Books with Pictures

I'm really not that great at reading books. I have to use two rulers to isolate the line that I'm reading, and sometimes when I'm really lacking focus, I have to use a pencil to underline everything that I've read. I've always been the kid that hated being called upon to read aloud in class.

I used to read a lot of comic books during my childhood, mostly Asterix and Obelix and The Adventures of Tintin. I stopped reading them for many years because I got caught up with wanting to write and draw my own. I've always been kinda lousy at plots and writing, but my eldest sister supported me and convinced me that detective cats dressed up in human clothing really wasn't that weird. At all. There are weirder things out there.

Anyways, last summer I fell in love with reading graphic novels all over again, but this time it was a little more mature. I'm really into fantasy and action and sci-fi, so some of my favorites would be:

Watchmen - Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons

The first novel that I read which brought me right back to my comic book reading days was Watchmen. I love tales of superheroes and vigilantism so this was about perfect. I can't say much about it that hasn't been said before. It's just beautiful.

American Vampire - Scott Snyder, Rafael Albuquerque and Stephen King

During summer I was unable to find any graphic novels in bookstores, so I had to go back to old ways to entertain myself (eg. drawing, watching movies). During our winter break though, I managed to find a whole section of graphic novels in Borders, a section that didn't exist a week before that. And they had American Vampire for 40% of the price, so I got it to try it out. I loved everything about it; the plot, the illustrations, the colors. It was also a nice and original twist on a currently popular theme - vampires. Stephen King also wrote parts of it, so come on, it's really vampires.

The Unwritten - Mike Carey and Peter Gross

I was never able to get into the Harry Potter series (reminder: I suck at reading) so The Unwritten is a way for me to read something like it. It kinda asks the question of what if Harry Potter were based on a real person, and if he exists in our world. And then a bunch of random crazy stuff happens to him and it's all just really wild but very cool at the same time. After some parts in the novel, I'd just kinda put it down and wonder how the writers and artists of the book came up with some of the crazy stuff and what it's like to be in their heads.

Y: The Last Man - Brian K. Vaughan, Pia Guerra and Jose Marzan Jr.

My favorite graphic novel series ever though has GOT to be Y: The Last Man. The plot is about how everything with the Y chromosome dies except for a man called Yorick and his pet monkey Ampersand. It's an amazing post-apocalypse series to read and I don't know what to say about it other than bringing in some of its reviews to quote:
"The best graphic novel I've ever read." -Stephen King
"Rivals TV's Lost as a smart, consistently entertaining work of popular art." -Time.com
"This year's best movie is a comic book." -National Public Radio



I'm currently reading Neil Gaiman's Sandman series, which I'll admit, took me a little while to get into mostly because I didn't like the illustration style, but now I really do like it. I am a huge Vertigo fan so I'm making my way through probably the most popular novels before I move onto other publishers.

And yea, I just absolutely love graphic novels.

-Deena

Graphic Design + Greek Mythology= AQUA DIVINE

AQUA DIVINE (A Contemporary Water Mythology) by Albin Holmqvist

This is what happens when you create a modern version of ancient Greek mythology.

Going up!

Deena, who beat me to it again, pretty much summed up a close version of what I wanted to say. But here we go.... I've had to put up with all the "idiots" who called me stupid for not graduating and wasting my time when I could be working, getting married or whatever. All I can say is.... Let me be?
This week has been great but tiring. I graduated from MCM (more like stole sm1 gown and took tons of pictures), had to clean out a locker that held a whole year of my life, witnessed a lunar eclipse and then today I found out that I got into 2nd year of Visual Communications.

This has been a crazy year! I had to deal with my Advertising Campaign class and first semester foundations year. I learnt so much about myself and others. When you're put in a tight situation and have to react to it, you have no idea what you'll do till you do it. I sorta lost a friend somewhere along the way, yelled at people, put up with a shitty ass professor who "hated" me, pulled multiple all nighters, had to gather the courage to tell my dad I wasn't graduating, going through my sister's possible divorce like its my own, and god knows what else... But in the end, I think it could have been worse and will not complain...
So... Bye bye basement!

Deena- This is it.

Also my internet is back up.. after my mom "accidentally" cut the wire...
P.S. I hate you. You've brought it to yourself... you know who you are :)

Going Up

Naima was accepted into the Second of year Visual Communication and I was accepted into Second year of Multimedia Design.

I feel really sorry for those who didn't make it into Vis Com, Multimedia, Interior design and Architecture. I know a lot of the students worked really hard, put up with the program for the whole year and still didn't get into Second year. I hope that they find their way into something else that they enjoy, or maybe that they would repeat the courses for their desired majors if they really wanted to. Good luck to them.

And for those that were accepted, congratulations and I wish you the best of luck too.
And to you cheaters out there who got accepted - you guys don't deserve it. It's really sick that your games were even tolerated.

