What I really think of Web Design.

Web Design
I'll be honest with you, when I first heard that I would be doing web design for this course, I was absolutely dreading it. From the moment those words came out of my teachers mouth all those years ago in years 8, I know my world had officially ended and the gates of hell had opened up.

And I had been right to suspect that.

Even though we were using a simple program that you just drag and drop things into a free space, I just couldn't get my head around it, I can telly you, there has never been a more happier time for me in my life, when that topic was done and I could go about my day as if it never existed, ready to never see the green monster in my closet ever again.

Oh, how wrong I was.

I had no idea it would come back to haunt me, 7 years later, about two weeks ago. I truly felt myself weep on the inside when my teacher said those words that would thrust me into the bell of beast, with a nothing but a twig to defend myself with.

But I would not give up, I would beat the Titan in the room even if it took me days of head banging to accomplish it and twenty or so times to call the teacher every time he finally stops talking.

And as expected when I set my eyes on my first bit of coding, it felt like the world was rotating around me once more, like all those years ago, I honestly had no idea what I was looking at. The most i've ever seen of coding was when I accidentally pressed 'Embed' on a Youtube video.

So it was with grim determination that I mentally rolled up my sleeves and stared long and hard at the monster that I was about to face.

The monster called Sublime.

https://realpython.com/blog/python/setting-up-sublime-text-3-for-full-stack-python-development/

And what a monster it was.

I, like many other's, haven grown with the misguided notion that you can teach yourself anything as long as took time out of day, sat down and goggled infomation or tutorials on that particular subject.

So let me tell you this now, goggling Sublime tutorials was one of the worst mistakes I have ever done in my life, I just felt like pulling my hair out and screaming at the screen. "ENGLISH! DO YOU SPEAK IT!?"

How do you input a simple audio? I typed it into the search engine just like everybody else.

Only to find myself looking at the professional coding language from people who clearly don't know how to teach coding to simple beginners.

Maybe looking on Youtube would help me find the light in the darkness?

Nope.

I am 100% certain that it would have worked, if not for the sound socket for the PC, hadn't decided to completely ignore my headphone jack and decided to blast, the sound through it's tiny hole into the very classroom. It is my greatest shame having people find out I'm looking up Youtube tutorial when our teacher just explained to us the exact same thing.

Honestly, I felt like I landed in a foreign country, where everybody could speak the language except for me, I felt like a deer caught in headlights.

But it wasn't all bad.

By some miraculous miracle, which I will truly thank god for, something went through.

I felt like getting up and doing a little jig in the middle of the classroom, when I realised I know how to divide my window, into to HTML and CSS.

From what I could gather, HTML is all the things you want to input into your website, such as video, audio and text, or as I liked to call 'raws', files that have yet to be edited in any way.

CSS is the editing of whatever you inputed into HTML, such as, if you want to taint a picture, scale or even appoint a position of where you want it to be on the website.

And the miracles didn't stop coming, because I suddenly understood, open and closed brackets {}, I didn't understand what on earth a 'class' or any coding terms, because for some reason whenever I hear that word I'm suddenly remembering my happy days playing one of the Dragon Quest gave on my old nintendo.

I felt like an idiot, having the teacher explain it to me over and over again and still having to look at him as if he was from another planet.

The beast just refuses to go down, until somebody, perhaps a knight in shining armour, finally speaks a language that I can understand.

And than we were introduced to a website called Github, from what I can remember the teacher telling the class, what makes the website so special, is that it keeps the old previous version of any file you update, which would have saved me from so many passed mistakes.

I would have been on my knees bowing down to the godly program if not for it's complexity, the very way the teacher explained how to operate the site, was like he was giving us an advance course on rocket science, looking around the room, I found I wasn't the only who thought so too.

Behance took a couple of minutes to get used but Github was like a whole different animal, it was comparing a cat to a lion, it was far superior in certain aspects but if you look closely you would actually see the raging battle from within.

I added Github as my second monster that I had to defeat.

I've always been a very creative type of person, in those seconds were whatever the teacher said, went out through the other ear, I thought how amazing it would be to have my own animated background, in the background of my website.

So I went to work in creating assets in Adobe Photoshop and imputing them layer by layer in AdobeAffects. I made all the layers 3D and than inputed a 3D camera and made it look like they were all inside a 3D space.

