Had a bit if free time today  for the food-based concept art for this semester skate deck project. Still hours and hours of production time to have this ready for the deadline.

Some sketch ideas of art elements I may require with a possible Theme ( Surf & Turf ) would love to do 2 separate boards for each but time is really an issue and juggling act.

The last image is a quick color test of some of values I pulled off the purple plant photo I took with Lindsay a few weeks ago. The color sample of 24 colors plus Black and White. I used only 7 colors in this test and did a quick PS blur to see if anything interesting would mix with some of the colors….. I’ll need to invest a few more hours.

A college final project
A better way of teaching…is sharing the process not lecture notes

One constant question in the classroom for this field.. …
“How did you come up with the idea for.. _____ fill in the blank ____. “

I remember something one of my Animation teachers said during class years ago.
“You ever stare at something so long ..that when you look away and blink you see the image?  That is how I create… I can see the character design in my mind so strong it projects on paper. “
What a brilliant concept and a very simple explanation you can demonstrate in any class at any artistic skill level.

Jigsaw puzzle or Lego maybe a close comparison for my creative process. You know what the final image should look like but it will require some organization of the visual parts. I add the step of what will be required to create all those smaller visual parts and how will I finish each task.

basic element layer layout

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Basic mock-up of my final layer stack for the Illustrator skate deck template. This is very loose for the information what each layer will contain based on the required elements needed for marking. The art work each layer contains may have several layers and elements may even be made in several software packages and techniques.  Each one is a ‘separate’ visual element but still part of the final design layout

Assets:
Continue exploring food and food related products as creative art assets. This really started with my EPIC SPACE EVENT  DMA234 class project I also worked on sharing my creative process with students. At the end of the project I gave all my source files to the class. Students could open the PSD and have a look at some of the very same lecture topics we covered during class used in a project as a ‘technique” for an effect, not just notes on a projector screen.  http://www.flickr.com/photos/ninjaman/sets/72157631531184396/

Deck design direction
So the plan is to use all food/related products for creative asset generation, I’ll also use this project as a R&D testing platform for a current client job. We are still developing the visual identity for the client and this student project will provide a great testing canvas.

Color is another element and this has a story. A few weeks back I was walking home with Mason and Lindsay after school. I was pointing out the names of some of the trees based on the leaf shape.  Lindsay was busy picking up different leafs all based on color and size – then she stopped and said

“Oh thats purple leaf is cool!..I like that color! But it has thorns Daddy and I can’t pick it up ”

So we took a picture.
Purple is one of the colors the client has suggested as the base of the brand, I’ll make sure Lindsay invoices today.

This photo also provides a good amount of pale tan base colors, that color also may work with one of the art stylization concept and the typography treatment. The skate deck project provides a fantastic opportunity for a test drive some of the client visual concepts on a physical object.

Next is continue working on my mind map,  research more of the projects design theme of Propaganda and how to adapt my concepts towards that style .

Concept and ideas spawn from some of the most unlikely sources, each student in my class is required that all work…class assignment, projects and personal is posted online – the good, bad and the ugly.  DMA students 2012

