Car Design and Digital Art

Every time a car manufacturer decides to put a new car into production, they make a mock-up of the vehicle in a 3d modeling program or have a digital artist render a model in 2d space. This is a perfect way to get the look right, as it can be easily changed. Even the first prototypes are not that close to the model which is released. I remember Subaru had a very aggressive looking 2d render, and instead they went with the more sedate 2008-2009 model out now. We still don't know why.

Digital Art Discovery

After looking at the gun-book picture, i looked for similar pieces and stumbled on this piece. This is similar to the book piece i talked about before because it has contrasting themes. When you first look at this piece you may see a candle with a blue flame, yet studying it closer reveals it has a water flame... unique.

This one is for Joe

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

BMW ArtCars

Next on the Car/art spree are these BMW Artcars, which are able to make their own exhibition wherever they go. These cars have been painted by some of the most famous artists of all time. The first car was painted by andy Warhol, the famous print artist. Every now and then you see a car driving on the highway with a custom paint job, but nothing quite like these rare European vehicle canvases.

Dirty Car Art

More stumble-upons...
Using the same keyword, art, i have discovered dirty car art. This canvas is the grime left on a vehicle after miles of driving, the artist creates a picture using the negative space created by moving aside the dust left on his car. Many people like to draw small pictures or leave little messages on the back of dirty cars but this takes the concept to a whole new level. This is a interesting combination of some of my favorite things, cars and art.

Linerider Art

Linerider, the online flash game sensation, has been around for a very long time, and people have been publishing epic tracks for the game's character to travel. The idea of the game is to create a course for the sledder to rider, not necessarily create a piece of art. Regardless, many people have made incredibly complex art through this vector-based flash game. I have used this program, and it is not easy to make all those lines...

Following the success of the upper-level digital class, I decided to discover new and creative tags on the net which could be inspiration for my projects. This one was very funny, as it combines two well known figures of American culture and puts a twist on them. This one was very well done, most likely done through photoshop.

The Art Crisis

What is the Art Crisis? I haven't the faintest, but this picture which i found on the web is quite interesting. Perhaps this picture was photoshopped, but it is hard to tell. It just looks too precise to be cut from a think book. It would be an interesting piece to turn books into what they personify, like war and peace into a gun shape? or perhaps a piece sign. A band saw would actually do a pretty good job of cutting a percise line through a book. I can just picture it now.. a series of diet books cut into steaks and desserts.

"cat art"

While searching the internet under the keyword "art I stumbled upon some pretty funny pictures which i would have never guessed would come up. This website, Icanhascheezburger is pretty funny once you find the pictures which do not have the childish speech inserts. It is a fairly clever use of funny cat pictures, however.

Kid Cudi Music Video

I was surfing the YouTube, when I came across this very cool music video. It could very well have been done using photoshop with the same skills we have learned this semester. It is smooth, but could be stop-motion. The overlay techniques are rather simple, but executed very well. The imbed feature on this video was diabled, so i have a link to it instead.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tln5gGCs1cU

Subaru Transmission inspiration

Okay, call me a fanatic, but the Subaru thing just never seems to get dull for me. Today i was reading an article about the new 2010 Subaru Legacy and they had a diagram of the transmission for this car. I literally took a good 20 minutes to stare at this diagram and wonder how the hell these people design something like this. It's a real piece of art. Just the image itself is art, with it's metallic colors and clustered industrial pieces. Even if you know nothing of cars, looking at this image can bring about inspiration.