I was pretty proud of my accomplishment and thought it would surely impressed my teacher.

That is until the teacher dropped a bomb over my head.

Nothing but .MP4 files work in sublime, I found out too late that .MP4 doesn't exist in Affect effects, all my hard work went down the drain in that moment.

You can imagine how dismayed I was.

I had no choice but to follow the crowd and do what every body else was doing, even though I had my own ideas of what would make me stand out, too bad it didn't work.

However I'm getting too negative and I need to focus on some positives, my experience with Sublime had a shocking effect on me.

I didn't realise it but early this afternoon, when I was writing a new post for my blog, I found myself switching to 'HTML' and managed to input a photo album and goggle maps in the post. I was astounded by this.

It made hope bloom in my heart, I wasn't completely useless on this subject and maybe one day, I could proudly call myself decent because I have to be honest with myself, I know my website isn't the best, I just have to look to my right to find, a web genius, I managed to do the bare minimum to get myself that pass and even that was like walking up a flight or stairs at the age of 100+.   

To be honest, I would have been more happier to see this project end and celebrate with the biggest box of Maryland chicken I can find, but you always have to do what you don't want to do, even as a future animator, I know that many people have skills in web design even though they never thought of doing it as their primary income, however it does came in handy for making some side along cash.

And it looks more impressive on your CV.

Even if it takes me years to accomplish, one day I hope to defeat the beast that has plagued ever since that faithful day in year 8 and say to myself, coding is like air.

Coding is something that would help with your survival however nobody can deny, it's a double edge sword.

Background Information on Island: The Rough Version

Background information about the Island.

I was assigned a task to research an island that I would transform into a flag that would be propaganda for the island, persuading people to visit.

My first thought was to look through the book that I was assigned to, I wondered if the main setting for this book was on an island, I looked up 'Cannas' and found out 'Cannas' is not in fact an island but in fact a part of 'Monaco', it's neighbours are France, Swaziland and Italy, they are all  for one thing or another especially their sunny climate.

However since Cannes is not an island, I looked for the nearest island to the right and found an island called 'Îles de Lérins', it's French and I'm pretty sure most people in the world have never heard of this island before.
This island temperature is similar to that of a tropical beach and I thought it was perfectly the themes of the story which is more and the human physic and crime activity, over a delusional mind.

...

As you can see from this series of images it's quiet a tropical place, since this island is located around Cannes, it's safe to assume, the island currency is the euro.

Transportation:
It seems the only way to get to the island is by boat from canne's, there is not even a little landing pad for a helicopter to land, the only way people get around is either by walking or cycling.

Here is a video from somebody who actually want to the island, it's not to look at but you get the jist that it is a beautiful place.

 

It's a shame if the video doesn't show up in the browser, well it's a very beautiful place and it's very unlikely to water around the island freeze when winter comes.

Elements in my book

Dark thinking.

Psychology.

Christianity.

the soul being free from the body.

Delusional thinking based of, of facts and figures.

Unhealthy obsession.

Military training.

The Detachment from the real world, calling people 'victims' and 'a message'.

The Super class.

Cheating.

Actresses.

Cheesy pickup lands.

The trap called a house wife.

Preservation.

Desperation.

All this point to a very dark conclusion, my island may very well turn into a prison instead of a paradise, I might end up persuading one government to send their prisoners to the island.

I've decided to make my island, a  prison island, so I researched a couple of prisons all around the world.

Devils Island.

The name says it all, it can either be a place of treasure or a former prison.

Here some facts about the island.

Among the various penal colonies that were formed in over the last few centuries,Devil's Island in French Guiana represents one of the most notorious ones. Located on the small islands 7 miles of the coast of this South American country, this prison was home to many French worst criminals, political and military prisoners. Stories about this infamous prison became public at the start of the 20th century, and after around 100 years of activity it was finally closed in 1946.

Devil's Island was formed on small 34.6 acres islands by the government of theEmperor Napoleon III in 1852, and soon it became home for the worst criminals and repeat offenders of French nation. In addition to three small islands where penal colony was located, it also had a small prison facility on mainland. Although officially this penal colony carried the name "Bagne de Cayenne" (Cayenne penal colony, named by the capitol city of French Guiana), its prisoners soon coined the name "Devil's Island". This name was perfectly created to reflect the situation in which prisoners found themselves on this island. Between horrible conditions and sickness, it is calculated that great majority of 80 thousand prisoners that served there never left the island and died there.

