Professional Practices - Opening Night and Final Blog

 Greetings Humans

Today is 17th of November 2020

Opening Night of Connections Art Exhibition, I don't know what to say about this but I'm highly disappointed in this exhibition. What I was expecting was people with multiple artworks and possibly large artworks, not small and minimal artworks. Yes, you could probably say that's a bit of high hopes coming from a beginning artists, but so, we got given an area that isn't too huge to fill, easily. You would also say that I'm critiquing the others too harshly as the biggest piece of artwork there was, my little display of D&D (Dungeon and Dragons) World, which to be honest, yes, I am critiquing the others too harshly (also myself as I didn't take the rungs of creating this exhibition).

This duration of putting this exhibition on, I felt like others were lazing this paper behind. I will give credit were credit is due though.

The Design team did do well with designing the imagine of the exhibition with the posters and broachers, but yet, I understand this was later on when realizing when putting the pieces all together, we didn't have large labels of names, also "Don't Touch" signs (which I created and printed off). Lastly, the artist statements were all different fonts, layouts and font sizes, which I would prefer all artist statements the same layout, font type and size. 

The Catering, did alright, the food was interesting, but there was no napkins and even through the food was visually pleasing, the red onion was a bit over powering. I do question how much it fully cost for the food, cause I don't see where the $100 went. 

 

Installation team, I don't know where their heads were. Unsure where to put thing, not even an idea where to put things. Probably also, not start printing off things like half a week before time, to see the sizing and amount of artworks people have for the exhibition. Not even just artworks but see if the artist statements are all the same font size, font type and layout. On top of that, I felt like they should have also sorted out folder in the Y drive, in the NZCC folder, a folder for the exhibition for people to any of there work needed to be printed, folder for films and animation and a folder for the Artist Statements (which on a side note, I did that yesterday as no one was going to do it).

Media team, that was my team, thing is, I don't think there was a team, it was just me it felt. Putting that aside, I would admit I would have done better, like maybe asking the radio to say something and probably ask the Design team for some A4 sized posters as most places I went to don't put up posters that are bigger than A4.

But most of all as Chairman, (forgive my language) I should have dragged people's arses through the mud to get this done. I believed as Chairman I have disappointed this exhibition cause I didn't do that. I thought too hard on my other papers and my own display that I didn't think of the exhibition as a whole. I was too wrapped up on when Argus, he message me on behalf of the Installation team stating that they don't have the time or resources to get the things I needed for my display. So angry with that statement because, that was not honesty, that was pure laziness, as I knew I could get the resources with the "limited" amount of time we had.

But hey, look at it now, as my invited guest and I was waiting for people to look around, we saw a few people more interested and invested in my little display than the other works. I admit it was a little too much compared the rest of the exhibition, but that's only cause I thought about it.

 

I wanted an area where people that walks in can come in and enjoy the atmosphere of a D&D world. Unfortunately the my prints didn't want to stick to the wall, causing them to peel off. I will be reprinting them again tomorrow, but on normal paper and pinned to the wall.

Animation - Final run to the finish

 Greetings Humans

Today is the last day!!!!!! Friday the 6th of November 2020

What I gotta do:

• Scene:
• 7 - Still drawing, back of Lerissa looking into fire - done
• 8 - Campfire Story - done to what I can do
• 9 - Crying Lerissa

• Parts of animation to do:
• Still drawing of journal open from behind
• Fire turning to tent -done
• Fire people walking - will keep it a bit animatic like - added a glow to it as I dont have time to animate them
• Still Drawing 3/4 Lerissa Back. - done
• Edit Looking up from journal still drawing to just boots and legs - done

• Editing:
• Credits - Add, Ruby to it as she did an amazing job tutoring us.

• Other:
• Artist Statement
• Send in the Animation to Think and Create

Animation - Artist Statement

 

Artist Statement for NZCC101

Title of Work: The Beginning of My Story

“Greetings Humans, have you ever had to make a decision that is so hard to follow through but you know it is the right thing to do? Or have people made your decision of what your life is going to be? I’ve experienced both of these. See, as a young tiefling, or others would call my kind demons or devils, the living evil on this world, and we’ve been put into a group where we have to act or be a certain thing. But we aren’t all that. Here is a short recreation of myself, relaxing after a hard day of research of my family and you can see what really happened to me on my 18th birthday. A decision that I wished went differently.” - Lerissa

Hello, I’m the creator and the player of Lerissa, she is my Dungeon and Dragons (D&D) character. Creating this short animation was really fun to do and I'm super proud of how it ended up. The reason why I created this scene is, I would like to show that we shouldn't judge a person by what happened to them, what they decided to do to get them to where they are today and that we shouldn’t let people choose what our life is going to be. Our destiny is caused by our own decisions, our choices, and personally I have experienced this in the real world.