Senior Art Show

The Foreman Gallery opened the senior art show the week of May 11th to display the final pieces of all the senior art students here at Hartwick College. Spending almost every day down in Anderson, i had to go check out all the pieces for myself. The entries were very thoughtful, ranging from sculptures to photos to digital art pieces, and each had the artist's own touch to them.
The first thing which i saw when entering the gallery were the two digital art pieces being projected onto walls. The first used a projected facing a set of mirrors and the reflection off those mirrors is what appeared on the walls. This was a very creative way to present this piece. There were even several mirror plates to use, so there could be multiple ways to show the designs. This was one of my favorite pieces because it was innovative and interactive.
Together with this piece was the other projection, which featured a two-level projection on a car in a street. It was innovative but only kept my attention for a minute. Next to the digital pieces was a set of very interesting close-up photographs which i enjoyed. The pictures were digital prints of winter scenes where you could really see the intricate patterns of ice on various objects. Very cool.
On the floor beneath these pieces was an interesting mirror piece and a set of paper-related items. The mirror piece used mirrors to view a painting located directly between them. The mirrors had things painted on them which you could align with the painting to dress a woman. This was incredibly innovative but i couldn't get the pieces to match up. The newspaper sculpture and paired photographs were rather drab. I found these to be the most ill-inspired pieces at the show. Perhaps it is my opinion, but compared to the other pieces, this appeared to have the least thought.
All and all the pieces in this Senior Art show were very interesting and rather inspiring. Although i will never take part in a show like this, it makes me think how hard these artists think about their pieces before bringing them to their final stages. It was refreshing how all the pieces were so different, as artists hailed from all concentrations of the field.

My Homepage

As my previous post stated, i have successfully finished my homepage project and all the links work, everything is good. Here is a link to it, its rather random and requires a bit of searching to navigate, especially the mineself project, click everything...

Finishing up the year

Finished my homepage and mineself project this afternoon, thus ending the workload for this semester. For the homepage, i took the design i was looking into for my skateboard design and translated it to the internet as kind of a tester. The design came out well, all in all i liked the scattered tree pattern and random variations with the pine pattern and text. The overall appearance is alternative, yet refined, and still give people interaction as they search for the hidden links. I decided to keep everything simple so it is easy to navigate.

New WRX Exhaust

My New Car

So, i don't know why I do this to myself, but i have been meticulously planning my new vehicle. Theres no way in hell i can afford it right now or in the new few years, but so help me god it'll happen soon. I've been getting myself so psyched up looking at pictures, modifications and prices. The car is the new 2009 Subaru WRX, a real machine. Its $23,000 now, and my fiendish plan is to A) Work my ass of over the summers and put aside large sums of cash B) Work at a Subaru dealership for an attemp at an employee-pricing sort of thing C) Take out a hefty loan after putting roughly 2-4k down. Now i wonder if i could pay off my student loans plus a car... well quite frankly, i need this thing to be satisfied with life. It's literally my dream to own one of these, and they are total badass young man machines, i can't be in one past the age of 30... The patiece required for this is immeasurable. It is featured above with aftermarket 19" Ultraleggeras

Next in Line...

The next chapter in the model car project are the Toyota Supra and Porsche 911. These cars were an atempt to outdo all the other cars to date. The plan behind the Supra was to give it an aftermarket look with a custom fabricated hood, colorful paint and decals. The 911 GT3 was made to just look badass. The color scheme is gloss black body with flat black double stripes, while the interior is laden with yellow accents. See for yourself, these are some good looking plastic models.

Pictures of old model cars

I have been building models cars for about a year now and they have just been getting more complicated, here are the first models to come out of my "garage". The above cars are the two Subaru Imprezas, the first between my brother and I. Again, my brother and I had a buildioff with the muscle cars at the very top. Both the paint jobs were mine however...

After these two projects came the Escalade, which we decided to paint flat black due to its "gangster" nature.

Finished Metroid Project

Going home this weekend for Easter, just ordered 3 new models cars. I plan on making these new additions the crowning achievement of my model-building career. The last entry, a Ford Mustang and Dodge Challenger both had incredible paint jobs. The Mustang in particular had a metallic red body coat which took a base layer of chrome and 4 layers of transparent red. For these new cars, a Porsche Carrera, Ferrari Enzo and Toyota Supra, i plan on specialty paintjobs with some custom graphics with masking techniques. Perhaps for the next series of blog posts, i'll have a few pictures... jeez i feel like a nerd, but gotta get the blog posts coming.

