Hayden's Blog

FIRST PROJECT VS LAST PROJECT  This class has helped me grow so much as an artist. Before taking this course I had no experience whatsoever with using adobe products to create art. I had never used photoshop, dreamweaver, indesign, or illustrator. Now, I can proudly say that I have nearly mastered them all. I have grown conceptually. This class helped to push me to my limits, my most creative. I have designed pieces in this class that I never would have imagined creating before, or even having the idea for.  I cannot begin to explain how proud I am of myself for what I've achieved throughout this class. If I had not been pushing myself this semester, I would not have won the Black Box best animation award, I would not have done my first paid art commission, and I would not have a fully completed art portfolio. This class has helped to expand my inspirations as well. I have found a deep passion within digital painting and animation and I have explored so many d...

AUDIO FOR VIDEO  For the audio to my animation, my boyfriend and I collaborated. We wanted something ambient with heavy synth and a slow build. I think overall the audio came together nicely. We also did some recordings of myself opening the door as well as walking around to give more overall depth to the animation. 

CALLIGRAM  We used the transcript of Emma Gonzolas' speech as well as the names of the victims of the Parkland shooting to create images of ourselves. Since this was my first illustrator assignment, I don't think I had enough familiarity with the program to do my best work. I would love to try the project again sometime to see how much I have improved since its completion. 

WATCH ON YOUTUBE Out of all of the projects that we have had I put the most amount of work and time into the animation. It took about one hour to complete 20 frames, so ending with around 450 frames, I spent approximately 22 hours total on this project. I'm really proud of the amount of detail I put each scene. I find that animating is a really rewarding process. 

(Images very from 0%, 25%, 50%, 75%, and 100% in quality)  For this project I looked for an image of myself that was already taken as I got a bit of a late start on it. I chose a photo that my friend Jay took of me earlier this semester. Since my friends always like to joke that I am the "instagram model" of the group when it comes to my selfies, I decided to place myself on a fashion runway as if I were a real model. I cut the original model out of the background image and filled in the space that was left using paint brush and stamp tool. Then I cut out the image of myself and color corrected it to match the rest of the photo. Lastly I added a shadow behind myself. I had a lot of fun with this project!

For this project I was excited to be able to display my digital painting skills. For the original recolor, I wanted to make sure that none of the original image show through the recolored one. I would have to say that I spent between 5 and 6 hours on this piece alone.  Color Scheme One: Complementary Colors (orange and blue) Color Scheme Two: Monochromatic Red Color Scheme Three: Triad of green, blue, and orange Color Scheme Four: Primary Colors  I love the way that primary painting colors look together. It created a very vivid and artsy image. 

I found this project to be the most challenging of all of the assignments that we were given this semester. I am still quite unhappy with the end result of this portrait and wish that I had put more time into it. However, my mesh tool in my own version of Illustrator on my computer stopped working the night that I was finishing this project, forcing me to create the eyes using the brush tool. 

PORTRAIT OF ALICE GLASS FROM CRYSTAL CASTLES (5HRS) PORTRAIT OF MY SISTER FOR HER BIRTHDAY (3HRS)

Image at 0% Image at 50% Image at 75% Image at 100%  The concept behind this piece was rather simple. For years I have been plagued with intense anxiety and have struggled to overcome this in my life. The most difficult part of anxiety is that it distorts your world view. It makes things appear bleak and hopeless. For this piece I tried to illustrate that feeling.

The three words that I based these designs on were:  edgy  instagram  cosplay  Each of these words relates to an aspect of myself. I consider myself to dress and act pretty "edgy", even making fun of myself for it most of the time. In regards to the "instagram" logo, I run a pretty decently popular cosplay and makeup instagram with over 13,000 followers on it and it's something that I'm quite proud of. Lastly, I chose the word cosplay as it's been a bit of an obsession of mine for years now. I think these words define who I am very well and the designs I chose for them suit each word. I find the most successful of the bunch was the instagram business card as it is simple yet well made and looks the most professional. 

The Beginning  I found this assignment to be one of the most enjoyable ones to date. I came into this class with no experience using any of the programs and it has taken me a lot of time and dedication to familiarize myself with them. Illustrator is still a program that gets on my nerves more often than not, but I am proud to say that I've come a long way in terms of navigating the program.  I was excited to start working on this assignment because I would be able to freely express myself in illustrator in a way that wasn't really available in other assignments where we had to use a specific tool or technique or fit the criteria. This time, however, we were given the freedom to design pretty much anything we wanted as long as our portraits were 80% of the design.  The First Draft I was given the idea for this design while browsing through some other designs by artists that inspire me. I came across this image and knew that I wanted to incorporate a ...