So here is my blog update for Tuesday... or Thursday, or whenever it is we're doing our group update for Art 450. I came up with a project idea that I'm really excited about (there's nothing like mouth surgery, pain meds, and Minecraft to give you some artistic inspiration >.>). The idea evolved from these sketches I worked on last week:
I received some good feedback from that particular image (people seemed to this it was weird, out there, and mildly humorous which I loved to hear!). So the following is a sort of stream of consciousness note-taking I did while I was thinking about this image (it might not make sense to anyone >.>):
- Everyday objects made grungy or disturbing in a way
- Simple kitchen objects?
- 1950's undead, housewives
- Ads, being beautiful an perfect from beyond the grave
- Ordinary as deadly: objects, people, 50's lifestyle
- Should take a look at home cooking magazines, maybe women's magazines to get some collage material
- 1950's undead kitchen
- Brain ice cream cone
- Recreate 1950's ads, or current home life ads, as undead versions
- "meat"loaf
- Bloodtini
- The housewife retaliates by making her husband part of all the meals/treats/objects, "finally, he can help out in the kitchen!"
- Eyeball wedding ring
- Graphic design + photog for ads
- 3D objects in a small environment
- An extreme portrayal of the 50's and its expectations? Or, utilizing an undead environment as a way to fight those expectations?
I think there's a lot to these random thoughts I was having and I could go in a few directions with it for a long term project. For the purposes of 450, I decided on creating some everyday objects in a 3D space/environment and texturing them to look and feel exactly the opposite of what they are. Although, I'm really hooked on the idea of that brain ice cream cone for some reason, haha, might have to toss that in there as well. Anyways, what I like about this idea is that I can make these 3D objects, and possibly a little bit of an environment (the 50's kitchen) but I can also expand on this with some graphic design, photography, and photo-manipulation at a later date. These objects will also be really simple, and won't take a ridiculous amount of time to model.
The fact that I landed on a bit of a satirical look at both the 1950's and the zombie culture didn't surprise me. I've always been incredibly fascinated by the lifestyle and mindset of the 50's. What's odd, is that I've always thought both utilizing the 50's as a platform for art and the huge pop culture interest in zombies as clichéd idea/concept. But, for some reason, I'm just really excited about combining these two ideas!
I'm really excited to kick start this with some visual research today or tomorrow and then get right into both Maya and Photoshop. Some advice I got from my friend in the industry to keep in mind and help set some goals:
- Keep the size of the environment appropriate, what's the point of spending a bunch of time on some objects that might end up looking too small in a full size kitchen environment?
- If I want to focus on strictly doing the objects, 10 objects would be a good number to shoot for without having an extensive environment to do.
- When I start modeling I need to keep in mind the angle that's important to the object. Will we only be seeing half of the object? Just the front? Or do I want it to be able to be utilized in a full 360 rotation?
- Current goals: Sketches of the scene and gathering reference material.
Ok I think that's all of the updating I have for Art 450 at this point. I've said this a lot already, but I'm really excited to jump into Maya/Photoshop and start this up!