Dead Facing their Dead

Political commentary. And so on..

Pokemon Wallpapers

So after playing the new pokemon game I finally figured out my favorite one (it's been a while). I made a few wallpapers in Illustrator with some different colour schemes, and a couple of android wallpapers to go with it!

Batman Process

Been trying to calm the shakes with some comic artwork. This is pretty much the first time I've ever attempted anything in this particular style, so it was quite a learning experience. Here's a process sequence.

Posters

A book cover and a design poster for a corporate.

Some musical creations

Courtesy of Fruity Loops and no working guitar.

Robocop brought back from dead (for some reason)

I'm something of a fan of the 1980's. I was born in it for example, allowing my very existence. That's pretty vital. So was my wonderful and better half. That's also pretty vital.

I was of course too young to be part of the zeitgeist and pop culture of the decade, so being a child in the middle of the 90's allowed me to experience the era in a filter. That lead to me growing up with some movies that I utterly fell in love with. Like every era it had it's defining symbols, and one of the many of the decade was the gloriously over the top action movies and the even more gloriously outrageous personalities it gave us. There's a very unique feeling to action films of the age, almost like tongue in cheek comedies played straight. And one of my favorites was Paul Verhoevens 1987 Sci-Fi action/satire Robocop.

"I am the law!"(Shit, wrong movie..)

It's a ridiculously violent and silly satire on a number of themes. American culture is at it's heart, satirizing on corporate greed, authoritarian police, crime, base media (what a prediction that was!), and dehumanization among other things. While I never would have guessed from my own viewing, the director even cites it as something of an allegory for Christianity, with Murphy depicted as a Christlike figure risen from the dead.

There's some seriously deep stuff going on here.
Like this guy. Look how fucked he is. Deep.

One of the best parts of a film is discussion, more specifically discussion on the issues or themes they bring up. I love a film with layers. On the surface Robocop is a silly and generic action film. Fun to watch. On a deeper level for those who want to explore it, there's all sorts going on. None of which I could detect in this recently released trailer for the reboot. It would appear that many of the key plot points of the original are being glossed over, ignored, or changed. Isn't it kind of important how he was brutally killed in the original? Here it's a bomb. His complete isolation from his humanity and his family, resulting in a key scene in which he explores (literally) the memory and home of his former, happier life? Well he can't stop screaming his lungs out here, and his wife seems fully aware. The design of the suit looks like a bloke in a rubber gimp suit. His pretty face is on show most of the way through too. At least Karl Urban had the decency to keep his Judge mask on. Here's the trailer.

It's early of course, and it would be unfair to judge an unreleased film on it's trailer alone (even if that trailer paints it as a pointless piece of a McMovie). Just promise me one thing. If this film *does* turn out to be a huge piece of crap, will you all skip it and go buy another copy of Dredd instead?

Thankfully at least one thing outside the film got it's satirical theming right. Check out this Korean advertisement for fried chicken. It really hit on that brainwashed consumer culture vibe. And Robocops enjoyment of fried chicken. Not sure he'd be down with stealing somebodies fridge though...

I'd buy that chicken for roughly one pound.

On the topic of value

Many of the finest artists of contemporary times consider one aspect of art to be far and above the most important part of a strong piece. Without an understanding of value, we cannot create art that shows form or depth to a satisfactory degree, and our work will appear flat and dull. It's a huge subject, and an even more difficult one to master (something I will no doubt spend a lifetime trying to perfect myself) but a simple one to get a grasp of.

Self portrait of artist Artemisia Gentileschi, a beautifully crafted
example of the manipulation of value to create a striking and realistic artwork.

Put simply, value is the term we use to describe an objects relationship to light. Known also as 'tone', value communicates to us where an object sits on a black/grey/white scale. It shows us the form (3-Dimensional shape), depth and distance of an object. If line drawing is 2D, value is what we use to make our paintings come alive in three dimensions!

Object painted entirely with value, with exaggerated bouncing lights.

We will get into the mechanics of light and how it works next time, but for now, let's just figure out what it does, and how that applies to art. Light and shadow affect all that exists around us. It communicates much of what we interpret visually, and every single one of us has a deep and inborne understanding of it on an instinctual level. We will refer to strong light as 'high' value (closer to white) and 'low' value as darkness (closer to black). The overall composition of a painting will betray to us the light sources involved and their position, but more importantly, it can greatly influence the mood, intention and symbolism of an artistic work.

Venus, depicted by William Bouguereau. A fine example
of high value, communicating a heaven like presence... 

..In comparison to Christ by Francisco Goya, an
example of an overall low value painting, with light being
used strongly in areas for contrast (Chiaroscuro)

It's also worth noting that even in neutral light, every object has it's own inherent 'local' value. Colours exist on the value scale like anything else, hence why we refer to something as 'dark blue' or 'light green'. With this, we can predict (through practice) roughly where something will sit on the value scale even without seeing it in black and white. Because of this, if we remove all of the colour from the world around us, we could still exist quite happily within it, as value is the thing we use most to perceive the world around us.

A chiaroscuro painting (San Gerolamo by Caravaggio), upon removal of
colour, we can inspect the individual local values of each object. Clearly, the
white of the cloth and bleached yellows of the skull are higher on the value
scale than that of the dark brown table, but note the warm tones of his skin
in comparison with the red cloth.

The strength of the value of something is dependent on the strength of the light that falls on it. As we will explore more in depth later on, the side of an object that faces the light, will be lit relative to the strength of that light, and it's own local value. Therefore, if we place two identical objects side by side in the same lighting situation, the light that falls on them *must* be consistent. Likewise, if one object has a higher or lower local value than the one next to it, then that must be reflected in it's value. There is a 'cheat' that we can use to get a better grasp of this, which I will reveal in the next entry.

In this example, I have quickly painted a cube with a single local value,
but with a corner segment that has a lighter local value. Since the lighting and relative
values remain consistent, this tricks our eye to seeing a solid 3D shape in a lifelike environment.