Showcase blog

This was the second DTC showcase that I have been to as I was in the showcase before for my DTC 355 class for the animated short films. I really enjoyed this showcase because I was able to view the films of some of my peers from DTC 375 and see what they had created. I also enjoyed it due to the fact that I was able to view the other games that were a part of our class. The one that I was able to play surprised me a great deal in a positive way. I was able to play the pirate board game and it was really fun and entertaining. The visuals were awesome and the gameplay always kept you interested. I liked it because it was one of the more simply games to play but at the same time had a fun dynamic to winning and keeping score. I had a great time playing the game and was impressed by the theme and mechanics and would for sure play it again if I had the chance.

Blog 8

Freestyle: Bogost talks about art and music along with a handful of other things in his book. These two concepts of art and music I believe are a significant part in not only video games but in other media like movies and television. I also think that music and art go hand in hand when it comes to games and movies. Think for a moment about a game that you regularly play. How would that game change if it didn't have music incorporated in it? Pretty boring right? Music is what gives games and movies that feeling in certain moments. Like when a character of a game or movie enters a dark or creepy environment or place, the ominous tones in the background make the player or viewer feel that intense or creeping fear that is associated with such a place. Even in certain events where one may fine themselves in a battle. The music may take a turn into an intense fast paced movement like what happens in Skyrim. Even in games where there is music in the menus, it is needed to make the game interesting to the user. This happens in movie menus as well. The music helps to promote what the movie is about. Scary movies usually have a dark tone where as action movies may have a more fast paced type of music playing in the background. I think the use of music in games and movies and other media helps to push that media into being art even more that just visuals.

Blog 6

Hey! You want to hear something crazy? Did you own that at one point in time if you were wanting to listen to music you have to actually buy an artist's album and listen to it on a disc player? Crazy huh? Also if you wanted different artists on one CD you had to burn the songs onto a blank disc? Say what?! That's how I created my first playlist as a kid. Not simply pressing the plus sign on ITunes and clicking and dragging songs from my library. I had to physically choose what songs I wanted and then burn them to a blank disc. Also did you know that the USB is kind of a new thing? Well, back in my day there were these things called floppy discs. I know, they sound a little funny but those were how information was stored and transferred from one place to the next. Think about something the size of your palm carrying all this important info but the amount was minimal compared to what is available today. And guess what?! My Need for Speed was called Mario Kart on the N64! Instead of NOS we had toad heads and power stars and on Mario Kart even some turtle shells were involved. I probably sound insane but that's how it was. Oh the simplicity of being a kid growing up in the 90's. I even remember when cellular telephones were nothing more than a plastic brick with numbers only used to call people. None of the text messages or touch screens or phone games even existed. Man, back in my day, life was pretty simple.

Blog 5

As a kid, I remember always having to go to the library be it the school or public to get a book to read or having to go to the store to get pen and paper in order to turn in an essay or project. Back then it was all about physically turning in your work. Now a days, like at WSU, most things are online. Turning a piece of work in has become more and more digital as time has passed and the things we used to see in our past are slowly fading. That's not to say that I don't enjoy the technologies and advancements that we have today. I am surely grateful that I don't have to lug around a bulky CD player in my back pocket anymore and instead have replaced it with either an IPod or simply my phone although it was the more simple technologies that made the experience of listening to music or even reading a more personal and deeper experience. I would still choose to read a regular old book than a digitized version on a Kindle although the advantage to these technologies now have greatly increased the capacity of what we can have on our person at a given time. So, I guess there are both positive and negative sides to moving into a digital age. My parents used to tell me that if you physically write something down on paper it is easier to remember that information later and I actually found that to be somewhat true. For this reason, I am somewhat concerned for future generations of children that are being brought up in the digital age. Not because they will miss out on the simplicity of a CD player but because they will more than likely move away from physically writing things down and memory will be less important.

