Special Edition: Final Post

For our final exam, we were told to go into the SXU art gallery and post about what was in there, why we enjoyed or did not enjoy the displays, what they were made up of and why they were created. To start off, I walked in and saw all of these drawings. I found them all to be absolutely beautiful and very detailed. The artist is Lindsay Surin and she created all of these portraits using a pencil, or to be more specific, "fine pencil drawing". These portraits are absolutely incredible, you can tell she is passionate about her work by the amount of time and effort she put towards these drawings. I found the top left to be very interesting because it reminds me of a ballerina or a dancer preparing for a show. The expression on her face is very peaceful and you can see in her shorts, t-shirt, and hair the amount of detail that Lindsay went into. On the left hand side there is a photo of what I would like to think is another dancer (next to the large portrait in the top right there is 2 people, I believe these are the two dancers shown above). This large portrait is also drawn by a fine pencil and has incredible detail. You can see the muscles on her arms, legs and back very clearly, proving that the artist is trying to show us this girl is in shape. The other two portraits caught my eye but were not as large and the first two so I felt as if the artist wanted the two large ones to be the main attraction. I did notice they too were drawn with fine pencil. They both give me the feeling of depression/frustration. It seems in the bottom corner the woman is looking out some sort of window, thinking about something and in the furthest one it seems like this person is stressed out or frustrated about something. The artist did an incredible job with these two drawings because she went into such fine detail that her art is literally giving the viewer feelings. I could feel the sense of despair while looking at the far left portrait. 

The drawings shown above are the ones that really caught my eye. On the top right side it seems to me like the two girls are having problems with one another or they are angry with each other. And then on the bottom it seems that they have made up. These too have been drawn with fine pencil and the detail for both girls is incredible. You can tell my their facial expressions and their body language in the top photo that they are not being friendly with one another and the fact that the artist was able to show us that through just her pencil drawing is crazy. The one on the bottom, also drawn with pencil seems like the two of them have either made up or it is just trying to show that these two are friends. I noticed they have different outfits on so I am unsure if they are the same girls, but their hair looks very similar so I made the assumption that they are. Also the detail on the arms look almost identical to the picture above it. This portrait gave me the sense of comfort and forgiveness. Lastly on the left is a portrait drawn with fine pencil. I enjoy this picture again because of the insane detail but also because it gave me a sense of unity. This picture made me feel like the artist was trying to make a statement about coming together as one which I found to be extremely inspiring. The all of her hard work truly shows through the detail she went into for each and every portrait she drew.

These pictures above were located on the left side of the gallery and because Lindsay had left, I was unable to ask if she was the one who created them. I assumed she was simply because she was the only artist present when I first arrived and her card was the only one available. I thought all of these pictures were very interesting but I personally enjoy seeing art work that is literally made by the artist. So I thought that compared to the portraits above, these did not do as much justice. They were very bight and vibrant and made the room light up but they weren't as interesting for me to look at just because I failed to literally SEE the hard work of the artist whereas above, you can tell how hard she worked with each and every stroke. The one on the bottom was my favorite because of the explosion of color and the curiosity of what is lying underneath to give it such a wonderful color. I truly think these pictures are brilliant but as a visitor in the gallery, the fine pencil drawings really caught my eye the most. Overall, the gallery was stunning and I think it consisted of some of the best artwork I have ever seen. The artist showed emotion and detail with every piece and I thought that was brilliant.

Week 14- Publish and Final Steps

To finalize my cards, box and box cover, we needed to upload each card from In Design as a JPEG and upload each front of the card on it's own. To do this, I selected 18 cards because that is how many children's cards I had. I then chose my 18 cards and exported them as JPEGs. Next I uploaded them onto the website one by one and dragged them into each box. Because I have the same back for each card, I only needed to upload this card once. Once I did that my cards were good to go. The front of each one was different and the backs were all the same. I then had to upload each adult card with their backgrounds. To do this I repeated the above steps using 18 cards again. I then uploaded the back of the adult card so that I could differ one from the other. I added both sets of card to my cart and then moved onto my game board. I uploaded my game board onto the website, rearranged it because I wanted everything to be centered and saved this board and added it into my cart. Last but not least I had to upload my game board box. I had some trouble doing this because I had lost my game board box on the desktop for some reason, so I needed Nathan's help to try and get my box transferred as a JPEG so I could upload it and get it sent to SXU. He finally found a way to export my box as a JEPG so we were able to send my order. I then paid for the order and printed my receipt, my box should be arriving the week of finals week.

