Brewed to Perfection

This post has been percolating for at least two weeks for your enjoyment; since I keep having to revise it again and again because so many art projects became due all at once. First the fun stuff: somehow I came across this link to a 87 minute documentary on hulu called Chasing Ghosts: Beyond The Arcade. Though not the best documentary, it did explain to me a lot about Twin Galaxies, Walter Day's desire to keep track of arcade high scores, and a good portion of where are they now for the guys who had the top scores.

Through the interviews you get a sense of what the arcade culture was like and their perspective on how and why it died so abruptly (Home gaming surpassing the arcade as well as rougher clientele showing up to  arcades). It's still difficult to imagine what arcades were like having missed that entire period of video gaming history but virtue of having been born in the 90s, but it sounds awesome.

While not "researching" games I have been camping out in the studio working on a few things and completing things at a rate that feels way too slow at times.

CAD class at least is quite fun and I completed the first project a while ago, which is this sweet wind up robot. I thought I was on to something different with my color scheme, but alas looking around the Internet there is at least one retro tin wind up robot with the same green, red, and yellow. At least the design is different, toy makers and sci-fi filmmakers didn't base too many robots on an egg shape (Robbie the Robot comes closest).

Next is ceramics, which is still not a favorite medium of mine. The left is a coil built vessel with red and black slip with sgrafitto in it, post improvements. My snake pot came out of the raku firing well (middle picture) but it didn't clean up as well as I would have liked (right picture) the snake was supposed to be a blue-green, but I guess I didn't slap on enough layers of glaze. At least it looks kinda ancient? Anyway on to Metalsmithing...

Where my angle raised vessel is almost the shape I want it so I can start worrying about building the base and ordering some super special awesome materials for it. I got a good start on the catenoid, though I get the feeling I'm doing it wrong, judging by the interesting blisters I some how gave my self hammering it and the charming surface cracks it developed. It's now a gamble as to how complete this will be by the due date since I have been focusing most of my time on jewelry.

I have the chain together and I just got the clasp soldered together last night. Tonight I have to round up some two part epoxy in order to add my last minute decorative doodads to the clasp. The cheese grater holes inside Pac-man's mouth will have a rats nest of colorful wires glued in; left over from when I dismantled three Genesis controllers to make a little model chair for intro to 3D Design. The big copper loop will get a cut in it so I can string on wooden Parcheesi pieces, spaced out by brass tubing, which will also conveniently cover the break in the wire.

Now provided I don't get distracted by attempting to beat lousy and unusual games in the the Pac-man franchise or by such paltry thing as sleep or dinner I should be able to finally finish this necklace and get on to designing the VR glasses.

My Bowl is Buoyant

Bam! There, now this post isn't a lie! My bowl for metal smithing is indeed an appropriate vessel for sailing through the calm blue pickle. Truth is, I haven't got any really interesting in progress pictures (they bore even me) so let's discuss the next project. It's eye wear, and boy do I have ideas! First, some back story:

Yes back before the Xbox and Kinect even existed the Sega Genesis had a motion controller called the Sega Activator in about 1993 or there abouts. This got me thinking about how games were always meant to be immersive; exemplified the most with the virtual reality craze of the 90s and video games awkward transition into 3D. Case in point YouTube's side bar helpfully had this video about a Sega Master System add on called the Sega Scope 3D:

I'd never heard about it because no one in America ever cared about the Master System, no matter how good it was technology wise. This commercial is closer to what I want to do with the eye wear project  but I can't discuss the details with out first covering the most infamous of all misguided virtual reality 3D gaming devices, the Virtual Boy. 

No I don't have any damned clue if you were supposed to strap it to your head or not. But, I have heard many stories of headaches from staring too long into the device's red LED display, and the noise and weight of it couldn't have been much help either. It apparently did produce some sort of 3D effect using the concept of parallax motion though it never took off and is kind of a forgotten "console" in between the SNES and the N64. It only ever had 22 games released and was taken off the market mere months later. 

The idea of going through all sorts of trouble to experience an altered game like and flashy new reality only to have it turn out to suck and have not been worth the cost (both to your wallet and your dignity) will be the basis of my project. I'm planning on having a pair of glasses that alter your perception of the world and sure they will look all cool and glitzy, until you realize that do little more than sunglasses. And oh yes sunglasses WILL be involved...

Totally Tumblr!

I have a Tumblr account mostly because a friend of mine discovered the site about a year ago. I'll spare the world and not link to mine, since its is mostly regurgitation of stuff already on there and very little original content (one of my few posts was linking to this small play through of an indie roguelike shooting game thing that I still haven't had a chance to play though you can download it free here.) But, if you find the right blogs to follow on Tumblr you can find some cool art and inspiration for your own work like:

These awesome rings by Sarah Hood who's website is here. She appears to do a lot of work with organic forms and I like the simple and clean layout of her site. Plus, I'm also a sucker for the cool use of the railroad modelling landscape bits. I always see the little model trees at A.C. Moore's or Hobby Lobby and want them so so so bad, especially the orange trees, but have no idea what I would actually make with them. On the subject of railroad modeling here's a video that I found and am shamelessly stealing from a Cracked article:

Beyond impressive for a medium, for lack of a better term, that has always been considered a kid's plaything. Apparently I am highly amused by miniature things, which I suppose is a benefit in jewelry making! As for more inspirational materials pertaining to my theme of Fun and Games (possibly just Games now) I haven't wandered across anything else yet, so it seems appropriate to cap this off with a quote from the Art Student Owl describing my current frustrations: 

Things are a Groovin'

Its been two weeks into the semester, and a lot has been happening, even though I haven't been able to get into the studio as much as I want to (curse you swipe card)! and the quickest way to show off is through pictures so here we go!

Metalsmithing: worked up a couple pipe cleaner models for the nested vessel project. I am leaning toward the one on the left, and hope I can use 16 gauge blue aluminium wire to weave between  the copper spokes of the base. It's going to take a hell of a lot of wire though and I'm not sure I have the patience or the funds. (Also I cannot get this paragraph to justify to the left for some reason, perhaps it needs to express its individuality?)

Jewelry: Making endless jump rings at home since the lock on the studio isn't active. I was able to get in one day though and start cutting out Pac-man links as well as learn how to fuse some jump rings! I'm only halfway regretting using absurdly thick metal for Pac-man, but at least the links will have more dimension to them?

Ceramics: Yep its a pinch pot with a snake looping around it. For this project I had to create a zoomorphic tripod vessel and this was the only good idea I could come up with. On the right is the slapped together maquette for the final. The final itself actually does stand on its own, though I do wish I could go back and re-seat the pinch pot at a more rakish angle but the piece is now dry and ready for crit on Tuesday. 

CAD Class: In a move that I feel is somehow ironic, I'm the farthest ahead on things in my Rhino CAD class. Thus far we've been learning the interface and what tools do what by going through the basic tutorials. Hence the castle for moving and stacking solids, the flashlight for Boolean unions and differences (and an extra bit on lighting) and I got ahead on the duck, which is about manipulating the standard solid shapes into something more organic and a few other details. Now we are going to start an actual "real" project by building a toy. So far my only plan is to build a wind up toy, but it should be fun!

Something like this one though more complex than a sphere. Speaking of toys I've found some fun little quasi-inspirational things on the internet, which will be shared next time when I pretend this blog is on Tumblr.