April Post: Heads-Up Displays

As you might have read in my logs, in search of research and answers, my mentor and I have played a lot of games. While it was lots of fun, the main purpose was to examine the main menus, transitions, and game interfaces. We came across one very interesting user interface in the game Dead Space 3:

We saw that the whole heads-up display (HUD for short) is all on the character himself. The blue bar on the back is health, the meter for a weapon called the stasis charge is shown using the half-circle, and ammo count is displayed holographically on the weapon. This is visually appealing because the HUD isn't distracting, unlike this one from Metroid Prime:

In this HUD, there are many distracting elements that can make it difficult to see what's in front of you. Also with the HUD in Dead Space 3, because the HUD is integrated into the character, there is a smoother transition between gameplay and cutscenes, making for a more immersive experience. This is what helps make Dead Space 3 just a bit more appealing and different than other survival shooters in the market.

March Post: Talent of the Masters Submission

Wow, it's already nearing the end of March? Sooner or later, we'll all be walking up to claim our diplomas, haha. Small talk aside, this post is about my Talent of the Masters submission. Lately, I've been into this anime-style miniseries on Roosterteeth's YouTube channel called "RWBY". I pulled this image from it:

There are four main characters, all of which seem to revolve around their respective colors. I decided to vector it in Adobe Illustrator, similar to the art style used in the episodes.

I had to use a lot of negative space and layers than usual for this one to give it a more flat look.

I cannot express how useful the pen tool is, especially for these kinds of projects. It can create very specific and obscure shapes you normally can't make with other tools.

This is the end product, in ultra-high resolution, since I intend to print it out somewhere. I thought the whole thing was super fun, and I couldn't simply stop at just one:

This character is a reference to Snow White, so in the show, she's literally white as paper, which can be very hard to see at times. I decided to edit her color scheme a bit, replacing white with a very light gray and adding blue highlights.

I'm especially proud of how I did with the gradients on these parts.

Eventually it came out to look like this. I really like the idea of negative space. It's like saying something, without actually saying it. Hopefully this brings in a lot of revenue in the auction ^^

February Post: Gradients

Last week, I was playing around with filters and gradient maps. This can change the colors and overall look of a photo. This is the picture I used:

After adjusting colors and applying a filter, it turns out like so:

Then I added a gradient map:

I wanted to go for that Hope Obama ad campaign look with the gradient map, but I either messed up on the gradient map or I need to find a new picture instead. I'll work on it some more.

Open during construction

Hello everyone, I'm just changing a couple things around with my blog. Nothing serious, I just want it to be aesthetically pleasing. After all, my topic is graphic design, and it would be ironic to have an "ugly" blog, haha

October 11: A Sample of Typography

(photo credit goes to pica-ae of deviantart.com)

In graphic design, words can be just as important as visuals, not so much in the way they're used, but more how they look.If you don't pick a font that matches the visuals, you can end up throwing the whole thing out of balance.

A font should be legible and easy to read (yes, those are two different things), yet creative without being too obscure.

A little something extra

As some of you know, I'm in  the Photo ROP class, and so I decided I'd use my skills outside that class. I have a camera at home, so I decided to take pictures of stuff using what I learned. I think this picture came out okay.

Some of you may have noticed that this picture is my background for my blog now, hehe. Unfortunately, the original file was too big to upload, so I had to make it smaller.

Graphic design involves photography, but people end up altering the photo anyways. I'm gonna play around with this picture a little bit.

Customize and renovate

Hello everyone, I'm just letting you guys know that I'm fixing up my blog. So if it looks kinda ugly, now you know why.

Ever since I've started this project on graphic design, I've had a paradigm shift on aesthetics. It's really opened my eyes to new things.

I'll upload some of my own original artwork to this page too.

-Patrick Montoya

PS: This doesn't count as an actual post for school does it?