Dyn Com: Logo

Just a quick one, finished my logo, so i'll chuck it up here. (It does animate, but flash is being a douchebag and won't explain how I upload it to work here.)

Purple Wizard

Just something I've been tinkering with in my spare time, thought i'd chuck it up here for people to see:

Vis Lit: Communication

Been looking at Sound Poetry by some Dadaists for Communication, here are some examples.

Gadji beri bimba by Hugo Ball
gadji beri bimba glandridi laula lonni cadori
gadjama gramma berida bimbala glandri galassassa laulitalomini
gadji beri bin blassa glassala laula lonni cadorsu sassala bim
gadjama tuffm i zimzalla binban gligla wowolimai bin beri ban
o katalominai rhinozerossola hopsamen laulitalomini hoooo
gadjama rhinozerossola hopsamen
bluku terullala blaulala loooo

zimzim urullala zimzim urullala zimzim zanzibar zimzalla zam
elifantolim brussala bulomen brussala bulomen tromtata
velo da bang band affalo purzamai affalo purzamai lengado tor
gadjama bimbalo glandridi glassala zingtata pimpalo ögrögöööö
viola laxato viola zimbrabim viola uli paluji malooo

tuffm im zimbrabim negramai bumbalo negramai bumbalo tuffm i zim
gadjama bimbala oo beri gadjama gaga di gadjama affalo pinx
gaga di bumbalo bumbalo gadjamen
gaga di bling blong
gaga blung

Kurt Schwitters Ursonate

Fümms bö wö tää zää Uu,                                                                              pögiff,                                                                                        kwii Ee.	1
Oooooooooooooooooooooooo,	6
dll rrrrr beeeee bö                                            dll rrrrr beeeee bö fümms bö, (A)                                               rrrr beeeee bö fümms bö wö,                                                    beeeee bö fümms bö wö tää,                                                             bö fümms bö wö tää zää,                                                                fümms bö wö tää zää Uu:



My Influence Map

What it all means (to me):

1:  This is a piece (called Mine Gate) by Daniel Dociu. Dociu is an artist for Arena Net, who make Guild Wars (which is what most of his work is for), and my favourite artist of all time. I chose this piece because it is the one that always comes to the forefront of my mind when thinking of his work. I love his work for its incredibly energy and style, which he injects into his pieces through his almost painterly visual style (even though he mostly works in Photoshop) and his clever use of light, which is prevalent in almost all of his pieces.

2:  This is a piece by the famous illustrator Gustave Dore. This piece is an illustration by Dore for Dante's Inferno, entitled 'Paradiso'. I've always enjoyed Dore's work, as he illustrated some very famous pieces of literature, including Dante's Inferno, Milton's Paradise Lost, and Edgar Alan Poe's The Raven. His work has always got this epic feel to it, which I really love.

3: This picture is of The Merzbau, a piece by the German artist Kurt Schwitters. Basically, Schwitters built a three story pillar through the middle of his house, and festooned it with all kinds of random shit that had meaning to him, and needed explanation to pretty much anybody else. This picture, within my Influence Map, represents the art movement Dada, which was formed during the Second World War by a group of artists in Zurich who had decided that the current society was to blame for all the war, and that it needed to be torn down and built again. I find the movement incredily inspiring. Dada is basically the art movement that started the ball rolling on what we now know as Modern Art. Their stuff was just miles better and way more interesting than some bullshit dissected shark.

4: This is an image from the game Zeno Clash by the small game studio ACE Team. It's a first person brawler and probably one of my favourite games, purely for the art style and the world it is set in. Considering you see very little of this world, you get the feeling it is incredibly well fleshed out, without actually being told all that much about it.

5: This is the cover art for a copy of The Aeneid, an epic poem written by the Roman poet Virgil. This poem has a very special place in my heart, as I studied it extensively for two years for my IB diploma. The Aeneid is set after Homer's Illiad, which follows the destruction of Troy. The Aeneid follows one of the Trojan surviors, Aeneas, son of Venus, on his voyage to safety, which eventually culminates with Aeneas starting the city that will one day become Rome.

6: This is a Space Marine from Warhammer 40,000. Nerdy as fuck, I know, but I used to play a lot of 40k back when I was younger, and do still read some of the novels. This picture more represents my love of novels/games with one/ a group of big badass hero(es), who just chug through the story fucking things up. Not that I don't like more cerebral books/films, i'm just more entertained when shit blows up and people jump off of things. (Just realised it is missing from the map, Die Hard. It will fit under this umbrella of badass hero though, so I can live without it being on the image.)