Been into models cars lately. In the last 2 months, i have probably spent over $150 on these damn plastic cars. On the plus side, i have been thoroughly been enjoying the ability to express my car enthusiasm and artistic skill on this peculiar canvas. My home bedroom has become a small museum for my collection of custom built models. Not only are they fun, but a great way to spend time when home (there's not much to do in Vermont).

Albany Car Show

The Albany Auto Show is a yearly event held at the times union center. It was kind of a impulsive idea, but i decided to go this year. It was actually a more than i thought it would be, almost every car manufacturer had a booth here from porche to toyota. Among the endless field of economy cars, some of the most infamous sports cars were present including the Nissan GT-R and the new 370Z. As a vehicle fanatic, i was giddy at the chance to get behind the wheel of a new porche or BMW and was reveling at the new 2009 designs. I always thought i would be happy in a car design career, and this keeps my hopes up a little.

Went home this weekend to snowboard and see a concert and ended up walking through the woods and taking pictures of snowy stuff. There were a few pictures that were rather interesting, including one of a tunnel of conifers. One picture was of a sapling infected with a disease, turning it bright orange. It was like a tree on fire. It seemed so unnatural, almost as if someone went in with photoshop and recolored the treebranches.

Foreman Gallery Opening

The Foreman Galley Opening - February 12, 2009
My first art event for this semester was the opening at Anderson's main gallery. The featured artists covered almost every spectrum of the art world. There were several sculptures, painting and some prints located on the upper level of the gallery.
The sculptures were done by Kiki Ketchman and there were three pieces in the show, one was a collection of hanging oddities, and the other, a interesting piece with metal ferns leaves and flowers arranged on a lattice. Personally i did not relate with the hanging pieces, but the steel greenery was very intruiging as when viewed from inside, it made cool shadow patterns on the ground. This piece showed a lot of detail and was very eye-catching.
The paintings were rather boring, except when viewed closely, wherin you realize they may have been photoshopped to included little details which were quite puzzling. One painting had stautues imposed on rock walls. The photgraphs were well done, but rather uninspiring. At first i thought they were paintings, but in the end they were just photos printed on canvas.
The best part of the show, in my opinion, were the prints. Done by Hee Sook Kim, she had a very oriental approach to printwork and she had a multi-layer design which created very good depth. When looking through the collection, i would definately hang some of those pieces on my walls.
In the end, I did enjoy the pieces displayed at the Gallery Opening and they had those tasty little cracker things which really made the experience. Unfortunately, i was in a hurry to get to another meeting so i did hurry through the opening a little. I could have taken more time to observe the pieces, but i can always go back and check them out.

My award for best visuals goes to this snowboard vid, this is only the teaser. Just check the first scene.

New art line from Ride Snowboards

This is not particularly digital art, but it is a good example of the outlanding urban styling that snowboard companies are utilizing this season.

art...for starters...

So...art...
for starters, most of the art i'm exposed to is around my two favorite things, cars and snowboarding. Cars are more subtle, yet powerful example of defined curves, complicated shapes and other elements. The styling of vehicles has always been interesting to me. Like the new 2008-09 Sti for example, one of my favorites, could be considered ugly or very styling. I could talk for hours about the supple curves and powerful accents on a car and what they tell me, but that's for another time.
Now snowboard clothes are reaching this peak of outlandish styling, it's a very interesting time to be riding, especially when you are hip to the current trends. This year, the loudest color combination have been the most popular. Combining neon green with bright yellow snow pant, or coupling intense patterns or muraled jackets with another clashing pant. Personally, I like to rock a timeless matched look, but with louder colors, which seems to work. I really enjoy the use of patterns in the snowboard world and that influence will likely surface in my pieces this year.