Technique
My art represents using the programs Photoshop and Comic Life. When making the metal
album, I used Photoshop to do that. First off, I clicked on “File” and then “New” for a
empty canvas. I then painted black by using a circle paintbrush and increased the size to
cover the entire canvas. Then I would deal with the image size, by clicking on “Image”
and then “Image size” and typed whatever size possible. I clicked on the corner to make
the canvas look like a square. After making it look a album and painting it black, I then
get special paintbrushes which were a spike and something edgy. By using those two, I
put them on the square repeatedly over and over in different colors from turquoise, blue,
white, grey, and silver and then used the edge design to finish it. For the font, I observed each size and got a new font which made it look eye catching to the viewer. I used a
different a color for each one for the band name and title of the album. For my comic
book, I first printed out all the images I needed and then used my tracing paper pad to
trace the images one by one although some were difficult to trace, like the ninja ,one
villain and fight scenes that were brutal. Then I photocopied the images, put them on my
flash drive, put them on my desktop, and then use Photoshop to color them. When I
color my images, I first make them not grayscale and put it to RGB color so that I’m
able to paint in color. When I’m painting, I put layer on my images to know what is being
painted. After the painting is done on the images, I open up Comic Life. When I used
Comic life, I used the sections it had. I started off with one for the cover page and then
dialog I put in. I then click on “New Page” and it adds a new page, I put one whole
section again and put another image and dialog and description of the event. Then next
one I put in two sections for two images, to give the reader some interest in the sections.
Last image, I put in one section, but this is the “To be continued” scene.
Choice of materials
For this project, I chose to do Photoshop and Comic Life. I chose those two because I
was familiar with both programs. To me, it seemed easy to make a metal album from
Photoshop, but with Comic Life, that added the challenge and some pressure. I couldn’t
use images from the internet to use as my own for a comic, so what I did was print out
a lot of images and trace them with tracing paper. I did a lot of tracing, but my images
were very detailed drawn so some images were difficult to trace and so I found different
images to trace.
Comparison to other things
I would compare my metal album to other rock and metal records out there that are
released years ago and today. My metal album has a very eye catching font that can
catch someone’s attention and an abstract background of many different colors from
light to dark. Most metal albums often self titled albums are just bland with one or
no design at all, but for non-self titled albums, the bands themselves get creative on how
they want their albums to be like. For my comic, I would compare it to like a superhero
comic like the Punisher. I think of that because in my comic book there is one battle
scene and it is gory and yet trying to entertain the reader and see the beginning and
action.
Experimentation of different materials and techniques
For my final piece for my metal album, I took more time in making the metal album.
By taking a lot of time, I made my album look like a square by increasing and decreasing
the size of the image. The effects I put were the abstract paintbrushes in different colors,
from light to dark, the font that was crazy looking which was a ice font. Then, for my
comic book, I would use a circle paintbrush in different sizes to color the characters’
looks and background. I used this effect called “Thresh hold” which brought my
characters’ to life rather than looking flat and added some light and dark to the images.
Enhance the meaning and/or message to communicate
By using Photoshop for my images in my comic and my metal album, I used various
things, like effects on Photoshop that brought my images to look lifelike rather than
boring and flat. I used a lot of dark colors for my comic book, but added some texture
to it by using the paintbrush and paint and chose a lighter color to put on my images.
On my album, I used a lot of abstract paint brushing to give the album my own 3-D
looks and a catchy font in different colors to give it a metal look and style.
Point of View
Evident
In my point of view, my work is very hard worked on. I’ve worked hard on my metal
album making it my own 3-D creation rather than Google searching for images and
making something out of it because I think I have to be creative in what I do. My comic
book, I’ve spent a lot of time on it, tracing out the images and then coloring it to give
some life into it.
Definition of Art and Not Art
My definition of art is comics, album covers, video games, graphic art, and ads. What is
not art is video games that aren’t drawn detailed, don’t have a outline, and doesn’t stand
out. It is shown in my art work that my metal album cover has a lot of detail that stands
out which is abstract designs repeated over and over. For my comic book, the images
also stand out especially the gory battle image which gives some detail on it.
Context and Connections
Artworks looked over
The first piece of artwork I looked at was on a blog, it was in black and white and it was
titled “Judas and the Corruption of Men”. This showed overlapping between people and
the sky. Another piece of artwork that I looked over that wasn’t art was a video game
screenshot that I considered not art and the last was another video game screenshot which
was 3-D and very detailed drawn. My final work compares to those art works I looked up
were similar and different. For my comic book, it was similar to the Ninja Gaiden screen-
shot only without some of the details. With my metal album, I put my own 3-D effects to it and to make a complete transformation of other metal albums.
Specific Characteristics
I put a lot of color in my art rather than just using plain colors like black, white, and grey.
For my comic book, my first draft had no color, so I went back to it and added color to
my comic book especially I wanted it to look gory in two scenes. For my metal record
I redid the entire thing without Google searching for images. This time, I used Photoshop
paint and painted the entire canvas, made abstract designs to give it a nice bright look,
and a font that can be unimaginable to some viewers.
Reflection
Specific Techniques
When I started with my metal record, I started off Google searching for a black square
and an abstract image of an ice blast. After finding those two I layer masked the
abstract image from its background and then pasted it to the black square. After that
I then put the zany fonts for the band name and the title of the album. I put them
in different fonts in different colors. For my comic book, I traced out the images,
photocopied them, put them on Comic Life in black and white, and then put the
what they say on there. When I revised both of them, for the comic, I added color
by using paintbrushes from Photoshop, adding depth to it by adding a thick outline
and texture from light and dark. Then I put the images in Comic life and put the dialog
in it and the description of what is going on. For my metal record, I redid the entire thing.
I used Photoshop, I used a circle paintbrush to cover the entire canvas. Then I used
another paintbrush which made abstract designs and repeatedly put it over and over
in different colors.
Interview about my work
The person who interviewed my work is Ted. I asked that he review my metal album.
He told me how to make it look 3-D by using my own techniques rather than relying
on images from other sources. What I did was redo the entire album by using Photoshop
and its paintbrushes and fonts in a different way to give it my own look.
Comparison
My first draft of the work, I can say it was quickly done. My comic book was just
black and white and had one 3-D image and it was long. My metal record, it seemed
cool looking, but the fonts didn’t really match the album and the design could be done
by hand. My new draft is a comic book that is shorter and a metal album that is made
by creation was actually something eye catching to anybody.
Process
Definition of Art
My definition of art was described in two ways through a comic and a metal album.
I traced screenshots of a video game and turned it into a comic, though difficult
because there were many details to one characters or the image was too dark.
My definition of art also changed a little bit since I didn’t make an ad for my project,
nor video game cover.
Setbacks to overcome
The setbacks I overcame were tracing images for my comic. I had trouble with tracing
the ninja because it had so many details, so I just traced the outline of what I saw even
with some details like carrying small things (i.e. kunais) and swords. Background image
was another thing, I just added color to the background even though I added very little when I was tracing.
Feedback
The one person I got feedback from is Ted. I was told to redo the entire metal album by
doing different things to it. One was use Photoshop and then made my own creation
of a metal album by using a abstract paintbrush and use different colors from light and
dark. I tried that and it seemed to be very cool doing that since it made my album look really slick.
