Aditi

Unfortunately I was not able to change this into a movie file as it automatically squashed the image. It must, therefore, be viewed as a slideshow. I have put images 1, 26, 52 and 58, of the slideshow below. I named my piece Aditi after the Hindu goddess. Her name means boundless, or an infinite shoreless expanse. Whilst most religions identify a father/heaven-sun and a mother/Earth-growth, Aditi represents both the heavens and the Earth. Although I did not have a definite narrative, I worked with the sky/Earth theme. I wanted to focus on the transformation of colors. I stayed within the blues and orange/yellow hues for the details of her face and hair. As the sun moves through her face, her skin goes from dark blue to light blue. The transitions from dark to light look pretty smooth when the image is still but it feels somewhat jarring when you watch the images in succession. If I could do it over, I would try to get those transitions smoother. I also wasn't quite sure how to pace the sun, nor does it move in a smooth arc. The faster the sun moves, the more comfortable I am watching it. the hair also goes through a transformation, although it is more subtle (the eye will follow the sun). I wanted it to be reminiscent of clouds so I swirled the lines of the hair gradually until the lines became completely blurred. Even though the sun moves too slowly, the tree growing on her face is fairly well paced. This half of the project is more visually interesting as there is a shape change as well as a color change. The background also changes. I stepped out of my orange/blue theme and centered it on red hues. I wanted the background to be the opposite of the face in lightness/darkness. The hardest thing (or perhaps I should say most frustrating thing) about this project was the realization that something crucial was amiss or had to be changed in one image and therefore had to be changed in all 58 of them. There are a few things that I noticed towards the end but did not have the time to change. I think that this project would work well as a flip book.

Aditi

Supra Skytop to Electronic Guitar

Supra Skytops are the shoe I used in my project they are a skater inspired shoe that comes in many color patterns the color pattern I used is not in production , but could very possibly be with the unique patterns used by the designer. I actually have a pair so that is where the idea came from for me to use them for the project.When looking at them the first thing that came to mind was an electric guitar. Within the project I stayed true to the design of the shoe as it morphed but true to the color pattern of the electronic guitar.

First off, I really can't seem to upload a good video of my project. The clip above is super fast and shorter than the file saved on my computer. I'll look into it and try to upload a nicer one later. So anyway, for this project, I stuck with the superhero theme. I love making munnys, which are these blank vinyl toys, and I've been meaning to make a superman one. I started out with a sketch of how I wanted it to look like. Then i drafted a rough storyboard for a blank munny to look at an image of superman then eventually transform into Clark Kent then superman. (It is incredibly hard to tell that from this video, I'll hopefully show the powerpoint in class). I wanted my idea to have a Toy Story feel to it. The munnys are very cartoony and I didn't want to pose him off as actually becoming superman. Also, the idea works since the munny is self-conscious that he can transform. The next step was to make the munny. I used sculpey to mold its hair. I actually melted the munny head the first time I tried this (The previous times that I've made munnys, I boiled the sculpey since my parents hate me using the oven for clay...). Afterwards, I painted the two bodies. I used acrylic paint and it came out pretty nicely although I had my fair share of problems with it, such as matching the mixed colors and scratching the paint. Then I started the photoshoot in my room. I took a bunch of pictures of the blank munny whose head and body transforms, using the stop motion technique. After, I painted the head of the munny. Then back to the stop motion. I had a few problems with the stop motion. Firstly, I'm just using an ordinary digital camera with no tripod. It's hard to move back and forth without the camera moving slightly. It doesn't come out too bad but I had to put in a lot of work to keep the camera as steady as possible. I also had to take a lot of pictures. The powerpoint has 79 slides. Filming was pretty intense but really cool to do. I think the transformation of the blank munny to Clark Kent to superman came out really well and I'm quite proud of this project.

Let me relive my stress by saying, "Whewww"! Just playing but this project was fun when the transformation began. I allowed my friends to look over the project a couple of times. They were amazed! I was so happy when they told me it made since.

I began this project not knowing what I was going to do until I seen a Source Awards magazine. Where i found an idea. The little microphone at the top of the magazine helped my project grow. I had different ideas but they did not work, so I though i would transform a microphone into a basketball goal. My friends said,"how is that possible?". I started and now in Im finally finished.At, first it was hard to get started but now Im glad I did. I hope you enjoy this project like I do.

