Alright, so after days of brainstorming and hours of work, it's finally done, and all in all, I rather enjoyed it. It was a unique challenge coming up with little scenes to try and explain my point, and even more fun to set them up. The biggest obstacle was definitely the brainstorming portion. So much of the topic I chose is abstract ideas that are better explained with words accompanying them, if not with words entirely. But again, it was more of a fun challenge, and the only truly frustrating part was some of the execution. For example, for the photo depicting the traditional damsel in distress, I wanted to do a picture-in-picture of Arcee on the screen of a monitor being looked at by Hot Rod. However, GIMP was not co-operating with me and I had to scrap that version of the idea. Also, for the shot where Arcee is squaring off with my cat, it took forever before my cat would stay still enough for a photo.
If there's anything I would have done differently, it would have been more prep time. I would have fooled around in GIMP more, written down more ideas for scenes, and just overall do more ahead of time.
As for the personal function, well, for one, it helped me think more about the issue, and the paper portion especially let me vent a lot of my frustrations with the tropes I talk about. And, of course, it gave me an excuse to play with my toys.
If there's anything I want other people to take away from this, it's that what I'm asking for is not hard, by any stretch of the imagination, and if you feel the same way that I do about this, it's not out of line in any way to ask for change or even try and make change with your own art. And also, that toys are fun.
Hey, Michael.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad that you chose such a particular, such a focused topic--it really functioned to add a good amount of clarity to the images! I'm also glad that you so fully engaged yourself with the project--I can really feel your investment via the paper and Flickr stream. The comedic overtones work well, too. Nice job, Michael!