Week 13- Revisions For Cards

After working on all 36 cards, I had to go through all of them and double check to see if they looked the way I wanted. After going through all of my cards that were created on Adobe Illustrator, I then realized that  I have 18 cards for kids and 18 cards for adults so I need to create a background for the 18 kids cards. I thought that incorporating the leprechaun in some way would be a good background for the kids cards because usually young kids are the ones who believe in leprechauns. I also thought that the black form the pot of gold would create huge contrast making the title really pop out. But before placing the pot of gold and leprechaun into place, I had to decide on a background color. The kids cards really had to differ from the adult cards so I was looking for a single colored background but making it unique.  I decided on making the background for the leprechaun a green gradient design fading into the center. I felt that this really made the leprechaun and pot of gold pop. The leprechaun's green hat is not blending together with the green background due to the gradient and since the middle fades to white, the black stands out even more. I went onto Adobe Illustrator and locked all of the colors/lines that were blocking off he leprechaun and the pot of gold. I then copied the image and exported it as a JPEG into In Design. After placing it into In Design, I then resized the image so that it would fit nicely in the middle of the page. Next I copied the text from the back of the adult cards and pasted it onto the pot o gold. I wanted to be sure the fonts were the same because it would make the game look more professionally put together.  I then went through all of my cards for the final time to make sure that they had no spelling errors and were ready to send out to get printed. Above are examples of all 4 of my card types and the the two backs of each card.

Week 12- Current State of Cards

For my cards, I used indesign to create them. For all of my writing, I had made master pages of 4 separate pages, each with a name. I used the typing tool to do this. For each image I have, I had to open up adobe Illustrator, save each image as a JPEG and upload them onto in design separately. I then decided which image I wanted for each card. I then uploaded them onto the master pages so that it would show up on each page. Next I went into Microsoft Word and created my questions, challenges, and statements keeping in mind that I need to make 18 for children and 18 for adults. I did this to double check my spelling and grammar. Next, I created a text box to paste these into. Lastly, I decided to create the back of the card in a way that shows its an Irish themed game but also makes the name of the game pop, so that is when I decided to create an entire card on Illustrator and create the Irish flag with shamrocks. I then put one large green shamrock on the front and my name of my game inside of that in the same font that I used throughout my cards. I have finished all of my cards but am open to any opinions and recommendations to make them even better!

Week 11- Cards

The objective for this week was to get familiar with In Design and create 4 cards we thought we wanted to make. Because this was my first time working with In Design on my own, I decided not to change any of the things that we worked on in class. I left each card the color I chose in class. We did this by making a box around the entire card and picking the color of our choosing. I chose these colors because they were bright and I knew putting text on them would make them easy to read. We then learned how to export photos from Adobe Illustrator to In Design. I chose my rainbow and my shamrock because both of these represent my game very well. I exported these photos as JPEG and placed them onto my cards. I was unsure as to what I wanted as my image for the CHALLENGE card and WILD CARD, so I did not place anything onto them yet. We were required to put text onto our cards so I came up with some questions. My game has both adult and kid cards so for my first few cards I wanted to mix it up and do 2 adult cards and 2 kids cards. I know I want to change the background colors on most of the cards so that my images will pop and be pleasant to look at. I also need to create some images to place onto my last two cards. I know I want to keep my font for the labels of my cards because I have used this font throughout my whole game. However, I think I may want to adjust the font of the questions/statements that my cards have on them.

Week 10- Final Game Board Box

After hearing what my classmates thought I should improve on and what I should keep the same, I found that my font was the main thing everyone commented on, to make it bigger, bolder, and to match the font that I used in the game. To do this, I used adobe illustrator and deleted all of the current text that I had already used. I then changed my font to Marker Felt, and started typing what I needed to be on there. I then sized it using 42pt font. After doing this, I stretched out the title a bit to make it more noticeable. I then copied the title as it was and pasted it onto every corner of the gambol to make sure each side had the same sizing for the title. Next I started typing the number of players, the age intended, where it was made and who it was made by. to do this I still used marker felt font, but I did not want to use the same sizing because I wanted the title to stick out the most. The next thing my classmates said to do was to make the bottom on my box more interesting. I decided that I was going to incorporate the Irish flag into it but instead of just making the bottom an Irish flag, I wanted to switch it up a bit. I decided to make the flag out of shamrocks because my game is an Irish theme and it would add taste to the box. To do this, I copied the shamrock that I made previously for my title and stretched it out so that it would fit nicely onto the bottom page. I then copied the size I liked and laid them out throughout the whole page. I then changed the color of the 3 middle rows to white and the last 2 rows to orange by using the eyedropper tool. After making each color perfect, I finally had finished my game board and was very happy with the outcome.

Week 9- Critical Analysis of Game Board

After receiving my critique on my game board, there were many things that people said that they liked such as the leprechaun hiding because usually people have to search for leprechauns.The next thing someone commented on was the color scheme; they said that it was working because it contrasted the illustrations so well.  Another thing they said they liked was that there was a pot of gold and a rainbow because usually in typical Irish stories, you have to go to the end of the rainbow to find the pot of gold. They said that it was very tied together but there were a few things that I could work on. The number one thing people commented on was the font- I need to make it more big and bold so that the title stand out more. The next thing that they commented on was making sure that when I do change the font, I make it the same size all around instead of stretching it and moving it like I did in the top left and right hand corners. What I plan to do to fix my game board and make it better is change the font, maybe try and fix up a few of the illustrations, making them bigger or smaller depending on where I want to put the title. Lastly, I am going to edit the bottom of my box and add some illustrations that also tie into my theme so that the entire game fits as a whole.