"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

Week 9 Critique of Gameboard

After the critique, I received advice to research "one point perspective". From what I understand, it will aid in lining up my windows on the buildings and bring everything into the right depth. Also, I need to create the bottom piece of the box. The bottom of the box will be the same color as the top, but with another illustration of a burnout mark. The last piece of advice that was given was to make the "Ages" and "Players" more readable on the side of the box. Also, to maybe play around with a white stroke around the title "Race City".

Week 8 Designing the Gameboard Box

Gameboard Box Ideas

Before we started creating our gameboard boxes, we browsed Google images for the necessities of a box and to spark some ideas. I liked how everything came together in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles box the most. I decided to model most of my gameboard box around this idea, where the main content is in the center of a city. 

The Monopoly board is classic. I thought about using a design similar to this one and incorporating the actual gameboard in with the box. Also, I like the way the title of the game is large. 

The Risk gameboard box also has the large title and the focal point is in the center. I thought about fading the city buildings and making the focal point the Mustang on my design.

The Big Foot gameboard box, although silly, incorporates people playing the game. This is a great way to show the ages of the targeted players visually. Also, I like how there are pictures on the right side of the box that show how to play the game briefly.

For the Clue gameboard box, I liked how the title was separated from the actual art. I thought about an approach like this, where I can use the different cars (gamepieces) on the box.

The final product. I had to add a jump ramp to make it look like the car was coming "out of the box". I decided to keep the title smaller in order to keep the attention on the car. Everything on the gameboard box besides the car and the title were drawn freehand in Adobe Illustrator.

Week 7 Creating game pieces for the game board

Creating the game pieces

This week I worked on creating game pieces that will be used by the players on the game board. I was originally going to use variations of the same car, but I thought that sounded boring. I searched on Google for side view "photos" of the cars that I chose. After finding the photos, I copied them into Adobe Illustrator where I began to trace the outline of the cars. After making my first game piece, I dragged in ruler guidelines so that each game piece would approximately the same size. On each game piece, the body is one layer and each wheel is separate. When we begin constructing the game pieces, I want the wheels to stand out rather than blend together with the car. Below is what I came up with.

Ford Mustang Gt 5.0

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Subaru WRX STI

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Dodge Challenger RT

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Chevrolet Camaro SS Convertible

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Week 6 Critique, Adding graphics, and Re-sizing game board

Critique

Last week we critiqued our game boards. I received some suggestions to improve my game board, which I fixed this week. The first suggestion was to fix my yellow lane dividers. The lane dividers are on the game board for cosmetic reasons, to give the board the feeling that you are racing on a street. Some people thought that they were special spaces throughout the board. Second, the rounded edges on each space did not fit in with the racing theme. The spaces resemble "tombstones" and would rather fit in a graveyard theme. Finally, the rules in the bottom right are not clearly visible because of my color tones. 

Adding Graphics and Re-Sizing

After hearing the feedback from last week, I corrected my problems starting with the "tombstone-like" spaces. I decided to just make the spaces "rectangular" as it looks more like a street would. For the lane dividers, I learned a new technique in Adobe Illustrator with the line tool. I started on space 1 and followed the center line, counter-clockwise, around the board to space 62. At first, it appears as just one continuous line. Adjusting the stroke allows you to make the line "dashed" and adjust the amount of "gap" between the line. Last, I decided to remove the box/border around the rules and adjust the color tone so you can clearly read the rules.

Next, I started adding graphics to the board to go along with the rules. I also re-sized the car so that it is more of a focal point on the game board. I decided to move the title of the game to the top of the board and add a flag on each side. After placing the graphics and re-sizing some of them, I had to re-size the game board to industry standards of 18" x 18". The border/box around the game board is used for containing the board within 1/8" on each side to allow for bleeding from printing.  

Week 5 Adding Theme and Illustrations to the Gameboard Project

Adding Illustrations

I spent some time thinking about the concept of my board game this week and came up with four illustrations that tie into the game. 

