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2008- I used to watch this Saturday morning cartoon show when I was a kid called “Thundarr The Barbarian”. I liked it because it explored the ‘what if?’ scenario of a post-apocalypitic Earth, “after a comet hurtles between the Earth and the moon causing cosmic destruction.” What emerges from the world 2000 years later is a combination of sorcery, swords and far flung science fiction technology. While the show faded into obscurity some twenty-five years ago, its sloppy storylines and art always stuck in my mind. It was something pretty much unheard of at the time, and although replays of it today on Boomerang seem to dull my lusterous interpretation with the fact the near comet miss was to occur in 1994 and that alone dates it evenmore, I have been recently interested in trying to revisit and reinterpret a solid property and flesh out its mythological universe.
I went back and redesigned the logo recently after about 20 variations or so, utilizing the same techniques that I learned in expressive type a few terms ago and combining it with my predisposition of graphic design sensibilities. I decided that “The Barbarian” was a bit excessive. I thought having the right type would say this just the same with more punch. I looked at lots of comic book logos- with Conan and The Incredible Hulk being the greatest influences into this look, and then started designing the individual letterforms before I came out with this inking. Eventually I hope to go back over the break and start character designs, environments and props giving them a more modern edge adding these to my portfolio for this next upcoming term.
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2008-Metalworms was my favorite of the three finished Alice In Chains concepts I experimented with. I worked over the color exposure on the background and inverted the color giving the worms an almost metallic, robotic texture. I added a duplicate layer of the type and created a custom emboss to finalize the effect. Unfortunately it was too busy and dark to make the final cut. When presenting pieces one should buffer their favorite with two polarizing extremes, because studies show more than often enough people will select the happy little middle.
Oh scholarship, a testament to inequality and uncertainty, how I loathe thee. As previously mentioned Art Center has its own scholarship program, of which draws my particular hatred- after weeks and weeks of stress and hard work. There’s no telling what they want and how they want it presented each term leaving us completely in the dark as to the faculty’s selection methods, nor is there very much feedback to encourage us one way or another after we plunk down a tremendous amount of money to present it in the first place. For a good portion of us all this amounts to is a relinquishment of a pittance of our tuition.
Two terms ago I received feedback that amounted to:Â Keep a sketchbook, attend more workshops, and ‘work harder’- the last of which I took a particular insult from. I decided to place my faith in those comments and put my nose to the grindstone and vaulted back into the race for Fall 08 to see what I could muster. The page is broken down into 5 criteria. Quality of drawing, Concept, Design/Composition, Craftsmanship, and Color Theory.
Breaking down the numbers here’s how I stacked through 22 respondents:
Category                            Poor   Fair   1/2   Good   1/2  Excellent  N/a
Quality of Drawing                  0        9        1      10        1         1         0
Concept                  2     9     0    10     0      1      0
Design/Composition         0      9     0    11     0      2      0
Craftsmanship             0     5     0    15     0      1      1
Color Theory              0     10      2    9      0      1       0
One instructor was kind enough to leave his scrawl all over my review, which I did appreciate and his responses were all ‘fair’. The messages this time amounted to, “Raise the bar and level every term, draw more from life, fill up your sketchbook, more narrative/storytelling, and work on design and composition.” I can wholly agree with this person on many of their points and would have welcomed more feedback, especially justification from those who felt that my concept was lacking- despite the insertion of 4 workup pages showing concept, methodology, and direction. I was under the impression that there would be more in depth analysis from the faculty, but apparently I was wrong. Outside of that the deepest comment I received was: Entertainment? and “good concept skeleton”.
So focusing on the positive, what can I pull from this? I believe my presentation strategy works. I will stick with the same format next term due to the positive Craftsmanship number. Currently this term I am placing a major focus on sketching from life, particularly items and objects. I will continue to take more life drawing classes, and attempt to fill up another sketchbook, even though many of my sketchbook pages I would argue have a more polished finished pieces than those who scrawl their homework notes on facing pages with doodles. I’ll take color theory next term, and firmly commit to Entertainment Arts as my track so as to avoid future confusion. I spend a lot of time in the library reading and checking out books and have begun to surround myself with instructors that I hope will encourage new ideas and make some better recommendations to me about conceptualization.
The system in general, not just Art Center- is set up unfairly. Those who work hard are not necessarily rewarded. Those who have the talent when they show up at the door get the money and consequently less debt, while the rest of us struggle over the scraps. -That is just a fact of how it works.
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2008- I was taking Analytical Figure Drawing from the renowned Rey Bustos during Term Four. An amazing talent with a disturbing amount of anatomical knowledge- without being a doctor- I had a very difficult time with this class. The problem related to an accountability that I had to take on with my work- to be both clean and presentable, and also to really understand why a line that I’d use to describe the human body describes that part of the body.
Gi was a model that I had drawn on multiple occasions at the school, (Four Fives, Face 1 and 2.) Using some techniques that I had learned from Rey and David (in term 1), I blocked in the position of the head, then the skull, but placing a greater emphasis on the neck. My instructor notices that when people draw the human body, they tend to not know what do with the neck, preferring to articulate it almost like a tree trunk. Taking Rey’s points aside and really focusing on the muscles of the neck, the twist and curve around the adam’s apple, and the connection to the trapezius and clavicle sections, really helped punch Gi forward on the page. With the skull itself I tried to understand the construction of the eye cavities, and how the occularis orbis sets into the bone, and how the masseter affects the chin and mouth. I wasn’t sure how I felt about this piece at first, but Rey praised my improvement, and really liked what I had done so I put this piece aside for further study. Â