Sucker Punch review PEW PEW!

Ok, I really really really wanted to see this at the cinema when it first came out but I missed my chance. But that's what DVD's are for, so I can watch it when ever I want.
Sucker Punch is all about this cute blonde girl called baby doll. Yeah kind of a weird name but all the characters have weird names as its a weird film full of weirdness and strangeness.


Storyline
A young girl (Baby Doll) is locked away in a mental asylum by her abusive stepfather where she will undergo a lobotomy in five days' time. Faced with unimaginable odds, she retreats to a fantastical world in her imagination where she and four other female inmates at the asylum, plot to escape the facility. The lines between reality and fantasy blur as Baby Doll and her four companions, as well as a mysterious guide, fight to retrieve the five items they need that will allow them to break free from their captors before it's too late...


The difference between reality and imagination is in some what obvious. When she goes into the asylum that's reality but then it flips to a imagination. The imagination of this young girl is fun and unnatural. Dancing her way through battles and obstacles (yes really). Well there is more to it but I don't want to give it away.
The graphics and concepts are beautiful and are very well done. To help show between reality and imagination the colour pallets differ. 


For this film I would rate it 7/10 

What is games design?

Thinking of something simple like an object, such as a pencil sharpener. Someone has to design that little thing that has one simple use...to sharpen a pencil. It might sound so simple but if you look closer, at each piece and angle, there has been some thought and idea. The groves on the side to help you keep hold of it whilst you turn the pencil against the blade. The blade as been cut at a certain angle to help sharpen the pencil without any difficulty. Yeah ok a little off topic but its just like a game. Someone or in most cases a group of people have put forward hundreds of ideas and designs to make a single game. Game design is about what makes the game itself. What makes it different from other games such as; the content, the background and the process of the game.

Hard to explain what specifically game design is. In my views its the aims and objects that help set down what the design is. take for example Space Invaders. Everyone has played space invaders, such a simple and original game. To be honest does anyone actually need to be taught how to play it...no. You just stick someone infront of the screen and they instantly know how to play it. The aim of the game is to shoot down all the little invaders without getting hit and before the time limit runs out.

Every game has the same basic quality as space invaders. Every game has aims and objectives to complete, otherwise what would be the point of the game, it wouldn't be a game.

Another part that helps to explain game design could be the environment, the colour, the realism. Making something realistic helps the character to believe in what they are doing. Games are not like space invaders anymore. Games have evolved so much that some people become part of the game, such as online role playing. Not so much the game being realistic as such but it has to be believable.

Life drawing...

Falling in love with life drawing, thins week we used simple black drawing ink. This was fun because if you went wrong you couldn't rub out the marks. I've never used ink before and it was nice to be able to use something new for a change. Receiving a compliment from Jack was funny because he thought I had used the media alot before, until I told him I hadn't, I must be doing something right then.

I produced a fair few sketches throughout the class, but I seemed to have picked up this style. I'm not happy about it, it reminds me of some sort of fashion sketches, they are too neat and tidy, i hate being so OCD about sketches and drawings. I want to print these out and work into them some more with traditional media's such as oil pastels and water colours. (how i've missed those)
The week before in class we also did something new. Unfortunately it was charcoal and it gets everywhere, especially to my horror we had to cover and entire A2 sheet of paper in it. *cringe* it was everywhere. Once away from the mess and looking and a grey page we had to use a rubber to sketch in the highlights of the body and charcoal for the darker tones. It was interesting as the grey of the page was the mid-tone and the highlights and shadows of the charcoal and rubber.

I am actually very proud of these, I need to work alot faster within the time limit. 15minutes for each sketch.

Van-tastic

Within Game production we are given a new brief in which to to complete in 4 weeks, well that's what seems to be happening on the last 3 projects.
So i've just handed in my latest project; A Ford Transit Van... Yes slightly boring. Why did it have to be a Ford transit, supposable the most common van around, but when you actually need to find one its like playing hide and seek. Its the sort of traditional white van man that would cut you up on the road and you would end up being a grumpy mug the rest of the journey because of that one stupid... But anyway, it was pretty annoying walking around the streets trying to find one. Let alone finding one, I had to be able to take pictures of all angles to make it easier for further reference. Luckily the university has a fair few of these vans all over the campus.
Looking very suspicious I was there taking pictures of this van and of course a security guard comes over and starts yelling and asking what I was doing. Surly being a university you would expect students to be doing interesting things like this, its not as if I was going to give the van a ticket.
Completing the van felt like a weight off my shoulders, even if I do feel it wasn't the best and I could have done so much more and better. (self note, start doing projects when they are given to me)
Im noticing that im doing things within that  horrid program 3DS max, on my own, without thinking and just doing. I am becoming more confident and relaxed with it, ok maybe not so much relaxed, it makes me have a fit if something tiny goes wrong.
But having learnt the basics and how verts and polys and edges work, its alot easier to model and to enjoy the class.

Self thoughts

Tuesdays are beginning to become my favourite day, a full day of drawing, its great being kept busy. Oh how I have missed life drawing. Life drawing class started last week but this week we had an actual model. 

I had forgotten how relaxing it was to just sit and draw someone, even with a time limit and the complete concentration but it seems to help me focus. A3 size paper is not the best size for life drawing, need to go larger and express more. 

Been given a character concept project to do, the starter word is 'reef'. But we have to keep the character humanoid, ok so that has its limits but makes you think. Getting started on this has been more interesting than other projects so far, we actually get to create what we want (yay) and once we have the basic of our character and a final render its time to sculpture. 

Its really weird, we are no longer freshers anymore, well not really. The uni is now interviewing the next lot of students for the course, its amazing how fast this year has gone and to think we are past half of the first year. I'm really enjoying it and my time here even if the work load is full on, but it makes you realise how much work you can or should be doing in that space of time. Note to self: need to buckle down more.

Ok so today I had Game Production and we are continuing to model a ford transit van. They are so boring, I don't know how my lecturer can stand looking at 40 odd vans. But, ok I'm going to slightly rant here, we haven't had any tutorials on how to even go about making it, it would be nice to see how she would make a quick mock up of it. Anyway, I'm finding it ok, decided to go with strip modelling instead of a box modelling. Might take slightly longer but I am finding it a better way to model. 

Visual Design and we have moved onto life drawing, something I have missed and what to do, and its inside (yay!). Last week we learnt blind drawing, something I have done before and I find it really useful, its so much more free and easy to work with instead of intense drawing. Only slight problem, I need to work faster in everything, and just be more open to ideas and concepts, I'm too OCD and I think it shows in my work, I hate it. 

Yeah self portraits without looking at the paper and a time limit of 1 minute. Its fun and relaxing and you get the basic shapes, will be good to paint over and manipulate later. 

Christmas...

Amongst a new camera for Christmas, I received two very, well I think amazing books;
The Art of Alice, Madness Returns.

The art and the concepts within this book are beautiful. Every page makes me want to learn more within the game world and become more fluent with my drawings and ideas. The thing is, everything on each page is either weird and wonderful or strange and mind boggerling. Its pretty cool how the story of Alice in Wonderland has been twisted and turned into something of the opposite.

The other book that I got was Spectrum 18; The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art. The book is completely filled with different types of artwork, its nice to see alot of traditional work from drawings, to water colour, to oils. I miss that, being able to just pick up a paint tube and splat it across a white page. But back to the book, it seems that every artist has their own style and its unique to them, but it shows feeling and emotions across the work, and aslong as that is there, the work comes alive and the audience can understand it.