Naima - we can finally write our names all over the desks we chose for Second year studio.

-Deena

P.S. Also, can I mention that us getting into Second year proves that we're getting better at the whole 'potential' and 'balance' thing?! At least I hope that that's what it means.

Thoughts of and Advice on Design Foundations

(For TL;DR, scroll halfway for useful advice)
I had to clean out my locker because (hopefully) I won't need it next semester. It was a little emotional to be honest, and I guess it's because of how symbolic it felt or something. I was cleaning up the hardest and messiest year of my life.
I turned nineteen years old as I closed the locker shut last year, and I wasn't upset that I was spending my birthday in the basement. I felt like it was where I needed to be.

That's it, completely naked and alone...

It started to sink in that the academic year was finally over and that I might not come back. And then all the good memories flooded my mind.

In order for us to begin Design school, we had to enroll in the Foundations program. We had the highest number of students ever accepted into the program, which was around 196 students initially. They told us an estimated 50% of us will go on to being accepted into Second year (thanks prof for the nice intro to the orientation speech). The most competitive kids would be the Architects and Interior Designers, so us graphic designers were kinda lucky on that part. However, no matter what major you're hoping to enroll in, there will always be competition.
The Fall semester started off quite great for me. It was my birthday, I finally felt like my age caught up to my brain, I was in a field I wanted to be in, and I felt like I was surrounded by the people I wanted to be surrounded by. Our first discussion/critique was so pretentious and designy that it almost felt like a joke, and I absolutely loved that. Classes were really fun and it felt like improv most of the time. I made a lot of friends, and it was so different to what Advertising was like. I thought that I really finally belonged somewhere and I was always so excited to show off the building to my visiting friends from outside of school.

As I walked away from my locker with all my equipment in my hands, I turned around one last time to look at the Foundations basement again.

Where Freshmen live

I stared at different parts of the basement for a while, remembering all the times I stayed past midnight bargaining for extra minutes from the security guards, sharing the light tables with entertaining classmates and music, drawing my peers, drawing on the white and black boards, dancing with other freshmen, laughing at ambitious student projects and enjoying lively group discussions. Pulling away from my thoughts for a second, I felt my T-square slipping in my arms, but I reacted too late and lost my grip on it. It slid to the floor and cut my wrist on the way down.

I took this picture when it stopped bleeding

And then just like that, I remembered why I'd hated the basement so much. I didn't enjoy a lot of the projects we got, I didn't get along with a ton of people, real friends were hard to make, not getting a crit from the prof for weeks sucked majorly, it was always stressful, it was hard to cope, there was no such thing as a social life if I wanted good grades, sleep started sucking because it became a waste of time just like eating did, there were always assholes out to get me during either critique or after the prof left the class, seeing professors in their office hours was impossible, so many kids cheat and people have the WORST taste in music.

The thing that I hated the most was the fact that it was a basement. I'd go in when it's bright at 8 in the morning. All the windows are closed for controlled lighting and I never keep track of time because I usually get caught up in my work. When I'd finish, I'd wrap things up and exit the building into a dark night. I never got used to this feeling, I'd be shocked every single time I left the building and it was completely dark. I never felt the transition, and it'd always make me feel sick. Some nights I'd just walk outside and upon realizing how dark it was, and failing to fight against my emotions, I'd just suddenly start crying. I hated the fact that I felt like the whole world was moving on without me, and I just left with more problems than I entered the building with after a bad critique. And maybe I'm reading too much into it, but I had thought that it reflected how my life really was. I became such a workaholic that I pushed my social life away, and whenever I'd meet up with a friend a few months later, I'd find out about how their lives have changed so drastically and significantly. Finding out about more important details of their lives would give me the sensation of my shoulders and stomach aching and dread, pure dread, the same feeling I'd get as I walked into the darkness of the night.

