Sky Arts

Game characters developing

Early development of Ratchet from (Ratchet and Clank)

Taking the style of art work you like and using it in your own work. I used to draw all the time and I started to realise that the style that I drew in actually looked similar to a game character in a game I used to play a lot when I was younger. I only noticed this recently that my style of drawing has obviously been influenced from Ratchet and Clank. 

Though my characters don't usually wear clothes like Ratchet does I can see that this particular game character has influenced me. My characters I draw are usually creatures that look cat like and stand up and act like humans. I always think of them having personality traits and characteristics similar to humans. This is probably come from playing Ratchet and clank a lot, it was one of the first console games I ever played. 

Ratchet from Ratchet and Clank

I can see how this has influenced me as looking at some of my really old drawing you could tell that they were certain animals even though they talked and sometimes walked like people. But later on my characters became more humanised and looked less like one animal and more like maybe another spices. 

This is my character for my game unit. The face is kind of similar to ratchets but when I noticed I did this I tried to make my characters more in my style and less how Ratchet looks. I am trying to do my own style so I don't want it too similar. But I didn't even realised that I had been influenced this much by a game.   

This is another character from my game this is probably one that is closer to how Ratchet looks then some of my other characters.

This is the final design for my main character for my game. 

Typography

visual languages exercises

The first exercise was to create a Ying Yan symbol using adobe illustrator. 

Flowing Rhythm 

Flowing Rhythm is sort of natural looking and is basically a pattern repeated but each one is slightly different. Like a series of lines. The lines are repeated though out but each one is curvy in a different places. This is a simple example of flowing rhyme. I like this because it also looks like it is getting further        aways as its gets closer together.    

Another example of flowing rhyme and it is similar to the first as it is a series of lines. But as the pattern progresses it seems to bend more.

Progressive rhyme 

This is like an animation or something that looks like its moving. Or it could be a shape like this image that is the same triangle and its copied but slightly moved each time so it looks like its moving.
This is a good image that looks like its spinning because each one is faded and and getting smaller each time. 

This one has a similar effect but its just moving and not getting smaller. It still sort of looks like its spinning because each one is a different gradient this gives the effect thats its moving.

We had to make an example of each rhyme using illustrator. 

Progressive rhyme

Flowing Rhyme

 

Regular Rhyme

Space work on illustrator. We were given the task to create a scene on illustrator either a forest looking out to a river or a cityscape with mountains in the background or a desert scene. I did the city scene. 

colours

\

For this we had to create the colours by mixing the three primary colours in photoshop. After we had completed the colour wheel we had to make some colour cubes on photoshop.

Ideas and Concepts

Different artists are inspired in different ways.

Some ways are-

Thumb nailing
Imagination
Nature
everyday life
music
personal events
Something particularly bad happening in their life can effect the way their art looks.


Pokemon is one of my favourite games and I am going to look up the concept behind it.

The inventor of pokemon Satoshi Tajiri was inspired by his bug collecting and nature. This is how the concept of pokemon began. He thought about how much he had enjoyed collecting insects and bugs when he was younger. He wanted to share his enjoyment of catching and collecting creatures as he had. The development of the main character of pokemon Ash Ketchum was based on himself. When he was young he was enthusiastic about collecting them so this personality was passed onto the character and was based on Satoshi Tajiri. He was also fascinated by arcade game which may have lead to his idea becoming a game. Most pokemon are based on animals. so his ideas came from nature. for example eevee looks like a fox.

Some early development for the Pokemon. All of these look very similar to their final designs. But some have been developed more than others.

Van Gogh sunflowers. The painting he did is still life. Van Gogh was quite emotional as he had an uncontrollable temper and lacking in self confidence. He studied art and he was inspired by an impressionists work. They used a lot of bright colours and he wanted to have colour in his work like that. He had some Major things happen in his life that really effect him and it may have influenced his art work. Also he worked in Paris for about 2 years and the change in his surroundings could have influenced his painting too.

Dali melting clocks painting. This is a famous painting that most people would recognise this if they saw it. It is very strange and surreal how the clocks have melted and it gives the illusion that if you were in the painting you might start melting. The inspiration didn't come from real life obviously because of how unreal it is he used partly his own insanity and his dreams. Dali did a lot of his paintings from his dreams. So his ideas came from dreams and imagination. He had also seen some surreal artists in Paris and he liked their work so it inspired him to be a surreal artist too. A lot of things influenced his work. Gala a woman he had a relationship with, the second world war etc...

