Moving on…

While I was pondering the post, I was also considering the type of image that would represent my post. Do I create an image in Adobe Illustrator or Adobe Photoshop? or Do I use Autodesk Maya instead…? Should I take a really creative photograph?

The ability to choose from many skills can be good or bad, but I still value having those options.

I am interested in a lot of things, and I love to learn and apply knowledge learned participating in other endeavors to my art. And just in case the name of the blog did not allude to that, now you know.

I consider myself an artistic person, but I also find myself being drawn to law, engineering, architecture and other professional disciplines.

I love to learn about any and every subject that intrigues me, and I try to understand as much of it as I can. Hence, does that mean I would probably not attain mastery? Does one give up their love for learning lots of things to pursue one topic or skill in its entirety?

What makes it really interesting is, if you spend any time at all browsing the web for job opportunities, you will be inundated with the number of listings that require many skill sets or what I call “cross professional training”. What about languages? Do you give up learning other languages to perfectly understand one?

I certainly understand the need for mastery in some professional disciplines, but does that limit those individuals to that discipline only, or can they be equally good as something else?

What about Polymaths? There was a period in time, when people were considered well educated because they excelled in a wide variety of subjects or fields. There are many examples of individuals who excelled in many subjects, like Leonardo da Vinci, Aristotle, Johann Goethe, Isaac Newton, Galileo, Copernicus, Michelangelo and Francis Bacon; but a more obscure example is Leon Battista Alberti (1404–1472): who said that “a man can do all things if he will.”

I’m not necessarily arguing for one or the other, I personally feel that there are many different kinds of people, with different gifts ( I say gifts because, we’re pretty much given knowledge, we just choose to use (steward) it or not within our allotted time … but, that’s probably another blog post) on this planet, and attempting to say it’s one way or another always leaves me worried.

For  another opinion you can read this interesting take on the subject on Wikipedia.

That said, I hope other people will chime in, and maybe I might learn something new about a different subject.

It’s the Big Game day, and if you live in the United States, I’m pretty sure you know what the big Game refers to. If not, here is an explanation why I am subtly referring to it as the Big Game or the Super Game. I found out that the National Football League (NFL) has some stringent copyright rules regarding using the term SuperBowl term for marketing or advertising (neither of which I am doing ). The National Football League aggressively polices the use of its trademarks, including its trademark in the use of the name “Superbowl”. There is a really good article here titled Brand Name Weenies about the NFL’s policies, and why people should be able to use the term freely.

You might be wondering what ideation and creativity has to do with the superbowl. Well… nothing. Really? Yep! Nothing. At some point in time when I started writing this article, it seemed like a really good idea. But…

Ideation  - (noun \ˌī-dē-ˈā-shən\) is defined as the capacity for or the act of forming or entertaining ideas. It’s the combination of two words – idea and generation. it is the creative process of generating, developing, and communicating new ideas, where an idea is understood as a basic element of thought that can be either visual, concrete, or abstract…

I was trying to think of something interesting to write about today, and the word ideation came to mind. I began to wonder where I had come across the word, and I realized I had read an article the night before on Mashable.com about digital media resources and tips for generating fresh ideas. I found the tips somewhat insightful, but I was most intrigued when I started to ponder what it means to hava an idea, not giving up on that idea, and how that idea really becomes something concrete.

This is where the Big Game fits into the puzzle. I am not really into football, but I imagine, at some point in time, someone had an idea for a game or a sport, and how that sport would be played.  I’m pretty sure a lot of things might have changed from the initial idea, but it is still a widely popular sport today.

I have read, and I will continue to read the many ways to generate ideas, and how those ideas can be applied to whatever endeavor you are trying to accomplish. The point being that sometimes it can be difficult to come up with ideas, and sometimes those ideas might even seem ridiculous, but what you don’t want to do, is give up on the process of getting an idea. There are times when I get stuck on an idea, and I’m worried how others might perceive that idea especially as it relates to creativity and what is viewed as creative.

