Second Life Avatars - I'm going to miss this class.

This is my normal second life avatar and this is how I would imagine myself looking if I was reincarnated as a video game character. I tried my best to put him in clothes and give him accessories that best describe who I am as a person, or at least one in one of my favorite elements. A large part of my life is music and concerts. I love all kinds of music from rock to indie, hip hop to r&b, to country and melodic death metal. I think that with this avatar I was able to dress him the way I would dress on any normal day as well as give him a guitar that looks similar to my own.

My fantasy avatar is a mixture of different characters or species from the movie and universe of Star Wars. Since I was a young lad, Star Wars has always been an important part of my life and a huge part of my personality. So with my fantasy avatar I decided to make myself a Jawa-Mandalorian Jedi. He has the body and clothing of a Jawa, a helmet of a Mandalorian and dual dual-sided lightsabers of a Jedi. I tried to be as creative as possible in mixing the species of the Star Wars universe and I'm proud of the final result.

Project 6: 3D

Single Object

Collage

When this project was first assigned, I had no idea what I wanted to do as far as an object, let alone a collage of objects. I always strive to create art with meaning, with love, and with true ideas that I value, but there aren't many objects that I hold close to me... or so I thought. At the beginning I had the idea to model my keys. I figured, "It'll be easy enough I can do it quick, and I'll knock it out in a few hours."So I began on my project, but as I was modeling each individual piece, each edge, each face, a deeper meaning behind them started to emerge. Each object, or key means something extremely deep to me and this project helped me find a true sense of connection to an everyday object, or set of objects that I hold everyday. The small silver key means a lot to me because it's the key to my house. But not only does it open the door to my home, but it also opens a door into my relationship with my best friend, my girlfriend. This is our first apartment together and we've been blessed to make it a home. She means the world to me, and this key is another step towards growing closer together as boyfriend/girlfriend, but also as best friends. The black key in the middle and the car door remote above it are grouped together because this is is my first car. I've had a car in the past, but it was given to me, just so I had something to drive. With that car, I traded it in to get a 06 Honda Element and I believe it to be my first car because I'm responsible for it. It's in my name, I pay for it, and I have an incredible sense of pride for it. It was my dream car as a child and I made it happen as an adult. Finally is my Phi Delta Theta keychain. This means a lot to me because it makes me feel as if I'm apart of more than just myself. I'm a college student, a fraternity brother, a boyfriend, a best friend, a son, and an adult. These are all things that this keychain reminds me of when I look at it because I entered my fraternity in my first semester in college as all of these things were changing around me. I may not be as close with my fraternity as I once was. But they, along with my girlfriend and my parents all taught me how to be a better man. I may not have understood what these things meant to me before this assignment, but now I hold my keys with pride and understanding.

Digital Nation Response Quetions

1. During the film, it shows asian educators are taking many different precautions to teach students online etiquette, what ideas do you have to teach younger American students online responsibility?

2. The film portrays online relationships to be stronger than face to face relationships using outlets such as Second Life and World of Warcraft, do you feel its possible for these relationships to truly be as strong or stronger than personal face to face relationships? why or why not?

Project 4

This project was inspired by Oliver Herring's Nathan. I had a lot of fun being silly with this one. Thank you to my girlfriend/pro videographer behind the camera. This was definitely one of my favorite projects I've ever done.

Reading Questions 2

1. On page 2, it is said that in the 1950s "over 85% of American households owned at least one television by the end of the decade."This caused different cases of acceptance and rejection throughout society and pushed the boundaries of the American culture. Compare and contrast the way mainstream television and video technology has changed society from the 40's to the 50's and into the 2000's.

2. On page 7, the reading states that "Many of the visual strategies in video of the ‘80s were based on post-production technology, such as multiple camera inputs, fades and wipes, slow motion, collage effects, scrolling text, and animation." Explain how some of these strategies are still used today. Use specific examples.

Project 2 Animation

With this project, I used CS6 to create a new piece using my last project that can be looked at as somewhat comical. I tried to bring things in together, but at the same time, select specific aspects of the piece to isolate and move about the piece. I ran into a few different problems when exporting the project and I learned that I truly dislike the process of animation within photoshop. The creation of this project was tedious, but its my first touch of animation and I'm truly proud of it.

Triptych Project

With this piece, I really wanted to capture the essence of myself within 3 panels. I used Photoshop CS 6 to make a montage of different images from my life that essentially make me who I am. In no order, I tried to make the different images come together as one to create eye-catching, chaotic, yet beautiful pieces. I selected the different images because they come from favorite bands, skateboarders, paintballers, snowboarders, movies, and technology.