7: Duke Nukem. Need I say more? Well I will anyway. I guess Duke does fall under number 6, but I enjoyed the game itself so much, I felt it needed a seperate image, as it can represent that particular kind of game play (run around the level solving puzzles/shooting things, like Doom/Quake) that seems to have completely died out, and I would very much like to see return.

8: This is the logo for a band I like called Five Finger Death Punch. It's more there to represent my love for Heavy Metal music than any particular favouritism towards the band.

9: This is an image of the protagonist from the film Highlander, my favourite film of all time. The soundtrack is great, the lines are great, it's so quotable (There can be only one! etc), I throughly recommend you watch it, it's fucking awesome. It's about Connor MacLeod, a Scottish Highlander who discovers he is one of a group of Immortals who can only be killed by having their heads removed from their bodies, and who must fight each other until only one remains, who will claim the mythical Prize.

10: The Princess Bride. THE stereotypical swashbuckling, cliff-climbing, giant fighting high fantasy novel/film. Here representing my love of that kind of stuff. If you've never heard of it, shame on you. Go out and buy a copy of it (book or film) and read/watch it as soon as you can.

11: Dr McNinja. Dr McNinja is one of the many webcomics I keep up to date with, but probably one of my favourites. It's about a doctor who is also a ninja. Adventures ensue, including, as seen in the image above, the good doctor riding a robot Dracula off the moon. This image also represents my love for web comics in general, because it helps comic artists who may not necessarily be able to sell their work in a material sense still get their work out there and known. And there really is some good stuff out there.

12: Team Fortress 2. One of my favourite games, alongside Zeno Clash, mainly due to the art style/fluff that goes with it. (Saxton Hale is a work of pure genius) The gameplay is also bloody enjoyable.

And that's that. While finding images for the map, I was really struggling, but now that i've finished writing about them, i've remembered a few influences that it was criminal for me to leave out.

13:  Jurassic Park, by Michael Crichton. Moreso the book than the film. One of my favourite books, and before you laugh, it's actually a lot more cerebral/preachy than you'd think. Crichton manages to shoehorn in a lot of expositon on the morality of genetics and how life will always find a way to work around whatever constraints you seek to place upon it.

14: The First Law series by Joe Abercrombie. My favourite books of all time. Fact. Incredibly well written, with some fantastic characters. The story is quite stereotypical, but with some nice extras. Where the series really shines is with where Abercrombie takes the characters emotionally, leading some to places you really wish they wouldn't go, and others in completely unexpected directions. He is also a master of dropping in little bits and pieces which really help flesh out the world and immerse the reader, and also leaves the door open for many more books. Which I sincerely hope he writes.

15: Most Bioware games, especially the Mass Effect series and the Dragon Age series. Bioware seem to be the kings of making fantastic, immersive, life eating rpgs, and I absolutely love them for it. Mass Effect was the first Bioware title I picked up, and after finishing it I went and hunted down some of their back catalogue purely on the fact it had their name on it. Fucking love them.

16: On the same note, anything by Blur Studio instantly gets my attention. They do mainly trailers and cinematics for games at the moment, and they are the best I've ever seen. My main ambition is to either work under Daniel Dociu or for these guys, they are awesome.

All images copyright of their respective holders, just in case anyone comes in swinging dicks about me using their images without permission.

Vis Lit: Chaos Some More

Just chucking some pictures up to demonstrate how cool visualisations of Chaotic System look:

Two plots of the Lorenz Attractor

 Turbulence in the tip vortex from an airplane wing

A piece from the “Book of Kells”, used in arguement that people were aware of Chaos Theory much earlier than we believe.

This is a plot of a fractal used in 'Jurassic Park' as section covers, where it gets more and more complex. This is it about halfway through, but I couldn't find the finished one, which looks a lot like a propeller.

Vis Lit: Chaos

Just posting about two artists who's work springs to mind when I think 'Chaos'. Unfortunately I can't seem to find the two exact images I have in my head when I think of them, but I can show you some examples of their stuff anyway.

John Blanche

These are two pieces by Blanche, not sure of the names. Not very chaotic, I know, but they illustrate his style really well, which I find chaotic in it self, especially all the linework etc. He used to have a ridiculously awesome website, but it seems to have been taken down, so the only way to 'see' it is by viewing some shots of it on the designers website: http://www.tearsofenvy.com/johnblanche.html Definately worth a look if you like interesting website design.

