"Special Post" Senior Art Exhibit

Senior Art Exhibit

The senior art exhibit was pretty neat! I actually felt like I could relate to the art that was being shown. In the beginning of the semester, I visited Edyta Stepian's art show and I was clueless as to how her art was created. I am a computer scientist who has no background in art whatsoever. I learned how her art was made during her show and learned from it. The senior art exhibit was a bit different. There was some photography art as well as graphic art. 

One of the artists, Emma Healy, is inspired to create her art with her passion in life, swimming. Pictured below, Emma is able to stop the constant motion of water and create beautiful art with her photography. The light shining down on the water assists in the visibility of the bubbles in the water. 

The next artist I was able to relate to more. As I was walking up to view the art, I immediately knew what tools were used to create it (Adobe Illustrator). The artist, Thomas Schultz, wanted to create an informative visual piece of art to strike awareness of having high blood pressure. I was taught in my 16 weeks with Nathan Peck about info-graphics and how you need to balance visual art and text to accommodate the target audience. I believe Thomas does a tremendous job at it. He explains that he uses a vertically central composition with images and text describing it. 

Week 15 Creating the Game Pieces

Design

The design of the game pieces was a great experience. First, I had to design the game pieces using Adobe Illustrator. I decided to go with the four cars above because those are some of my favorite cars on the road. After I drew these up, I was told that the machine that was going to cut these 4 illustrations out couldn't have any pieces that weren't connected. For example, my wheels weren't connected to the car and the laser cutter would have cut them off in the process. I ended up submitting a revised illustration of my game pieces with multiple sizes. I did this so that I could test them on my game board and make sure they fit okay.

Production

I decided to use the 2.0" pieces and send those into production. This week and part of last week my pieces were made. The game pieces were cut perfectly with a laser cutting machine. The pieces were cut out of a piece of 3-ply plywood.

As you can see above, some people needed to have bases for their game pieces to sit on. I wanted to avoid that so that it looks like my little cars are actually on the road/game board. 

After cutting out the pieces, I rinsed them off in the sink to get rid of some of the marks and to prep them for painting. I used acrylic paint to color the pieces. I had to apply several thin layers to cover up some of the imperfections of the wood. 

Finished Game Pieces

Week 14 Ordered and Received Game!

Placing The Order

Last week I ordered the game and it came! I submitted the order on www.printplaygames.com on a Monday and received it in the mail on Friday! I was really pleased with the quality of the game as well as the service. The total cost of creating my custom board game was around $45 shipped. One major thing to consider is TRIPLE CHECKING your order and making sure that everything is correct. During the process of creating my board game, I was taught about naming conventions and to be consistent. I had over a dozen revisions to the game board so it was crucial that I had the right files when submitting my order.


.... THE BIG MOMENT!


HERE IS WHAT I HAVE CREATED WITH WHAT I'VE BEEN TAUGHT IN MY COMPUTER GRAPHICS COURSE!

 ABOVE: Game box, Game board, and some Game cards

BELOW: A close-up of the front and back of some Game cards

I will be making my game pieces next week!

Week 13 Running into problems

Problems with Manufacturing

So we found out that the company we chose to manufacture our games charges an astronomical price for shipping because it's coming from China. We researched new companies and found that www.printplaygames.com can manufacture our board games for us at a more reasonable cost. As a result of switching companies, our dimensions have changed for the box. Also, our game board will be a quad-fold board which changes the size of box it goes in. The changes in dimensions made us redesign our box so that our game boards can fit better without moving around as much. The dimensions for our new box are going to be 11x11x2. As I found out in class, these types of problems arise more often than not in the art industry. 

PICTURE OF REVISED GAME BOX:

The process of designing the cards to the new company's specifications also changed. I had to download a template and drag each card onto their template to make them all on one sheet of 18. We had to switch over to Adobe Illustrator to do this process.

THIS IS THE BACK OF THE CARD:

As you can see, the card sheets have a background color that spans over the entire page. This process was used to compensate for bleeding. I would be very upset if the backgrounds of the cards came to me without the complete background of each card.

So this week we just basically redesigned the content that we already had in order to adjust for new dimensions.  

Week 12 Changes to Gameboard

Changes to Game board

Implementing cards into the game changed the rules of my game board. I had to make revisions to my previous game board because I had icons on it instead of the cards. Previously, when you landed on a space with an icon, you would perform the corresponding action. I had to design a police station in Adobe Illustrator to place on the new revised game board. The police station is going to be placed all around the board and if you draw a police action card, then you will be sent back to the nearest police station. 

Week 11 Changes and modifications

Changes and Modifications

This week, I made numerous changes to the design of the game. I decided to only use 3 categories for my cards. I will have action cards, wild cards, and a super card. A card will be drawn after every turn and it will impact the way the player progresses. If an action card is drawn, the player will either benefit from it or not. If a wild card is drawn, the player may keep the card and use it in case they draw a negative action card. 

EXAMPLES OF ACTION CARDS:

EXAMPLES OF WILD CARDS:

EXAMPLE OF SUPER CARD:

All of the cards were designed in Adobe InDesign. 

Week 10 Brainstorming Cards for Gameboard

Process For Designing Cards

This week was dedicated to learning a new tool: Adobe InDesign. We are using InDesign as a platform for creating our cards. The first step to designing the cards was to first find a place that can manufacture them. Luckily, the same place that can manufacture our game boards can make the cards as well (www.boardgamesmaker.com). After determining what size cards I wanted to make, I applied the same dimensions in Adobe InDesign. I will be making 36 cards for the game board. The second step was determining what content and categories will be on the cards. 

The categories for my cards (subject to change) will be: Action cards, Wild Cards, Questions, and Challenges. Action cards are either going to move you ahead or behind on the game board. Wild cards are going to be used as consumable cards in case you pick up an action card that works against you. Questions will be like trivia cards and if you answer it right you will move forward and backward if you do not. Challenges will be physical involving users to interact in different ways. 

Examples of Questions:

Name 4 cars from Chevrolet

What year did Ford redesign the Mustang to resemble the first generation Mustang?

Examples of Action Cards:

Draw a NOS card and you roll a die and move forward the amount rolled

Draw a Flat Tire card and you lose x amount of spaces

Draw a Wrong Turn card and move back x amount of spaces