Author: Nicholas Xavier Bailey

Final Blog Post

Hey. This is final the last chapter of this class. I may not have known everyone very well, but it’s been a pleasure being here.

Alrighty then. Let’s get down to the last hoorah!

Coming into this class, I didn’t know that it would be this much fun. As stated in my previous posts, this is the first class I’ve ever taken that allows us to use memes in our assignments. The creative freedom Professor gave us is truly unparalleled.

 
Here are all the blog posts I made this semester:
 
 
 
As in terms of grades, I don’t think I deserve a good grade this semester. Blog posts aside, I haven’t really attended class as I wanted to and should’ve. Being that attendance is a part of our grade, an considering I don’t have every blog post done, I don’t expect a high grade by any stretch of the imagination. The highest I can see myself getting would be a B, but that’s being extremely generous.
 
 
I really enjoyed the opportunity to build our own website/domain. The first time I was given a chance to make my own website was way back in middle school. It was pretty much infomercial of old videos games. Now, I’m here building my own portfolio website. It’s truly incredible how life comes full circle.
 
Speaking of which, here is portfolio website: NoonMoonToons. Since it takes time for me to learn new software, the website isn’t the best as it should be right now. But this is a good steppingstone.
 
 
 
There’s not much to see as of now. Most of the action is on the projects page. That’s where I have all my drawings.
 
 
 
I also have my merch store attached in the “Store” page. It’s a print-on-demand website where I make the graphic design and the workers behind the site produce the product.
 

 

 
This is just the beginning. I plan on fledging out this website in the future to make it even more visually appealing.
 
This really is it. I can’t believe it’s actually the end. I hope everyone has a good one and we’ll see each other on graduation day. No, I’m not crying. Someone is chopping onions.
 

Assignment #9: Customizing Website PT I

The time has come to start customizing my website. The journey begins!

So far, it’s been challenging trying to figure out the direction I want for this website. In class we already posted a blog post on the website and played around with tools such as the widgets, plugins, and themes.
Honestly, even though we’ve had professor walk through some of the tools, after class, I was completely lost. I tend to get severely overwhelmed when learning new software. It’s like my brain completely shuts down.
To start off simple, I changed the default theme of “Twenty Twenty-One” to “Sydney.” To add, I really like the number of free options that’s offered to customize a unique website. Just changing the theme, alone, has spruced up my website. I even made an introductory message on he homepage.
Take a looksie.
I also swapped and changed some of the page links. I switched some of the default links to titles like “Projects” and “Store.” The projects page is to present my art to view and the store page is a link to my merch store.
These changes are just the beginning of making this website. I try to add more things to spruce up this puppy. Definitely good humble beginnings.

Assignment #7: Domain Name Ideas

For this week’s assignment, we’re supposed to come up with domain names for our website. This part isn’t as challenging b/c I have brainstormed a few ideas prior to enrolling in this class

Some names in my back pocket were:
NoonMoonArtworks
NoonMoonArt
ArtofNoon
NoonMoonDraws
NoonMoonProjects
I know what you’re thinking, pretty much every name has “NoonMoon” in it. Yeah, real original…
The reason for the use of slightly altered names is because I already have an instagram and YouTube channel with the name of “noon_moon_draws.” I want to keep the same name relative to those medias so sustain familiarity with my brands.
As you can tell, my focus of my website will be centered around art. I have a few ideas on where I want to take. I’ve considered artistic themes such as “History of Animation ” or just art. But now I think I want to make this website a type of portfolio for my credentials.
I’m happy to start my own website, but my only fear would be a security breach occurring. In the internet age, there’s been a rampant problem of websites and other outlets’ personal info getting stolen by criminals. I only have a fear that I may fall victim to this ongoing problem.
Hopefully the security on WordPress is good to prevent hackers from stealing personal information.

Assignment #6: Midterm Recap Post

It’s midterm week and it’s time to reflect on how this semester is going. Being honest, I don’t think I’ve been doing great, mostly because my attendance hasn’t been the best due to my job and family issues. Doing the blog posts have been a blast but can see my attendance becoming a hinderance towards my grade.

 

I’ve learned quite a number of skills while taking this course. So far, I’ve finally learned how to use Giphy and Imgur. I appreciate even more how skillful it is to make effective memes and to use them to form a coherent story.

I can see myself improving after every blog post. At first, I would become overwhelmed on what and how I should post. Additionally, I was too concerned with under/over explaining my blog posts. Now, I think I found healthy middle ground of the text/gifs ratio.

At this point in time, I am only missing Assignment #5. Here are the hyperlinks to my other blog posts in numbered order:

Assignment #1: Internet Happiness

Assignment #2: My Reaction Gifs

Assignment #3: MEMES & ME

Assignment #4: DS106

A huge stumbling block is that I haven’t been taking the time to comment on others’ posts. I’ll be honest, there’s times where I forget to check back and completely neglect checking what others posted. Or my participation is on the low side mostly because of my bad attendance this semester.

 

Assignment #4: DS106

After browsing through the DS106 Assignment Repository, I finally decided on 2 projects that I want to try my hands on.

