Like omg, drowning in green tea...

So assessments have been and gone. wow. what can I say... OH SHIT?

That kinda covers the thoughts, assessment was complete uselessness (is that even a word?)
I literally need to make a butt load of work within this 3 weeks easter period and be like; here you go chris! I am good!

So projects for the Easter;

• Add and adjust all work from term 1
• Complete all projects from term 2

I want to be able to show more of my own style and creation in my work but also work along the lines of the brief. Yeah I can do this. Personal timetable has already started and it looks so full on and messy. I love a good challenge. 

(I did not draw this)

Oh I found this artist, I think it is really clever and pretty. Take a look;

http://www.heatherjansch.com/

This and that...

 So it's that time of year again, hand in time. Well it was last week anyways and now sometime during this week we have a chat with our lecturers about how they think we are doing and some what.
I really do hate this time of year, I look back and realise I haven't done as much work as I think I have. But does that matter when I have enjoyed myself doing the work I have done :)

So I started a piece of work, self portrait a week or two ago and I wanted to stylize it. (Mortal Engines self portrait) So blocked colours and only using 3 tones for each colour, but as I got to this stage my brother turned round to me and asked if I was doing a study of Lara Croft...* face-palm*

I really had no intention of myself looking very similar to Lara but it is quite flattering when you are feeling down in the dumps.

I really enjoyed doing this piece  just getting sucked into it and painting for a couple of straight hours, kinda of soothing in a stressful way. It still isn't finished but because I am passionate about it, I don't want to rush and wreck it.







On the whole Lara Croft thing, I am really interested in the new game, it visually looks amazing but after viewing some of the game play it does not look anything like the concepts of her. Maybe once I have actually played the game myself my views my change. It is interesting seeing the difference between the concept art work and the game footage and realising the differences and the similarities.

Concept artwork.

Game play footage.

Creativity and talent, are you real? (Task 22)

Growing up, I have always been told that I was talented. Talented in art that is. My mother is an art teacher, so being brought up in a creative environment probably helped push my creativity. I was always doing things, painting, drawing, sculpting, paper mache and so much more, but I got the chance to do this because my family has a passion for art.

If you haven't got the facilities does this stop you from being creative? I don't think it does. If you have a passion for something then surely nothing would stop you. I love to draw, I draw on anything that I have infront of me weather it is a piece of paper to a tissue, it doesn't really matter.

It is a hard question to answer; is creativity and talent real? They are two separate things in my eyes. Talent is something you as a person have, it's part of you. I feel that creativity is something that anyone can have aslong as they can pursue it. I feel that there isn't any original idea, it just depends if you pursue it or not. That is the creativity. The journey in which getting there and creating your ideas.

Talent; A special natural ability.

Both Talent and creativity come under passion surely? Anybody can learn skills and techniques if they set their mind to it. I remember back in school asking a friend why they couldn't paint. They answered with, they had never had the chance. I literally thought everyone could paint but apparently that isn't true. So I guess that is talent, being able to do something without realising, that it is a certain standard at a certain level. It is alot easier to see talent in a child than it is in an adult because we all have our views on what a child should be able to do depending on their age. If they surpass something for that age then that could be seen as talent. For example, being able to draw a stick person with fingers at age 4 is probably seen as talent. A child being able to understand and see something and putting it down on paper at that age would be amazing, it's something you wouldn't expect. Is this talent though?

I think that both talent and creativity are real, but you just have to push and find them, work and build at them. Sometimes I feel that talent can be seen as laziness. Just because you are talented at something doesn't mean you shouldn't try. Use your talent and push at it more. This is such a hard to question to understand and think about, I don't think there is any right or wrong answer to it.

Interaction design (Task 20)

How do games interact with us the player? There is so much out there that companies have put forward to help with your gaming life, of course depending on what platform you play on.
My first game that I found more interactive back then was; Bitmap brothers; Gods...

I found this game amazing not just because of the game play but because you had use joystick! Interacting with this game was more fun just because you used a joystick rather than mouse and keyboard. You needed intense skills and concentration and rapid reflexes. Well I thought that then, if I played it now I'd probably end up ripping my hair out. 

I think this was the first interaction with games for a desktop user back then other than mouse and keys. As the gaming generations developed so did the interactions. Companies wanted to expand and interest more people into wanting to play games, for example hand-held's have changed so much, they have had to change with the times to keep the interest and fun. Starting with a Game Boy there was no colour but to be able to take your game with you where ever you went was a luxury  and now compare them to today's hand-held's. They are full of colour, touch screen and even 3D. It is quite amazing to see how far they have developed in the last 10 years. 

Instead of sitting with a controller wired up to your console, everything now is wireless, making it easier to move around and decreasing the danger of strangling or tripping up your siblings when playing games. 

Look at the Nintendo Wii, it was the first out of the three giants to use the interaction controllers to help play games, it was designed around that. The Wii pushed forward the idea of the player/audience to part of the game. Well it was the first one to actually sell the console because of this. It has opened so many new doors and in a way steered the new generation gaming in a more interactive direction. Since the release of the Nintedo Wii, the other game consoles have been pushed to compete against this and to include it in their consoles to keep their audience. 

The Ps3 brought out the Plastation wand, which interacts with the camera to play games, this widened their games as you could now move about. I find that this is just a copy of the Wii remotes, even though Playstation originally released the eye-toy back in 2003 with the Playstation 2. Maybe everyone forgot about that...

The real interactive prop has to be for me the Kinect for the xbox. This is such amazing technology. It reads your body depending on how near or far away you are and your motions. You will never have to use a controller again! Even better it has voice recognition so you can say a specific game and it will play it for you. 

Musical notes (Task 19)

Music and sound play a huge part in games and films/TV. We might not always notice it as we are trudging through the game and trying to complete it in a record time but it is there in the background.
Music is there for a reason, it helps to create an atmosphere, a mood set for the player. It can help give extra depth to a particular area. For example in a horror film, when something bad and scary is about to happen, I find that usually you get deep quiet tones to help build the suspense, nothing over dramatic. But asoon as that 'bad thing' happens the music hypes up and is loud and extreme.

I find that games have a slightly different approach, for example; The Sims. Everyone knows the Sims music or has heard it before, and to be honest it is pretty annoying. And because its annoying its memorable, and you find yourself with the damn theme music stuck in your head for the rest of the day. You remember the game because of the music. It's the same with that silly game FIFA. In FIFA there are back ground songs as you flick through the menu and set up your teams. I think this is music that hasn't got out into the world yet and actually gets known due to the game. I find myself singing or knowing the song being played in a shop because it triggers a memory. Yes that song was played on FIFA. (or you cant remember where you heard it and it just frustrates you until your brains fall out) Just to clarify I do not play this game, it's silly and does not have any interest of mine what so ever :)

It is clever how music and sounds help you remember what games you have played and enjoyed. Also through my gaming experience I have found that sounds are used to help illustrate something, for example in children s learning games. Also sounds are used to help praise children when they have done something right.  Through out the games by 'Living books' such as 'Grandma and me' (these were my favorite as a child) each item you click on has a select sound that connects with it, and when you have done something right you are praised with a star sound or something like that, can't quite remember.

I feel that games need sound and music to help develop them further and help expand them, it is what makes a good game. If the sound is rubbish and the graphics are good, the sound can make the end result of the game terrible therefor both need to be equal to help each other to make an epic game.