HVC: A Late Holidays Update

Small Art Trials & International Travel

It's been both a relaxed month class wise and vacation wise as my girlfriend and I only had one class to manage during December building up to our Tokyo trip on the 17th. I can't say enough how thankful I am to the fate of Full Sail scheduling really. HVC or The History of Visual Communications was an interesting bundle of art styles that we explored and discussed. Anything ranging from comic books, advertisements, music, and trading cards we learned the benefit and some techniques to effectively visually communicating to an audience by seeing how other artists have done so in the past.

Since we lost our fourth week of class due to holiday scheduling we had three mandatory assignments, one of them being a choice between creating propaganda or a playing card that represents you. We were able to utilize any medium for each project as long as we created around the theme of assignment. Since I was still in the mental and working state of Portfolio 4 I decided to model a small scene for the nature project.

The Nature Project

This worked out perfectly since we had to study Eastern ideals of nature like Daoism and Buddhism and I was heavily anticipating my Japan trip. I started out with a deeper interest in the idea of Kintsugi or fixing broken ceramics with gold. Instead of just putting a clay bowl back together it is perceived better to emphasize the imperfections with the shimmer of gold. Here's the artstation post for the scene if you want to see more.

Main Shot

Incense Bowl / Kintsugi Tea Cup

Geta Sandals / Stairs

Wooden Traditional Lantern

Card Project

The card project was strange but I still embraced it as simple as it was. Based on astrological signs and a bunch of other factors. Mine summarized to the pursuit of exploring the world and more, financially well, the need to find enlightenment, and the want to balance it all as both a career as a whole and balance myself. The card being the 2 of Diamonds. All of this was drawn in photoshop aside from two pieces of black and white clip art of the diamond and the hand to save time. 

Card Front - 2 of Diamonds

To Pimp a Butterfly: Reimagined

I've been a large fan of Kendrick Lamar & T.D.E for about 5 years now. I'm glad that this final project allowed me to express my favorite song or in this case album. Everything was composited a redo of the album cover of Kendrick Lamar's Grammy nominated album To Pimp a Butterfly. Most everything I’ve done as an artist has been literal representations of things, everything else has seemed difficult for me to grasp as changing the art style in any way. This album remains to be my favorite concept rap album since it came out. While I would have loved to dive into one individual song. All the tracks remain incredibly well versed, entertaining, beat, tone, and everything in between. 

This album explores concepts of being outside the city of Compton, seeing people within his community, and others affected by police brutality. All while including the want to unify gangs as people to teach people to respect each other as individuals and not to look at them as an enemy because they represent different colors. All while remaining humble and exposing his true character on tracks like “U” and “The Blacker the Berry” where he talks about giving into sacrilegious tendencies as well as his battle with suicide.

This album follows with a poem that connects all the tracks thematically and to unify the overall concept and message of the struggle he faces on wanting to influences Compton communities for the better without violence to raise awareness. I decided to rewrite the poem in order to scan it and composite it properly in on the wings of the butterfly. As this is one of the main grasps of the album. As well as explore the violence between gangs which is what encompasses most of the color on the composition for that reason.

I was reassured by my peer to post this on twitter and try to gain some attention from Top Dawg Entertainment. I am extremely thankful to have family that pushed me to do art, brief moments of recognition feel good but they feel even better when they are from people who inspire you. To everyone at Top Dawg Entertainment and to every artist not just a rapper who keeps everything progressive around them thank you!

This was the perfect class to send my girlfriend and I off to Japan. Just competent enough to keep me on my toes and practice outside my comfort zone while keeping me rooted in what I'm interested in. I look forward to bringing you all more updates on my next classes this new year Portfolio 5 & Game Animation 2.

To look at my entire portfolio or get in contact with me here are just a few ways:

Artstation

Twitter

LinkedIn

Happy New Year everyone!