So, games, game products and cartridges were released for different consoles that all claimed to have the best graphics, the best everything in their own department, it was and still is a huge franchise. Games have to focus on the story and graphics of their own products in which they make. They also have to make sure that their own game is quite compatible for the console its self to be able to actually play the game. These days, we are left with three major companies that service games on consoles; Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo. PC games have never been truly in the marketing feud, nor' have they been despised because of graphical terms, they have been around for ages, and the medium of the product is huge beyond compare; not all people can afford consoles them selves (Yet, computer games are not hosted on an engine which is acceptable for good quality standards, unlike the consoles which enable great quality play through. Development of consoles to be able to host such big files of data, and graphics them selves. The people who create these objects of game play and certain description in them require real life usability to example their work as "player friendly". For example, over the years, games suffered glitches and hackers all around the world, and there was no explanation as to how to stop it or who was creating hacks and why these glitches were happening. Take an 1997 example, Tomb Raider 1 was brought out for the Play Station 1, PC and the Sega Saturn, there was quite a choice in what console you were able to play such a game on, yet it experienced quite a beating when during 1998, so many glitches and unmistakable jumps that were created in game were visible, people complained of the hard detail it consisted of (It was never the most visually friendly game, either, but one of the first to have 3D game play, so it was bound to be bugged/glitched.) So, as they noted the unfortunate side of events, many games took advantage of these mistakes and managed to correct them with real life examples and events. Halo were one of the few its self,  it's much younger then Tomb Raider, but it is a good idea of how to show the change in development processes in any game. As 3D concepts came to rise up from the 2D platforms, games became more sleek and some what more pleasing to the eye and more realistic, presentation wise. 


So, all visual media products, like the internet and games them selves, rely on consumers taste to create their own pieces and to get them sold to suit everyone's needs.