Title : Many worlds
size : 24 x 36 Medium : digital manipulation (photoshop) completion : October 2021 Exhibition text : Video games have allways played a huge factor in my life. I wanted to express this within a digital format considering how video games themselves are digital. It's supposed to show how video games open the doors to different worlds that other media can't do as easily.
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Essay : Video games Have been a major factor in shaping who I am and how I think. I have been playing them since I was quite young. My first video game console was the Nintendo Ds when I was about 5-ish. Over the years I’ve gotten more and more video games on many different consoles throughout the years and with each one I get immersed in the world. Many of the games I get are for Nintendo consoles because that is the company I grew up playing with. While they may not have made all of them, they published it on their consoles allowing me to play them. As I got older I was able to expand to other consoles such as XBox And Playstation.
Some of my absolute favorite games are RPGs or Role-Playing games. The genre can technically be all games that involve controlling a character that either you decided or was already made. While plenty of my favorites have silent protagonists for players to project onto, some of my absolute favorites have characters that are pre-established. Xenoblade Chronicles has the main character of Shulk. He has/had an existing backstory that directly relates to the main story of the game. Another is Joker from Persona 5. He is technically a silent protagonist with no real name outside of the codename “Joker” and a few names from other media, he can have a defined personality through many of the choices and movements in the game. One of the main traits he has is his overwhelming confidence and boldness.
Most of the games I play are RPGs, but recently I have wanted to play strategy games. This mainly comes from my love of the Fire Emblem franchise and the strategies I can employ. I feel a great sense of accomplishment when I play them and get far. Some of the least played genres are educational games because they don’t interest me and, for the most part, are out of my age range. The other is shooters. I never grew up with them and as such I am fairly bad at them. They are fun as I’m starting to play more here & there but they don’t interest me as much because of my skill holding me back. Another one is fighting games. I am absolutely terrible at them. As much as I learn them, they never stick.
Whenever I get a new game that I truly enjoy, I start to consume as much media about it as I possibly can. Anything from videos on Youtube to pictures on places such as instagrams to memes. I becme obsessed with them for a long while. Eventually I start playing them less & less to the point I don’t want to play them anymore. That doesn’t mean I stopped liking them, It just means I burned out playing them. But months later I go back and get obsessed with them again. I guess I shall repeat this cycle till the end of time I suppose.
Some of my absolute favorite games are RPGs or Role-Playing games. The genre can technically be all games that involve controlling a character that either you decided or was already made. While plenty of my favorites have silent protagonists for players to project onto, some of my absolute favorites have characters that are pre-established. Xenoblade Chronicles has the main character of Shulk. He has/had an existing backstory that directly relates to the main story of the game. Another is Joker from Persona 5. He is technically a silent protagonist with no real name outside of the codename “Joker” and a few names from other media, he can have a defined personality through many of the choices and movements in the game. One of the main traits he has is his overwhelming confidence and boldness.
Most of the games I play are RPGs, but recently I have wanted to play strategy games. This mainly comes from my love of the Fire Emblem franchise and the strategies I can employ. I feel a great sense of accomplishment when I play them and get far. Some of the least played genres are educational games because they don’t interest me and, for the most part, are out of my age range. The other is shooters. I never grew up with them and as such I am fairly bad at them. They are fun as I’m starting to play more here & there but they don’t interest me as much because of my skill holding me back. Another one is fighting games. I am absolutely terrible at them. As much as I learn them, they never stick.
Whenever I get a new game that I truly enjoy, I start to consume as much media about it as I possibly can. Anything from videos on Youtube to pictures on places such as instagrams to memes. I becme obsessed with them for a long while. Eventually I start playing them less & less to the point I don’t want to play them anymore. That doesn’t mean I stopped liking them, It just means I burned out playing them. But months later I go back and get obsessed with them again. I guess I shall repeat this cycle till the end of time I suppose.
Planning / experimentation : deciding on what I wanted to make was a struggle. The first idea that I had thought of was going to the one I would have done, but my planning helped me determine a better idea.
The First idea was supposed to be a recreation of the scene dipicting Adam & Eve from the bible. The hardest part about this would have been recreating the "Toys R Us" employee or just their uniform. I also felt that the idea was somewhat weak despite being the strongest at the time.
