Website Portfolio

While working on my website culminating I was looking for a good, clean already coded portfolio layout. While searching I found one on this site. I really like this layout because it has clickable thumbnails which then enlarge on the same page.

I believe this was a quick and efficient way to show both my art and my tech portfolio because it is friendly for all web viewers and is easy for viewers to work. To re-code this for my site it was very easy because all I needed to do was delete their picture names and put mine in. Although this design uses CSS and Javascript it was very easy to put the script into my html page.

Overall I really liked my choice with this portfolio and believe it looks very professional.

Exit Through The Giftshop

Recently our class went on a class trip to see "Exit Through the Gift Shop". The film is about an odd french shopkeeper and film maker and his journey through the crazy world that is street art. Thierry Guetta is the amateur film maker who films everything he sees. When he was visiting his cousins house he found his cousin was the legendary Invader because he found him making his characters in the basement.

After meeting and becoming friends with all the other famous street artist Thierry still hadn't met one, Banksy. He was determined he would meet him. After finally meeting and becoming friends with him Banksy tells Thierry he should try street art for himself. This gives him a passion and he instantly starts to think of ideas. From here on in his life gets pretty hectic but has spectacular results.

"The films a story of what happened when this guy tried to make a documentary about me, but he was actually a lot more interesting than I am. So now the film is kinda about him." -Banksy

Websites Good/Bad

Website design and layout is a key for the internet. Sometimes users will only look at your website for 10 seconds and if they don't find what they want they'll leave. It is important to know users do NOT read they SCAN.  I chose two websites which are both about World of Warcraft. One is the games site, and the other is a news site which posts daily news about the game and leaks. 

The first website I chose to talk about is 

WorldofWarcraft.com. I believe this is a bad site. I think this because  the interface is not 

organized and is very cluttered with multiple drop down windows and links. Also the  site has a picture to Starcraft II but it has nothing to do with WoW so it is very confusing. Also there is little whitespace. I believe this website is bad for these following reasons.

The second website I am reviewing is MMO-Champion.com. I believe this is a good website 

because it has 6 simple titled navigation buttons and the main page is constantly being updated. It is also uses whitespace very well having space along the top and on either side of the advertisement, this keeps the screen very clean. Users barely have to think while navigating this site. This is because it has few links and the link it has are well labeled and easy to find. This website uses almost all of the principals of website design. 

Old Man Logan

Over the summer I started my comic book collection. Every week a new comic would come out and I would make sure I'd get it before it was sold out. I started with only three comics: Deadpool, Old Man Logan, and Avengers. Out of those three I like Old Man Logan the most. I liked it the most because I have always like wolverine, the story was amazing, and the art was fantastic (a little on the gory side).

The writer and artist of this comic are absolutely amazing. Mark Millar the author has has also written Kick-Ass. Steve McNiven is the penciler for this comic and has worked with Millar on other projects. I think these two should be partners for all their work because this series was absolutely amazing.

My favourite piece of cover art out of this series was from Wolverine #71. I liked this one the most because it shows the rough brutal side of Wolverine. I like how the bullets are radiating their heat. I also like how realistic the smoke looks which I find is one of the hardest things to draw well.

The comic world is very odd. There are many jobs need for one single comic. There are the writers, pencillers, colorists, letterers, inkers, and cover artists. I think working in comics would be very exciting. Not only would you get to work on comics of characters you read as a kid, but you also get to meet the current legends of comics.

For those interested in seeing how gory this comic really is click here

Rubiks Cube

Last Christmas I got a Rubiks cube. Originally I thought it would be near impossible to solve, but then I thought maybe youtube would have some video tutorials. After watching a few of the videos I realized that the rubiks cube isn't just a neat puzzle, it's a whole science. They use algorithms to be able to do it without even looking. After finding a video that wasn't so complex I wrote down the steps and I could solve it almost 100% of the time. After being able to do it so easily I just tucked it away and only recently pulled it back out to realize I only remember how to get the first two tiers.

I have yet to memorize the final steps because they all depend on what it looks like and will always be different. Once I master the 3x3x3 cube I am sure I will move on to the 5x5x5.

Rugby

Recently I have decided to join my schools rugby team. Originally there was supposed to be a junior and senior team but as the practices went on some people stopped showing up making us change the team to varsity. After hearing this I was kind of nervous because of playing such a contact heavy sport with seniors.

So far we have only learned the basis of rugby and the special moves. We have started almost every practice so far with a passing drill. We also do some fancy plays like missing one person then the missed person runs to the end of the line to create a 2 on 1 against an opponent.

During practice yesterday the coaches assigned positions. I was assigned to play scrum half. A scrum half must be able to throw well with both hands, kick with both feet, be very good at defense and have good communication. We have not had a game yet and I am going to miss our teams first game but I am looking forward to playing with the team and trying a new sport.

Table

Yesterday I went to the second session of the Woodworking Workshop I posted about earlier with my dad. This time instead of just assembling something we actually got to make something. We both made night tables out of cherrywood. The picture below is a shaker style night table very similar to the ones we built but it is made of walnut instead of cherry.

