Koolaid is NOT Kool.

Warning...this is an angry blog post! If you can't take the immense anger that will be released by these words, I suggest you stop reading right now.

So, about 2 weeks ago, I spilled red Koolaid on my laptop's keyboard. NOT KOOL AT ALL! When it happened, I quickly tried to suck the koolaid out of the keyboard with my lips. Seriously, I did, ask Lance or Becca, they were there when it happened. So after that, I turned off my laptop and let any remaining koolaid dry out for a while. When I came back to turn it on, my keyboard was toast. Dead. Done. It wouldn't work at all. I was pissed.

I took it into the Apple store to see if they could do anything for me, and they said it would be $1300 to fix it. SWEET! So, I decided that if I'm gonna have to pay $1300 to fix it, I might as well buy a brand new one for a couple hundred more. I bought a new one and two days before it gets to me, I get my broken laptop back. I turn it on and miraculously, it works! I was pumped! So since I have a functioning laptop now, I called Apple back to get a return request for the laptop that's now being sent to me. They process the request and then I just had to wait for the laptop to get to me, so I can return it and get my money back.

The day after I got my broken (but miraculously fixed) laptop back, the keys started crapping out again. My spacebar, command, and colon keys stopped working. FRICK!

So now I'm keeping the new laptop. Today, I took out the HDD and Ram from my broken laptop and put it into my new one. Terrible process...nerve-racking to say the least.

I guess that really wasn't very angry at all. I suck at being angry.

Leaving the Koolaid to the kids,

Day 10: Admit Defeat

Yeah, so it turns out that I completely missed blogging yesterday, therefore, blogging for 30 days straight is extremely impossible. Unless your Brighten Photography, then it's extremely possible.
Because of this crazy school I'm at, I just don't have enough time for these shenanigans. I'm sorry to let soooooo many of you down.

Tail between my legs,

Day 9: Why are you reading this?

...I've got nothing for you today. I'm sorry.

But with much love,

Day 8: Throwback Day

Alright, these classes are kicking the crap out of me right now and I don't have much time to play around, so today is throwback day! This is from my first month here at Full Sail, a class called Design and Art Theory. We had to come up with a product and then make advertisements for that product.

I decided to make CRAP! tshirts. CRAP was something we used in class help us with composition. It stood for Contrast, Repetition, Alignment, and Proximity. On the back of the shirt, I tried to illustrate each of those within each word.





My teacher was actually ecstatic and freaking out over my final project. She was telling me all about how I should copyright it and she was giving me these websites that I should go to to "patent" the idea. However, I didn't really think that they were THAT good, so I never did.

Grrrrrrrr,

Day 7: Happy Birthday Lance!

It's Lance's 21st today! So I felt that it would be a great time to take the day off of blogging...and wish him the best of wishful wishes.



happy bday buddy,

Day 6: Banksy

Since I really didn't have time to do anything besides my school work today, I'd like to take this opportunity to introduce you all to one of my heroes. He goes by the name of Banksy (no one really knows his real identity) and he's a street artist from England. Here's some of his work...











Most of his work is made using stencils, but he does some other crazy street art too, like sculptures and statues, etc. Look at his site...Banksy...if you ask me, he's a genius.

Dreaming,

Day 5: The Eye?

Here's some more spray paint action for ya. It's painted on cardboard, about 3' x 3'. I painted the whole thing red, pink, and purple plaid a long time ago, and just now decided to finish it. Well, it's kind of finished. I ended up just masking off a design and spraying it black with white flecks. It almost looks like outer space. Gnarly. Speaking of, I think I'll be doing a space painting one of these days. Check out this site... Space Paintings I'd like to try my hand out at something similar to that. We'll see.

Masked off


Sprayed black w/ white flecks



Uhh....yup!

Day 4: Procrastination.

Today....I did nothing. zip. zero. nada.

I didn't have class today, and I have a project that's due tomorrow. It's a video project that I was supposed to film last month, and then edit this month. The thing is, I've started over on this project 3 different times. And each time, I decided that the project was going to suck, so I gave up on it, and started with something new. I think my problem is that when I know that something isn't going to turn out the way I want it to, I lose motivation and inspiration to work on it. I hate finishing something just to finish it. If it's not going to turn out the way I want it to, I would rather not finish it at all.

What sucks even more is that now I have all of these sweet ideas for video projects which I could have filmed last month, but it's too late. I'm stuck with crappy footage and no place to go with it. Call it bad planning on my part. I can't wait for this month to be over!


Getting back up tomorrow,

Day 3: WAR! part 2

So, I finished my painting today. As you can see, it's all made using spray paint and masking tape. As far as a meaning behind it...I would like to say that I had this big underlying theme to it, but I don't. I just feel like pieces of art that pertain to war have more power to them or something. It's like the images are stronger and can be more powerful since everyone can relate to war in some way. For good or bad.