Only two years after prison was formed, French government brought in a new law that forced the prisoners to remain in French Guiana after their sentence was served. They were awarded with land, with the size and location of their land depending of severity of their crime. After 1885 population of this penal colony received great population increase after French government introduced another low that enabled sending prisoners with repeated small offences to this penal colony.

http://www.prisonhistory.net/famous-prisons/devils-island/

What it is like on Devil island.

50 years after the last shackled convict returned to France, Devil's Island has become a macabre tourist attraction. Boats make regular trips and helicopters fly over the crumbling cell blocks, where vines and creepers seek to purge the island of its hideous past.

But this is just a facade. When the tourists have gone after the guide, and you stand on the wooden jetty that once echoed to the shuffle of shackled feet, it's not difficult to imagine the men in shapeless uniforms who died here. Their ghosts are everywhere in the crumbling ruins. On Royal the air of colonial France still lingers in the governor's house, the church, the hospital and admin blocks. Although time and foliage have softened their imposing features, the main prison blocks where 2,000 convicts were once imprisoned remain an eyesore. Clad in shapeless red and white striped pajama pants, the prisoners shuffled from the workplaces to the cell-blocks, thin-lipped and hollow-eyed, shadows of men who had long given up hope of escape or freedom.
http://sabotagetimes.com/travel/return-to-devils-island-the-toughest-penal-colony-of-all-time

The only way to get to and from the island is either by boat or helicopter.

Alcatraz island

By the late 1850s, the U.S. Army had begun holding military prisoners at Alcatraz. Isolated from the mainland by the cold, strong waters of San Francisco Bay, the island was deemed an ideal location for a prison. It was assumed no Alcatraz inmate could attempt to escape by swimming and survive.

DOING TIME AS A FEDERAL PRISON: 1934-63
In 1933, the Army relinquished Alcatraz to the U.S. Justice Department, which wanted a federal prison that could house a criminal population too difficult or dangerous to be handled by other U.S. penitentiaries. Following construction to make the existing complex at Alcatraz more secure, the maximum-security facility officially opened on July 1, 1934. The first warden, James A. Johnston (1874-1954), hired approximately one guard for every three prisoners. Each prisoner had his own cell.

The Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) viewed Alcatraz as “the prison system’s prison,” a place where the most disruptive inmates could be sent to live under sparse conditions with few privileges in order to learn how to follow rules (at which point, they could be transferred to other federal prisons to complete their sentences). According to the BOP, Alcatraz typically held some 260 to 275 prisoners, which represented less than 1 percent of the entire federal inmate population.
http://www.history.com/topics/alcatraz

I've now decided that I would do this assignment visually because I found out, I work much better and faster when I draw.

Well, I just realised that the quality of these photographs aren't very good so I just have to describe it for you. So basically my first ever page for this project was thinking about the shape of my island, would I leave it as one massive lump or have it split into four separate islands, I got this from a Youtuber who was playing a video game, it was set on a tropical island that had four other islands similar to it around it but they were closed off from one another.

It got me thinking, why not make a wall that separated the man from the women? I didn't want any children being born on the island so I decided that maybe there was a wall there, but it was protected, it would have metal bars and spikes, it would be electrified and be made out of rock hard steel, since this is supposed to be a prison island.

My next picture looks like this.

This image was what I decided to legalise on the island, since it would be run by criminals, I would allow them seeds to plant for drugs, however only two plants are allowed to grow due to the fact that they can be used for pain killers when in the right hands.

My next image was more exploring the idea of what if guards we on the island to keep order.

This is are the drawing I drew if there was indeed guards on the islands and the kind of uniform they would be wearing, I took inspiration from all those googled images of Prison Guards I found on the net, the male uniform was taken from the tread that seemed to happen when it comes to male prison guards from the images I took, there was not one, skinny guard amongst them and tended to be a lot more boned.

My next picture is idea's I thought up of what things would look like on my idea.