What went well was, the atmosphere of the background and the campfire to give the feel of middle of no-where and nature is all around. Also the rigging for Lerissa went well for my first time rigging, the settle movement I did made her, in some scene, alive.

Digital Painting - Artist Statement

 

 Artist Statement for NZCC102

Title of Work: Welcome to the World Dungeon and Dragons

At the beginning of this paper I had no idea, now at the end I only have a rough idea. I used this paper for more an experimental works as I quite enjoy digital drawings but there was a bridge between pencil drawings and digital, and I despised that gap. My pencil drawing were more for realistic, creepy and disturbing drawings and my digital drawings were for more cartoon like drawings. Yet, during this trail of getting my realistic creepy drawing to the digital world, I didn't really like the process, it never looked right and I didn't really enjoy drawing them. So I tried another way, I tried making my cartoon like drawings more realistic. In my other papers, I was doing a DnD (Dungeon and Dragons) theme and I was already doing some DnD digital drawings for other papers, so I just continue that into NZCC102 Digital Painting.

My artist inspiration, JoCat (you can find him on twitter and YouTube), his expertise drawings are around DnD, and I quite like his style. Its a simple but effective art style of line art and basic colours (no shading), also these fictional characters he makes them look like they could come from this world. 

So I started doing my paper, if you look at the my portfolio, it goes in order of completion, first still life, then landscape/environment, next portrait and finally creature. The first creation I was quite happy with, the line art is clean and ranges in thickness (but mostly thin line art) to get texture. The colours are basic colours no shading, just different tones on the sides of the items to give a depth. The background is a neutral colours, for a soft backdrop, and lastly the text, I just added for flavor for story when people are looking at it.

Originally the landscape/environment was going to be creature themed, but then later I couldn't think of a landscape/environment (also I don't really like drawing landscapes), so I made another creature drawing later on. So I used the same theory of drawing from the still life but, I tried adding shading and colour with a lower opacity (for the patterns of the tabby cat and the burn marks on the DM screen). After completing this piece I agreed to probably don't use that technique again as it seems messy but it works with this piece though. My final thoughts with this artwork is that I quite like it, it ticks the box of fiction in the real world.

The portrait part I wanted to do a drawing of all the players and the characters (and DM, whose is in the middle), but I thought that the full body drawing of each player and character would take too much time. So I thought of doing half body shots and have the player and the character side by side, so if it was presented the audience can tell whos who and compare the player and character. This was an interesting experience as I was drawing the characters, as I was using a photo of the players as a refence to get the basic proportions, I just added extra features to make them the certain race they are and it worked really really well, to the point where I'll actually continue this for my cartoon/anime drawings. What I am going to continue is use realistic faces and other features when drawing fictional characters/creatures. Contradiction to that though is I didn't like how the players came out as.

The final piece, the piece which I am so happy with. This creature is a NPC (Non-Playable character) in the campaign, the group favourite, and I wanted to redesign him for awhile now, and I'm super happy with him.  I used all the experience from previous drawings and combine them into this (to me) beautiful piece. So I used the line art, basic colours in closed areas, basic background, realistic facial features and I added shading. I know before I said I wasn't going to use shading but I wanted to add a little to his armor to make it shine a little bit, and I continued with it through the whole creature. To make it final I used the creature template from the Monster Manual (one of the many books for the DM behind the screen) to show his abilities to the audience, also so for me to have in the player journal to keep an eye on him as he is my NPC. 

Digital Painting - Final portfilo

 Greetings Humans

The last run to the end, today is the Thursday the 5th of November 2020

Here is my final work.

Digital Painting - Creature Redrawn

 Greetings Humans

Thursday the 5th of November 2020

So I have completed the Creature part, here is the process.