Josh Watson

Alex Filipe

Kamila Grygorczyk 

Joshua Huestis

Mu-Huan Kuo

Sabina Chawla 

Karina Kurmanbayeva

Duy Nguyen

Michael Nicoletti

Andrew Diamanti

Aaron Patterson

Jonathan Zur

 Marcus Tan

Natalia Diniz

Camille Boate

Sarah Benarroch

Mitchell Barker

Riddhima Garatikar

Kristin Lewis

Christopher Pilien

Wei Cheng Wu

Shashaank Sreenivasan

Rubaiya Raka

Janet Mac

Michal Poduch

Hasani O’Gilvie

Aaron Inocencio

Adrian Bravo

Wing-Sze So

Keegan Evans

Bilal Kostashuk

Hasani O’Gilvie

Sharon Lee

Michael Badiali

Richard Henry

Dharvi Saini 

Mark Jeevananthan

Jorge Lima

Michael Burdo

James Sichantha

Sam Winlaw

 Jordan Sotto

Jeremy Samlal

 Janelle Stultz

Matt Makhoul

Olivia Nikolaidis

Eric Altamirano

David Carretero

Tremaine Goldson

Cory Atwater

Jonathan Truong

David Liu

Jordan Sessions

Theresa Burns

Aidid Raghe

Olivia Hannan

Cody McCaig

Nishaan Gill

Valeriya Vladimirova

Alyssa Gazza

Victor Carrano

KeShayne Smith

Daniel Srutwa

Bardi Moussa

Cheyenne Clarke Hussett

Earlier this morning I posted on Flickr the 1st build-pass of the EPIC space event – assignment. There is still a number of tweaks on my list but pretty happy with the direction and it was posted by the ‘mock-client’ deadline. The deadline line was the major issue for this first review and was the real challenge for the students, creative can always be fixed a missed deadline not so much.

Part 2 of this project will be announced in class Tuesday .

Here is the backstory

Last week doing some drywall’n and stopped at the local convenience store for a quick sugar fix. Snickers with almonds here was the result of opening that package.

Some groovy tiny white worm larva made my candy bar it’s home. What great subject matter for a few quick photos! – the result an awesome asset for the destruction of a planet. Still working on tweaking and layering effects but pretty funny the results I’m getting using only food and food products as my asset sources.

Here is a Friday re-cap EPIC SPACE EVENT is at with a note of assets - flickr here

Morning

Share a few questions I have received about the EPIC – spaceevent

–>A.  Not at all, Personally I decided to restrict my options of material photographed to Food-related products.

Personally I have found when you add limits you start looking for solutions you would never look for otherwise. You also begin to think about other software tools as you are taking photos and how you can modify an image for what’s required.

Eg:   One creative problem I have was > How can I create a star field?

I can think of lots of ways I could create a star field, but what can I do that will have few steps and make use of a few of the tools in Photoshop I have shown you in class.

Solution
Fresh cracked pepper on white paper. And a few tools you have been shown 2 weeks into the semester.
Levels ( bump up the black and white – much like our paperZoo project from last semester )
Invert the image ( Black ( pepper ) becomes White and the Paper becomes Black – how we created LIghting! )
Star field is not large enough
Problem: If I scale the image the “stars” scale and become to big
Solution: Use a combination of the Clone tool and the Content-aware fill option to build my star field

–>A. I would avoid this option, anyone can copy and paste. Plus you have legal issue that may pop up. I always suggest you make asset you “own” .

What I do suggest is checking out tutorials for Photoshop. I have been looking at the following tutorial site, and thinking how I can create some of these image effects BUT using real photos and limit my use of Photoshop as a “paint brush”.

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/08/07/50-photoshop-tutorials-for-sky-and-space-effects/

Will my ideas work? ….Thats part of the adventure!

Q. What do I have to do for a top grade.

–>A.  something EPIC !   You are in the drivers seat for the creative on this.. all I did was provided a few assets and the creative direction. Lets see what you got!

–>A. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4Em5hRcjvY&feature=related

Not much pixel pushing today, but did a pretty decent dent in my shot list.Still sticking with my theme of food based asset for my photo source.

You can hit my collection @ Flickr see what I’m planning.

*** UPDATE****

I decided to knock off a few of the photos and start the prep-work in PS. It was pretty quick and dirty a few minutes only on 3 of the photos.
Rock ( aka:asteroid)
Fry pan with Bacon grease (aka:BaconWOrld)
Blacken Pizza Stone (aka:Space background plate)

I try to keep my use of PS tools to a minimum or limit to what was shown in class so it keeps the learning curve flat. So I used the masking tool, selection tools and made copies of my selection to the Channels to make quick selections easy. The content-aware fill tool was tested as your intro for next weeks lecture. We’ll even use the same image (pizza stone ) so you can build the very same thing I did.

I also messed with the color setting a bit for my SPACE back plate.

Well time is ticking and I already know it going to be a PS marathon maybe Friday (maybe I’ll stream it live ) That will give me a day or two and step back – then come back for any final finishing details.

I decided I’ll use this assignment as a test bed and limit what I’ll use for assets  to complete this project. I do plan to take the standard  asteroid hitting a planet concept – may not be original but time is a factor and I already have an idea what visually I want to see. The two required images I provided.