Henri Rousseau was an artist. He was born in France and he always wanted to be an artist. The "house" that he lived in was hundreds of years old. Part of his inspiration to become an artist may have come from the fact that he loved drawing when he was younger. Some of his inspiration may have come from music as he liked to listen to it a lot and he even played an instrument the clarinet. He also wrote a waltz once. He served in the french army to fight Mexico but some people believed that he couldn't have because they thought he was in prison at the time. He used popular culture as the main ideas for some of his work. But then he used the realism of this and changed his art work so that some of the objects in his painting look bigger then they would be in real life. So he has also added a surreal effect too. Many of his drawings are centred around life in the wild. So nature has also influenced his work. 

Picasso
He painted vast mural paintings during the Civil war this major event in his life obviously effected the way he worked as an artist. Emotions are usually a big factor in artist work and effect them. He also did subsidiary paintings. The last of his series of them during the Civil war was the "weeping woman". The women's features in this painting were based on his partner Dora Maar. He was also inspired by other artists.

Jan van Eyck. The Arnalfini portrait. This painting wasn't to remember the event. He painted it to work on his reflection and lighting technique. He was very interested in the effects of light. He used oil pastels which helped him show the gleaming light bouncing off the brass on the chandelier. Jan van Eyck was very clever in the way he had done his paintings. You can also see his detail with the mirror in the background has the reflection of the two figures in it.

 

research on images

Urban images and signs  

The image has a sign on it. On the sign is an outline of a man and what looks like a shovel.  It is in the road but not in the middle more to the side of the pavement. There is also a car in the background that shows you how close it is to the pavement. The sign means that work is being done. It’s the construction sign. I don't feel many emotions from looking at this picture maybe because it's quite common and it’s not unusual to see one around.

The image is of a road sign. The sign means that there are narrow roads on the right or on left if symbol is reversed. Again this image doesn't make me feel much as it is seen often. People driving have to know the meanings of these symbols otherwise it would be a bit chaotic. When taking the test you have to learn the meanings of all of these symbols.  

In the picture is a yellow sign with the words "crime scene" repeated on them. This is a sign used by the police when there has been a crime and they don't want any of the public getting involved and maybe also the press. If I saw this sign near somewhere I knew I would be worried about what had happened. Also again yellow means danger.

These are hazard signs. Two are yellow and two are red. The yellow means warning and the red means danger. These signs are used a lot around places that could become hazardous. People at work could have these signs.

The sign "beware unfenced road" has a picture of a kangaroo, camel and an ostrich and the sign is yellow. The hidden message is that yellow means danger on signs. It means that take when driving because all these animals could be around in this area and may wonder onto the road. My feelings on this image are that if I saw it I would be exited because you don't see these animals in the wild here.

This is a sign used in a library. It says your phone must be off. On the sign it has the "must" in capitals to highlight the importants of the message. Also there is an image of a phone and it has a red line though it. This is the ban sign that is used for a lot of other signs. For example if a dog wasn't allowed in a shop it would have the dog pic with a red line though it. The red colour is used in a lot of signs.

 Media, advertising and proper gander

 

The image shows an advert on the side of a van. In the image is a man, text and a photo of a pie. It is a food advert so it's for the pie. The advert says "man cannot drive on crisps alone" I think the advert is trying to say that you can't just live on crisps and junk food and you need something proper to eat and let you function during the day. I'm not sure about how this image makes me feel we see so many adverts in one day we don't really take notice but they do influence us. It's not a very serious poster its funny because its saying that men can't drive or function without cooked food. It is focusing on men in this advert because it says man and there is a picture of a man. But man can also mean the human race so women are included in that but I think this poster is just consecrating on men.

This is Ronald McDonald this character has been used in lots of McDonald's ads and is like the mascot for McDonald's. They used a clown i think because most kids like clowns and they are associated with fun. But I don't like this clown because I don't like clowns so I wouldn't be persuaded to go to McDonald's. But they used yellow and red clothes on the clown which is the colours for McDonald's M. 

For this advert they have used a character from a old TV show. Mr. T is quite famous and almost everyone would know who he was. This advert has used him and this makes it memorable. There is also a slogan at the bottom which is written similar to how his character used to talk and they used the catch-phrase. I like this advert I think people remember it and it’s funny. Also from the hand we can see that it looks like he's coming out of the poster.

This poster uses sarcasm to put it's message across.

