Technology and our world

 The almost unlimited uses of our current technology have helped us to increase the flow, spread and dispersion of information to the point where virtually all information one could wish for is available to us on demand. This allows the common man to access virtually all the information humans have on our world, learning much faster about subjects others in history have only dreamed of. It’s a powerful tool, and its’ facility of use allows all to access this wealth of information.

For myself personally, I have used the internet to allow myself to increase my knowledge of Art, specifically Concept art for the entertainment industry; my chosen field of study. The internet has given me access to information the leading professionals of my field have put online. This information takes the form of training videos that provide me with valuable practice and knowledge of skills that help me to do the best I can in my field.  Without this technology, I would have to wait, and travel long distances and pay lots of money to gain this information, and that is time and money that could be spent helping me practice these skills I would learn.

Technology has also played a role in doing explorations I wouldn’t have been able to do otherwise. For instance, what is it like on the bottom of the ocean floor? What lives down there? My curiosity led me to  “google” ocean floor videos, and I found, through various articles, links that led me to actual live feeds from cameras that are on the ocean floor. Exactly what I wanted, in 20 minutes. Soon after, I was following a deep sea rover on its’ journeys through the deep sea. Seeing through its’ cameras, I discovered the ocean floor was covered with sea urchins, squat lobsters, cucumbers, and other deep sea animals. However, it was a world unlike our own. It was a world so empty, so infinitely vaster than our own, and all denizens were under 6 inches tall. So much space for such tiny creatures!!

            I also was interested in space travel and exploration. Well, I went to NASA’s website, and found links to live feeds directly from the international space station; and restored archive videos of the first moon walk and the Apollo missions. Actual footage of what it is like beyond the pull of gravity! There too, we find a world so different from the one we inhabit. As I gazed upon its’ vastness, through the lenses of cameras on the space station, I had to admire and comment, as many have done before me, how empty it was, and ponder on the fact that when you get to it, the extreme edges of our understanding and explorations are empty. The bottom of the ocean, the vastness of space, all are so empty.

            However, technology is not just the internet.

            Have you ever seen someone snap their fingers in slow motion? Have you ever wondered what you sound like backwards? What do experts say about modern economics? Modern media? Politics? Science? All these things can be found by using technology. Cameras, recording devices, sound software, radios, all can help a person find the things they seek.   

And I’m sure there are many other things to explore in our world that I just haven’t found yet. After all, that is exploration, knowing that no matter how much you find, there is an infinite amount more of things you haven’t found yet.  

First few sketches

I also have these first few sketches from the beginning of the semester.
The top one is "organic subject matter" So I sketched a cicada shell I have. However, I pushed it too far to the top and bottom of the page.
The middle one is "people in a public place" I sketched these people in the Applied Tech building donating blood. I was on the second floor looking down on them.
The last picture is my portrait of Tom Cruise as a cowboy. I took a scene from "The Last Samurai", and froze it at this moment, and thought it would make a great portrait. I should have spent more time on it, but I thought the idea was a good one.  I go the idea to take a movie still from

Past work

Here is some past work from the beginning of this semester.

This was the first assignment of the semester. The project was "Back in the Day". The idea was to show what old school arcades felt like to the kids who frequented them. I originally wanted to do a video game machine at first, but the composition just wouldn't work out, so I went with a pinball machine. My inspiration came from Frank Frazetta, Boris Vallejo, and Julie Belle.

final illustration

Here is the final illustration!
I feel that I was successful in pulling off the main idea of the painting, however I feel that I needed at least 100 more hours on this piece.

The above pictures are as following:
TOP: my color sketch for this painting. I put several color swatches together, and tried to see how each color would interact with each other.
Next down: My value rough for this painting. I didn't finish it, because it fifulled it's purpose even though it was unfinished.
Above bottom: This was my initial sketch for the painting. I did it with a 2h pencil, so it's pretty light.
BOTTOM: This is my first comprehensive sketch. My comprehensive sketches were done mostly in line, because I was painting over it anyways, and since I had my rough sketch to guide me through most of the values, so I did a really light comprehensive sketch right on the illustration board.

Sorry for the spots on the picture, my camera's lens needs to be cleaned.

Sketch and final project

So, this is my sketch for Opposites. I took inspiration from Yin and Yang ( real original) and tried to do things that were opposite. So I did a forest goddess and cybernetic creatures. I wanted the forest goddess to be kind, so she is "embracing" the cyber creatures, while they are much more aggressive, linking with the trees around her, and downloading data and stuff like that. This was based off of a sketch I had done earlier in life. The material that the robots are made of is similar to the clear material on the robots from the movie I robot, except they are black.


This is also the sketch that I am using for my final project

Some inspiration: from Wangrongrong

H.R. Giger

I robot

weekly sketches

This is my sketch for distill an article or book into a picture. I chose The Dragonsong books by Anne Mccaffrey ( i apologize for any misspelling). This picture is of the main character with the firelizards after she has seen them for the first time. She plays a song that she made up on the spot for the queen firelizard, and she plays the song on a flute she made herself out of a reed.

more sketches

Here are the sketches for our theme assignment. I sketched out two ideas, Urban Space Cowboy, and Aliens Eating Babies. So, the first picture is of my ideas for the aliens eating babies idea. I wanted to do the alien concepts first, so that I could have an idea of what they were before I made the painting. I used it as practice for being a concept artist. The idea behind the aliens was that their whole life cycle would be based around catching babies and storing them in the sac-like stomaches. Then, they could either incubate the babies, making new aliens out of them, or they could digest them. I also thought that babies could refer to women, since baby is a form of endearment. I thought that would be more ethical, anyways.
The second sketch is my character design for the urban space cowboy. I had this idea that the world he lived in would be like Firefly, in the fact that westerns would be blended with Asian language and culture. So I had this crazy idea that he would have a cybernetic arm, which was gifted to him by the Japanese. He would also have a samurai shoulder guard on that arm. I forgot what the characters mean, but the basic idea was that they were describing him as a lone wolf sort of character, who had a troubled past. I wanted the gun to be unique as well, and I have some concepts for that that I might post later.

These are the thumbnail sketches. I was playing around with different compositions and stories.

Settled on this sketch

Then sketched out some concepts for the outlaw robot. I wanted to be sure that it retained the western feel, so I integrated the hat, chaps, and my favorite addition, the giant cigar. THe idea behind that was that there was a respirator that the hat hid, and the respirator took the cigar smoke and pumped it directly into a mask the outlaw wore, so that he only breathed cigar smoke.

This is the rough sketch. I painted it to get the values roughed in quickly. I apologize for my shadow being in the picture.