1. cool bacon oil in fry pan

2. landscape rock

The above images all my student got as the ‘required’ assets. I guess its a photoshop version of Iron Chef ..thats funny as you will see.  The only SOW I provided was the following

You will be tasked with a creative challenge. You will be provided with art assets, a creative direction and a due date.

• You must create an additional assets you required – do not Google anyone can do that

• Use as many photo assets as possible

Due:   Monday 5pm uploaded to the production blogs

Document the process, include images (before and after) and screen shots of the creation, outline the requirements and describe the process you did for a minimum of 2 effects and the techniques used.

My plan -

Asteroid hitting a planet with fire and smoke – the standard.

Photo asset must all be food or food product based – that puts a damper on my EPIC Lens flare FX.  This art direction I can say 100% – it’s because of my current research  into  Low-carb and diabetic friendly gourmet style food options.

No sketch work yet but I have a plan – Visually I see different levels ( layers in photoshop) of art detail and effects

Back plate – star field + gas nebula details

Asteroid – Landscape rock – I also want to add more texture detail- not sure right now what

Fire : Burnt marshmallow, I’ll need some fire for the explosion. I could also burn some cooking oil in a tin can – maybe shoot that Black smoke on a white BG – could use that for Nebula details and for the collision

Cooked bacon …only because I can – but as a texture element that could work as a cloud planet – think of any of the gas giants

I was washing up that fry pan and with just water in it so the teflon was black ..some of the bacon fat looked like stars

Stars – maybe a combination of Black pepper on a white paper. I can inverse that with photoshop – And layer that a few times ..little blur here and there

Oyster shells could make a great texture to add to the Asteroid and the inside has some details.

I was thinking of a old school water tank + ink = cloud FX  for smoke – I’ll swap out the ink for other products you can eat ( oil, fruit juice etc )

Fry Pan – will be my earth ‘like’ planet being destroyed

Limit myself to using only photo assets – so I don’t plan to use PS as a paint brush.

Sometimes the best way you can teach subject matter: Sharing the process you use for the same subject matter at the same time with all the same rules as the students. And if you do it right you’ll learn a few things and maybe even get an ass kicking.

I have tasked my 234 student with the following creative challenge, and I’ll post my process and at the end my students can have my production file to look at review, figure out how I did some FX

Creative imagination :Epic Space Event

You will be tasked with a creative challenge. You will be provided with art assets, a creative direction and a due date.

Due date :  Posted on production blogs

Grade: 15%

1. I’ll be setting up a standard _production folder structure for this assignment

q. do I want it remote so I can add to it at anytime /or/ do I want it local ?

2. Sketch book – cant beat paper and pen for those quick and dirty concepts

3. My own assets I plan to shoot and/or create  and avoid DL assets  ( fonts will be allowed )

4. Google doc’s will be my note taking database. ( also require a time sheet )

5. Download the required assets

Pushing over a decade of experience in the secondary education industry countless numbers of students have visited my classroom, and continued towards a career in the interactive/advertising industry. A number of years ago it was my suggestion that our Digital Media Arts program at Seneca College required a ‘creative’ class – somewhere students could practice developing abstract solution for challenges with few restrictions, few tools and once again discover. Concept and ideas spawn from some of the most unlikely sources, each student in my class is required that all work…class assignment, projects and personal is posted online – the good, bad and the ugly.   Enjoy

Mathew R. Graham

Timothy Rose

Wilfrido Reyes

Jason Panduro

Youngsik Shin

Renee

Julie Kemp

Michael Almeida

John Benedict Lim

Wei Hu

Shatha Shamik

Sanjay Bhatti

Allison Murney-Jones

Minqi Liang

Juanito Aguil

Christopher Martells

Joel Stone

yufeng situ

Sarah Mabini

 Anthony Hunos

Gioia Fajardo

Pureum Choi

aida aguilar cabrera

Seongyoung Moon

Dominic Blair 

 Jonathan Marearasa

Mat Gurica

Nader Nasr

Charlene Everest

 Sarah Mabini