To make this table we first needed to square out a piece of air dried lumber. If you would like to learn more about squaring stock read this. After squaring our stock we had to glue our three pieces to make the top of our table. To create the skirt of our table we cut four tenons into the pieces of the skirt and four mortises into the legs. This ensured we had a strong joint so the table wouldn't fall apart. After fully assembling it we applied a layer of tung oil to the entire piece.

Star Wars: The Old Republic

Star Wars: The Old Republic is a new MMORPG. It is based on the amazing movies and other paraphernalia of Star Wars. The game is based 3'500 years before the rise of Darth Vader, and 300 years after the events of the Xbox game Star Wars: Knights of the old republic.

In the game you get to create your own Jedi Knight, Jedi Consular, Smuggler, Trooper, Bounty Hunter, Sith Warrior, Imperial Agent, or a Sith Inquisitor. You also get to forge your own character story and determine your path towards the light or dark side of the force. During the game you can become allies with classic Star Wars and even betray them. During the game you get to travel to planets and partake in battles.

Step stool

On Saturday, March 6 2010 me and my dad went to a woodworking workshop. At the beginning of the course it was kind of boring because it was meant for people that had never stepped into a shop before in their life. But after that we started to get into the groove of it. We each got to cut and assemble our own shaker style step stool. All the joints were either half dovetails or butt joints. We were getting kind of rushed at the end once we were finishing our project when applying our first layer of tung oil. The next course we would make a table from a piece of rough lumber.

This is not one of step stools but is the basic idea of what we made.

It was a great experience overall. Plus I got to eat my first quiche. Who ever thought egg, ham and bacon in a pie would be so amazing.

Typography

For our next tech assignment we have to create a kinetic typography video. The content of the majority of these videos are famous speeches or quotes from movies or T.V shows. While I was researching for what the content of my project I was stuck between two speeches. One was Soylent Green and the other was William Wallace's speech (0:46-1:31). In the end i decided to do William Wallace's speech first of all because it is inspiring but to also represent my heritage.

Now that I had my content I needed some inspiration so I watched many kinetic typography videos on youtube. Some were good, some weren't. My two favourite were Size Matters Not and The Breakfast Club Moving Type. I liked these two because unlike most of the other ones you could almost always see all the words of a sentence instead of constantly overlapping the other words. My favourite part of Size Matters Not was at 0:31 when it zooms out and the type looks like the handle of a lightsaber. My favourite part of The Breakfast Club Moving Type was from 0:42-0:46 because the artist makes a entire sentence and turns it into a square using different font sizes. I also need to pick a background and I have yet to decide this. I was thinking of something along the lines of old parchment paper. Storyboarding this is hard because pencil and paper are static while the final product will be moving.

I will be sure to post the final video once I finish.

Space Art

So I recently bought the game Mass Effect 2. Definitely one of my favourite games ever. One of my favorite parts of the game is oddly the Galaxy map. It started to make me think of not only The Milky Way but also other galaxies and how each one looks totally different. Obviously the ones in the game are not all real but they are still amazingly crafted. After finishing the game I looked up some space art and was awed at the complexity and details of it.

I found one artist on deviantart who’s work is absolutely amazing. I think Space Lane II is by far one of his best pieces. After looking at other peoples stuff I decided I would try my own. Not as easy as it looks. So far I have completed one decent planet,half a nebula, and a star field. For a beginner I think they are awesome. Here are some of the tutorials I used.

El Anatsui

El Anatsui is a world-renowned sculptor and professor. He was born 1944 in Anyako a small fishing town in Southern Ghana. His work has been shown in many prestigious art galleries around the world. His most recent works are dazzling metallic tapestries made from liquor bottle tops. His work is currently on view at the AGO, and his metal-cloth series and sculptures in wood, ceramic, and mixed media will be part of the world premiere of the artist’s first-ever career retrospective at the ROM. Some of his tapestries resemble kente cloths which is a celebrated type of strip-woven-cloth popular in Ghana and all of Africa.

He has used many different mediums throughout his career including wood and clay. Only recently has he begun to use liquor bottle tops. His bottle cap cloths are shown at such a large scale so that viewers can see the detail and perseverance he has put into his work. I personally like how he was able to show such a firm and useless material into something so majestic and beautiful.

Anatsui used ideas he mastered while creating his first works with metal for his installation titled Gli. This demonstrates the change of Anatsui's artistic vision. Anatsui has turned his creative spirits to the idea of a wall. His idea is that walls and barriers are "something that can close you in" but keeps people on both sides of the divide curious. Walls taunt the individual to jump mentally over the wall to picture what is on the other side.

I have seen his work in the AGO and found it ough inspiring. The craftsmanship involved to make something so inspiring made me think how one man could so something so meticulous. I find all of his work very creative and jaw dropping. I can not wait to work with him at the ROM I believe it is going to be something I remember for the rest of my life.