Blog 4

In this blog I will look at theme vs mechanics along with what makes a good game. I believe that theme and mechanics walk hand in hand and that a good game should involve a balanced ratio of both. Again, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is a great example of both of these ideals. The theme is rich in content where the player chooses a character with a back story and enters a world of magic and dragons. It is as though you have been thrown into The Game of Thrones. The mechanics of this game are amazing as well. Battles in which you engage in with certain types or species of people or things are intense with the ability to switch between first and third person at the user will. This makes gameplay that much better. Also, you can travel anywhere you please be it the very top of the highest and coldest mountain or the a nice swim to the bottom of the deepest lake or river, the world is your oyster as they say. On top of that, you have the ability to hold a conversation with almost anyone allowing the player to gather as much knowledge as possible by having certain replies to certain moments in the conversation such as real life. I also agree with the articles that we read about how a good game should have story arc in order to pull the player in even more. With a beginning, middle, and end a game connects with what people are used to.

Blog 3

I am just going to talk a little bit about video game interfaces and how they are today and what they may look like in that future. Now a days, there are all types of game interfaces from the extremely complex to the surprisingly simple. One example of a complex and dynamic interface would be the congested World of Warcraft interface. It is one of the most intense video game interfaces that I have ever encountered and perhaps ever will and based on personal preference it can be more or less a fight for space on the screen of the user. A contrast to this would be the simplistic interface design of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. In this game the only things on the screen are health, stamina, and magic. Everything else is hidden within the confines of the pause menu which allows you to navigate to find certain items and whatnot else. This simplicity allows the user to feel more immersed in the game and to not worry so much on what the user has but more on what they are doing. In some games you are even able to turn the HUD off completely leaving you with just the game visuals only. These are the types of interfaces we see today, but what is in store for the vide game world of tomorrow? I honestly think that the games we have today are already close to a breaking point which will force a more simple interface overall for most games other than World of Warcraft. I think that first person shooters will soon become more simple with the need of memorization of control in order to play. I believe that if the interface of certain games was truly minimal it would actually increase the realistic potential of majority of games such as first person shooters and allow gamers to use their brain a little but more.

Blog 7

Write a blog entry. The stock option: write an anthropogical examination of the communicative conventions of a blogging or other online social media subculture (for example, mommyblogs, right-wing politics blogs, Harry Potter fanfic blogs, model railroader discussion boards, et cetera: seek out a group that your classmates might not be familiar with), investigating who the members of the group are, what types of language they use, what types of arguments they make, how they use media, and what types of messages are acceptable or unacceptable in the group.

For this blog, I looked at the game chat for a phone game called Book of a Heroes. When looking through the chat channel it is as though the people that play make up a particular tight-knit community. Whenever a player of sorts, mostly high ranked or part of a guild, enters the chat the number of other players that recognize and acknowledge their presence is incredible. Even those who are in other guilds seem to know each other by name or at least know their personality like friends in reality outside of chat rooms. In this chat channel the use of multiple sentences or paragraphs is almost non-existent as most players tend to communicate in short sentences. Although, it is more like they are simply speaking instead of writing their thoughts. Most players in this particular chat room also use ~ to communicate an action or emotion of some kind. People will say, "haha noooooo way ~laughing hysterically~" or "wow shut up noob ~flips middle finger~". I also found that most of the people that play this game are of a more adult age than one would probably realize with most being older than 20 years of age. I think that most of these people though, use this chat because it is a place where people themselves aren't judged rather their character is. It allows those who may not be so popular outside the game to become leader of a guild and known throughout by tens if not hundreds of other players. The only type of messages that I have seen considered as unwanted are spam messages for guilds and raids. This being when a person advertises their guild in multiple messages one after the other after the other. One player told me that there was a general rule in the game chat in which it was ok to advertise whatever you want with the same message as long as they were spaced 2 minutes apart. So, by looking deeper into this game chat you find that this is an online community where majority of players know each other in-game, where certain rules and guidelines are applied, and where communication is quick and to the point. If you have the time and either a smartphone or tablet, I suggest that you download Book of Heroes and try it out. You won't be disappointed.