Personally, I think people should fight for what they believe in. And if you have to go to war to defend what you believe in, then do it! We all need to stop being such pansies when it comes to standing up for ourselves, our families, our countries, our beliefs, OUR FAITH. (maybe I'm just speaking for myself there)



Here's a crappy picture of the final version... (speaking of, would anyone like to donate to the "Buy Aaron a Digital Camera Fund"? It's for a good cause)



Thanks for reading,

Day 2: WAR! part 1

Here's an acrylic/spray painting that I started today. Sorry to Lauren Conger, I painted over our tree masterpiece for this one. It's not that I didn't LOVE our painting...I'm just too poor/lazy right now to go buy another canvas.



The final piece should be up tomorrow.

Ciao,

Day 1: Random Sketch from Class

I realize that this is a pretty lame post, but it'll do. The first is just a sketch that I was messing around with in class today. The other two are from my first couple of months at Full Sail. Enjoy.

Stupid Horse.


Sad Clown.
(i think he's sad because his nose is cracked, and his eyes are lopsided)


Talking Hand.



See ya tomorrow,

30 Days of Blog! (starts tomorrow)

...because my older brother isn't the only one who has the ability to blog everyday for thirty days straight. (and because I'm a huge slacker and need a little bit of motivation)

Kept Stanky,

How you know school has taken over your life....

This is pretty funny.

The past two months I've taken two classes dealing with Flash Actionscript. (see post below...did i mention it's the coolest game ever?) Anywho, basically, Actionscript is the scripting language that you use inside of Flash to create flash games and websites and applications. Now, I've come to the realization that actionscript has engulfed my life. Let me explain...

A couple mornings ago, after a long night of working on this website for thunderground, I woke myself up with actionscript. Sounds weird, I know. But have you ever had a dream that transitioned into reality? I have. In this case, I think that I was halfway between conscious and unconscious, and that's when the code started running through my head. The code flew by very fast in my head and read something a little like this....

mind.addEventListener(Event.WAKE, setupBack);

function setupBack (e:Event):void {
var back:Back = new Back();
back.addEventListener(Event.ENTER_FRAME, updateBack);
addChild(back);
}

function updateBack (e:Event):void {
if (back.itches == true) {
wakeUp();
ScratchBack();
}
}

function wakeUp (e:Event) {
mind.conscious == true;
}

function ScratchBack(e:Event) {
arm.x = back.x;
}

Now of that probably makes sense to anyone, but just go with me here. Obviously, this exact code didn't run through my head when I was waking up. It all happened very fast, but it was something very similar to it. So after that code ran, I immediately woke up and I had this intense itch in the center of my back.

It was just really crazy. I was a little freaked out by the whole thing. So what's the moral of the story? I guess there isn't one. I just have really weird dreams sometimes and I'm a HUGE nerd. I'm sorry if you took the time to read this.

Dreamin' Fresh;

best game you'll ever play....ever.

Yo! I just got done with my Flash Actionscript (or as Lance calls it, Flass Acsinscript) class! It was a lot of fun! A crapton of work...but fun, nonetheless. I made a game. You should check it out. Tell me what you think. I'm not happy with how the graphics turned out, but the actionscript functions, and that was the whole point of the class.

I do occasionally get an error when you shoot an enemy as it hits your plane. I dont know what's up with that. If you're plane dissapears, just refresh the page. I'll figure it out someday. Enjoy.

ps...the current high score is 960, set by Becca Dornan. Someday, i'll figure out how to save high scores. That's a little bit out of my skill level at the moment.

Fresh Script,

Steve Jobs frowned on me today.

...that's right, I installed Windows today. Is it considered blasphemy if I was excited to install Windows on my Mac? anyway, let the 3D rendering begin! you can expect some 3d projects on here soon.

with a fresh OS,



(this post was sponsored by Rockstar)

Christmas in June

Tonight, I did something crazy. I swapped out my old 160 Gb internal hard drive for a 320 Gb. (see following diagram)


I needed more room, because I'll be installing Windows shortly, so I can run a couple different PC-only Applications, including Sony's Acid Pro and 3D Studio Max, among others. woo hoo! yes, i know, im a big nerd.

I also upgraded my RAM from 2 Gb to 4 Gb! you know what they say...Christmas only comes once a year. wait...what? nevermind.

keepin' the hardware fresh,

Have you ever smoked 37 cigarettes at once? I have.

JK...i've never done that. But it did feel like i was when i was walking to my car after class today. (there's a lot of smokers at FS)

I haven't posted in a while. Im so sorry. But wait, wait, wait...before you start throwing things at me...hear me out. Last month i was in Developmental Psychology (really boring but somewhat interesting) and Web Design (really really boring, but stuff that i need to know). The Web Design class was all based on HTML and CSS coding. If you don't know what that is...go read a book or google it or something. Needless to say, coding sucks. Everyone knows it sucks. Even web programmers know it sucks. It's just so freakin' boring! I guess I'm just trying to come up with an excuse for why I haven't posted in some time.

Basically, the only thing I did last month that's worth posting is this Cup O' Soul! website. This was the final project for Web Design, where we had to take an existing site, and redo it. I chose this local coffee house in Winter Park. I'd say that, compared to some of the other site's that I saw from my class, mine turned out really good. But I know that I could have done better. It was just hard for me to find the passion this past month.

