Final Week

Ok, so the first half of the students did their presentations last week. I think everyone did very well; a lot of fresh new points were discussed since a lot of different art styles were showcased. I was already very nervous about it but was quietly confident because I had done a lot of rehearsing so I should be able to avoid any major errors.

After seeing all the print portfolios, I think I would eventually like to have a presence in that area too. I believe this way I will be able to have both bases covered and will have a possibility of reaching out to a slightly wider group of observers to expand on my chances within the Art Industry. One of the module tutors said once that in order to be successful we had to seize the viewer’s interest within the first twelve seconds of them viewing our portfolio. I believe I have accomplished something pretty close to that with my final artefact.

Week 13

For the final part of my portfolio assembly I had to have it hosted up online and have it made accessible to the public via the internet. Now I have the whole portfolio crated and published in Adobe Flash but I was encountering problems on having it hosted up online. In order to do this is had to buy myself a domain, configure it and upload the work myself. After some asking around I was told that I would have to export my flash file as an Index.html document before I could do anything else.

After encountering all the problems I visited the Grove House to request some help from the technicians over there who agreed to assist me in hosting it up on the TVU Zappa server. We uploaded it using the FTP Control software, after a few checks all the pages and links seemed to be working perfectly.

Portfolio Loading page

I thought that handing the Zappa address out to people who wished to view my portfolio would seem a bit awkward and unprofessional since it says nothing personal about my portfolio except that it’s being hosted at a third party domain rather than my own personal one. Eventually someone talked me out of being stressed about it by saying that its not something too serious too worry about at the moment and that they will walk me through the process of having it uploaded to my own domain name as soon as the module has ended.

Portfolio: Finalised portfolio home page

Portfolio: Standard page layout

Portfolio: Image view

Portfolio: Video playback


Portfolio: Logo work still in development

As well as completing the portfolio this week I have spent some time going over what I should cover in my presentation. I decided I would start by telling everyone why I chose to create a digital portfolio rather than a print portfolio. I would then move on to talking about the portfolio layout and who the target audiences are. This would be followed by me going through a few pages showing examples of my best work and the different media the work is viewable in. then finally a quick outline on the competition piece before opening for any criticism from everyone which would assist me with moving forward.

Bibliography:

1. My portfolio address
www.zappa.tvu.ac.uk/~05islams

Week 12

Part of our assignment criterion was to complete and submit a piece of work for an appropriate competition. Since I am presenting myself as a digital artist I wanted to find and enter a competition that would allow me to make use of my abilities within this field. I have been searching for numerous weeks now for a competition which is requesting for entries showcasing qualities within my precinct but all I can find are either outdated ones or ones which request for something with little or no relevance to my area. I frequently visit the Adobe website and received an email informing me of the Adobe Design Awards competition a little while ago. There was no way I could even begin creating something that would be even worth submitting to this competition in the time which I had remaining. So after some more searching I stumbled on to Deviant Art where Wacom were hosting their own competition. The Brief was as follows:

The conflict of good vs. evil is one that’s universally known. Can good exist without evil? Can evil exist without good? Are they opposites, or one in the same? Is the battle between light vs. dark, order vs. chaos, Luke Skywalker vs. Darth Vader, or PC vs. Mac? deviantART and Wacom invite you to get your creative juices flowing and artistically interpret your version of bringing good vs. evil to life!

DeviantART and Wacom are proud to present the Intuos4 “Bring Your Vision to Life” contest. With the theme “Good vs. Evil”, the contest is open to artists of all mediums anywhere in the world. The “Bring Your Vision to Life” contest challenges you to use your creative vision to show us your interpretation of the epic battle between good and evil. You have the chance to win a sleek new "Intuos4", cold hard cash, and tons of other great stuff!

Summon your artistic abilities, engage the theme “Good vs. Evil”, and bring your vision to life. Your entry will be judged on its originality, creativity, and technique. You get a second chance if the community picks your entry as the best!

Competition Dates:

Competition commences: April 1st 2009
Submission deadline: May 19th 2009, 11.59.59 PM PST

The Brief

Competition prize list

The contest rules are as follows:

- Entrants must be 13 years or older to participate;
- Contest open to all deviants everywhere;
- Entries must be submitted in one of the following file formats: GIF/PNG/JPG, but may originate in any medium;
- Entries must not have been previously published or won any other prize/award;
- You may submit more than one entry;
- Online entries only, hard copies not accepted;
- Entry may not use any watermarks or distingushing artist marks

The Rules and Judging procedures with the submission link at the bottom

To start everything off I began by creating myself a Deviant Art account and putting my name down on the list. I usually do a lot of the brainstorming mentally to see if I can get an image of what I would like to pursue before getting it down on paper. I tried very hard to avoid going for the Angel versus Demon clichéd scenario and tried to think of something a bit more outlandish and a bit more extreme than you would usually see.

My line of thought was if I could think up a concept which is a bit realistic (in terms of reality) and then create it as realistically as possible then maybe I would be able to unsettle the judges and possibly win them over to my side. I eventually settled on drawing two humans each encompassing a separate trait to show the contrasting personalities between the two of them. But for some reason that just didn’t seem extreme enough, I was thinking of drawing them as twins but something just wasn’t adding up. Eventually I decided to stick with the human twin’s idea but take them back to before they each knew whether they were going to be either good or evil. Right back to before they were even born, right back to the placenta bag.

Now this is where I needed some visual aid by drawing up some thumbnails to see how the composition may be developed.