Advice

Now those were mostly the negative things that I took with me out of the building. I know that the program was vital for my education (obviously, I can't get into Second year without it) and self-esteem though. While on the inside, and being caught up with work and such, I learned a crap ton of things there:
1. Always be honest
Give honest critiques, explain your work honestly and be honest to others without getting too personal. A professor will elaborate on your design if they know what you're really aiming for, and they begin to understand what you're trying to get at. It makes communication between your professors and you much easier. It only makes you better.
2. Compliment work while giving criticism
It cushions the blow and makes the person feel like they didn't completely mess up. Also, it makes them feel inclined to actually listen to your criticism. It makes you a reliable peer, and a bonus is that your professor will give you a better participation grade. You'll also get some pretty good feedback on your own work, and your reputation as being a nice person goes up, so everyone benefits really.
3. Take care of yourself first before attending to others
You'll only hurt yourself if you think of others first. Be sure to have your work done first, you never know what could happen, and you could easily fall behind. And if you do help someone, it's preferable that you only really help those that you are close to. It's more likely that the favor can/will be returned in the future.
4. Don't trust people too easily
A lot of people are just users and liars. You don't want to be labeled as a push-over if people begin to take advantage of you. So be careful with who you befriend, and try to not get tangled up in studio/classroom drama. It's hard, but sometimes it just comes down to being the better, mature person and getting over it.
5. Be secretive about your work
Never run around sharing your work or bragging that you're finished. Someone will try to mess you up and you'd have to start over and be late. Design is really quite a cut-throat game.
6. Avoid talking about grades with your peers
Some kids really suck and will try to bring you down somehow, even if it resorts to them lying to a professor about you. There is a lot of competition amongst students for advancement into Second year. Also, there's a lot of gossip amongst students, and you want to avoid drama in school. You don't need extra stress.
7. Take care of your work/portfolio
There are people who like to sabotage. It's always good to have some amount of paranoia when it comes to the well-being of your work. Keep multiple back-ups of all your work. Have a copy of your design folders on your flash drive (which is easy to lose or forget at home), external hard drive (which can crash), computer (which can also crash) and school network (which is quite reliable) as a MINIMUM, especially when it comes to your portfolio. When handing in a CD to a professor, make sure to burn an extra CD and hand it in as well as a back-up in case the first one you burnt doesn't work for them. You have no idea how many positive responses I've received for this, and how high it pushed up my professionalism grade. You can be extremely good at designing, but without the evidence, no one will know.
7.5 Take care of your equipment
Supplies don't come cheap, and the bookstore often runs out of an item, especially during the Fall semester. Once they're out of stock, you can fall behind due to lack of equipment, and trust me, equipment takes up a major role as they're trying to introduce you to different techniques and... equipment. Don't leave anything laying around. You can ask people to watch your things, but they have their own things to do and can't be constantly keeping their eyes on your stuff. Also, another good tip is if you're leaving at night, and stuff is laying around, you can just take it and keep it as an extra in your locker or at home. People will jack your stuff eventually too. I've taken things out of my locker, placed it on the chair behind me so that I could lock my locker again, and I'd hear a swish behind me, turn around and see all my stuff just got stolen. So watch out for stupid things like that happening.
8. Be open to suggestions
There's nothing more annoying than a pretentious prick who thinks they're amazing at design (unless you really are amazing, but I highly doubt it). Also, don't run around screaming about how you're a self-proclaimed photographer/artist/painter/designer. If you have to say it so much, you probably aren't even what you think you are. Being open to suggestions makes you better as a person and designer. Try it out, and you don't lose anything if it doesn't work because you learn about what does work.
9. Sleep and eat
A lot of people believe in order to be good, you have to choose design over all other forms of life. But honestly, you need to cut back on the caffeine and get some sleep. Your work will be a lot better when you are feeling a lot better. And eat something healthy. Confidence in yourself shines through in your work.
10. Take a break
It can get damn stressful, but sometimes when you're running late and feel like you won't meet the deadline, it'd actually be beneficial to step back for a bit. Go eat, nap, watch an episode of something, listen to music, scream, cry, I don't know, just something not related to your project (unless screaming and crying is, then I'm interested in your project. Care to share?). You need to let off some steam somehow, and coming back to your work could give you a new perspective on how you could make it better. But overall, breaks are good for your health. You'd probably die without them...

Speaking of breaks, I've been up for 24 hours now and I'm meant to be up early for a family brunch. I just really wanted to get this post out before the results for who gets into Second year come out. I'm thinking a lot clearer about Foundations right now, and I kinda hope that someone will type something into Google or whatever search engine they have, and stumble upon this post and it will somehow help them. I really do wish that I knew more of these things before I came into Foundations. I don't like being unprepared.

In conclusion: reread the whole post and come up with your own conclusion. I'm leaving the choice up to you to choose the most important points. I think a lot of this stuff also applies to other fields of things and interests. Hopefully at least.

Anyways,
-Deena

First Wacom Tablets

So Naima and I recently purchased our first Wacom tablets ever. They're Bamboos and so far it's going great. They were really hard to get a handle on at the start, it was quite odd for me to keep staring at the screen while I was drawing. And the surface on the tablet is very different to paper. Also, the pen is a very odd thing for me to hold because I usually have very skinny pens.
We started drawing with each other on Skype. Here are some of our drawings:

We started off by practicing our spherical shading skills

And the rest of what happened are in the previous posts.

-Deena

Three heads better than none.

This is my first "offical/finished" drawing with the Wacom tablet I got today! Since I totally suck at drawing realistically, I'll draw "fake" stuff! More sooooon. AND DEENA'S TOO!


EDIT: Deena beat me to it. DAAAAAMMMNN ITTTTT....

And yes, I can't get the lips right! I'll get it. Eventually. I did for a second but I'm stupid I dont know when to stop and ruined it.