Week 11: VR sketch of ideas for

Week 15: Completed Final Project

Week 10: VR City The Devil and God

For this week's assignment, we needed to add 3 "built structures" to the existing city. One that it needed, one that it needed (ironically) and a house for ourselves.

I built a subway/elevated train system that the city needed because there are no vehicles.

I also built a mountain, that houses God and the Devil.

I built my house inside the mountain in a cave. God sits on top of my house.

Week 9: Garden video VR

Craft:
This is a video made in Adobe Premiere Pro of the Garden scene I created using the HTC VIVE VR kit. It took about 5 hours to make, and consists mostly of the first panel of brushes, with a few light and fire elements.

Concept:
The concept of my garden was to make a stormy sea port, with a pier crossing the sea to a giant rock outcrop sticking out of the water. One can travel all the way up to the top on the spiraling staircase that skirts the perimeter of the tower, to find an assortment of plants and a large tree. Part way up, a small wooden platform reveals a crack in the wall, where you can climb through to the interior of the rock. A wooden porch with torches reveals a look out through a hole in the rock, to the gardens of my peers in the distance. If you look up, the ceiling of the cave interior is covered in light emitting webbing, and a giant spider is nearby. If you zoom up into the webbing, you can see the bodies of dying fairies, used by the spider to illuminate it's home.

Composition:
I designed the garden using primarily the first panel of brushes, but for the fire and webbing I used light and fire brushes. The audio was recorded by me, walking in the leaves on a windy day. The leaf crackles sound like fire crackling in a way, and seemed to pair well with the video of torches.

Week 8: Drawing plants with labels

Week 7: Collecting pictures of unusual plants for VR lab.

This week's assignment is to collect images of plants for use in our VR lab gardens.

Cow's udder

Dragonblood tree

Californian Pitcher Plant

Abutilon striatum

Chinese Paper Lantern

Chinese Flower Lantern

Week 6: Group cityscape and design of Sculptris Spirit Animal

For this week's assignment, we were to design a Spirit Animal that would encapsulate our personality and create it in Sculptris, a new program that acts like a ball of clay.

Group cityscape and Spirit Animals

Craft:

Created the headphone beast "Beobeast" in Sculptris. Had way too many polygons the first time around and it crashed the printer. Revamped the clumped up polygons with the inflate and smooth tools and reprinted. Took 36 hours.

Concept:

I live with music as a constant, and I love headphones more than any other technology. The idea of my spirit animal being a pair of headphones with tendrils that reach in and embed in my brain seemed like a really appropriate spirit animal for me.

Composition:

The final print was successful with quite a bit of scaffolding. 

Headphone "Beo Beast" design in Sculptris

Back view of the "Beo Beast"

Week 5: Tinkercad City scape.

The assignment for our first week of 3D printing was a city block, with the options of rural, residential, industrial, recreational, urban and commercial. I chose rural, and decided to go with a rural design on a multilevel ground surface in a mountainous area.

Tinkercad design.

Craft: 
Printed on the Makerbot Plus 2 after designing in Tinkercad. I used a combination of standard shapes and combined cylinders to build up the land and create the mountains.

Concept:
The geometric mountains have an otherworldly look, but I feel that the scale of the barn and corn rows fit the standard established by the roads.

Composition:
The print ended up taking about 5.5 hours to print, and needed only minor cleanup. The tabs fit with the other pieces perfectly.

Rear view of the mountains.

Barn side view.

Week 2: Cube via Laser

For this project, we were given the assignment of creating a perfect, 3" cube using the laser cutter and 1/8" thick baltic birch plywood. Professor Peck focused on creating tabs that would not extend beyond the framework, and would fit perfectly.

Cube, painted with acrylic and oil paint.

Cube design in Illustrator

Craft:
The cube is designed in Adobe Illustrator and laser cut out of 1/8" Baltic Birch. The tabs were 1" across, and the cube's sides needed to be 2.75" to its main edges, which would make the full cube 3".

Concept & Composition:
I designed the cube to have a 1.75" hole in the center, and painted the finished product with pink acrylic and blue oil paint.

Week 4: Laser cut award

Laser cut trophy - Baltic Birch, wood glue.

COMPOSITION:
The vector design for my trophy executed well, with no adjustments needed to the design. I used Baltic Birch 1/8" plywood, and glued/clamped the pieces together. It stands easily on its own without tipping over.

CRAFT:
The design consists of vector (the laser cuts) and raster (the laser etches) elements, and took nearly 30 minutes to complete on the laser bed. No fires happened, even with the intricate etching of the buildings and skyline. The typefaces, Reliq and Spring, reproduced well at their respective sizes. I will be coating the piece in lacquer, to give it a finished, glossy look.