The second Idea that I had was extremely weak for me. I could fully know what I wanted and the idea was quickly scrapped. I went back to video games seeing as they were one of the most prevelent forces I had growing up. But as I was listing them I thought of the final design
The final page is a rough sketch of the final project. It would be how video games gave me a oppertunities to experice worlds and stories I wouldn't have otherwise. The coloring was done just to get a rough idea of what I want. Most of the colors never even showed up on the final product. it was also quite "ambitous" for never having used photo shop becuase I had no idea that I would make no room for some of the extra details. then in-class during a small tutorial to get a feel for photo shop, I had made a character but made them have an egg for a head.
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Process : The Very first thing I did was get pictures of key components of the art piece. Doors, myself and some video games. Putting all the images onto photo shop was quite easy. Having to cut out each of the things that I wanted onto the main section was somewhat challanging because I had to cut out something for each image and then making sure that each cropped image did not have any extra, uneccacary things attached such as parts of the wall or floor.
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As I worked I feel like photoshop was fighting me at every turn. Things not moving the way I wanted, the colors not looking quite right. it felt like an up-hill battle most of the time. but when it wanted to work with me, it did so. such as when I inverted the color of the wood/floor to make a wall.
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I had shifted and contourted most of the images to work the way I wanted. The doors were slightly shifted over to show the background,the floor was bent to be diagnal the Nintendo Switch was the most ovibious being expanded and warped to fit over my head to convey that it had a body and not just over my own head.
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After the final image was completed I wanted to create a richer color, so I started to mess around with the color layers. I would constantly add & delete different layers that affected the look becuase it either mess it up so that you couldn't see what it really was or it make the colors. Eventually I went with the highly saturated colors that make the piece feel somewhat dream-like in quality.
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Critique/Reflection : The piece turned out well for my lack of knowledge of the medium.But It looks lacking. the photos were quite low quality, but many of my photos that I've taken have this grainy look to them for what ever reason and I'm working to correct them. The photoshop work is worry-some. But I had only used photo shop once before and that was when I had learned the basic of the program. I feel I failed to capture the feelings I wanted as weel to an extent. But despite all of that, I am somewhat happy with the way it turned out. For being my first time making something of this size and detail it could have been way worse. But getting experice with the program may lep me out in the future because my dream job heavily involes computers and the types of art programs.
Compare & Contrast :
Compare : They both represent something through their design. Both have combined elements of a human & something else.
Contrast : The represent something different. One uses traditional paint while the other uses digital manipulation of photos. The Insperation piece represents darker and more somber themes while The main piece represent a happier theme.
Compare : They both represent something through their design. Both have combined elements of a human & something else.
Contrast : The represent something different. One uses traditional paint while the other uses digital manipulation of photos. The Insperation piece represents darker and more somber themes while The main piece represent a happier theme.
Connection to ACT :
1) The cause & effect relation between my art & my inspiration is that they both represent something through unconventional means. they show their themes though seemingly unconnected things, such as a spider with a human face or a man with a video game console for a head.
2) The overall approach the author has a surealist aspect to his work. Many of his pieces have somekind of aspect that disconnects it to the real world.
3) The general conclusion I have discovered is that Important to the art world. He inspired many famous artists & movements with his work.
4) The central idea was the relation between human and nature. Many of his pieces are animals or plants with human faces. but even when he moved away from hybrids. they still focused on nature or humans respectfully.
5) My inferences I made while researching was he crwated many personal feeling through the use of his hybrid creations. the man/animal or plant hybrids take a extremely large portion of his artistic carrer before he start to move away from it in his later years.
1) The cause & effect relation between my art & my inspiration is that they both represent something through unconventional means. they show their themes though seemingly unconnected things, such as a spider with a human face or a man with a video game console for a head.
2) The overall approach the author has a surealist aspect to his work. Many of his pieces have somekind of aspect that disconnects it to the real world.
3) The general conclusion I have discovered is that Important to the art world. He inspired many famous artists & movements with his work.
4) The central idea was the relation between human and nature. Many of his pieces are animals or plants with human faces. but even when he moved away from hybrids. they still focused on nature or humans respectfully.
5) My inferences I made while researching was he crwated many personal feeling through the use of his hybrid creations. the man/animal or plant hybrids take a extremely large portion of his artistic carrer before he start to move away from it in his later years.