This picture is a lot more clearer, the design I had where designed that remembered from my previous years, the bucket came from the Bucket I modelled in Blender 3D last year for Game development, the bottle, I remembered doing that for a project in secondary school, while the shop front actually came from project I did in my old college, the picture beside the bucket was taken from outside, looking through the window.

I always have this fascination with old buildings, they always have a certain texture that interests me, it's like you could see the history just from looking at one brick, and that fascination has manifested itself when I draw.

I draw buildings much better than I draw buildings, I have a more accurate understanding of what their supposed to look like and how to make them look interesting from a different prospective.

My next page was about really me deciding the name of my Island since I'm trying to persuade other's country's to send their most dangerous criminals to me and a rough sketch of a Propaganda poster.

I haven't decided on the name yet however what you probably don't notice is that at the bottom I started to draw that stick man again, out of habit but this time, I started to get the feel of an animated cycle, before I did a successful little role and I haven't stopped thinking about how he would move ever since, even though this is off topic.

I even had a day dream of my stick man being animated and put into a 3D environment and how I would go about making that three environment and having him interact with it all.

My last picture is even less of a good quality, but the jist of it is that, to transport the prisoners to the island they would be pushed out of a plane, my first idea was to transport them by boat but than that would provide them with a means to escape so I looked for another solution and came up with it.

The plane would never touch the island floor so there would be no possibility that the plane would be hijacked and all the prisoners on board would be heavily sedated so they would have enough function to get themselves to land safely but no were nearly enough to plan a successful Hi-jacking.   

Research

<iframe src='https://onedrive.live.com/embed?cid=09C9345B1B753E20&resid=9C9345B1B753E20%21215&authkey=AFyKx_ljfZ3086k&em=2&wdStartOn=1' width='476px' height='288px' frameborder='0'>This is an embedded <a target='_blank' href='https://office.com'>Microsoft Office</a> document, powered by <a target='_blank' href='https://office.com/webapps'>Office Online</a>.</iframe>

This code is supposed to be the link to my Research work but if not than here is a Hyperlink.

https://onedrive.live.com/edit.aspx?cid=09c9345b1b753e20&page=view&resid=9C9345B1B753E20!215&parId=9C9345B1B753E20!103&app=Word&wacqt=mru

My New Obsession.


I don't know why but I've been obsessed with this little guy for two weeks now, to the point I started to think of doing an Amazing World of Gumboil like animation with him in it. I suppose, this all started way back when I was doing my sketches for quotes in the book that I was assigned, and since than it has become my new obsession that I can't seem to stop, nor do I want it too stop. I find it fun doing this, I especially like thinking of ways to add more character to this little guy.

I have no doubt that on Wednesday I will find myself drawing him once more and building moe layers to this character and I can't wait.

Update: 27/11/2016

It was actually a week before I started to draw my stick man again but this time, I tried to add more detail in him, tried to develop him and make him look a lot less like a stick man, I started to think about my stick man's facial expressions. I watched a little bit of the 2016 Ben 10 and found a lot of interesting facial expressions that inspired me, along with a little bit of old Loony Toons and some of a little bit of Tom and Jerry, the amazing world of Gumball also helped also.

My inspirations
I am personally a big fan of Time Burtens Frankenweenie art style, because it's so dark, it reminds me of the night before christmas, it really fits in with my style of drawings so I attempted to try and replicate this into one single drawing that I created.

I found it was surprisingly fun, making the eyes look so dark and lifeless, it was like my character hadn't slept in days and is straying to pass it off as going goth or something. When I think more about my character's personality, it's like he comes to life but I have yet to start changing him and truly making him my own.

But I didn't, before I know it, I started a whole different drawing, I wanted it try to do something interesting, something out of the ordinary for me, I wanted to shy away from Tim Burtons kind of art style and do something more unique and this is what I came up with.

Without me realising it, I started to take on a more 'jacqueline wilson' art style. I remember the time when I was absolutely obsessed with those books, I was one of those people who waited on pins and needles for the next story to come out because of easily I can escape to the world of the page, I could stick my noise in there for days with little or no rest and still want more.

But than I found the Diary of a Wimpy kid and everything became a blur after that.

It was nice to see that kind of art being brought back years later, even if it was unconsciously.

However I know I could do better than this, I know that I could continue to try to make my own unique style that was unique to me.

So I started to draw another image.