The title of my transition is "The Game Speaks". First, I drew a microphone which has this long cord attached to the bottom of it. The cord is the central part of the project. It transforms the microphone into a basketball goal itself. The top of the microphone( where you speak into) is also another main part of this project. Soon this top of the microphone transforms into a basketball. Now the fun part, the handle of the microphone is taken over by the cord and turns into the net of the basketball goal. The transformation of this project is clear because of the shapes and sizes of the basketball and the goal. The overcoming of the cord was very fun because it also transforms into the texture of a rope, which is the net. The theme of this project is the "importance of basketball". The project's title sends that message. Furthermore, it was fun!

Transitions

I was really excited about this project and had my idea in the back of my mind since we started the course.  I wanted to do some sort of transition project that showed the passage of time, specifically the changing of someone's life from birth onwards.  I had two different ideas: 1) a shelf thats contents would change as time passed, from baby stuff to teenage and adult stuff, 2) someone's bedroom changing as they grew up.  I decided that the shelf would be ideal because it is a) more believable that someone would have the same shelf over the course of their life and b) by using a shelf I would be able to focus more on the smaller details and make the content really focused and specific (with a bedroom there would just be too much stuff and the story, or transformation would get lost).  

Luckily I had a trip home planned in the middle of this project which allowed me to really find all of the props that I needed to create the transition from birth, through elementary and high school, to college and post-college years.  The most labor-intensive part of this project was finding and choosing what I wanted to use in the shelf.  I dug through many shelves and boxes and filled up 4 laundry baskets worth of photos, memorabilia, books, movies, and trinkets.  I then went through everything and laid it out in a sequential line on the floor in my family room.  I wanted the changing shelf to have a very authentic feel and matched the objects with the age a best as I could.  This was definitely a trip down memory lane as I pulled out old class photos, soccer trophies, and VHS tapes!  The passing of time relates to my life, for the most part, but has also been exaggerated and generalized to fit the average person as well- I wanted everyone to be able to relate.  I recognize that the people who can relate the most are those of my age group who would recognize the films or books from their childhood, but the sequence is not so subtle that a general audience could see the passage of time.  (From Disney VHS, to funny DVDs, to drama DVDs, or the portable CD player to the i-pod).  

I got really excited when I showed this presentation to a group of friends- almost every slide there would be a comment "I remember that!  I have that movie!  You read Nancy Drew too?"  This really confirmed for me that my sequence was bang on.  

I didn't really know how the final product was going to turn out, but I was willing to risk the work and set up a shelf in my house.  I brought in an adjustable lamp to brighten the objects (mostly so the titles were readable), but also to cast some shadows: I wanted the shelf to have an authentic feel to it.  The shadows really worked out well because they emphasized some of the objects and gave the viewer the feeling that they were peering into a shelf, not just seeing a picture of a shelf.  

The camera was set up on a tripod and I would add some items and take a photo, subtract and add a couple more items and take another photo.  I wanted the changes to be noticeable, but not too stark.  By taking out only a couple things at a time I was better able to establish the identity of the shelf owner- you could see what the owner was interested in, what genre of books he/she liked, etc.  Because time is a gradual change the small changes in the shelf helped to reinforce that time was passing, rather than speeding by: somethings changed, somethings stayed the same.  There were a couple instances when more dramatic changes occurred.  The most obvious being the change from high school to college.  I wanted to make the point here that the shelf owner likely moved to a new location and is starting to develop an adult identity, it is a clean new beginning.  Other stark turning points include the transition into high school, and into school in general.  These are both defining points in most of our lives and the larger changes show the impact of this true life transition.  The change from college into the real world is not so strong, because the owner develops a sense of who he/she is over the course of college and takes that with him/her to the next experiences.  

I always find the ending to be a little depressing: you go from a pretty, lively shelf that really shows personality and character, to a strange piece of art (mother and child?)  I though this was a step better than leaving the shelf empty at the end.  It also shows a shift away from reliance on material things to define oneself.  As you get older there is less of a need to outwardly display everything you have- you can be more understated and use your shelf for decoration. (I just look at my shelf versus the shelves of my parents: that piece of art was in one of Mom's shelves, my shelf is full of pictures, statues, trophies, etc.)