Final composition sketches

Here are the final four compositions I have settled on. Thumbnail one shows the babies sitting with their backs to each other, I’m thinking of possibly adding some facial features to distinguish between the two sides. Thumbnail two shows them sitting face to face but leaning back in a relaxed pose, I planned to give them both the same expression and features. This is meant to signify that you cannot tell which one is good and which one is bad until the twins themselves want you to know. Thumbnail three uses the more conventional composition where the twins are placed upside down and side by side in the placenta bag. Thumbnail four shows them in the same position as thumbnail two but this time they are more in each others face, this is to signify that the battle between good and evil has already begun well before they are even born.

After much more mental brainstorming I selected option one because it would allow me to show them in a more closer brotherly light regardless of their contrasting attributes. To get myself started I began by searching for images of twins in their placenta bags to help me get some idea of where to start, I also needed some images of people leaning back on each other, this would help me greatly when it came to keeping the characters proportions.

Reference images used for the competition piece

Then as soon I started I decide to make a quick addition. I wanted to make the good child’s traits more visible by having a very transparent halo above its while also being full bodied with soft features. While the evil one on the other hand would have small horns protruding from its head while being contrastingly pale and thin with sharper features. The evil one would also have a darker toned liquid on its side of the ovary with transparent skulls floating around in the liquid being feed to him through the umbilical cord. While the good one on the other hand will have exactly the opposite going on.

Competition piece: 45% completed

So far I have the good twin sketched up; hopefully the fact that it is the good one will be evident easily.

Competition piece: Completed

Finally the whole image has been finished. I have made some final tweaks to the composition, for example I have made the evil twin lean back further on to the good twin to signify that he already has the upper hand. I’ve also made the good twin look more observe of the surrounding space by making him tuck his legs in while the evil one stretches his legs out in a more arrogant lazy way. I think my concept here has been pretty successful and meets the vision I had of it in my mind.

There is however one drawback though, I will not be able to have it coloured the way I want it in time because f the lack of time I have on my hands. I don’t want to attempt to colour it because I will end up rushing it and this will result in the integrity of the illustration dropping very low. Therefore I have decided to submit my entrée as it is in its sketch form and wish it all the best.

If I should even come third place within this competition, then my prizes would consist of

- Wacom Intuos 4 tablet, Medium
- $500.00 American Express gift card
- A deviantART artist's bag
- A devWEAR shirt of my choice
- 1 year deviantART subscription

Fingers crossed!

Bibliography:

1. DeviantART Wacom competition
http://news.deviantart.com/article/76573/?offset=25#comments

2. Competition reference images
http://images.inmagine.com/img/inmagineasia/ins026/ins026059.jpg
http://images.inmagine.com/img/imagehit/ih026/ih026062.jpg
http://assets.babycenter.com/i/m/stages/newpopups/32/twins_week32_rollover_index.jpg
http://www.capturedbycarrie.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/1692twins.jpg

Week 11

Today I just noticed a new problem – the size of my portfolio is too big for some screens. My screen is set to a resolution of 1280*1024, and when I tried to access it from a computer at my colleagues place on ¾ of it was viewable on screen at a time because their monitor was smaller with a lower resolution. This meant I had to go back and resize my portfolio to a much smaller size, except I wasn’t sure as to what size make it. After much questioning of people online as well as offline I finally decided to make it a little smaller than 800*600. This way even the smallest of monitors will be able to view it, and even though it will full screen for them at least they will be able to view it. And for those who have large monitors, it may be a little small for them but they can always zoom in a little to counter that.

I’ve also decided on a name for my portfolio which should help make it more distinctive and assist in giving it its own identity. The name is:

When I was thinking up the name I kept in mind that I wanted to give the viewer a feeling of fun and enjoyment as well as making use of a playful word so that I/my portfolio didn’t come off as being very serious and insipid. I think by using this name I achieved that, also the way it has been presented using the large clear font with the low opacity reflection beneath it helps bring back some of the seriousness which may have been lost with the choice of the name.

After this I spent a lot of time creating mock ups of what I would like to have on the front home page. I wasn’t sure if I should have information of regarding the portfolio showing, or if I should have a slide show of my latest work on show or simply just a short welcome message. After the many, many many mock ups I created I finally settled on two of the concepts. They both consisted of abstract shapes and were considered to be of a minimalism style. I took these two designs and put them through numerous colour palettes and eventually settled on a look which I was pleased with.

Front Page Concept 1

Front Page Concept 2

It was quite time consuming trying to get all the colours, look and even the feel of the compositions right at this stage, but in the end I am pleased with the outcome. All that remains is for me to choose one out of the two concepts to use as the home welcoming page.

Week 10

This week I began with finalising which categories of work I work I should be showing within my portfolio as well as creating the icons to reflect the category of choice.

Menu comparisson between Stage 3 & Stage 4

As you can see from the image (above left), I had the text within the menu centred. This left it looking quite plain and bland, I tried aligning the text to the left as well as the right to see if anything came of it – but nada. So I decided to borrow a concept which I had seen on another artist’s online portfolio where they used icons next to the text to give it some life. So as you can see from the image (above right) I decided to create small icons and place thumbnails of each of them next to the text within the menu. I made sure to create icons which will reflect the type of category they will be placed besides, this way I will be able to keep some sort of relation between each of them and have harmony between the two types.

Icons created for the menu

After this I began working on the layout of the main contents of each page. I wanted to give the viewer a sufficient amount of text that will keep them interested in the whole page but not so much that they will lose focus on it and move on. I also spent a little time on which font to use because the last thing I wanted to use was an unreadable font or that is very clichéd, e.g. Times New Roman. As you can see from the image below, I’ve settled on the Eurostyle font have just begun creating the boxes for the thumbnails. I’ve yet to create the images for the thumbnails so for the time being they will be occupied by numbers. I’ll need to think carefully what the content of each page should be and try and cut it down to the minimal in order to maintain the viewer’s attention on my pieces of work rather than the text.

Stage 4. How the portfolio currently looks