CONCEPT:
I will photograph the final version and frame a nice printout for Dr. Battalora. Diana will receive the award, and I hope to get a photo of both Dr. Battalora and Ms. Khattab for them to keep.
I'm really happy with the way the design turned out, specifically the city of Chicago etching. I've received positive feedback regarding that element specifically.

Laser cut trophy (back) - Baltic Birch, wood glue.

Week 3: Create an award for a person on campus, celebrating a quality you value.

The award itself will be made with Birch wood (yellow area) and Walnut (red area)

CONCEPT:
Last year, I did a portrait of Dr. Battalora, a professor here at SXU, for my drawing class.
She is a phenomenal professor of race and gender, and has since become a friend and mentor.

I want to honor her by naming the "trophy/award" in this week's assignment after her. Since she is a champion for community matters, I decided to create a "Unity Award" for students that excel in contributions to their community.

Last year, while creating a poster supporting the wearing of headscarves, I met Diana Khattab. As president of the Muslim Student Association on campus, Diana was friendly and honest with me regarding her thoughts on my piece. While her input, and the input of her team at the MSA was invaluable in completing my work, it was her attitude, and leadership that really stood out to me. Her group was cooperative, excited, open and dedicated, and it was clear that they followed her lead.

I want to create a trophy/award for Diana to thank her for her leadership skills and honor both her and Dr. Battalora for their continued efforts in creating a healthy and diverse environment here at SXU.

COMPOSITION:
To create the design for my trophy, I used Adobe Illustrator CC, creating the shapes and using the shape builder tool to knock out unwanted areas. In the red area above, I took a photo of Chicago and utilized the image trace tool to create a vector outline. I set the type and the skyline to a thicker line than the cutouts so that the laser would treat those as raster, and simply etch them rather than cut all the way through.

CRAFT:
I was able to arrange the shapes on the artboard in such a way that I was able to get all of them on one 24"x12" sheet of Baltic Birch.

Week 1: Ideas for 3d printer, VR lab and laser.

This week's assignment was to drum up some ideas, based on examples given in class, of projects we might want to complete using the laser cutter, VR lab and 3D printer.

I came up with several sketches of the VR lab, as I am intrigued by the range of perspectives your viewer can have. In the case of the Chicago style hotdog, I've contemplated having scenes from the city imprinted on the hot dog shapes, but in the case of early simplicity, I've created a scene in which the viewer can walk around inside and throughout the ingredients in a typical Chicago dog.

In the car scene, I am playing with the idea that you can't see the road when distracted, by texts, Facebook, etc, and the viewer can stand where the driver sits to observe this, or they can walk around the piece to witness what the driver isn't seeing.

When it came to the 3D printer, I thought of my favorite Chicago building, the Monadnock, and my desire to somehow reproduce it in a smaller form. It is an architectural treasure, and I love the inset and outset pieces to it. (Not to mention that it's brown, my favorite color.)

I also considered making a 3D printed case for digital camera working pieces. By doing so, I could harvest the parts from another camera and make my own case. Maybe something ergonomic for kids to hold... not sure.

Back to VR. I love a sketch I did last year of a guy caught in a shitstorm, and the negative space that would be left on the wall behind him. Even if I went with vibrant colors, like a paint explosion, I think that it would be an interesting study in space, regarding how the viewer is able to change their perspective, walking around the character.

Lastly, I experimented with a more impactful way to use space in VR, by transporting the viewer to the scene of a tragedy, like a train wreck, ground zero of 9/11, or the fire that swept through a Syrian refugee camp in July of this year. Viewers could walk around in the scene, literally putting themselves in someone else's shoes.

VR Hotdog sculpture, iconic Chicago

3D Sculpture of the Monadnock building

VR environment - Syrian refugee camp that burned July 2, 2017

3D digital camera shell / printed or laser

Anti Texting PSA - Auto cabin with distractions blocking view of the road. Viewer can walk in and around it.

VR Shitstorm - model of person blasted with paint.

Introduction

My name is James.

I am studying studio art at Saint Xavier University.

Some things to know about me:
• Art is, and always has been, very important to me.
• I love music and collect vinyl. I'm really into Bang & Olufsen turntables.
• I am married to a really smart/cool wife, and we made two completely insane little boys.

Over the years I've worked in graphic design. First in newspapers, then in private agencies, and I now serve as an art director for Trade Show Executive magazine.
While the field of graphic design can be very commercial, I have been able to keep my art very personal to me. In my non-work life, I've collaborated with friends, completed several commissioned works, and amassed stacks of drawings that pile up in my closet.

My current passion is learning new techniques and experiencing art in different mediums.

The following portfolio is an essential collection of my work, and like all living things, it's always growing.


Enjoy.

Oh! I nearly forgot. If you'd like, head over to my instagram account. My photo work is fun, stupid, beautiful and authentic. I think you'll like it. www.instagram.com/theraceofpablo