Shocking locations!

We found some pretty good locations for our word "Conduct" today. Hanging it from a street lamp sounds pretty cool, hanging it from two lit lights on the power plant really shows the conductive force, and there were a couple of place around the Watson Library that would work well and Wescoe. We even found a haunted door that sucks people in and caught the action on camera. You'll have to ask Dalton to show  it to you.

Help?

I need to find a way to clean up these images. I made these in Autodesk Maya a while back, it's the muscles on the left leg, I didn't do the skeleton so don't look at that. When I rendered the scenes, it just came out this horrible, so if you have any tips on how to fix this let me know, It's probably my best 3D work so far, and yet the pictures turn out so horrible.

re-designing the Sharktopus!

I don't know how many of you actually took a look at the video I posted on my blog earlier, but it was of the Syfy channel's next original movie Sharktopus. I laughed for quite a while when I saw the creature in the movie, but now, even though it has a silly name, I want to re-design it. Make it more fierce, more realistic, or perhaps even cute and cuddly. If anyone has any comments or concerns, please let me know... and if you really have concerns for the sharktopus, don't worry, he's a 3D actor, gets paid very well in people jumping into the ocean.

I know it looks stupid, but just keep watching... it gets worse

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fK2bBfuepKka
click the link, it's a trailer of the Syfy channels next original movie... I laughed so hard!

Scanning big drawings

Hey all, I was actually just wanting to know if anyone knew of any way of scanning big drawings, such as an 18 X 24 inch piece. I know I can take a picture of them to save them, but I was hoping for some way to scan them, or even a better way than taking a picture, I'm not the best photographer in the world.

Every designer's dirty little secret is that they copy other designers' works. They see work they like, and they imitate it. Rather cheekily, they call this inspiration. -Aaron Russell

A rather interesting quote, it's true, we certainly do copy ideas and get inspiration from the work of others. Even in the later parts of our careers, we look to things that we've seen, or things that people have said to draw our inspiration. Is there anything these days that is truly original? I'd like to hope that one day I could possibly have an original idea. I come up with concepts for new creatures for video games all the time, but in some way, I draw inspiration from past concepts or real animals today. Is imagination truly limitless, or are we simply pulling ideas out of a large, but defined area, and quickly running out of new ones?

IDEO and The Writer's Toolbox

After watching the video of IDEO in class Thursday, I'd have to say that the biggest thing I've learned is... that most of us are probably clinically insane. You'd have to be in order to come up with the thousands of ideas that we have to imagine for each new project, how the heck our minds function must be a mystery of mondern technology! But besides that, I learned that the best tools in a designer's imaginary utility belt are fellow designers who can help bounce ideas around or give different perspectives.

As far as The Writer's Toolbox goes, I learned that I've been using the mind mapping for a long time. I think we all have, but what that also tells me is that everyone is used to this way of coming up with ideas, so it might be a good idea to branch out and try the many other different ways described in this packet. I particularly would like to try the freewriting, for some reason, I'm just curious as to how it could actually help organize our jumbled ramblings.

Finally, Labor Day weekend was great, I got to hang out with my fiance all weekend, swimming, watching movies, sleeping in late. We even went to the local humane shelter and played with cats all saturday (she's been wanting a cat for many years now, and I'm trying to get her one for Christmas... plus, they were cute I could resist playing, at least I'm honest). Here's a picture of us for all of those who were wondering if I actually am engaged (I don't believe it myself sometimes)

Anyhow, see you all tomorrow!

Less Than Perfection

Eugene Delacroix once said "Artists who seek perfection in everything are those who cannot attain it in anything". I find this especially touching since I'm nowhere near perfect yet, but I don't want to be perfect in everything. For instance, I never want to touch a paint brush again!

nJoo

nJoo is an artist that I follow (stalk) on deviantart.com. He has a job for a video game company, and actually designs the creatures in the games. He does an amazing job and inspires me since this is something I love to do, design creatures or concepts for them. This is a work in progress concept sheet of one of his creatures.

The Amazing Eero Saarinen

In case you haven't heard of this guy, he was a famous architect, and remains to be after his death. The reason that I'm mentioning him here however is not because of his architecture skills, but because of his drawing skills because he truly proves that there's no such thing as a dominant hand. Eero Saarinen may not be the only person, but he's the only one that I've heard of that was able to draw with both hands... simulataneously! He could be drawing one picture for a client, and then start drawing a completely different picture with the other hand, and give both the same excellent quality. Truly mind over matter.