http://stephenportsmouthdtc375.blogspot.com/2014/03/post-7-online-communitie.html?showComment=1396028015303#c4959647577950697141

Blog 2

If you choose the stock option, here’s your prompt: there’s a famous scene in the classic gangster movie Goodfellas where Karen Hill (played by Lorraine Bracco) tells Henry Hill (Ray Liotta) that she needs money to go shopping, and Henry asks, “How much money do you need?” She responds by holding her thumb and index finger about an inch apart, indicating the thickness of the stack of bills: this much. It’s a moment where we see the ways that the gangsters in the movie think of cash in ways very different from the rest of us. What are some of the ways that you use money that are different from the ways that Pullman natives or WSU professors use money? What can and can’t you buy as students, and how are those things that you can or can’t buy different from what these other categories of people can buy?

How people view money and its importance or value and how they use it varies widely from person to person.

When it comes to being a student at WSU, personally, the primary use of money is for schooling and fees or materials involved. Things like books, programs, pens, paper, etc. Paying for our classes is where the bulk of the money a student has goes towards. After that, it gets down to the necessities like food and water for nourishment and supplies to live like a normal civilized human being like toilet paper and dishwear. The main difference between students is the amount of money able to spend for all of these. Some students have more and so they are able to spend more on extra things like entertainment (gaming systems, alcohol, etc) or clothing or whatever else they want instead of need. Being a student, you also tend to only spend money on yourself rather than other people which helps to keep spending at a low allowing one to use those saving for more necessities or later if there is a complication where money is needing like car repairs after a random breakdown. Most students even have to spend a decent amount of money on gas for trips back and forth from here and home.

A WSU professor though, spends money in a different way. They don't spend money on schooling but rather make money from it. Therefor, a professor's income goes towards many other things like children or vacation. They have an ability to spend more money on entertainment and wants because they have less needs than a student. They do still spend money on school, I would assume, on different supplies for their classes and students but definitely not as much as a WSU student would spend on their schooling. They may have to spend a little more money on gas than a native whether or not they live in Moscow or even further.

A Pullman native spends money in different ways than both a WSU student and professor though. They live here day in and day out not needing to spend mass amounts of money on schooling. They work within the city and primarily, I assume, their income is used for paying bills on their residence. Other than that, I think a  Pullman native would have the most money and time to spend on extra things like entertainment or going out for drinks or food.

It is obvious that as you grow older the certain things that are most significant to spend your money start to change.

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ENG 375 BLOG START

Eng 375 Blog Start

MFA Show

This was really cool I though. Just seeing what other students had done that semester or year was very very interesting and I was baffled at the extraordinary work that was being produced by people that I was passing by on a daily basis. I really wanted to be able to talk to the people who created the works because I would have loved to see if purchasing some of them was a possibility. There were a lot that I had taking a great deal of interest in such as the paintings that were right as you walked in. None of them had heads. It was all simply people's bodies and actions that were speaking to you instead of facial expression which we normally rely on telling use how that person feels. It was awesome. I even ended up taking both my parents and my girlfriends parents to the MFA show just so they could see the type of work that happens within the FA department and how students get to where the are. I also really enjoyed the plaster sledgehammers. I would always see them inside our room in the back of the plaster area and would always wonder to myself about where those were going and how the person creating them was going to use them. Also, the bathtub idea was really cool and I enjoyed being able to see that work of art transform also from its beginning stages to it final product. All in all, these students did a great job with what they had and all their ideas were very thought provoking. So a big thanks from me and mine and I hope that everyone who could got a chance to see this show. Below is a photo of a unique piece of work from the show. Enjoy.

