Wrapping This Project Up

This I the makings of the final piece of the puzzle 

I created a document on a large scale to print a banner that would fold up an be apart of the game package 

I wanted the banner to look different but feel part of the package 

So I added elements of the cold war using fond imagery, then manipulated it using channel masking techniques and live tracing to achieve the desired effect.

I used my research to use within the banner

Slowly layering the image up and applying blend modes that In photoshop until I felt it looked right

Some elements worked, some didn't

I used my own spray painted images and manipulated them the same way 

Until I ended up with this image, but I felt that i needed something else 

So I duplicated the whole image applied the blend mode, colour dodge then applied a layer mask and painted out parts add a explosion effect and make the text (title) stand out more
And there you go, The Code War Limited edition Banner. 

Air Training Cadets Cap Badge

Air training corps cap badge

This cap badge reminds me of one of the most exciting, adventures years in my life. It was the year 2000 when I joined the air cadets and the places I saw and the things I experienced within that year will stay with me forever. Over this year I experienced flying for the first time, I remember the pilot doing a barrel roll, loop the loop, a stall and even let me control the air craft mid flight, I travelled across the country and visited places like RAF Northolt in London where I flew on the queens plane, I travelled to a tank regiment and experienced a blank round night exercise where we travelled around in the tanks, I shot weapons, swam for my squadron and made many friends. The friends where the highlight as I never had many friends at that time.

What I do remember is the art that I created within this time period, I would create illustrations of the experiences that I had, this is what made me unique people would know me for that and the nick name that was given to "tank", fond memories

But I see this badge, this symbol as a cross roads, Two paths that lay ahead of me one was to pursue a career within the armed forces, a life of adventure, danger, the other was a civilian life, I went to the army for work experience and the reality was very different. The experience left me with doubts whether I really wanted to do this. As time went on the things changed 911 changed the world, wars broke out in Afghanistan and Iraq. Things changed in my own life as well , with this new found confidence I began to make new friends and go out at and enjoy my youth and eventually left that life and that career choice behind but this cap badge will always be a reminder of that exciting year.

So what does this object say about the culture that we live in, well it most certainly tells us that we live in a waring nation. The ATC acted as a recruitment for the soldiers of the future, they would always put us through intense training while carrying heavy back packs, they would teach us how to shoot, scale the assault course's, basically they were preparing us for the real army/RAF, It became a era of when the world changed, 911 was the most unnatural thing that I ever seen, and resulted in more wars, and one that still rages on today.

I always wonder what would my life would have been if I would have gone down the other route, I never regret not joining but I do wonder where I would be today?

Stencil Art

After looking into the works of Banksy I felt like trying to produce some more stencil work using spray paint 

I kept on trying different effects 

Using different symbols of the cold war

I would use found imagery

Place them in illustrator, from there I would live trace them to see what effect I could produce.

Then i would print out the image and make a stencil out of the image

Then produce as many effects as possible 

Now from here I will choose one that looks right, scan It in then manipulate it using digital software.

The Code War

The Box Art (Front)

The Box Art (Back)

And The Contents

I am pleased how this project turned out, I proved to myself that I can deliver and develop a idea in a short space of time, I do feel there is room for improvement, the box could have been put together in a more refined way and the Black ops sheets could have had much better style to them. I am pleased with the box art, the spray paint worked really well but I do want to take this further and produce something on a large scale possibly on material that could be folded away and become part of the package.

Banksy

This was sprayed onto the wall in Israel that is a divide just like the the Berlin wall was  back in the cold war.

Banksy
 (images sourced from google images, www.macbeth.com)
Banksy's identity has always been a mystery so information surely be 100% accurate.
His work is brilliant and daring he expresses his opinion on subjects of anti war and anti capitalism  and produces a lot of controversial work, but I can't fault how brilliant they are. I like the dark sense of humour that he injects into his works of art but still manages to get a serious message across. I like the way he uses silhouettes in his images, using mainly black and negative space to describe the forms of the people or animals he paints.

