End of Year 2

Yes, I’ve been horrible with keeping this up. I know, updates would only take an hour of my time. I get it, there is no real excuse in some ways. 

Just get over it already.

So yeah, a LOT has happened since my last update. So much that I won’t even talk about some things. Instead we’re going to focus on one major important thing. Finals.

Yeah, I already had my finals. The last day was April 29th so the week before hand was when most things were actually do. I think I said this before. Art colleges don’t have test finals, unless it is one of the few liberal classes offered. Instead we get projects that are worth 35-55% of our grade. In one of my classes it was worth more-or-less the whole grade.

So yes, the final week I killed myself in a way. Jill for concept had us finishing up the network re-designs that we have been working on basically all term. (Really annoying) Then on top of it the actual final was to do one big final presentation of the re-design... with everything having been revised for a final grade. (I extra killed myself by pushing out a third concept for the final to try getting extra credit).

Style frame for concept 3.

Dorian, Design. Oh gosh. 

Basically we were working on 2 projects over the term, one on our icon (I had a nut and bolt) and one on kinetic typography. So all the weekly assignments we had we had to put together in a layout, print it out, then bind the book (Graphic Design has a machine to do it fast). Thankfully I had all my pictures, but it still took time.

Joe and Animation. Sadly, Joe is not coming back next year as he said he wants to spend more time on his own projects...boo. His final project was one where the whole class would work together to create an apple app for the ABCs. Each person picked a letter from a hat and we had to come up with a sentence for it, then animate it using 3D (Cinema 4D) and 2D (After Effects) techniques. I got T, and Joe had said that he didn’t want the app to be all happy and child-like. So mine is “Tt is for tiger, who thought you were lunch.” In the animation the tiger sees you, positions himself, and eats you (the viewer) in one bit. It’s really cool in my opinion.

The original style frame mad by hand out
of construction paper.

Of course it took about 3 weeks to get right. I had to make everything in 3D space, the animate them to look like an actual tiger - not very easy. Thankfully I had chosen to do an art style to make it appear to be constructed out of paper, so my tiger could be as geometric as I wanted.

Arts in Concept was a straight forward final - give a presentation on how something we did in class relates to the “outside world.” I did how Freud’s Id, Ego, and Super-ego were translated to be Kurt, Spock, and Bones from Star Trek Original Series. My teacher never thought she would talk about Star Trek in her class but found it very interesting. I had also created versions of what I would think my Id, Ego, and Super-ego look like.

Final we had Artists Books. The final was a partner project, open ended. Whet we decided to do was make silhouette pictures from “around the world” and get a light in the spine of the book that you could turn on to create a back light. The book would also be printed on vellum so the light would be diffused. 

Honestly, it was annoying. First was had to find the right size parts for it (thanks Sarasota Electrical) then learn how to set it up, get the pictures (Disney EPCOT World Showcase) vectors them, put them in a layout, format it right, print it, cut it, fold it, add the lights, and bind it all together. The most frazzling part was the printing. We wanted it on vellum, but our school couldn’t print it. 

The final 'picture' in the book.

So I sent it off to Blue Line (a printing store in town) and they said they could do it. Of course I then get an email saying they can’t...2 days before it’s due. I rush down, talk to the guy, rush back, and try to fix the layout so he can print it. Thankfully it worked. Turned out he couldn’t print the accordion book in one go (225 inches) so we had to break it into 4 pieces. 

In the end it was a hit with not only that class and teacher, but also with Dorian and the rest of my Design class. I had been showing him all of my books as I make him and he loved this one.

Top view of the finished book.

So there you have it. A week of no sleep, stress, and summer good-byes. After all this was said and done I had packing to to and the end of year video to edit. I plan on making one every year. And regardless of the stress, I did enjoy the year but for now I happy to spend 3 months at home with my family.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PijiWWmu9o