Hieronymous Bosch

These are two pieces by Bosch, i'm not sure what the first is called, but the second one is 'The Garden of Earthly Delights', his most famous piece. Bosch did some absolutely bat shit crazy paintings, if you want an illustration of chaos, look no further. 

Vis Lit: Fall: 'Copper Steve'

Can't find a decent enough image of the type of graph I was on about, just putting this here so I can edit it later when I find one instead of a new post, so the blog makes chronological sense. 

Vis Lit: Fall: Aeneas and Turnus

Just going to sum up the points about this idea I made in my sketchbook:

• Looked through IB sketchbook, came across an idea i'd had but hadn't taken past the non-physical concept stage. Aeneas standing over Turnus, inspired by this image by Gustav Dore:

 'The Destruction of Leviathan'

• Want to change the composition though. Instead of having the 'protaganist' of the piece (God in Dore's, Aeneas in mine) smaller than the 'villain', I want it the other way round (Aeneas bigger than Turnus).

• Composition slightly inspired by this piece: (Colours/scale more than poses/character design.)

'Sunwell Plateau Patch Art'

Dyn Com: Brand Yourself

Have been told to brand myself for a Dynamic Communications coursework. Obviously, being a bit of a dick, my first thought was to make an image which looked like i'd literally branded myself, but I soon realised this didn't really fit the brief. :( So i've been looking at some other logos/brands, and found some I think are cool, and I think i've got a vague idea of where i'm going to take my actual brand.

This is the Marvel Logo/ Ident. I've always liked this, and am hoping to incorporate the way it's done into my own Ident:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvoUc0w0itw

A similar technique is also used on this loading screen from Guitar Hero: World Tour:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8buZy_4_wP4

I really like they way they stack images on top of each other, especially the Guitar Hero one. I'm thinking of basically using that technique with various images of my head, but done in a particular art style.

For that art style, i'm thinking of something similar to this:

Marcus' face obviously, not the whole thing.

Fall: Some Inspiration/Interpretations

Just some photos that popped into my head when we were given the word fall as our second word of four to interpret for Visual Literacy:

This is an engraving by Gustave Dore. It is one of many he did as illustrations for the book 'Paradise Lost', written by John Milton. It depicts Lucifers fall from Heaven after being cast down by God for leading the rebellion of the angels.  I really like Dore's work, and looked into him extensively for one of my IB HL Visual Art projects, and this piece is one that stuck in my head. If you like pretty epic and bad ass illustrations of God killing sea monsters and other such crazy shit, Dore is your man. He did tons of illustrations and pieces based on or for famous myths, legends and literature. (His work for Dante's Inferno is awesome as well.)

This is a photo I thought of when I heard the word fall:

I think this shot epitomises quite well Gordon Brown's fall from grace (it's the moment he got called up for calling that old lady a bigot, for anyone that doesn't recognise it), which fits in with the word fall. I quite like pushing the envelope with these tasks, or finding odd/unusual ways of interpreting them. I found it rather difficult with curiosity without resorting to soft core porn, but fall seems much easier to dick around with, because to be frank, I quite struggled to generate ideas for curiosity, but seem to be doing alright for fall.

And just because I can because it fits within the word catagory, and Die Hard deserves referencing at any available opportunity, Hans Gruber falling off a sky scraper:



Curiosity: Some photos

First up, some photos I took while wondering Dundee, odd shots of views I don't think many people see. Took them to make the viewer ask themselves 'Where was that taken?'

Can you figure out where these were taken?

Took one more, for two reasons. The first; it's a building under construction, which makes the viewer ask 'What will it look like when it is done?' the second; a personal reason. I have always been curious about cranes. Once they are set up, how do they get them back down?

This particular crane isn't a great example, as I could clearly see it is meant to fold down onto the truck. The cranes I am curious about are the big industrial fuckers that look like this:

I'm not really sure if I actually want to know how they do it, as I quite like having that one question I definately don't know the answer to, a perpetual curiosity, if you will.

Self Portraiture

Some photos I took while dicking around with my webcam. Used for a self portrait, have some images I had in mind while thinking about the portrait, will put them up when i'm not on a mac and actually know how.

Portfolio: Bits and Bobs.

Bits and Pieces from my portfolio. 

Ogre

Knight

Orc