Blog Entry #5: Self-Evaluation

I think the most significant accomplishment is the second image in my final projects shown on the left. I was able to combine many images seamlessly into an entirely new image. It was definitely a challenge for me as well since it took a lot of time and attention to detail to get the pictures to meld together just right. I used the vanishing point filter in order to extend the buildings realistically. I also used a lot of masks in order to blend parts of the images together. The most difficult thing was finding realistic damaged pieces of buildings and placing them together with the new looking buildings. It took time to find these damaged pieces and then more masks/blending with the eraser as well layer blending modes to make the damaged portions appear like they were how the buildings would look on the inside. It was also difficult to match the plant colors since a simple image adjustment will not always make pictures exactly match in tone and brightness. I feel like I was able to blend multiple plant images into a realistic scene of what the world might look like in the future.

The project on the right is our movie poster quiz. I had a lot of trouble initially with this project due to selection errors. I used a select color range and I was getting a lot of filmy background remaining around my image even if it looked like I hadn't selected it. After this difficulty, I learned that since it was so easy to ctrl+click on an image in order to see what all was selected, then it would be smart to do this each time before I created a new layer after selection. This preview selection would show a sparkley little ant trail in every area that was selected. This showed me many times if I had extra things selected and I was able to use the quick selection tool to remove these extra areas of selection. By learning this I was able to easily check my selections each time and then refine the selection edges so that I was able to get very crisp selections. By the end of the quarter I was able to do this quickly and easily so it took less time to touch up my images as I was blending them into the new background.

The image on the left is the combined image of both halves of my midterm diptych and the image below on the right is the first of my final project images. In the midterm diptych image I took a very literal look at reality versus fantasy. I tried to show the various aspects of fantasy when it comes to video games and magic and other things and tried to show reality by showing a real person (myself) and death as well as the real world. Although this method was able to easily show the Big Idea I was striving for, it probably wasn't a deep as it could of been.

If you look at the first of my final images however, I left this image very open to interpretation. The main goals I went for were trying to blend a real-life person into an anime girl and I also wanted the girl to have very real looking emotions. I think I was able to obtain this goal and in doing so I think I was able to show a deep meaning in this image. In fact, I think this image may have brought inspiration to me for my second final image. Even though I didn't really see the whole meaning of this first image initially, the sadness lead me to think of why a person would be this sad. This lead me to the idea of the destroyed world and lack of all human life. So in developing this image, I was able to extend my Big Idea from a simple reality versus fantasy to wondering about the reality and fate of the earth and what might happen to humans if we keep treating the earth like we currently are. This all started from me trying to show a deep sadness in the girl, without making it look overly dramatic or unreal by overusing photoshop effects.

Blog Entry #4: Final Project

For my main final project, my big idea relates to real vs. fantasy in a sense. More specifically it relates to what we think our future will be like vs. how it might be if we keep living like we're living. I combined an image of a city street with an image of a forest line. I'm not quite finished yet but I'm trying to make it look like the forest has overgrown into a world where humans haven't lived for many years. I'm also going to try to degrade the buildings to make it look like a terrible war happened which was part of the reason the humans are all gone. I'm going to use the empty space in the center of the image to convey the lack of human life. This image could serve as kind of a warning against the effects of global warming and war. Environmentalists could use this image in order to promote better treatment of the environment.

My work was influenced by the artist Alexander Casteels that I mentioned in my last post. He takes a darker look into things that would ordinarily seem innocent and childlike. I want my final piece to look serene even though it means that humans have been wiped off the planet. This image from his works particularly interested me. Without that sad little pig, the rest of the image seems like a beautiful dark night on the ocean until you realize that the ship sinking in the background probably caused a lot of death.

I was also influenced by various post-apocalyptic movies such as Cloverfield and The Happening as well as others. For instance in this Cloverfield image, a halfway destroyed statue of liberty is shown.  This image may seem peaceful since nothing is taking place in the image.  But, if we think about what caused this to happen to the statue and what that statue means to Americans then it becomes very disturbing.

A similar effect is gained when we look at this image from The Happening. Again it seems initially peaceful, but then we start to think about why all these cars have been vacated alongside the road. We realize that something very bad indeed must've happened to either scare people away or remove all presence of humans in some other way from these vehicles.

I was mainly influenced by these post-apocalyptic movies due to their increasing presence in modern media. This is due to the Aztec calendar saying that the world will end in 2012. I thought it would be interesting to explore this kind of paranoia that many people feel that's being caused by something that's so very old and somewhat unknown to us.






Since I am trying to show a sadness in this image from the loss of human life, I want to add rain to this picture. I'm going to try and use this method to create the rain. I may or may not include this in my art depending on the quality of the end result, but I'm going to try and add rain since I think it will make the viewer connect with the sadness that this image is supposed to show.