Artist Research

Well this is my final artist research and I chose to do it on a man named Chris Gustin. His works are abstract but in more of a simplified way. He tends to create these somewhat organic shapes with clay and other hard materials such as bronze that in the end make very interesting vases and pots and other random shapes. His stuff is pretty cool although there is nothing really about him or his artwork that really catches the eye. I was not very interested when I entered his site and actually almost instantly left the webpage because I didn't even know that I was at the right place. He does not present himself very well at all with a simple white page with a TON of text. Which is unfortunate for him because I think he should really be trying his best to get his name out there in a cool way after seeing what it is he has to offer. This is another guy in which I do not really know if I would ever go out of my way to see some of his work simply do to the fact that he is somewhat boring to me. Anyways, here is a photo of one of his works and if you are interested for yourself then go check out his website.

Final Project

Well here is my final project. I created to more traditional African style masks. I really wanted them to have the feeling that they were done traditionally by simple hand carving. With the one on the right, I used foam and a hand sander tool that I used to create a look as though I was chipping away at the wood with a hand carving tool. The other, the one on the left, was done using nothing more but a single manual hand carving tool. I am very proud of this mask because it turned out exactly how I had imagined that it would and even more. I didn't think that the paint's colors would turn out that way that they did which was awesome because I thought that these colors were very traditional and were much like how you would see the masks naturally. Also with these masks I wanted to do a better job at the idea of transformation with a material and so that is why I chose to do one mask out of foam and one actually out of wood so you would have something to compare the foam to. I think I pulled of the transformation effect nicely and I am super happy about my masks. The wood one on the left is not done though as I would still love to add some brass and some frilled hay around the edges to give it more character. Anyway, here they are and I hope you enjoy them as much as myself.

Artist Research

I chose Sam Chung for this artist research. He is a ceramics artist and his work leans more towards the abstract than anything else really. I enjoyed looking at what he had to offer with his work and was quite interested to look at more. Most of his work is very similar to each other. He tends to create these cool little vases type containers that have what seems to be the same type of cloud like design on them. They look really cool especially the ones that are more shaped and unique. I would probably have a couple of these things throughout my house one day because they would be great center pieces or something like that. Seeing his work sort of inspires me to do more with ceramics and hopefully one day know how to create something as cool and as abstract as these little vases things. His work is very calming and seem to take you away from the current moment as if to float away somehow on a personal little cloud. These make for great works of art and I enjoyed them all a lot. Well, take a look for yourself and you will know what I mean.

Artist Research

I chose Michael Wille for this artist research. His stuff is pretty cool and reminds me of the projects that I did in FA 102. His abstract collages are contrasting and very interesting but at the same time I can't really look at them for too long because I start getting bored with them. After being on his website for about 5 minutes I had already felt as though I had been there for ages and I really just wanted to back out of the page and look at something else. I don't know that i would ever go out of my way to see his work and I think that has a lot to say about how he connects with his viewers. I don't really know how many people would be that interested in his artwork but at the same time I have no idea and I my be wrong. Either way, I don't really have a whole lot to say about this guy except his work really isn't too great and unless you are a fan already.

Midterm Material Transformation

This was a little difficult for me to due because I seemed to be more interested in the carving aspect of the project instead of the transformation side. To a certain point I thought that perhaps I did an okay job because in the end the MDF that I used as the base or sand seemed to look like such. Although I maybe didn't do a great job with the transformation part I honestly think that I did a good job with the carving and I am proud of that. I liked creating something from nothing and being able to see it come out from the wood that is being carved. Making the squid was awesome and I used hand carving along with some sanding tools to get an overall smooth look to it and I used sanding machines from the shop in order to make the sand smooth. I think strongly that if I had painted my squid and sand and what not with the colors that the are in real life then I would have passed the transformation aspect with flying colors. A lot of people said that their project would not have looked transformed without changing the outside look somehow. All in all, I had fun and I like the squid that I created and the idea behind it.