This was really an experiment, out of habit I started to draw a boy but than I thought to my self isn't it time to stop trying to draw the hardest gender and focus more on the girls? So I began to transform my drawing into what you see here, I'm still trying to make myself fair to both genders, I personally admit that I draw way too many boys and nowhere near, nearly enough girls.

Life style Drawings.

This drawing was of a women who was using a stick to support her weight, since I've have had previous experience with Life style drawings and I watch a lot of how to draw video's and own several drawings books I found myself getting in the habit of drawing lots of circles and trying to form a human body around those circles.

These drawings were the start of many quick drawings that I had to do, the form of a skeleton was drawn because I was told to copy a reference booklet and try to match my drawing as much as I can in the time I was given. The other drawing was that of a women with her arms stretched out, as you can see their are faint circles forming the figure.

This drawing was a women crunching down, the portions are off especially where the head is concerned but I started to get the shape of the back and was about to try my hand on the head when I was told time was up.

This is of a women who is semi-crouching down, as you can tell I started too far to the left and as a result I could only get the bottom half of the women in before time was up for me.

This is of the same woman pointing her toes, as you can see I have managed to capture the form of the woman despite the unfinished piece.

This is the same woman kneeling down, facing her back towards me, as I draw the top half of her body, I'm getting increasingly good at capturing her form.

This image was different for me, it was the introduction of heads, I've never really understood what heads were until just recently and I tried my best to compact my drawing to seven heads and because I had more time, I could start shading and look at each detail on the women's body. Whenever I draw, I like to be as precise as possible about the details, wither it's on the skin or simply a fold in the fabric.

I was never really good at drawing somebody sitting down on the chair, I think it's because of prospective, I've recently realised the importance of lines when doing a prospective shot, not only is body position much natural looking but my drawings doesn't turn out so square looking like this one.

This drawing was made in a one minute, free draw. My teacher, could not imagine how happy I was when I was told that, I personally love drawing my own character and have begun to develop my own style, however I realised a long time ago that I unless I'm going to be animator in Japan, I'm going to need to start shying away from my bases of drawings, that is manga and start doing something more westen based instead.

However old habits die hard, it seems.

In this lesson, we were looking at Metaphors and how it shapes our understanding when it comes to processing things.

For example the famous phrase, 'It's raining cats and dogs' is an example of Metaphors. It's not really raining cats and dogs but my mind automatically, gets the picture that it raining outside. Another good example would be ' It will brighten up your smile', everyone knows that a smile isn't anything like a light bulb something you can just switch out if it's bright enough for you but people automatically picture how much better a person face will be if they smiled. Another phrase that people like to see say is 'She's hot', that person isn't really hot in a literal sense but the word 'Hot' somehow tells your brain that, that person is attractive to look at.

After we got to grips with what a Metaphor is, we were than tasked to find quotes from our chosen book with a metaphors embedded in that one quote. My story, 'The Winner Stands Alone' by 'Paulo Coelho', is about a man who's current at the top of the success leader, he's got everything you ever wanted however he can't have what he truly wanted, and that is the women that left him for another man.

I used this site to locate good quotes from the book that chose.
https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/5424205-o-vencedor-est-s?page=3

Once I chose a quote that I know had a Metaphors in it, I than tried to portray it in a single illustration, I got some really interesting results.
The first illustration that I draw, which is at the top of the paper, was about what to do once you've clawed your way to the top, it really spoke to me because that point is usually the most critical point in most people lives, become it so easy to suddenly forget about the people who got you in there in the first place, about the people who opened the doors for you when nobody else did and believed that you could make it.

So I thought, why not a mountain and show a person struggled to the very top, to symbolise the struggle in life to get to the very top. The clouds in the sky are filled with people who have either made the same journey or were born with power and wealth, are now trying to help him up now.

But instead of taking that hand, my drawing shows the person running back to the very people who were there for him when he needed them the most, instead of going looking down on them because of the now lower status they had.

The illustration at the bottom was inspired by the two words 'Addition and Enslavement', I thought instantly why not have a person chained up? Even though the best thing to do in that situation is try to get those chains off, instead my person wants to put more chains on even though he knows he shouldn't, it's addiction. Those words sparked a memory in me. I was watching a T.V. show, it was displaying the houses of the rich and famous, and I remembered thinking how I wanted to own such a house and didn't really think what people had to go through just to get the money to afford a house like that. I was just so focused on the rosy picture in front of me, instead of the thorns hidden underneath.