 The image has a penguin in the snow on it. The hidden meaning for this image is that it doesn’t mean what it says. It’s sarcastic. The headline is "nuclear winter". The poster says re-elect George bush but what it’s actually saying is if you elect him he would use nuclear weapons which we don't want. I think this is an interesting poster as not most posters use sarcasm. This poster is in a old fashioned style but it was made in 2004.

This is a billboard advert on a van. It is advertising food /hot pastries. It is similar to the first advert because it’s advertising the same thing just in a different way. The slogan is different and it says "I'm hours away from home seconds away from happiness". The hidden message in this add is saying that you may be far away from your home but when you eat one of our products it won’t matter because they make you happy. Also if he’s eating it at work the sign says "seconds" so it’s properly really quick to make. The man is looking forward to lunch because it’s quick and tasty. It’s also advertising a man again which means the product is aimed at men.

There is a picture of a man on a billboard avert. There is also a toothpaste tube at the bottom left corner. This advert says "builds strong teeth" so it’s advertising strong tooth paste. It’s a clever advert because the man is ripping the ad off with his teeth or at least it looks like he is. It’s funny because it’s showing if you used the tooth paste your teeth would be strong enough to do that. But they couldn't really. Its good advertising for their tooth paste because people may remember the image. It looks like the tooth paste is stronger than it is.

Optical illusions

The image is a duck and a rabbit. It’s an illusion so different people see different things the first time they look at it. The picture is drawn in a way that it is both a rabbit and a duck. When I first looked at it I saw the duck. Sometimes some people just can't see the optical illusion.

This is another optical illusion and is similar to the other one. Its two images in one. I like this drawing I think it’s very clever how one drawing can look like two. It has a Native American head and an Eskimo.

This is a really odd optical illusion the elephant looks like it has 5 feet but when you look closely it only has 4 legs. Three of the feet are not attached to the legs. This image usually confuses a lot of people. The scientific effect of the image makes people think the elephant has 8 legs.

This is an image of a bridge and a boat the illusion makes it look like a bridge in the distance then it turn into as boat the closer it gets. I think it’s amazing how the clouds become the sails and the rocks become the boat and the bridge becomes the sky. This image may confuse people they don't know if the image is supposed to be a boat or a bridge but it's sort of both.

This is a picture of lots of circles with patterns. This image when looked at appears to be moving. That is the illusion because its just a drawing and isn't actually moving. It is created when your eyes relax if you concentrate and don't relax on one swirl it should look like its moving. I think these images are interesting and always look like moving.

This is another image within an image. But this one is a hand print and a lion in the shape of a hand print. This image is really interesting I love the lion hand it’s clever that they have drawn the lion sat in the position of the hand so it looks like both.

Artworks

The image has a fox and its pulling along the KFC head. This is a banksy image. The hidden meaning is that lots of urban foxes are coming into town more and more because of all the litter people are leaving around. I think banky is trying to say that the fault lies in us and all the fast food joints like KFC. Because people are having take outs the end up leaving litter around after they've eaten and it’s attracting wildlife. I like this artwork because there are too many fast food places and banky agrees.

This is graffiti and the word says more. There are a series of words and it spells more green less greed. I think it is done quite abstractly. The meaning is saying about nature and that we are too greedy maybe it means we cut down too many trees and we don't always need to. 

There is a woman and three dragons in the background of an icy location. I picked this image because I thought even if it’s done with plain colours the painting is effective and I like the art work. The hidden meaning could be an image for a book or a fantasy film or just someone using their imagination because you couldn't paint this from looking at something you would have to create it.

The artwork is a antelope running through a field. I think it looks like time has frozen you can see that it was moving because the grass has flicked up behind it. The image makes you wonder were the antelope is running to and if you look at the sky it looks like its cloudy and dark in one side but it gets slightly lighter on the side so you could say that the antelope is running from the storm. 

This image contains two flying creatures with a pale sky background. I typed in artworks on the web and this picture came up and I liked it so I picked it. I looks like it could be from a game because is quite fantasy and looks like a concept for something. The two creatures have a chain connecting them. They look quite menacing but the chain makes you think they were locked up which makes you feel sorry for it. On the other hand they could have broken out of prison and are endangering people.

This is Banky's work and the image is of a rat holding an anarchist sign. I think banky did this because his artwork style is like a lot of old artist who were anarchists. Also he uses rats a lot in his work. I think banky is a very interesting artist because he does his work on the streets and no one knows who he is. I also like his style of art.

