An Introduction to: D-SLR Photography

For those of you who don't know, D-SLR stands for "Digital - Single Lens Reflex". I find the Wikipedia description quite adequate enough to describe its differences from a normal digital camera -

" A D-SLR is a digital camera that uses a mechanical mirror system and pentraprism to direct light from the lens to an optical viewfinder at the back of the camera."

In layman's terms, simply because I don't quite get all the inner workings of a D-SLR itself, personally I'd describe it is a high resolution digital camera with more options like setting the lens aperture and shutter speed, as well as usually viewing your subject through an optical viewfinder instead of an LCD one. This also allows it to have real time changes made without and lag time at all, unlike some digital cameras on the market. But enough with all the technical info.

I've obtained a D-SLR camera from my dad, who had just gotten a new one and decided that I could have his old one. Although I can't take video with the D-SLR he gave me, it allows me to take professional level photographs already. Below are a couple experiments of pictures as I played around with the D-SLR on my free time.

An Introduction to: zBrush - Creature Concept

Recently, I've been experimenting with zBrush, a 3D modelling program, but it has a whole different spin to it. Unlike other 3D programs, it's interface allows the user to "sculpt" their creations out, using a set of zSpheres and then making a polymesh from it. Below, I was practicing sculpting out my creature concept.

Here you can see a zSphere primitive, where the entire creature is created out of connecting spheres.Next, I exported it to get a 3D poly mesh, which is where I ended up:

But not learning how to fully use a program before you actually start playing around with it does have its problems. It turns out the moment I exit the "Edit" mode on zBrush, it automtically converts what 3D model which took me 2 hours to make into a simple image file. I was stumped. I couldn't believe my bad luck. But at least I know have a single very nice render which you can see above. Hopefully, next time I'll do better, eh?

Yearbook Graduates Template

I've been quite busy the last couple of weeks bogged down with not only projects, but a Yearbook.

You see, two friends of mine, Andi and Vivian, decided to collaborate to make a Yearbook for the two Gifted Grade 8 classes only. Now, the few problems with making yearbooks are the designs, and the costs. The costs we've gotten a rough estimate already, because we were supposedly going to print out all of our sheets today, but no one was finished their own jobs. Anyways, the designing portion was fun at least, and here I'll show you what steps I took to reach the end result.

I started off with a small sketch in my sketchbook, shown above here. It essentially summed up the gist of what I wanted to do, so I went straight ahead and made a rough draft, but only this time, on the computer.

Now that didn't look the most appealing to me, but it was my first template, so I stuck with it for a while. Then, after obtaining our graduating photos from my French teacher, who is helping us, I started to make my Graduates Pages Template a whole lot better.

And there you have it, that's the end result. I won't put all the text in yet, lest it spoil the yearbook for you. They're only 5 dollars each, and ask Vivian if you want a copy!

Creature Concept Details

Skeletal Structure

Organ Systems

Muscalature

Now I'm not sure if I'm putting a bit too much detail on to my creature, but I've designed my creature from bone up in order to have it be completely biologically sound. Each of the three drawing I have made can be layered one ontop of the other in order to create the entire biological structure of my creature.

Creature Concept

A recent assignment in my art class involved fantasy creatures. As per usual, my teacher went straight into cartoon-styled creatures, a drawing style I never really liked. Instead, I enjoyed creating realistic creatures, each with an evolutionary background and history. They were all biologically possible and plausible, and this was not the first time I've decided to create an entire virtual alien ecosystem. But this time, I started off with a single creature only, and here it is:

That there is a pencil sketch of my creature design. I'll follow this up with more pictures and designs. Hope you enjoy it!

Innovation Project

For a recent history project, my teacher assigned us a project to improve people's lives in the time frame of 1890 - 1910. We could do this in the form of an invention, whether it be a technological invention, or inventing a new law or social system. I chose to do a technological invention, this being solving the fires that happened on steamships such as the Mackinaw in 1890.

Here is a brief diagram of my invention.

Warning: If you do not want to read through my following brief technical explanation, this post ends here.

The steam engine now does not only supply power for the transport system but help as a fire retardant device. Its pistons will power a pump at the bottom of the ship, diverting water to a main water tank. This in turn distributes water to a pump system which permeates throughout the ship, leading the water to essential hotspots, such as on the deck, near the crew quarters, and by the steam engine itself.

Marketing Campaign

My teacher had given my group and I an assignment 2 weeks before, an assignment where we need to think of a marketing campaign for a selected product and then create actual advertisements for it. Each member of my group had to choose a specific form of media for our ads, and I chose a magazine ad. The other thing about the whole marketing campaign was that we also had to calculate the prices associated with said ads. I found out a full-page magazine ad costs around $300,000. Given that I was planning on running this ad for 2 months, for magazines that have an issue once a month, I would put it in both of the magazines, but for magazines who have issues every week, I would only keep it in for four weeks. Here is my ad below:

After tinkering around with my ad for a bit, I realized that without anything else, the Photoshop icon and the wisps surrounding it would look really cool by itself, so I came up with this as well:

Perhaps Adobe will thank me for my ads. Who knows?