The projects I’ve chosen are “City Graphic Poster” by Emma Cate Neves and “Create A Silly Movie Poster” by Richard Barnes. Both projects struck my interest in tackling a unique spin on Graphic Design.
“City Graphic Poster” by Emma Cate Neves
“Create A Silly Movie Poster” by Richard Barnes
Out of the 2 projects, I’m gonna work on the city poster. Looking at the movie poster project, it feels like something that I can do due to the simplicity of it. It seems like you can simply Photoshop random elements to a famous movie poster. While with the city poster, I feel challenged to push my creativity at a professional level.
For the “City Graphic Poster Assignment,” the goal is to take an existing photograph of any kind of infrastructure and turn it into a whimsical poster by the use of your creative edits.
This is the original picture I used.
And here’s the finish product:
Here’s how I did it!
I first got a pic I took, myself. It’s from my Photo II class last semester. I sifted through a bunch of photos until I reached one, I wanted to work on. Instead if using Photoshop, I used ClipStudioPaint, instead. It works just as good! I first started by importing the original photo.
I then used the lasso tool as much as I on the sky b/c that was my focus. I wanted to make a dream-like world where the sky was more of a pinkish purple than a regular blue. After lassoing the parts I needed, I made a layer above the image and set the layer to Add (Glow) I also applied this technique to the water.
My next obstacle was the choppy edges, due to the wheat. I wasn’t going to lasso all around the wheat, because it would take me too much time. So I then decided to add fog to play into the dream-like world. I made another layer above everything, used white and the airbrush, and set the layer to Vivid light to cover up the hard edges. I also applied it to the buildings to soften the edges due to bright light.
I almost forgot that this needed to be a poster, so I used the rectangle selection tool to crop out which section I wanted to use as the poster.
Next, made another layer above everything, used the Calbri font and typed out NEW YORK to the size and color I wanted. I then used the magic want tool to make a selection. I lastly used the airbrush tool to lightly erase the lettering to my liking. And that’s how we got to the final product.
I hope you like it!
In the end, I like ho this turned out. I am not used to doing re-touch work at all. My forte is more on the character illustration side. However, doing this assignment made me realize how much more I’m capable of when I put my mind to it.
I should definitely be doing more of these types of projects. It’s important for me to expand repertoire in my craft. It wasn’t really a difficult process because I am very used to using the tools in ClipStudioPaint/Photoshop. It’s more so I’ not used to using the tools in the way I did for this assignment. This experience will help me break out of that shell to do more of these projects!

Assignment #3: MEMES & ME

Are le Memes art? I would definitely say that they are!

It’s been a long debate on the internet, but memes are definitely a form of art. Memes are good for art because they are another form of storytelling. They are created by existing media and is transformative to communicate a message. This is the core of storytelling. These web sources agree that memes are art.

Memes: is it art? – The Courier Online

Social Media Creativity: can Memes be considered Art? (nouse.co.uk)

But despite that, others will vehemently disagree.

If memes are just simply a form of self-expression, then that in of itself constitutes art. Why would there be a separation of the definition just because you may or may not like it? Trying to discredit memes seems like gatekeeping art to suite your own preferences
Here are some of my favorite memes. This could be applied here similar to the cat gif I just used. It’s of a super nerd that is supposed to represent a pompous, know-it-all that misspells the word “actually” as “ackchyually.” This is used to poke fun of a person that tries to play the contrarian to an embarrassing degree. This meme is both hilarious and appropriate for this situation.
Another would be the recently popular “surprised Pikachu” meme. This is used to express complete shock in any situation, kinda like this one here.
Here is a link to the first pokemon opening. It gives you a feel on what the show is all about. It’s the most iconic thing in the history of the series: (50) Pokémon Season 1: Indigo League – Opening Theme – YouTube
Another favorite meme of mine would be the “Well yes, but actually no” meme. It is usesd in a situation whereif you’re stating something a fact that’s somewhat true, but mostly false.
The original source is from this movie called “So You Wanna Be A Pirate” back in 2012. Here’s the video explaining the origins of where the scene came from: (50) [MEME ORIGIN] Well Yes, But Actually No – YouTube

Assignment #2: My Reaction Gifs

My first day of CT101 was quite interesting. It was reassuring that my professor was a nice, relatable, and funny person. I can tell how genuine Professor Seslow was. It made me really excited to come to his classes to hear all the hardy jokes he would tell every time.

 

I was quite surprised to hear about the creative freedom we were given in professor Seslow’s CT101 class. As an art major, it was already common to have creative freedom, but this class is on another level. This is the first class in my life where we can use memes in our assignments. After fully registering this info, my mind was completely blown.

 

I absolutely love the vibes in this class, especially from the professor. The atmosphere is very calming, the other students seem very nice.

Compared to my other classes where I had to primarily work with a pen, paper, book, etc, I really like that all the work is done on a computer. Having all the work be done digitally, makes all the information and workload easily accessible.

Moving forward, I’m really excited to learn how to use the tools that brought us famous memes. I’ve always wondered about the types of media and the process of creating memes and gifs. I hope to one day utilize these skills to further increase my repertoire of artistic and comedic skills. I want to increase my comedic potential because I want to start a YouTube channel in the future that puts a smile on everyone’s faces.

Assignment #1: Internet Happiness

When I think of internet happiness, I think of completely unwinding and watching a bunch of videos. This feeling is similar to that of being wrapped up in a warm blanket during winter, in front of a fireplace, enjoying a cup of hot chocolate. Just an unbelieve cozy feeling.

Even when I was really young, I spent most of the time on the internet watching YouTube videos. At first it was a past time became a habit. Especially after the repercussions of the pandemic, browsing YouTube divulged into a lifestyle. It’s insane how the internet is embedded in our lives right now. I remember when other medias such as Twitter and Google shut down temporarily without warning. Mass hysteria ensued at minimum a national level.
Happiness on the internet definitely hit an all-time high when those medias suddenly stopped working. It really puts into perspective how essential technology is in our daily lives and has become part of our identities. Even though the internet has brought us much happiness, we should definitely try to detach ourselves incase another event like that happens again.
This gif is from a scene in the movie, Orphan, when Ester has a panic attack in the bathroom. Her actions are poetic to the masses when google shut down for about an hour. Here’s a link to the scene.