This Illusion was inspired by the famous words, 'if you truly love something, set it free', when I thought about how I would portray this, I instantly thought about what if I start with a bird trying to flap it wings to fly? Than I started to draw a hand underneath it, it was than that I realised that I had subconsciously curly the hand, instead of flat, the hand was curled and positioned in such a way that it gave of a feel of care show and protectiveness towards the bird who is trying to fly but at the same time, it's not stopping the bird from flying off.



























This illustration was inspired by the worlds 'When a Person dies, something in the Universe dies' and I thought, how would I portray this? Well I started with a grave stone to show death, than I came to the hardest part, how to go about showing the effect on the universe from someone dying? It took me some time to think but the simplest way I could think of was to show a planet exploding, I googled a lot of planets exploding for inspiration, and how I got the person standing before a grave, I original planned to do the whole quote but in the end I thought it wasn't necessary but it does add a nice touch and provides more impact to the illustration.
Here is the link to the reference Image I used.
http://www.wall321.com/thumbnails/detail/20121112/outer%20space%20stars%20explosions%20planets%20dual%20screen%20destruction%20cosmos%20dust%20destroyed%204096x1536%20wall_www.wall321.com_30.jpg
 This illustration was inspired by the quote 'I am my own best friend and my own worst enemy', surprisingly enough, this came to me quite naturally, the quote took me back to a certain imagine I had seen years back. I was always interested the whole 'Angel and Devil' concept and thought it fit the words perfectly. I managed to fit the actual image that I used inspiration for this.

This quote was more truer for the character that was portrayed in Deviant portrait since he's always shifting between light and darkness.

Here is the link.

http://www.deviantart.com/art/In-Between-278000539

Now this illustration was interesting to do, the quote said 'There's always a way of allowing happiness in, but for that to happen, both partners have to acknowledge that something was wrong'. At first, I thought of having two people in the middle of a crossroad, each going different ways, one way would lead to happiness, the other one would lead to the way home, but I thought, What had that got to do with letting happiness in? So I changed that, and thought what if Happiness was a person? Than the idea developed from there. On the top scene Happiness is clearly trying to get in but the couple are fighting inside. The next scene Happiness is driven off by the same couple that were fighting seconds before.

I showed them standing so close together to give the impression that they are united, despite the huge fight they had seconds before, it's like the fight never happened, I could have done another illusion of them going back to the fighting after Happiness had long gone but I only thought about it just now.

This is the last illustration I did, in the quote, Paulo Coelho calls the people who are looking for Power 'Eternal Slave', this really spoke to me, I decided to do an illustration on that one word. I came up with a person journeying along a road however as you can see, that person is actually chained to the actual floor. The next half of the drawing is the same person by much further down the line, they are still chained. I now realise it might have been more effective if the other half of the drawing displayed the person's gravestone, still chained to the road to show that even in death, they are still chained.

This whole cycle was inspired by an image I came across years back, it showed spring and Autumn, as two sides of the same coin, it really looked interesting to look at,  and it just stood out for me, who know it would have thought it would aid me years down the line?

This image was created by close reading my chosen book 'The Winner Stands Alone' by Paulo Coelho. This image came about when I learnt of lives of what the author calls the 'Super Class'. It's pretty hectic and extremely repetitive but everyone is in a rush.

The next image came about when the first page was merely about the description of a gun which immediately sent alarm bells in my mind. The next page confirmed what I suspected about the main character and how he's not quiet sane despite being on top.

   The last picture came out because I read about people lottering around waiting for the rich and the extremely famous. The cigarrate was there because the place smelt like smoke and ash.

Dear Future me:

(Making a label- Go to 'Post settings' in post and put in all my teachers names in and press 'Done')

(Making Links for each teacher- Keep the Preview website open and open Blogger in another tab, than click on first post and scroll down to 'Layout', than go to 'Layout' once more, than go to 'Cross Column'. A box will pop up, than go to 'Pages' and this will pop up.

 

Click on 'Eternal Links' and copy and paste the web address for each tag from the preview tab and rename each one of them and pressed save. Do this for each one of them before saving it.)