In the past, when just starting the old campaign my character received a companion named Zhedoes, now in the new campaign, we are using our same character and Zhedoes was a favourite with all the players, so we added him in. Unfortunately he wasn't completely the same, as we had to change his previous background. Here was his original design drawn with pen and paper.

So the redesign begins, I used my previous drawing of the players to design his face:

Final Design:

The rest of the design is based off the Monster Manual that the DM has behind his screen. Here is an example of the Manticore, from the Monster Manual. This creation is from the Wizards of the Coast.

I quite like my drawing, I think I'll continue the realistic face cartoon-ish design, other than my other drawing for this paper I did shade him. It isn't complete detailed shading but its simple and effective.

The other players and DM say he should be a little bit more bulky in strength, but I like him the way his is.

Photography and Printmaking - Final Work

 Greeting Humans

I handed in my portfolio into blackboard and drop box, here is the final portfolio.

Printmaking and Photography- Update, Final Run

Greeting Humans

Today is the second last day of study, Thursday the 5th of November 2020

So far I only have to print my product print and I have done abstract photo, but unsure completely it is abstract, compared to the category.

I redesign the product print as I didn't want to crave out the words, also wanted to add the different dice as well, not just the D20 as the photo I'm basing this off had multiple dice.

Will be putting the portfolio together in class and do the last print.

Complete: Wood block print

I quite like how the the print came out, it kinda looks like two worlds coming together by dice. The ink is water based so I used water to fade out the edge of the wood block print before printing onto the paper.

Complete: Abstract Photo

It took some time to figure out an abstract photo, the idea of this came when playing a session, when fighting a dragon. I re-layout the fight again and started throwing some dice, took a few shoots, but finally got the right picture.

History - Final Blog, Final Product

 Greetings

This is the last blog I'll be posting in History as I have completed my work and posted them on social media.

Mini Animation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITooeFZbPm4

Speed Septic-Art, It'll Only Hurt A lot: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nyv5dKebNUY

Here is the final GIF product:

I quite like how this ended up but I wished I had more time so I can animate the blinks in the eyes, other than that I'm super happy how it ended up.

 

History - My Manifesto

History Manifesto

Definition of a Manifesto:

 

"A public declaration of policy and aims, especially one issued before election by a political party or candidate" - Oxford Languages

My understatement of Manifesto to the world of Art:

A manifesto is a set of guidelines or rules to/from an artist for their art, usually to make it unique or impact to the audience.

What I've learned from learning about other manifestos (like from Guerrilla Girls) all art has greater too little impact to the greater society. Either it is for purpose of helping society or unintentionally offending some people. But most of all what I learned from other people’s manifestos, it takes a step of courage to step against what society believes in, even if it’s for the right cause. My manifesto to me is a step of courage from society, something where people question my sanity, but at least it would help me mentally, and possibly help others in future. 

Before this course, I was a casual produces and supermarket worker, it wasn't too bad, I enjoyed life, but then lock down happen. 

Before lock down I had doubts with life, but the lock down was the final nail in the coffin, a final slap to the face that I wasn't happy with life. Just living day to day working, sleeping, nothing to improve or challenge me. I wanted to do YouTube and be a freelance artist, but the brought up with a certain parent and family members, they beat it into me that art isn't a job. So, I kept putting it aside, living a life of a mature adult, paying bills, having a job, etc., until, as I said, lock down happen in my country.

Here I am now, studying at SIT (Southland Institute of Technology) in Certificate of Creativity and will hopefully continue studying to get a Bachelor of Screen Arts in three more years.

So How is My Art and My Story going to Impact the World?

Well as I said before I like to do YouTube, as a speed drawer and story-time animator. I know it seems not original, but the content would be. There is a few people on YouTube that have inspired me and my art so far, and I would like to pay it forward with some fan art to begin with. With fan art there is some moral rules you need to follow, which I would follow as I wouldn't like people do it to me.

1.     See if the person/people are okay with others drawing fan art of them.

2.     Make sure the content you are creating for the person/people of interest is appropriate. An example is if the person of the fan art is about, is a polite and mature character, don't draw them in a way to discriminate them.

3.     Don't sell the fan art. Be Non-Commercial.

4.     Any songs from the person/people of interest need to be credited, before or during the playing and at the end of the video.

5.     Any creation from the person/people of interest, ie alternate egos, must be stated. I'll more than likely put this information in the description of the video on YouTube or in the title/description of other social medias that will be posted.