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The Mustang

The Ford Mustang is one of my "dream" cars to own after graduation, so I decided to centralize the theme around it. To craft it, I found a photo online and used it as a stencil to trace it. Then, I started customizing the colors of the car. I decided to use these colors because it's almost exactly how I want my dream car to look. At first, the windshield was a solid gray color. I wanted to add a reflection off of it, so I changed it to a gradient fill. As you can see in the image, the windshield starts with a "white" and slowly fades across, gradually getting darker.

I made sure to be organized throughout the process, so I used multiple sub-layers. By doing this, I am able to change the color of any of the parts on the car. For example, if I want the body color to be white, I select the sub-layer and change the color. All the other layers will not be affected. Let's say I wanted to change the stripe to be "blue". The same concept applies.

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Finish Line Flag

The flag is placed at the center of the board, to attract the user's eye to the finish line, where you win the game. Initially, I started with an outline of the flag. Once the outline was completed, I started working on the white checkers. Each white checker is a separate layer placed onto a single black layer. By crafting it this way, I avoided having to draw each and every checker piece on the flag. Also, I can easily change the color of the white squares because they are in their own sub-layer. For the colors, I just went with the traditional racing flag colors. Didn't have to give much thought to that.

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NOS 

The idea behind the NOS is that when you land on a space containing the NOS image, you get to move forward +3 spaces.

As you can see, I made use of the gradient fill again. Twice! The bottle was initially a solid blue, but I didn't like how "plain" it looked. I wanted to give the bottle a reflective shine. The fitting coming from the bottle to the valve also has a gradient fill. Again, I chose to use the traditional colors that compose a bottle of NOS.

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Police Lights

If you land on a space containing the police lights image, you will lose your next turn.

I came up with this drawing rather quickly. I drew one light and then mirrored it. After that, I drew the siren in the center. Initially, one light was blue and the other red. Then, I wanted to add the effect that the lights were engaged. It may not be perfect, but I used my favorite tool: gradient fill.

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Rough/Final Look

This is close to the final look and feel of the gameboard. I already have a few changes in mind. I want to put the directions above the car and make them larger. This will give me room to enlarge the title and add some graphics around it. Also, I want to make a pile of cash illustration to add to the theme of winning the race. I am thinking about placing it on the right side of the finish line flag. 

Week 4 Gameboard and Goose Drawing

Game Board Project

This week and part of last week I have been working on designing a Game Board in class. The project is based off of the board game that most popular games today were designed after: Game of the Goose. The Game Board has 63 spaces and most variations start on the outer part of the board and progress towards the center where you find the finish.

Game Board Variation 1

This is the first "rough" variation of the Game Board. At this time I had no theme in mind hence the colors. The spaces were originally rectangular but I decided to round off the edges on the tops of each space.

Game Board Variation 2

After sketching out more of the "rough draft" in variation 1, I started thinking about themes. For this Game Board, I was thinking of the theme where a lost dog was trying to find his way home. I decided to make the background green to resemble grass. Also, the spaces are supposed to resemble sidewalks and dirt. I changed the edges to be completely rounded all the way around.

Game Board Variation 3

This is my third variation to the Game Board. The theme for this Game Board is centered around a street race. Cars will be racing to the finish line, but will encounter multiple obstacles in their way. The colors were chosen to resemble the street and the lane dividers. The background is black because most street racing is done at night. 

While doing this project, I learned about utilizing the layers tool in Adobe Illustrator. My Game Board has multiple layers so that I can adjust the colors accordingly. For example, odd and even spaces are their own layer. Another layer is the numbers. Dividing the project into layers simplifies the customization of the element group.

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Goose Drawing

I designed this drawing of a goose by tracing a photo that I found online. The goose is composed of multiple layers that lay over each other. Just by glancing at the drawing you can identify the layers simply by their color. The entire goose was composed with just the pen tool of Adobe Illustrator (hundreds of clicks).