This information and images above where sourced from a film (documentary) "Exit through the gift shop"
which followed Banksy around to see his process, it all in the planning, he would mostly create large stencils that have been hand drawn and cut out . from there he would go out to the place to spray paint the image.

This is a interesting style and process that would fit well into the style of the graphic art work that I produced for my code war game. It would be good to produce some stencils of symbols of the cold war using the same technique that banks used on a smaller scale and not to be produced on a wall, although that would be fun, Imagine the front of the heart space as blank canvas for a political message about the major cuts college has gone through, anyway I could produce these stencils small use spray paint to block in the shape, scan them in to manipulate them on a canvas then blow them up onto some material on a much larger scale for impact.

My First Object

My First Object (A collection of my drawings)
The beginning of my story

These two were created entirely using a black biro
The paper became fragile because of all the ink pressed into the paper.

They don't just hold ink in them, they hold memories 

Memories of the places that were created 

And memories of the small achievements along the way

The first out of the eight objects that I have chosen are my collection of old drawings.To me they are more than pictures they are my first steps towards pursuing a career within the creative industries. It started five years ago at work, I was on my lunch break bored of the repeated conversation about football, so to keep myself occupied I found a black biro pen and scrap piece of paper and started drawing. People started to notice what I was doing and kept on at me to pursue this skill and turn it into a career, over time I came round to the idea and began to work towards a career within art and design.

I started to send my work out to video games magazines and got great feed back which fuelled my passion for illustration and helped me believe in myself.

From there I joined the foundation course at chesterfield college and never looked back since.

So this collection is my story, my starting point towards a professional level of work, and a point that I will never forget or never regret. I was clearly influenced by video games at the time, each piece was based around the game I was playing or the films or programs that I was watching at the time, but I never gave this much though at the time.

What would be interesting is possible revisit this style of illustration again to see how much progress I have made, what also would be interesting is to see if games master magazine would show my work again, I featured in the mag five times so I wonder if they would remember me.

The video game culture has always been labeled as violent one, and It's hard to disagree, you can clearly see that most of the illustrations all have violence in some shape or form in them, I will argue that they are changing, yes they are still violent but the stories are becoming much more mature and emotional. I personally play them as an escape every now and again but there are people that spend more time in them then they do out, so another side to this culture are people living and socialising through online chat forums. The digital culture is growing and one day a night down the pub may not exist, we may all be talking down a gaming head set while playing call of duty 24.

So Where to Next

As I have said this was a project that had been neglected quite a lot because I have struggled to split my thoughts from one project from another and I was totally absorbed into the digital media unit that I was worried where this project was going.
But I feel that in the end I did quite well I produced a product that was original in its look and the actual game idea was different from what I have done before.
I have learnt quite a lot considering the time I have had, I have discovered the importance of traditional media experiments and how they can be turned into graphic art effectively with very little effort and I have learnt that I can produce things quite quickly and perform under pressure. I also feel that I am working independently, a lot of people seem to have been steered down a route (in terms of media) where I have created my own thing, although I have been criticised for doing things digital all of the time, but I argue that this is my specialist path that I wish to pursue, digital media was only the glue that held this project together, the way it was created was traditional.

So where to next, I have the opportunity to present my work in the form of a exhibition, so it has to be a show case of all the skills I have learnt over these past months, and be the best work that I can produce within this time frame. A good start would be to look back at the work I have done, and mind map some paths to take.

The Final Product

Front Cover

Back Cover

Game Board

Game Board (Back)

All The Decoder Sheets (1-6)

And then there are all the questions and the rule sheets to go with it .

The Concept on Paper

All the documents (above) are the drawings and notes of the game idea. The notes include the questions that I focused around, the actual game idea its self including the sizes, designs and how it all fitted together.
Looking back I do feel I need to be more organised and make my notes more clearer in the future.