6.     If any of these rules are breached unintentionally or not breached, comply with any request coming from the person/people of interest, either it is from the creator or an agent on behalf of the creator.

Other than fan art rules, I'll following during and in the artwork I have done for this paper, I have my own guidelines I'll be following for my art.

1.     Whatever creations I make I'll put onto YouTube and other Social Medias like, Twitter, (if fan art) Reddit, Facebook and/or Instagram.

2.     The creation I create, I create out the enjoyment, not for fame or money, as that is a bad mindset to be in.

3.     Don't make excuses to not do some art, this is more for the emotion of fear as it was the wall that stopped me from doing what I'm happy doing. Quote from a stranger off the internet in one of the fan groups I was once in, "It's a risk to do anything. A risk to do something and a risk to do nothing".

4.     Kind of a contradiction but, it's okay to have days off, especially for mental health days. 

5.     Do NOT steal other people’s work.

6.     Try and use free copyright music always, but if I was going to use copyrighted music, state it in the beginning and the end, also in the description where to go and get the music (same with free copyright music). Lastly the video or animation that I'll use the copyrighted music I'll make sure I don't get money from it, if I do, I'll try and give it to the creator of the song.

7.     If there is a collaboration in the creation, state everyone that worked on it.

8.     If you aren't too confident in an artwork you have created, you can put it aside and do something else, I know that can’t be the case all the time but I learned if you changed your mind early you can get the work done. Also new eyes on the project can make the project look amazing.

9.     If the creation is in one way disturbing or could upset people. Warn them before the showing the artwork as not everyone likes dark/horror things.

There is other things I like to add to the list but, I think this is a good start, before this course there was many of restrictions (mostly from fear) causing myself to not do art and I wouldn't like to go back there anytime soon. Would like to say through, during this course I did learn to do creation not based around me. For example, my film project I did based it around me, my experience during lock down, my mentality, but I panicked and, in the end, didn't do it as it was too much pressure. If I did do something around experiences, I encounter I'll do it onto a fictionally character as the pressure wouldn't be as strong.

 

Film - Art Statement

Artist Statement for NZCC104

Title of Work: Speed Creation of Dungeons and Dragons Journals

Previously from this project I was going to something that was close to me, but didn't realized how close it was to me until the recording started and I started panicking. So I thought creating the journals of the characters, as it was something I wanted to do for another time, also it wasn't something that is too close to heart.

So in the end I created, five different journals, three of them are a three part journal (Sai, Mat and Cas) and two of them are two part journal (Mystic and Lerissa). I tried to incorrupt the essence of the characters through the design of the journals.

• Sai, a Dragonborn Cleric, which worships multiple gods. So I added rainbow gems on the front to represent the multiple gods and add the players symbol on the middle panel, unsure what the symbol is representing but I thought it was a nice touch for it. Also made the whole journal black for contracts of the gems and also he is a black dragon-born. The final result I wasn't too happy as I had limited leather, so the leather work wasn't cleanly seemed and the fictionally of the journal didn't stay open for the player to work with. But the player was happy with the end result, especially the self closing feature.

• Mystic, a Tabaxi (humanoid cat) Cleric, who worships the goddess of Death, also is a professional alcoholic. So I designed the journal around the appearance of an alcohol barrel and added fake pages as the character doesn't really care about journals and probably only use it to hide her alcohol/flask. I was going to make it out of wood but the player said to make it out of cardboard for cost reasons. To be honest I'm quite proud how hers came out. The player really like the journal in the end, doesn't like the little connecting parts to close the journal, it's too fiddly, but she says she would use it for D&D sessions. Last touch to the journal from the player is to add the player sheet over the flask to actually hide it.

• Mat, a Tiefling (part demon, part human) Druid, once brought up from farm, which was burnt down. I ask the player to design they journal as they are quite creative. They originally designed for four panels, but I didn't think it would functionally work so I put it back to three panels. The design was supposed to have an indent print of the symbol the player created for the farm he character were once brought up in. Unfortunately it didn't went that way, so I made a "metal" symbol to stick on the front. I also made the edge of the front panel look like it was burnt in the fire as the journal is made out of plain bull leather, no hard skeleton. Even though the journal didn't have a hard skeleton, like Sai's Journal, it had the self closing feature, which I did want to remake the whole journal, but for time, I didn't have time to remake it. 