I noticed one I got all of the photos together that some of the frames were slightly different, in that I mean the camera shifted from side to side as I was taking the pictures.  For some of the photos there is no movement, but when viewing the transitions between some pairs you can see that the shelf itself also moves (but between others you can only tell a difference based on the objects in the shelf).  Unfortunately this was not something I noticed when shooting and I didn't have the opportunity to fix it.  With limited resources (just the old trusted tripod from home) keeping everything perfect is difficult, but regardless of this little hurdle, the presentation turned out to be more that I thought I could make it, just working with powerpoint!

Putting it all together....

Once I got all of the photos onto powerpoint, and it took a while, I started to edit irrelevant and duplicates out.  Then I began playing with transitions and immediately found that the "dissolve" function was perfect, it made it seem as though the removed objects slowly disappeared from the shelf and the new objects slowly appeared in.  I fell in love with this animation because it really took the passage of time to the next level: you could see thing slowly fade out of and into this person's life!  I played with the setting and found that the slow dissolve really played-up the effect, and by leaving each slide up for around 2 second I was able to really allow the content of each slide sink in for the viewer.  I experimented with faster and slower times and asked some friends and classmates their opinions, and the 2 second won.  It is just enough time for the viewer to absorb what they are seeing (read some of the book titles, see what movies the shelf contains) and the slow fade allows the view to really see what is moving in and out.  More than 2 seconds got boring and less than 2 second was too fast for the viewer to absorb any of the content.  The content in this project is the important part- you need to see that the movies change from Cinderella to Flubber to How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days to the Firm, and that the books get thinker and more knowledge based.  Without the ability to really recognize what you are looking at the presentation is nothing more than a string of pictures of a shelf.  

Unfortunately I was unable to capture the dissolve effect in the AVI file, but luckily, because of its lower quality the images almost run together to deliver the same passing of time.  

If you have any questions about my project please just ask!  

I had to split up the movie for space sake and used the transition to college as the split: a logical break in the flow of the images anyways.  The transitions seemed to be cut out in translation, but imagine the images dissolving slowly into one another, so you can see certain objects appear and disappear gradually (as time passes) as the show moves along.

Before College

College and Beyond

...

I created the narrative, which mainly deals with the problems related to the contamination of food sources. I’ve always thought that the government is censoring the media and not letting us know the significant parts of the aftermaths of the technological development and the reckless manipulation of nature.

My narrative is based on my imagination of the future. The setting is 2040s and all the silenced aftermaths of the technological developments have overwhelmed the World. All the people, who have ingested contaminated food sources, have gone through a serious mutation , which results in subsequent death.


I primarily used Black and white, and used colors only when strong effects are needed.

The story starts with the major character’s nightmare, which is the part of his childhood memory. The setting is a small coastal village beside the nuclear plant. The major character went out fishing with his brother and caught a giant lobster that has been exposed to a nuclear waste. The whole family was excited but the major character was horrified by the creature. Not realizing the presence of nuclear remnants in the creature, the family, except the major character, has a banquet made fully of the mutated lobster.


The day after the banquet, the major character found all his family, dead.


Gasping, the major character wakes up from the nightmare. Having been used to the nightmare, he wares his glasses and picks up a newspaper to start the day as usual. Now days, the newspaper serves as the list of newly found contaminated food sources, causing mutation. Among the lists, the major character finds the article, mentioning that the mutated people have invented the flesh light that can distinguish the ‘uncontaminated’ people from the ‘contaminated’ people. The article also mentions that ingesting the uncontaminated people may be able to stop and heal the mutation.



Mutated people are now madly looking for the pure people who have not been contaminated from the polluted food sources. However, none of the people seems to be ‘pure’.



James, one of the mutated people, goes into the dark compartment to find more people, hiding. Along the way, he notices the light coming from the wall. He looks through it, and sees the major character. James beams the flesh at him, and the light indicates that the major character is ‘pure’.


The major character has been able to stay uncontaminated since he has been paranoid about food sources. After the death of his family, he has started growing everything he ingests. As usual, the major character was preparing his brunch after reading the newspaper.


After putting his food into the oven, he hears the doorbell. He goes upstairs to check who’s there, and when he opens the door, James, ready to endeavor the character, waves his hand.

