It was the early morning of January 3rd, 2015. It was still Christmas holidays, so I had no problem staying up until three in the morning pretty much everyday. It was about one-thirty in the morning on this day that I was playing on my favourite MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game), Elsword. I entered a 1vs1 PVP (Player Versus Player) match, confident my level nineteen Little Specter would be unbeatable. I was wrong.
My opponent was a level fifty Sakra Devanam, an annoying opponent if they trap you in a corner, due to their continuous attack combos. Our duel started off with me saying how I was basically dead, and that my opponent will definitely win. Unlike others, my opponent encouraged me to try my best. We began and I did try my best. In the end I lost anyways, but with a smile on my face instead of a scowl.
I decided to switch characters afterwards and changed to my level forty Void Princess. I entered more PVPs where I won a couple and lost a couple. Shortly before two, I entered another. I went wide-eyed and smiled when I saw who my opponent was. The same Sakra Devanam from half an hour before.
I mentioned this, but I don't think it sunk in at first. We battled again, and again I lost, but I still had fun. Afterwards, I befriended them. My private chat box popped up. Guess who.
We started talking, and I found out my new friend was a seventeen year old boy from Mexico, which I thought was super cool, considering I live in Canada and have left my province once for only ten days. We partied up with each other and became unstoppable in the arena, but I must admit we may (or may not) have lost a couple because of me. Before I knew it, it was three in the morning for me, and two in the morning for him. We said good night to each other, but not before adding each other on Facebook. Over the next month, I talked to him everyday, except two, and got to know him a lot better, with him also learning a lot about me too.
Shortly after we met, we made our first Facebook call. Even though it was awkward at some times, we ended up talking for two whole hours. I have never talked that much with anyone, not even my friends or family. He played me a couple songs on his guitar, and told me next time I have to sing along. At first I was unsure because I am very shy and can not even sing in front of my family, but now I think I could easily sing in front of him, as long as he sings with me of course.
Shortly after our call, he went back to school after his holidays. I talked to him after school with a smile at first, but it quickly faded. He told me how he had a horrible day, he was bullied so much, even by his own brother, that he was actually crying. I did my best, and actually cheered him up, which was a surprise to me because I never know the right thing to say, yet I was able to make someone who was sad, happy. How did I do this?
I told him how I thought it would be cool to meet in person sometime in the future. He thought that was a wonderful idea. Ever since, we have mentioned so many time that we can not wait until that opportunity arrives. It makes me happy just thinking about meeting him in person. It definitely will not happen for at least a good year or two, but until then, we always have Facebook messenger and Elsword.
Reflection:
Danielle MacDonald
Memories In My Skin
Photographs were used
February 20th, 2015
TECHNICAL
For multiple images, I blended them in with the background layer, resulting in a more attractive piece, including things like bursts of colour and pictures that work together better. For other images, I simply changed the opacity. I attempted to feather some images, but I'm not entirely sure if it worked.
IDEA OR CONCEPT
At first, all my images were the same size and all seemed to be the same opacity and colour. I was eventually able to see how more faded and different sized images looked better after playing around with them. Originally, I also had close to fifteen images, but deleted some for they stood out in a bad way, and made the piece (to me) seem too busy. In the end, I was left with different sized images with some more faded than others, and the important images bigger and more opaque.
INFLUENCES
Unfortunately no artist influenced my piece. I created my piece by experimenting and going off my own ideas, with some help from others who shared their opinions and observations with me.
COMPOSITION
I think it is more asymmetrical, but at the same time I feel like both sides are balanced. I used multiple curved lines to help people's eyes move around my piece. I do have a straight line (i.e the Iphone) but I unfortunately was unable to find anything more curved to fit there. I believe my work makes you move around it by the different lines, curved and straight, that appear. A couple corners have curved lines to keep your eyes moving in a circular way.
Meanwhile, a few straight lines also lead the eyes around. The emphasis and movement help a person start at one point and follow the picture around. By looking at the image that is more emphasized, it makes one look closer at the image, and as they move around the piece, they look even closer at each image, which then makes the piece as a whole more understood.
MOTIVATION
My personal motivation for making this piece was meeting my absolutely awesome friend from Mexico. Because of him, I know what it's like in other places other than Canada, and he is also the reason I have been so happy since the beginning of January. Had I not met him, I would have no ideas on what to have done this project on. For visual ideas, I wanted to explore changing opacity and blending layers. They look so cool afterwards.