• Lerissa, a Tiefling Bard, once lived in a cult, which she run away from on her 18th birthday. Lerissa is my character, so I made it out of wood as her family was a little civilization outside the main towns. I originally made the journal as the journal her "father" made for her, but during creating the journal the DM (dungeon master) and I had a thought that it was made for her mother from her "father", as the journal looked a bit too much made with love. The wood is a dark red, binded with red lizard like leather, nailed together with gold nails. As the creator and the player, I am severely happy with the end result.

• Cas, a Aasimar (Angle like beings hiding as humans) Warlock, only cares and thinks for himself, fighting with someone else in control of the body he shares with. The player didn't have much of an idea what the character would have if he had a journal, only to have a lock on it and it to be enchanted with a spell so if anyone did open it, they would be blinded (that's why the shiny page is there, to blind the viewer if it wasn't the character/player). The rest was just ideas of hard covered journals from Pinterest I saw. As I was adding onto other characters their own symbols, I incorrupt the D&D standard (from Wizards of the Coast) Warlock symbol. In the end, the player said that he likes it but wouldn't use it for D&D sessions as the pages is a bit small and there isn't a lot of room to use it on the table. 

Other than being designed to the character, as I stated above, I also wanted to make the journals usable for the players. To hold player sheets, equipment, spell slots and other notes in the D&D sessions. Some said they wouldn't use the journals for the functionally and that they can only use them for the one character. Which as the creator, I agree with, but for myself, it doesn't seem I would change my anytime characters soon, same with Mystic player, but she says she can use hers for another character.

I used multiple different techniques to create these journals, by the help of Pinterest, from the layout of creating the skeleton of the journals to making the leather like paper to cover some of the books. I experimented with different materials for journals throughout this process as well, from hard cover with cardboard and wood to soft cover journals with paper and fabric.

The recording of my creating them has been made into a speed creation, basically speed up recording with some editing, nothing too fancy as the main focus was the sculpture of the journals. The Speed creation is uploaded to YouTube under private listing, so people with the link can see it, but no one can randomly search it up. I would have liked to improve my video editing and recording before posting to the whole world to see.

Film - Handing in day

 Greetings Humans

Today is Tuesday the 3rd of November 2020

The recording editing has been completed.

I use this YouTube Tutorial to get the fast forwarding effect.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zByO2TmM1WU&list=PLfXHOpGy9qKE16hsnYIQnAVyToIwUs1qW&index=39&t=0s

Digital - Last Week (Pre-Blog before hand in day?)

 Greetings Humans

Today is Monday 2nd of November 2020

Just making a list of things to do and what's done to make sure things are done:

• What's done:
• Product - Finalized
• Portrait - Draft and Finalized
• Background - Draft and Finalized

• What needs to be done:
• Creature - Draft and finalized
• Product - Draft

Film - Last Week (Pre-Blog before hand in day)

 Greeting Humans

Today is Monday the 2nd of November 2020

Tomorrow is hand in day for film project, hoping at 5pm.

What I gotta do is finish:

• Adding the footage from the journals - done
• Quick draw up of journal draft. - Nope too time consuming
• Credits - done
• Maybe Add the Techniques I used for the creation - nope, no room
• Artist Statement - on Blogger - later after lunch

Animation - Last Week of Study

 Greetings Humans

Last Week of Study, Monday 2nd of November 2020

So last week, last run, I'll list of the things I've done and will list the rest of got to do before Friday 5pm.

What I got done:

• Scene
• 1 - Opening location scene
• 2 - look up from journal
• 3 - sighing, put journal down and about to grab lute (will finalize later with newer eyes)
• 4 - 3/4 comfortable 
• 5 - close up plucking
• 6 - Nodding to the beat.

What I gotta do:

• Scene:
• 7 - Still drawing, back of Lerissa looking into fire.
• 8 - Campfire Story
• 9 - Crying Lerissa

• Parts of animation to do:
• Still drawing of journal open from behind
• Fire turning to tent
• Fire people walking - will keep it a bit animatic like
• Still Drawing 3/4 Lerissa Back.
• Edit Looking up from journal still drawing to just boots and legs

• Editing:
• Credits - Add, Ruby to it as she did an amazing job tutoring us.

• Other:
• Artist Statement
• Send in the Animation to Think and Create