Pictures

cover (back and front)

4 and 5

2 and 7

6 and 3

8 and 1

My Narrative Story about a death angel

My narrative starts with my main character , a death angel, walking around a city with his suitcase. The leaves on the ground show that it is fall (I think fall is a sad season with fallen leaves)
Then he stops at a window and looks inside. There are people dining in this huge hall around a long table, which is supposed to be a happy scene. But, the death angel finds that everyone is depressed and their unhappiness forms a lot of purple bubbles with skulls and numbers on them.
He thinks this is weird because it is his job to determine when to end a person's life. So, he uses his power and his death pet (a cat-shaped devil) to read those bubbles.
In the first bubble he sees that because the economy is bad, a man loses his job. So, he goes home and has a conversation with his wife, after which she chooses to leave him. He is desperate with the loss of money and love, so he shoots himself.
In the second bubble, still because if the of the economy issue, a woman loses all her money in stocks. ( So i drew a skinny piggy bank to show she has no money now) She is walking on the street, thinking about how wonderful her life used to be, when there were clothes, wine, vip cards and lots of money (fat piggy banks). She senses no hope of life, so she commits a suicide by jumping off a building.
So the death angel sees blood. His world turned into a bleeding inferno. He smiled, because now, his work is done.
For the front page, I drew a shadow of the death angel on a wall, his shadow has a skull face and a skull heart. And the back page, there is a skull on his suitcase. Both of them show the identity o the main character.
The reason I choose this style is because I want to use the cute harmless look of the death angel to show that this economy social issue causes more fear than death. And that death pet adds cuteness to the whole taking people's lives' mission. And, those eyes are always something I wanted to try, because it gives out a sad feeling while maintaining to be simple circles.

I'll upload pictures later=)

Waste

My comic is entitled ‘WASTE.’ Unsurprisingly, it is about waste management. It is very unrealistic, and the future I present is not a future that I believe will come to pass. However, I hope to engage the readers on the seriousness of the issue. If our waste is not managed correctly it can have a serious negative impact on the environment. Waste pollution is an issue that we must be concerned about in the United States as the most waste is generated in this nation. There is an average of 4.5 pounds of municipal solid waste generated per person per day. The first page opens with a dream sequence. A girl is sleeping and we see her bedroom disappear from around her bed. Then her bed appears to be on a watery surface which it then glides through. She falls through the air until she reaches more water. She swims through this water and finds herself in an underwater museum. She swims past cases holding relics from our present and the next two thousand years of history, suggesting that it is probably four or five thousand years into the future. I put a lot of robots in to give the idea of technological progress, however I wanted to stay away from focusing on that too much. This is why in the rest of the comic there are things that are clearly recognizable from our present whereas, most likely the styles will change. I thought that if I tried to think up what daily objects would be used in the future it would be harder to get my message across. She swims out of the museum through a window and finds that the water she is swimming through is incredibly polluted. There are cans and other objects floating around and she swims by a trash heap. She swims up out of the air and starts to fly. She flies over skyscrapers that have been submerged underwater. In this future the icecaps have melted and the sea has risen. Even five thousand years into the future, it is uncertain that the Earth will actually be submerged in water. However, for the purposes of my story and due to the fact that there is no dialogue, I wanted to make things drastic and therefore make my message clear. She comes upon a small city that is standing unsteadily on poles coming out of the water. She lands and goes through a pair of doors into a corridor. She goes through another door to find a room. She finds multiple rooms that are all completely deserted. There is a strong prevalence of trash bags that are not noticed at first, but later are seen everywhere. I chose the last panel of this series to be a doll on a trash bag because I was hoping to give the impression of desolation. There is no trace of human life and dolls are something that a loving child would not leave behind. I didn’t want to suggest that humans have all died out however I did not want to paint a hopeful picture. She then has a reverse falling process and wakes up. I copied the pages of my comic as they would have been bound together. The order is 8,1, 2,7, 6,3 4,5.

SMALL WORLD

In an increasingly small world, the impacts of globalization are visible in almost every element of our cultures. The United States in particular is a nation whose influence is felt throughout the world… our culture is contagious. In traveling abroad last semester, I was astonished at how much of an impact our culture has had on other nations around the world. It was usually the little things that startled me: hearing an American pop song on a battery-powered radio in a rural village, or seeing advertisements for an American brand over a highway in Europe. In some ways, this global connectivity is awe-inspiring… Through the internet, telephone, and television, it’s getting to the point where we can communicate with almost any part of the world. However, the impacts of globalization are negative too.