Artist Research

For this artist research I chose to do a ceramics artist by the name of Judy Moonelis. She was simply the first name on the list that I saw and I ended up  being very happy with choosing her. As soon as I got to her web page I found my eyes widening at what I saw. Her work is very very cool and has a lot of mystery to it and some abstractness that just keeps you so interested and in the moment. I could probably look at her stuff all day long and I actually really wish that the university would get her to come her and have a gallery display because I would love to get the chance to see her pieces in person and maybe get a chance to ask her some questions. I chose to show a picture of what I thought to be one of her most interesting works and I really like this one because I have a thing with trees and things in nature. This artwork had me starring for quite some time and at one point I found myself shaking my head in order to snap myself out of the hypnosis I was in. I hope that you find this work as interesting as I did and I encourage you to check out her website.

Imi Hwonboi??---Imi Hwangbo (Fiber and Craft Artist Research)

Ok, so this artist research was somewhat confusing to me. When I was looking at the list of artist to chose from I stumbled across Imi Hwonboi an was immediately intrigued by the name. It was very interesting to me and I just wanted to know what kind of art came from a person with such an amazing name. So after typing and searching her name, instead of coming up with with Imi Hwonboi it just kept coming up with Imi Hwangbo. I realized that it may have been a typo error or something like that but I was just really confused and it made me more interested in this changing person. The person I found was pretty cool though. Imi Hwangbo's work has a lot of patterns and bright blues and reds mostly. As you can see from the photo below, patterns are a giant part of her work and what she does. I think everyone who has the chance should get the chance to stop by her website sand see for themselves exactly what she does and how cool her work is. Her abstract mind has the ability to create things that cause the mind to wander but at the same time focus on the meaning deep in the artwork.

Self Portrait Sculpture

The self portraits were awesome! I thought that this project really helped not only me but everyone with their ability to create accurate detailed sculptures using the model clay. Not everybody really had a handle I felt on using the model clay well until we did this project. I liked a lot of peoples portraits and some of them turned out great with a lot of detail and it basically looked exactly like the person who had created it. Some on the other hand did not turn out so well but thats ok because everyone has different skill sets. Personally, I thought that mine really ended up looking like me although I will say that mine is not close to being amazing. I very much enjoyed this though and am very happy with the outcome that I had with the oil clay. I really think that the hat plays a big part in making the portrait look like me even more which is kind of weird but makes sense because I always wear a hat. Anyways, here is me and enjoy the work of me. Ha. 

Orozco Project

This project was cool although I found Gabriell Orozco to be a strange dude. From the video that I watched, his job seemed very odd but at the same time very very easy. He simply walks around and takes pictures of random things some of which he arranges in a certain way. If I saw him in the street doing the things that he does I would probably walk the other direction. But, this project had me thinking and in the end I just decide to take what I believed to be weird photos. In the end, the three pictures that I have displayed below are what I ended up with. One is a photo of some beer cans in which I decided to crush all but one to make it seem as though one individual was standing strong amongst the same walking cans. Another is a take on the PB&J that I thought was kind of funny and unfortunately I wasted a piece of bread. The last is a photo of a crumpled 20 dollar bill as if it were simply thrown away. I though this was cool because many people would think to find a dollar bill as though it just fell out of a pocket not crumpled on purpose. All in all this was cool but strange at the same time. Enjoy the photos. 

Speed/Time Project

Well, this project was actually very cool due to the fact that it really made you think seeing as how there were no real directions. With this being the case, it allowed for a great deal of creativity and I believe that everyone had to honestly put a piece of themselves into this project more than most. I decided to make some signs that had to do with slowing down in life and allowing yourself time to calm down and stay positive. These are simply made out of thicker paper but I would love to make some than are made of metal like road signs and put them up on sidewalks as if they were mini stop signs. I think that signs like these could be a huge self confidence booster around campus for people who are having a rough day. I really enjoyed this project even though it seemed difficult and hopefully one day I can take this idea and maximize its potential.