Good examples of design

This is a tattoo design. A lot of people who have tattoos usually have one that is in this sort of style. This one looks like some sort of bird like a phoenix. But I think different people would see different things in a image like this. But it looks like it has wings so people may see different creatures with flight.

The image has the "bullet building" which is a radical example of modern design. I believe its different and stands out to other buildings because of the glass all around it and its pointy round top. It’s quite a drastic design but it’s just an office block so is it practical or should it of had a different purpose?

The image is of the Concorde plane. This was made in Bristol in the 1970's. It’s the fastest passenger plane ever built. This plane makes me feel exited if we could build this what could we build in the future. It’s a very futuristic design. But it was too expensive. So they have stopped being used.

The picture is of the museum building. This is a more classic example of design. I think this building is interesting even though it's not so radical people will be attracted to it.

The picture is the suspension bridge. It was designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel. He was an amazing designer from the 18th century. I think that because it’s such a good design that pretty much everyone knows of it. Its purpose is a bridge but it’s also nice to look at and it can be seen in the distance. I feel it is unique.

  

This is another tatoo design. Unlike the other you can clearly see what this one is. I think its very detailed and the feathers are clear on the wings. It looks like two wings and they could be angle wings. They look more like angle wings because you can see where they connect to the body.

Interactive Media

An interactive whiteboard is in the photo. There are 3 kids using it. This is to show how far technology keeps coming. In lessons kids now can come up to the board and use a pen to work out the answer that is on the computer. I believe this is much more interactive then the kids just calling out the answer and then the teacher writing it down.

In this picture it has 3 people in a blue room with codes all around them. One person is leaning on the world and I think this is showing how we have advanced in the world. All the numbers could symbolize that technology has played a big part in that.

This image has lots of logos from lots of programs that are on the internet. YouTube and Face book are probably the most commonly used ones. For example on face book you can keep in touch with people and talk to them just if they are one face book at the same time as you. I feel that it’s a good program because you can talk to people who you wouldn't have phoned that day. But it can also be bad cause you are actually speaking less to them and you are just typing. These programs are used everywhere and it would be unlikely to find someone around 15-40 who didn't use any of these. 

The image is of a man with a head set on and he’s on the computer. This type of technology has been shown in a lot of films and we are getting closer to having them around. This is where you look and it feels like you’re in the game and you can see what your character sees. I think this will be a good invention and lots of people will buy it so they can experience what being in a computer game is really like.

The image contains lots of people working out with a wii fit. The wii is a very interactive game instead of just pressing the buttons like most games with the wii you sometimes have to move with it. like your actually in the game. This is the wii fit and instead of going to the gym these people can do the activities on their wii and wouldn't have to leave the house. 

This picture has a hand shaking another hand that is coming out of the computer. The hidden meaning is that we are relying on computers more and becoming more interactive with them. I think this image shows that it is amazing how much technology has advanced. 

Historical Images

There are Egyptian hieroglyphics and drawings in the picture. The picture shows a Egyptian and some of the gods they believed in. The hieroglyphics are the Egyptians way of writing. I think this image is interesting and it makes me think about how mysterious the Egyptians are. How did they build the pyramids? etc... Also the way the draw stands out. They used bright colours and bold outlines so they would stand out.

This historical image is of Henry the 8th. This is a painting of him and it’s not a picture because back then we didn't have the technology and most the pictures of people were painting. Again I think this is a good example of how far we have advanced.

   

The image is a fight on a battle field. This is the battle of waterloo. This image shows the violence in war and how the wars still happened before guns were invented. This is another painting. I think this image shows you how dangerous wars our and the fear people go though.

This image is another war. This has a man in army gear and guns and also a helicopter. This is the Vietnam War. From what we can see the war is obviously more modern and our technology has advanced. The idea of camouflaging and guns. This image makes me feel bad about how many wars go on and that we spend time to invent technology just for fighting and war.

This is a poster trying to get people to join the army. Lord Kitchener is in this poster. This image made people feel bad if they weren’t in the army and then they wanted to join. I believe it’s powerful because no matter how you look at it he is always pointing at you.

 The image has drawings of people fighting on horses. It is representing the Norman invasion in 1066. The winners of this battle would have knitted this tapestry. This is how they would have shown their history as they didn't have cameras then. This makes me feel glad that we now have photos and cameras to mark events and memories.