So i was talking to one of my art buddies about what else, art. And we were discussing a little bit about the Digital Arts, which is my major. Digital Arts is a totally different breed of artist than your typical Fine Arts major. Some people still don't really consider these people to even be artists at all and frankly I have to agree on a certain level. When you get into these classes there are really two types of programs you will learn: easy programs and hard programs. That's it. Easy programs are ones like Photoshop, anyone can come in and learn the basics of this program, put a cheesy filter on a picture, and think they are an artist. In fact I've seen plenty of people who are filter crazy and let me tell you, it is not original and you did no work. On the other hand there are the hard programs such as Maya and other 3D animation and modeling software. These programs have so much to them that it can't be picked up in one day. Someone could work on a project for a week and still have it turn out like crap even.
Now that your caught up on the basics let me tell you what my situation is. Most digital arts majors are people who like art, but are also concerned with getting a job after college. When my friend said this to me it really struck a chord, because I didn't want to me put into the same group as some of the people in my classes. I don't want to be some random artist who likes programming more than getting out into the real world and actually being inspired. I simply replied to my friend that I don't want to pursue a career in the hard programs. At one time in my life I thought I wanted to design video games and create characters, but when you actually get into the class you realize there is a lot less glitz to it then that. If you are actually going to get a job like this you will most likely lose all creative control. You will be put on an assembly line for game design. One person will handle the lights, one person will handle arm movement, one person will design the face, and so on. The bottom line is I don't want to have a boring job in the digital arts just because I am really good at lighting or 3D modeling. To me that isn't being an artist. I want a job because I am the most creative person in the bunch and I am always coming up with new ideas. That is why I would much rather pursue a career in an easy program because if you can stand out in a program that virtually anyone can use, then you must truly be an artist.
Anyways, back to my project journal. For our third project we were told that we would be creating two images in Photoshop. The good part was that the project was completely open ended. (This can be the bad part for some people). Most people like at least a little guidance so that they know where to start, but when a project is wide open its hard to pin point one good idea out of the millions of bad ones you probably have and will try. We were to take photos or scan objects for this project and no Internet images were to be used. The idea that came to my head immediately was to do something with my marathon pictures and video. So when I came into class with some movie stills I started to mess around with them but soon realized that because I hadn't taken any of the pictures or video myself that it would be too hard to do. The pictures just weren't good enough. So then I stayed on the idea of running and though of a running motion, or to do a project about motion with silhouettes fading into each other. Then from that idea I thought it would look really amazing to just make a self portrait out of silhouettes of myself.
So I got to work, I took 16 pictures of myself in different positions and i had to select and cut myself out of each one so I could create the silhouette. This process alone took one whole night of work, but after this was the fun part.
In the next day of class I took out the picture of myself an turned down the opacity to create a type of tracing paper as a guideline for my silhouettes. Layer after layer I applied the silhouettes until I had a rough outline of my face. Then I would go back into each layer and tweak the color so that it made my face pop out a little more. As far as the color scheme went for this project I wanted to keep it bold and simple to go with the simplicity of the silhouettes. I chose a colored background and tried to stick mainly with its compliment or close to it for the silhouettes. After about 2 long days of layering I finally had my first finished project and it looks amazing. However, I was so beat from the first project I almost couldn't handle a second. To give myself a break I was a little more open with the second piece. I knew I wanted to do a mushroom cloud but I wasn't going to constrain myself to a picture. I just started laying on the silhouettes and eventually drew an outline of a mushroom cloud. Thereafter, I filled in the cracks and colored them in. It was much easier than my first project but I still felt like it was just as interesting and powerful. I had so much fun with this project I actually hope to do a whole series with them in the future.
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