N385 - Seeing Sideways - Day 4

As I said in my previous post, I was unable to attend last week's class due to a doctor's appointment. (And we apparently went on a field trip!!!) But alas, I spent my time wisely. At least, in my opinion.

So what did I do?

Well, I decided that in the New Media world, we are too focused on making products for the client or worrying about our target audience. To try to counteract this, I decided I would spend 3 hours (the amount of time I would have spent in class) doing art just for me.

I have really been getting back into Pokemon lately, and some of the redrawn Pokemon characters are really, really cool. So I decided that I would draw one of my favorite Pokemon and try to make him look a little more badass.

Here's what I was able to do:

I am pretty impressed with myself. I just started drawing and painting in Photoshop, so I am still trying to get the hang of it. This was a pretty good improvement from some of my other pieces, so I am happy about that. Also, since it was for me and not for someone else, it was something I was excited to work on and something that I wanted to do well.

Maybe the Art people are onto something there. I think most people can agree that when they are doing something for themselves they don't have to force themselves to do it, they just want to! And on top of that, they want to do it to the best of their ability, because it is for themselves!

However, I still stand by the fact that it is much harder to financially succeed when you are only doing what you want to do. You can lie to yourself all you want and say that you don't care about the money, but everyone needs at least enough to keep themselves fed and clothed. If you can't do that doing what you want to do, you are going to have to do what someone else, someone with deeper pockets, wants you to do.

Helmet's Helpful Hints: Catching Pokemon in the Safari Zone can be difficult without the use of your own Pokemon to help you. From my experiences, I find that the supplied rocks and food don't really help you out. Just throw Safari Balls and hope for the best!

Workflow Style Chart

This week (or rather a few weeks ago now), we discussed how people work. A chart was put up on the board that read like this:

Inspiration --> Idea --> Concept --> Trial --> Refine --> Product

Originally, I thought this was a pretty good chart for my workflow style, but after discussing it a bit more, I started to see spots where I tended to do things a bit differently.

Before I can really take this chart and make changes to it, I should define what each word means to me. This way, individual definitions won't get in the way of understanding my workflow style.

Inspiration: This is when I am suddenly struck with passion.

Idea: This is the initial vision I have of what to do.

Concept: This is the finalized vision of what to do and how to do it.

Trial: This is the stage where I've begun working towards a product and I'm trying to see what works and what doesn't.

Refine: This is the stage where I take what's working and what isn't and change how I'm working or what I am doing.

Product: This is the last stage, where all the work comes to fruition and I have done something that is (hopefully) similar to what I set out to do.

So that's all of them, but I need to add in a few of my own:

Motivation: This is the longing or desire to actually do something.

Planning: This one is pretty straight forward. This is the stage where I set a schedule and deadlines for myself.

OKAY!

Now that all that is out of the way, let me show you my workflow style chart, and then I will explain my process.


For me, the first thing I actively do is come up with a concept. As you can see in my chart though, that is not the first thing that happens. Three things have to all happen simultaneously in order for me to start my process: I need to have inspiration, an idea, and motivation.

Many times I have one or two of these things, but that's not enough for anything to happen. However, once all three hit, I am off like a rocket. I wanted to convey that these three things were flowing in and out of me all the time, so instead of a solid square, they are in a cloudy/blobbish shape.

Once I have my concept, my first instinct is not to jump right into the trial stage. Too many times I have started a project only to lose my motivation halfway through. I feel that planning is a good way to hang onto that motivation as long as possible.

By setting goals and deadlines for myself, I can't procrastinate or push back the parts that I know are going to be difficult or a pain in my ass. I also like to make a rough schedule so that I know when I will be working on which parts of the project.

Now that I have a plan, I begin working and trying to find out what works and what doesn't. When it is time to refine and make changes, I try to judge how the process is going. If it is going well, then I continue on and will eventually reach the product stage.

However, if it is going badly, I have to assess how badly it's going. If something isn't working I can go back to my trial stage and see if I can fix the issue. If it really isn't working at all, I can go back and make a new plan before continuing on into the trial stage. If it is SUPER HORRIBLE NOT WORKING EVER, then I just scrap the whole thing and go back to trying to get inspiration, motivation and an idea together again.

This assignment actually came at the perfect time for me, because I just started undergoing a HUGE project, and I was able to take that and what I was doing there and really dissect what it is that I do in my workflow process. Because of it's size, I cannot tell you if this style was effective or not yet, because it probably won't be completed for another year or so, but let's just say: I'm pretty excited."

The last thing I want to talk about that we discussed in class is this concept:

Art = Me, New Media = Target Audience

I've never really thought about this, but it is actually a really great point. It seems like in New Media, we are all artists, but we don't think about making art for ourselves, as much (if at all) as we do about making it for our target audience or our client.

This is not the case when it comes to art. Art is done simply on the whim of the artist. (Unless of course the artist is commissioned, in which case that artist is often looked down upon like a "whore" by other artists. This is pretty stupid in my personal opinion, because while I understand that it can be viewed as selling out or what have you, everyone needs to pay their bills somehow, and, let's face it, most non-commissioned artists aren't bringing in a whole lot of money.)