Here is a Ted Talk that hopefully helps to wrap up this thought on Ideation and creativity…

3D rendered image from using IBL

3D rendered image from Maya using IBL

In anticipation for the new year (2012), I have been wading in ideas for an 3D image, animation or motion piece to close 2011 and start the new year. I had a similar idea for Christmas, which sort of ignited this pursuit, and I was able to finish the piece, but I felt it was lacking something. I will probably put it up sometime in the new year.

At any rate, the image to the left is hopefully going to be part of a motion piece for my new year’s message. I am in the process of finishing up the word pieces for the animation. My only concern (obviously) is if the rendering will be completed before the new year arrives. On a side note, while I was preparing the UV layout for the board in Photoshop, I was getting a little bored and distracted with creating the DW (Double Word), DL (Double Letter) scoring pieces that I created a movie animation and a Gif animation from Photoshop.

I have to admit, switching my frame of thought for just a couple of minutes to create the animated board gif was a project saver. Why? because after creating the gif, I was more energetic towards finishing the 3d component piece. I’m assuming it’s because it has sort of a Christmassy (if that’s a word) feel to it… .

Typically, whenever I work on personal projects, I tend to hit a wall (Get bored) after some time, and the project ends up in (what I call) the Personal Project Graveyard (PPG).

I also learned when adding animated gifs to a post, you can not edit it’s size. You have to import it at full size, or it wont work.

So, hopefully, this project will not become one of those that ends up in the PPG. More to come…

I’m not sure if this might be helpful to anyone, but the PSD file I used is available for download here  Download

**Disclaimer: This project is not endorsed by Hasbro

Image courtesy of GeoEye

When it comes to finding assets for creating image backdrops for 3d animation, or adding 2d elements and animation to imagery, getting the best images will be worth the time invested in searching for them. But, searching with the right keywords, and knowing what your options are, can make finding the right assets a piece of cake.

Enter GeoEye… with so many tutorials here and there focusing on earth zooms, animating sniper scopes, or UI design for games and satellite tracking, it’s imperative to find the best images possible. Obviously, the main focus of this post is satellite imagery, but there are tons of resources for finding other types of images or assets.

I visit the GeoEye site often because I really like the satellite images featured on their website. There are other satellite imagery providers like DigitalGlobe, but in my opinion GeoEye provides a larger, properly classified image library to choose from. So, what if you don’t have to animate a satellite tracking a location, or a game background… you can learn some geography in the process.

Image courtesy of DigitalGlobe

The beauty of it is, you can learn something new about other parts of the world by just browsing these sites, or get some inspiration. An example would be finding out that there is a Ferrari world theme park in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

So go browse today, and you might just learn something new about the world we live in .

Wonderful christmas animation from Elefant Studios AG. This is a truly fun piece, and should provide a good laugh. Everyone needs a good laugh, especially during this time of year. Kudos to the team at Elefant Studios.

I have always liked this identity piece created by Rob Chiu (The ronin) for the 2014 Glasgow 20th Commonwealth Games. It is very evocative of the event, as well as the preparation such events require. Everything about the piece evokes emotion and movement. What really sets the concept apart is the way the last scene’s action is incorporated into the logo reveal.

This is one of those identity pieces that I believe is timeless. You can see the entire piece on Rob Chiu’s site

You should hop over to the Picture Mill website to see all the amazing work they’ve done. They have a huge amount of block buster movies under their belt, including iRobot, Mission Impossible, War of the worlds, The Last Airbender and Fast Five.

It is certainly a site you want to visit often for inspiration.

I was asked to provide 3 design options for a print project for a youth campaign. I came up with these three options, and the top option was picked.

At any rate, if you have a moment, you should listen too…

Anyone from a variety of creative arts, communications, and ministries are invited to attend to be inspired and encouraged at Luminous. There will be artists, communicators, filmmakers, writers, musicians, designers, and many others in attendance; the young, the seasoned, and the aspiring are all welcomed.

For more information, please visit the Luminous Project website…