In celebration of the finest and spookiest time of year, I submit a few animations from my old Instagram grid.
Sad/Rotten Pumpkin, GIF Animation 2023
Hand Flame, GIF Animation, 2019
Pink pumpkin/Jack-O-Lantern, GIF Animation, 2020
Yellow Conjuring Hand, GIF Animation 2020
Pink Skull, GIF Animation, 2020
A quick post to say that Adobe’s new Project Neo (now in Beta) is a great tool for anyone wanting to get into 3D/stylized 3D modelling in a way that’s fun, accessible and creative.
I of course had to try illustrating a little ghost to see how the modelling tools could make a quick idea come to life.
Here’s an experiment I’ve titled “Garden Party” using their blend tools and mp4 lighting export.
Removing work from the social mediascape has inspired me to revisit some pieces. Some recently done, some further into the past.
This blog sub-series will be called “Was I Right? Was I Wrong?” or perhaps a better title is New Thoughts, Past Work.
Marge, Lisa, and words to live by.
Today, I’m inspired in part by today’s announcement of the Dragon Quest 3 remake, which has cause me to think once more about my deep fondness of the lowest form of creature from the famed series: The Slime.
DQ1, Slime battle, Nintendo/SNES
Akin to Kirby in that it looks like an afterthought with eyeballs, this creature has been a constant in the Dragon Quest series (formerly, Dragon Warrior on some original releases).
The blue slime is the lowest form of creature, yielding the least gold/most easily battle.
The design is so simple it’s hard to imagine it was anything but an afterthought, though according to the DQ creator Yuji Horii, the inspiration for the Slimes came from an earlier RPG titled Wizardry (c. 1979).
It's counterpart, the metal slime, is its polar opposite. Elusive, evasive, and the most-satisfying-but-difficult kill, these will likely run away before you get your turn to attack.
DQ Metal Slime
I’m not sure why I like it so much, sufficed to say that perhaps it’s a childhood layover in my brain that refuses to depart. Maybe because its ridiculous look is oddly eternal. Many have suggested it looks like a blue poo emoji instead of a drop of water.
The design is so simple it’s hard to imagine it was anything but an afterthought, though according to the DQ creator Yuji Horii, the inspiration for the Slimes came from an earlier RPG titled Wizardry (c. 1979).
According to Wikipedia, Horii said that when it was originally conceived, the Slime was "a pile of goo", but Akira Toriyama's design came back as a tear-drop shape which they considered to be "perfect".
I must say that for my own inspiration - I have to agree. Designing a limited series of merch was mostly for my own personal enjoyment, but also to share my love of this ridiculous creature online.
In conclusion: I was right to do it. 10/10 no regrets.
Happy New Year! This month, I was asked to re-interpret the CBC logo for their arts website. You can read a bit more about the process/myself/what keeps me occupied here:
http://www.cbc.ca/arts/artists-are-giving-our-logo-a-makeover-each-month-and-january-s-is-cool-as-ice-1.4477438
CBC Arts, Logo re-interpretation, 2018
Image for essay: Cuteness is Suspect, originally published in the 1st edition of Ephemera by Kastor and Pollux (edited by Maegan Fidelino)
Cuteness is Suspect
Brief Observations on the Legitimacy of “Cute Space”
Carolyn Tripp
edited by Maegan Fidelino
Kastor & Pollux, 2016
I’m not certain how many times I’ve read that my female and femme-identified colleagues have been questioned as to the veracity of their creations. This is increasingly true in areas of cultural output that involve technical knowledge and execution. Quite naively I have often assumed that it’s an issue with local artistic culture. In the past, my assumptions have been based around my lack of knowledge of the inner workings of other communities worldwide. Perhaps, I thought, attitudes are different towards femme creators in other countries.
But even a perfunctory examination of communities worldwide yields some troubling results. The attitude that a female-identified individual didn’t “actually do that” seems prevalent across anything creative genre that involves tech, and seems profoundly felt with artists at any stage in their career.[1] Artists that possess “cute” qualities can have their work dismissed as silly or lacking in serious artistic vision. My observations are admittedly loose, collected over a period of my own art-making that has hovered in several different genres in the past decade. And while my evidence is anecdotal, it seems prudent that I wonder how other women and femme creators assert their own authorship when confronted with questions of technical knowledge and authenticity.
One particularly egregious example that comes to mind is from Björk. Over her lengthy career as an artist, musician, collaborator, and electronic pioneer, she felt the need to pen a response to the seemingly automatic credit given to a male producer with whom she had worked. Several examples of her reassertions have cropped over the years, and this text is from 2008 in response to Pitchfork repeatedly crediting her male collaborators with regard to production. “i have had this experience many many times that the work i do on the computer gets credited to whatever male was in 10 meter radius during the job.”[2] She went on to concede that, while there may be other reasons for this misunderstanding, there are countless instances in which her technical knowledge or authorship has been underestimated, denied, or otherwise ignored. She went on to write, “people seem to accept that women can sing and play whatever instrument they are seen playing. but they cannot program, arrange, produce, edit or write electronic music.”
This is a troubling assertion that softness, warmth, cuteness, or any other “feminine” traits cannot enter the realm of technical knowledge without disrupting its space.
Introducing an esthetic that acknowledges femme space is essential to achieving balance in an admittedly amorphous sector. Tech itself is difficult to define. What is it that we’re actually talking about? Is it music? AV? Dev? IoT? Gaming? Regardless, these have been traditionally male-occupied spaces. But with the exception of prostitution, midwifery, quilt-making and nursing, almost all professions and practices fall into that category by default. As women continue to create technically complex arrangements and artwork, cute ephemera that often accompanies these projects is at times seen as frivolous and not worthy of being ear-marked as high concept. In an era where women occupy a proportional amount of the workforce, they will subsequently create spaces that assert their own aesthetic principles. While femme creators certainly don’t always bring “cuteness” to their work, I hope that those who do may continue to create according to their own aesthetic principles.
When I include hands in my own work, they are attached to a body that’s attached to a mind that drives them. They are no more or less than any other creator that occupies a similar space. They won’t be diminished for their decoration.
[1] Grimes Talks the Many Faces of the Music Industry’s Sexism in a New Interview, Mic.com https://mic.com/articles/123071/grimes-talks-the-many-faces-of-the-music-industry-s-sexism-in-a-new-interview#.CuMhrEjm6
[2] Original blog post written by Björk or her own site, which has now been altered to reflect her new work. Link to the text can be found on numerous sites including http://feministing.com/2008/08/25/credit_where_credit_is_due_fem