Cultures are being homogenized, and usually, this homogenization is characterized by Western nations taking over important elements of other society’s music, religion, language, art, and education and replacing them with our own. Small World is a story about these negative impacts of globalization.
A old man (representing previous generations) gazes out over a modern city. The buildings are lit up by flames, which will come to represent our “contagious” culture, but in the distance, there is another city, unexplored and untouched by this man’s civilization. He blows smoke (the precursor to the flames) from the roof down the drainpipe, where it encircles a young man sleeping below. This young man has a dream of an unfamiliar and fascinating girl, and when he wakes she is standing before him. The young woman is startled and flees, but the young man, entranced by the idea of this foreign culture, follows her, stowing away on a ship. A rat, who was also encircled by the strange smoke, becomes his companion. The rat, which in the past has spread diseases, is the perfect symbol for contagious spread of civilizations, inspired by the transmission of plagues to the new world. During his search for this mysterious young woman, the young man is in awe of the new sights, knowledge, art, music, and people he encounters, but the rat, tagging along beside him, often ruins his idealistic view of the foreign city.

The rat, who spreads his own sort of plague, changes the tone of a foreign song, eats the words in a foreign book changing its meaning, and carries disease to this foreign culture. It serves as a symbol for the spread of Western culture.

In the end, when the young man finally finds the elusive woman, he convinces her to travel back to his home with him. But, the next day, when they arrive in his city, she is disheveled by the journey and the rat has marred her exotic appearance.

Her dress is ragged and her long hair has been gnawed away by the rat. The young man is disillusioned by the foreign woman being present in a familiar city and quickly falls out of love with this shadow of his ideal, and retreats to the building top where he and the old man gaze out on the foreign town, which has now been invaded by his culture.

I enjoyed playing with color in this piece. Usually, i go a little crazy with lots and lots of colors but it was nice to limit myself to black and white, only using red representing the main character and his civilization and yellow to represent the foreign city and the young woman.

Cultures and traditions are diluted by globalization, and i think that most things don't stand up to the process of translation. Much is lost in the conversion between cultures... but also, it's alarming to think that elements of our own culture are supplanting the rich traditions of other cultures as well.

Ascension of the Watcher

Ascension of the Watcher narrates upon the wastes of war through a sequence illustrating the element's of mankind's downfall as he is tempted by sin and driven to conflict. Skulking within the scenario of each panel, whether physically or symbolically, is the leering pose of a black crow, historically an icon of cunning and contempt, marveling at the capability of destruction in man's character.






The progression of panels emphasizes the escalation of conflict. Outbursts of sinful drive fighting in the first panels: a child bullied for a prize possession and a victim jeered in a bar fight. Overlooking both scenes are crows, silently scheming in the background. Humanity submits to forces of envy, malice and greed.






Violence ramps up in the next panels as mere squabbles turn into full-fledged war. The rush of movement in the style illustrates the plight of the soldiers, committed to savagery over an unseen cause. Dehumanization begins as humans start to lose track of their enemies, their vision blinded by a hail of metal and chaos. The original conflict may be all but forgotten in the struggle for survival.

Terror reigns as humans lose their rationality. Machines of war, suited for no other purpose, replace people in the humans' delirious attempt to win, rather than resolve the conflict. The crows are ironically unaffected as they make a mockery of the carnage.



The style of the comic sequence was chosen to reflect the festering mood. Each panel is black and white to drain the spirit out of illustration, with grays added to show movement. Some panels are augmented with blurs for a sense of capturing a specific moment in time, such as the bar fight right before the killing punch landed, or the rocket explosion rocking the core of the victims. The gritty lines and boundaries that compose the figures are put into place to show turmoil and instability.

The final panel completes the "survival of the fittest" theme. Mankind has been so hell-bent on achieving dominance that they overlooked the cost that it took. The panel shows the rotting carcass of a once prosperous city, derelict and plagued by destruction. It matters not if the city was part of the winning side or the losing side, it is simply uninhabitable. The crows converge, blocking out the sky, their ascension to this abandoned kingdom apparent.



Image/Inspiration source credits go towards:

(sun, last page) Damnation, credited to Kevin Walker, licensed to Wizards of the Coast

(city, last page)Ginza Chuo Dori, credited to Hisaharu Motoda, "neo-ruins" collection
http://hisaharu-motoda.petit.cc/0engine/tokyo_bbs.cgi