Working towards my final piece in SL today I imported a texture I created in Photoshop. This I then applied to the logo I've been building that will sit in the middle of the 3D ad. Yay!! I had to figure out where to find special characters in the character palette so I could include the registered trade mark symbol. Hopefully my plan to import a texture with transparency will prove as easy as today's task *crosses fingers*.
Ok ok! So I started building on the Collective Island and some (helpful) fellow student pointed out to me I was building in the wrong place. You can see on the pics in the previous post that I used a part of the island that looks like graph paper which is strictly forbidden. Ooops!
I have now got something that looks like what I am aiming to create (see below). I want my piece to look like a holographic representation of text. However, I also want to perform further transformations on the whole object (which is made up of linked parts). Second Life won't let me do that (as far as I know) so I need to find a way round this. I could either create the object from a single prim (difficult) or import a prim created in another application (eg Maya). Or possibly I will be able to use the inworld scripting to make the transformation I want (unlikely). OMG! What am I gonna do?
Was invited to attend the opening of a new exhibition at Leeds Art Gallery last night. Cult Fiction: Art and Comics is an exploration of the art of the comic book, featuring the work of 16 contemporary artists and 12 leading comics and graphic novel artists.
It was good to see so much painting and sculpture influenced by this underrated art form. Particularly in this country (the UK) I think there is a view, held by both the art establishment and the general public, that comic books are for children. One lady I met at the show told me she always assumed it was "trivial", which is not an uncommon assumption, I think. I pointed out that there was more than one way to express oneself visually and that some artists clearly prefer to illustrate their literature with pictures rather than the written word. If we weren't open to the persuasion of images we wouldn't appreciate oil painting or photography, and that is clearly not the case!
I really liked the sculpture on display, especially the Jon Pylypchuk piece So then we will burn you when you are dead, sketch below:
It's a whimsical interpretation of a gathering of stuffed toys apparently debating how to dispose of their prone friend. See the side bar for a link to more of this artist's work. And a photo of what this one really looks like!
This exhibition is here in Leeds till 11th November with talks by two of the contributors, David Shrigley and Paul Gravett, taking place in that time. Tickets to both are free from the Gallery shop 0113 247 8256.
I'll leave you with a drawing of one more sculpture from the exhibition. Hairy Guy (Ballerina) Liz Craft. As you can see, I thought it was Captain Caveman, a character from a kid's tv cartoon of the eighties. So, through cultural conditioning, we all fall into the trap of thinking comics and cartoons are "for kids"!