CRITICAL ASSESSMENT
I feel like my piece allows you to focus on the main point, and smoothly follow the images around. I also think that fading the images and blending them with other layers was interesting and made my piece more appealing to the eye. It doesn't look as busy as it had when I had first begun. I was surprised by how well blending the layers looked. I didn't actually expect them to look as good as I think they do.
Another was changing the sizes. I felt like the sizes were different, but I didn't realize how much changing the size drastically changes the look of the piece. If I had a bit more time I would have liked to find a more organic picture to replace the phone, which looks to geometrical. Otherwise, I likely would have liked to experiment more with opacity and layer blending.
Shortly after we met, we made our first Facebook call. Even though it was awkward at some times, we ended up talking for two whole hours. I have never talked that much with anyone, not even my friends or family. He played me a couple songs on his guitar, and told me next time I have to sing along. At first I was unsure because I am very shy and can not even sing in front of my family, but now I think I could easily sing in front of him, as long as he sings with me of course.
Shortly after our call, he went back to school after his holidays. I talked to him after school with a smile at first, but it quickly faded. He told me how he had a horrible day, he was bullied so much, even by his own brother, that he was actually crying. I did my best, and actually cheered him up, which was a surprise to me because I never know the right thing to say, yet I was able to make someone who was sad, happy. How did I do this?
I told him how I thought it would be cool to meet in person sometime in the future. He thought that was a wonderful idea. Ever since, we have mentioned so many time that we can not wait until that opportunity arrives. It makes me happy just thinking about meeting him in person. It definitely will not happen for at least a good year or two, but until then, we always have Facebook messenger and Elsword.
Reflection:
Danielle MacDonald
Memories In My Skin
Photographs were used
February 20th, 2015
TECHNICAL
For multiple images, I blended them in with the background layer, resulting in a more attractive piece, including things like bursts of colour and pictures that work together better. For other images, I simply changed the opacity. I attempted to feather some images, but I'm not entirely sure if it worked.
IDEA OR CONCEPT
At first, all my images were the same size and all seemed to be the same opacity and colour. I was eventually able to see how more faded and different sized images looked better after playing around with them. Originally, I also had close to fifteen images, but deleted some for they stood out in a bad way, and made the piece (to me) seem too busy. In the end, I was left with different sized images with some more faded than others, and the important images bigger and more opaque.
INFLUENCES
Unfortunately no artist influenced my piece. I created my piece by experimenting and going off my own ideas, with some help from others who shared their opinions and observations with me.
COMPOSITION
I think it is more asymmetrical, but at the same time I feel like both sides are balanced. I used multiple curved lines to help people's eyes move around my piece. I do have a straight line (i.e the Iphone) but I unfortunately was unable to find anything more curved to fit there. I believe my work makes you move around it by the different lines, curved and straight, that appear. A couple corners have curved lines to keep your eyes moving in a circular way.
Meanwhile, a few straight lines also lead the eyes around. The emphasis and movement help a person start at one point and follow the picture around. By looking at the image that is more emphasized, it makes one look closer at the image, and as they move around the piece, they look even closer at each image, which then makes the piece as a whole more understood.
MOTIVATION
My personal motivation for making this piece was meeting my absolutely awesome friend from Mexico. Because of him, I know what it's like in other places other than Canada, and he is also the reason I have been so happy since the beginning of January. Had I not met him, I would have no ideas on what to have done this project on. For visual ideas, I wanted to explore changing opacity and blending layers. They look so cool afterwards.
CRITICAL ASSESSMENT
I feel like my piece allows you to focus on the main point, and smoothly follow the images around. I also think that fading the images and blending them with other layers was interesting and made my piece more appealing to the eye. It doesn't look as busy as it had when I had first begun. I was surprised by how well blending the layers looked. I didn't actually expect them to look as good as I think they do.
Another was changing the sizes. I felt like the sizes were different, but I didn't realize how much changing the size drastically changes the look of the piece. If I had a bit more time I would have liked to find a more organic picture to replace the phone, which looks to geometrical. Otherwise, I likely would have liked to experiment more with opacity and layer blending.
No comments:
Post a Comment