So, I decided to do an experiment. Since I was going to miss next week's class because of a doctor's appointment, I would dedicate the time I would have spent in class (3 hours) to doing a piece of art just for myself. It will be in my next entry, so keep your eyes peeled.

N385 - Seeing Sideways - Breaking the Rules

For this assignment, we were supposed to break a rule of some kind. I really struggled to come up with something to do for this assignment, because I feel like I don't really have a problem breaking rules on the regular. That's not to say that I just go around disregarding laws and being an obnoxious ass all the time, but if per say I felt that I could get better results on a project by breaking a rule or if I felt that a rule wasn't serving any purpose, I would feel no remorse in breaking it.

At one point, I decided I just wasn't going to do this assignment, but I felt like that was taking the easy way out. (Even if I tried to play it off as that being my way of "breaking the rules.") After thinking long and hard about it for 4 or 5 days, I realized I was beginning to run out of time. Then, the idea just sort of came to me: You aren't supposed to wait until the last minute to do a project.

Now, I procrastinate all the time, so this needed to be some SEVERE procrastination in order for me to really be breaking a rule. I decided that I would wait and do my project exactly one hour before I had to go to class on the day it was due. As for the actual project, I decided to make a picture in Photoshop that broke as many of the Photoshop rules that I could think of.

Here's how it went down:

I woke up at 10:30 this morning. I have to leave for class at 11:00. I threw on the same clothes that I wore yesterday and skipped showering and brushing my teeth. (Sorry classmates, I don't have time for that shit.) I did a Google search for some random images to combine and made sure to break all the rules I could think of: Upscaling an image, poor extractions, hard to read text, and lens flare. This thing was hilariously bad.

So, that's the first rule I broke. As for the second rule, I don't suggest waiting until the last 30 minutes to do your assignment. It really sucked. I wasn't able to do a lot of things I would have really liked to do with this image AND I stressed about it hard. I was laying in bed trying to sleep last night and all I could do was think about how the hell I was going to pull this off the next day. Anyway, I did. It wasn't great and it wasn't exactly easy on the nerves. At least not for me, since I care about school and my grades. I guess if you didn't care about any of that, this wouldn't be an issue for you at all. Although, if you were in that boat, I don't see why you wouldn't just skip doing the assignment altogether.

Helmet's Helpful Hints: Wake up late for class/work? Here's a morning checklist that will get you out the door in five minutes looking and smelling as close to normal as possible.

• Mouthwash; It's almost as good as brushing your teeth. Your teeth might not be sparkling white, but your breath won't reek.
  
• Deodorant is a necessity every day, but if you don't shower, it becomes even more important.
  
• Cologne when combined with deodorant will hide the fact that you haven't showered 99% of the time. That doesn't mean go overboard on it. No one wants to have their nasal passages assaulted by an over-cologned dude either.
  
• Jeans can be worn 3-4 days in a row, presuming you haven't spilled anything on them.
• Shirts only get about 2 days of use, also presuming you haven't spilled anything on them.
• Sock aren't even necessary. No one is going to notice you aren't wearing them.
• If you aren't required to shave by your job, DON'T. If you are, make sure you have an electric razor with a cigarette lighter adapter so you can shave in the car on your way in.

N385 - Seeing Sideways - Day 3

For some reason, I can't remember a whole lot about our most recent class session... I remember a bit involving a prosthetic leg and some reasons why you shouldn't take pictures in the mirror with the camera showing, but that's about it. Hmm... I am just going to assume that we covered so many topics that my brain refuses to acknowledge any of them. On to the prompt!

Concept vs. Final Product

Well, this is something that is really weighing on me currently. My Capstone is just around the corner, and I still have no idea what I am going to do yet! That's not to say that I haven't thought of any good ideas... Actually, I have thought of quite a number of really awesome ideas! Sadly, though, I am not sure any of them can be pulled off with the resources available to me, the time I have to work on it, and my overall set of skills.

When coming up with a concept, you have to keep your final product in mind. Is it something you can actually create? How much time and energy will it require? Do you need outside help or can you do it all yourself? Will it ultimately be worth it? These are the questions I find myself asking... myself.

I can't just do a boring-no-one-gives-a-shit Capstone. I need to do something that really stands out and makes people say, "Whoa! That's fucking epic!" It's not that I am hoping my Capstone lands me a job or seals my graduation with a 4.0 GPA (Though, neither of these would upset me). I want to make something that I can be proud of!

I have a handful of unfinished projects on my portable hard drive... I never finished anything. I want to have something that I can look at years from now, even if I have no job and no money, and say, "I made this. Look at this, fellow soup kitchen patron, I fucking made this."

For me, coming up with something to do is easy. But coming up with something to do that is awesome and actually doable is damn near impossible. I've been stuck in the conceptual stages on a myriad of different projects for as long as I can remember. Part of it is laziness, I'll have to admit (if I am going to be honest with myself), but a lot of it stems from envisioning grandiose ideas that are all but impossible.

Anyways, I feel like I am rambling and... honestly, I have no idea where I am going with this. What I just said probably doesn't have much relevance to the original prompt either. Whoops. I guess I'll think on it some more and get back to you guys.