Comic Con 2013

I'm a sucker for NYCC, so it's no surprise that I went again this year. This time around however, I decided to step it up a notch and make my entire costume from a pattern! I also went with my lovely partner in crime, Sarah. 

Clearly, my cosplay was pretty simple (I made a bow and a dress) but it was a really good learning curve for me since it have virtually no experience in dress sewing whatsoever. So I took the dive, bought some fabric, a pattern and went to work.

 

I'm cosplaying as Kiki, from Kiki's Delivery Service by Miyazaki.

I think I did a pretty good job, and I'm really happy with how it turned out. You know that you have a good cosplay when it takes you half an hour to move from one side of the show floor to the other side. 

Skull Girl

Okay! Where do I begin?

My initial idea with this started with me wanted to move on to working with different types of canvases. I chose wood as my medium of choice.

I had a road bump in the middle of working with this once my sketch was finalized; I didn't know what to do with it next. I let it sit for a couple of weeks and fortunately, ideas flowed right back into my thought process. 

I'm sort of in a "teal period" right now. Kind of like Picasso's blue period, cept I'm not Picasso and I'm not living in Europe. 

Underlying this piece has a lot of symbolic meaning because it's based off the lyrics of a song called "Lovelier Girl" by Beach House. 

I'm really happy with how this piece is progressing. I wonder what I'll end up doing next.

The Whitney Museum

Last Friday, I went to the Whitney Museum instead of attending Homecoming. I'm pretty glad I skipped out - while I did miss some fun with friends, I gained a plethora if influence instead. 

I originally went for the Edward Hopper exhibition that was going on, but found myself engorged with much more than I had gambled for. I fell in love with Robert Indiana's work as well. What I find really endearing about his work is the sheer size of his paintings. If it was on a smaller scale, I think I would just pass it off as something pretty but since all of the pieces in his exhibition were huge, I was really captivated. I am also just a Pop Art enthusiast and a sucker for clean, straight, bold designs. 

Anyway, back to Hopper. I liked his paintings, but I enjoyed his watercolors and charcoal sketches far more. He really was more of a designer than he was a painter. His defined, confident strides on the paper really show through in many of his works- I mistakes a lot of the steer colors for being lithographs or prints! 

Overall, this was a very succesful library hual for my brain. 

"Why Would You Eat That?"

Next to music and death, food is the largest way through which people connect with each other. It gives insight into a culture's traditions and history. This is one of the largest reasons why food is so important to me, and why it's so completely personal. Food is the equivalent of total trust; it passes from the exterior into the interior- your body. Every culture is unique within itself and this theory applies to food as well. I believe that no food is disgusting enough to not at least try once and judging it before trying it is unacceptable. 

I came across this video web series called "Tasted" and it's about well, food. This particular video that I've linked is one of their sub-series, "Why Would You Eat That?" and showing is an episode about Shirako, or more crudely put, fish semen. Check it out:

Dorming In A "Mini-Village"

http://bigthink.com/ideafeed/instead-of-a-dorm-room-how-about-a-tiny-wooden-house

I think this is so interesting because over this past summer, I dormed at one of Pratt's campus housing sites and I basically felt like I was living in a prison. The room was small, the walls were concrete blocks, and the shared bathroom was completely made of metal. It was cold and unpleasant. But it did give me the whole "hipster-living-conditions" feel that made me feel strangely cool. Whatever that means.

I would love nothing more to go to college and live in a wonderfully designed dorm, such as the ones they're trying to build in Sweden. I would also just love to live in Sweden. And I mean c'mon- you get your own kitchen, bathroom, sleeping space and patio- all for half the price of a regular dorming situation! How can you go wrong?

Marketing Groundwork

http://www.palantir.com/what-we-believe/
- The pictures that link the different parts of the website are very abstract. I feel like that's quite an important aspect in terms of design and ideas- for example, if you're trying to represent "open software", don't use something that will literally represent software (like Apple or Windows). Palantir's choice in using a photo of planes flying across a vast sky is wonderful.

http://www.behance.net/gallery/Google-Visual-Assets-Guidelines-Part-2/9084309
- I LOVE the way that Google has the whole design reduction policy and the use of crisp colors. Nothing dull or any shadows with gradients. Gradients have become something of the "past" to me. Defined colors are the design of the future. The whole geometric pattern they have going on is also very attention grabbing for me.

http://www.palantir.com/engineering-culture/
- Geez....I'm blown away by the design of this section of the website. Simply flawless. I don't even know what to say; everything about this particular page is amazing. The yellow hover bios that pop up when you scroll over the pictures are super. Sweet and short to the point while giving you a little insight on the individual. It tells you the person's name and a form of social networking that can be used to contact them (Twitter). The interchangeable usage of sans serif / serif typeface is so smart and legible.

http://www.directorsnotes.com/2010/11/14/sound-it-out-adventures-in-crowd-funding/

"It’s planning the PR, marketing and outreach before the film is even made. We’ve tried to reach out to all the different groups of people who may be interested in our film, so we’ve really tried to cast the net far and wide. "

This is pretty good- take tips on people who have done it and what has gone wrong and what to keep in mind.

Kodak Moments

I think I have a new found love for Kodak disposable cameras. It's like a Kinder Surprise. You never know what you're going to get since you can't see the photo that you just took, which to me is the best part. I bought one during my time at Pratt and I recently just got the photos developed, and I'm in love with how the photos came up. It's funny because my mom saw them and she commented on how crappy the quality of the photos were- I guess she's not in the loop with taking "artsy-fartsy-vintage-esque" photos. Here's a couple: