Storytelling 101

During term 1 we had a Storytelling class with the very fantastic Mr. John Meadows. He delved into the tried and true structures of storytelling during our first few classes, more of a recapping of high school literature theory. We got a good refresher of the three act structure (you know, how 99% of stories are written?) and had our first assignment based on such.

I choose a game I quite enjoyed when it first came out: Star Wars the Force Unleashed. While it may not be the best game in the Star Wars Universe, I did thoroughly enjoy the use of its story to bridge the gap between the prequel and original trilogies. Since a majority of video games focus so heavily on gameplay, and often very little on story, I choose this as my example since it uses the three act structure so well.

Our next big assignment was a doozy, one that took nearly three weeks to complete. Well, for me it did, but of course that was both the benefit and curse of being a part of the last presentation group. For this project we learned about another very concrete storytelling device used in a lot of literature, the Hero's Journey. Our assignment had us take a movie, particularly one that we enjoy (unless you wanted to have a terrible time), and turn it into a video game using the Hero's Journey paradigm.

For this assignment I decided to go with a movie choice that, if you know me, was painfully obvious. As a big Miyazaki fan, it's tough to choose your favourite film from his library, but for this it was pretty easy. I picked Princess Mononoke since it is a prime example of the Hero's Journey. 

My presentation had it's hiccups for sure. I spent a good portion of time making a snazzy looking Keynote presentation for my final Storytelling class (where unfortunately Powerpoint is the more accepted format). I thought I would look pretty cool using my phone to control my presentation, but of course, doing things that aren't the norm usually blows up in your face. Note to self, try to test out connecting your equipment to a projector and running a slideshow BEFORE you're late to class after a break and spend the next 5 minutes getting it to work. However, I kicked technology in the face with a flying dragon kick and got it to work and belted out a stunning performance, or so I would like to think.

The Storytelling class is a fantastic way to break into the world of video game narrative and something I've been very interested in delving into myself. We'll see where I head when we have to stream in term 3!

KC

Freakishly cute!

When I last left off, I had been working on my Vinyl Toy assignment for Visual Design Principles. I showed off my mood board to give a sense of what I was going to do to the Munny doll we had to edit.   I tried to combine the grossness of disgusting naked animals (i.e. mole rats and hairless dogs) with the cute and cuddliness of fluffy animals like bunnies and kittens. I had a lot of fun with this assignment, but it was also very challenging, especially trying to make the creature look look convincing and not like a mish-mash of different parts.

We were able to see everyone's creations during the last class of the term. We have a lot of photoshop gurus in our class! Some of the Munny dolls looked absolutely disgusting, and I don't even want to know what their mood boards looked like. Overall, I'm very pleased with how my Munny turned out, being incredibly creepy but at the same time...kind of cute in a grotesque way.

As always, more to come!

KC

Let's name him....Albert.

Life imitates art?

Visual Art Principles has to be another one of my favourite classes in the first term. While we do get a lot of powerpoint presentations, it's a lot more open to discussion and class participation. Consider it a intro to Photoshop, but you'd like it a lot better if you have been using photoshop before.

Pixel Art: Myself as a cocky Jedi

We started out with pixel avatars. It was a simple project where we had to create an isometric pixel character of our choosing, using a weapon of any kind. Our class is definitely full of some creative souls because I've never seen a dolphin with arms and legs vomiting a rainbow beam, or an alien tribesman with a pitchfork. They were all insanely brilliant and well done. I decided to be narsacisstic and create myself in pixel form, similar to Habbo Hotel.


I think it turned out pretty well, and the likeness is uncanny! (Or at least my class thought so...) My personal favourite was being able to animate the tracers with the lightsaber swing, and it happened to impress my Visual Design teacher as well.

Currently, I'm working on an assignment where you take one of those Munny figurines and use it as a base template to create a creature that is both unsettlingly horrifying but oddly cute. Here's the moodboard to give a sense of where I'm going with this and we'll see if my final product suits it. Stay tuned!

Munny Moodboard: Where cute meets grotesque.