On a much lighter note...

...doing good so far.

Always,

Playdohfield: Coming Soon

Here's my final "Motion Graphics Project" piece. I had to pick one topic and then make a 60 second motion piece for it. Then I had to cut that down into a 30 second and a 15 second. For this project, I really wanted to try to master the 3d environment and camera movements in After Effects, so that's what I focused on. I created the claymation and did the voiceovers myself. Here ya go!



I won't include the 30 or the 15 second takes. They're basically the exact same thing, just quicker cuts.

I'd like to continue to work with motion graphics in the future. I was actually thinking about failing this class on purpose, so I could have another month to work on it. I've decided not to do that though, and to just work on it in my free time. I love it and could definitely see myself pursuing a job in motion graphics.

Oh, and I think that I'm going to drop out of Full Sail and become a voice over actor. Because I'm so good at it. (sarcasm)

Keepin' It Fresh with the NEW and IMPROVED Freshness Seal,

Trans-Demographic Ad

Without further ado...



This project was very difficult and stressful for me. I was supposed to make a 30 second trans-demographic ad which had to include some video in it somewhere. It was also recommended to use a 3d environment.

I started out making a playdoh ad directed towards kids, where I was going to make a claymation with playdoh, and then create all the graphic scenery for my playdoh figure to interact with. But after a couple different shoots, I realized that I was in WAY over my head for the time period that I had to work with. I did play around with a little something that can be found here. It's not anything serious, so don't expect anything.

So I ended up making a Burton ad directed towards women, because chicks who snowboard are so much hotter than chicks that don't. I did this ad in a little over two days. I think it turned out alright.

Keepin' It Fresh,
Aaron J

Motion Graphics Ad................yup.

So, my most recent Motion Graphics Assignment was to create a 30 second ad for a good or service.  I definitely had a hard time coming up with what good or service I would do for my ad.  I settled on....ummm....dodgeballs?  Right...dodgeballs!  Yup!  Here it is...

So I wasn't too happy with the way it turned out.  I mean, it's alright.  Nothing too spectacular though.  I kind of put this project on the back burner during springbreak.  Whoops.  I promise I'll do better next time.  

Yours,

Aaron J Harms

Oh....and I kind of need some help deciding on my next ad too. I have to do a 30 second Trans-Demographic ad, meaning an ad that would appeal to people outside of my demographic. ie. kids, women, etc. Any good ideas that you would like to see come alive in a motion graphics ad?

I've been thinking along the lines of play-doh, got milk, kool-aid, tampons? jk about the tampons. hahah. alright, let's hear some ideas!

Motion Graphics Bumper

For my MGR class...we had to create a ten second bumper for ourselves.  If you don't know...bumpers are those short clips at the beginning of movies and you find them on websites too sometimes.  (Paramount has those stars flying in encircling the mountains, Universal has the globe spinning, etc)  So...here's what I thought up.

I realize that I probably shouldn't have mentioned those awesome Paramount and Universal bumpers right before you looked at mine.  Mine doesn't even compare to those.  But hey, it was my first attempt. Gimme a break.

Experimentation with Time Travel

I'm not sure if anyone else knows this....but today is the 12th of March!

I say that because I have no freakin' idea where the months of January and February went! Or even the first half of March, for that matter.  Seriously...did I time travel right past the last 70 days or so? ...and not even realize it?  I'm pretty sure that's the case...there's just no other explanation.  

On another note, my sleep schedule just keeps getting more and more unusual.  This month, I have class from 5pm to 1am everyday, which isn't too bad of a schedule.  Atleast, it's consistent.  But the thing is, I don't go to bed until about 6 or 7am each morning...and then I sleep all day until it's time for class at 5pm.  I'm becoming a nightwalker.  Maybe this is where the time gets lost.(?)  But that would totally dismiss my time travel theory.  And I kind of liked that theory.

You wanna hear some exciting news?  I guess you have to, since your reading this.  But if you don't want to hear it, stop reading right now.

My "Bushisms Painting" video, which I've posted in this blog before, which you can also find here, was playing on the big LCD screen that they just installed on top of one of our buildings.  Check it out!

It was one of six other videos of student work that they had playing during Full Sail's "Behind the Scenes" Tour.  They had the music blaring and everything!  It was up there with some crazy stuff too, like an "Addy" award-winning motion graphics piece for Nike.  So I was pretty stoked that they chose my video.  Plus, how often do you see yourself on a massive video screen?  

it's been awhile...i miss you.

Yeah...so i guess it's been some time since my last post on here. And for that, i apologize.

See, last month I was in Physics (which was very easy and boring since I just took it not too long ago) and Digital Audio Design (which is definitely not my cup of tea). What I'm trying to get at, is that I really haven't had anything worth posting for the last month or so.

However, I was somewhat busy last month with a website that I made for RhythmInTwenty.  You should check it out! I even made a little game inside the website. On each page of the site, there's a little tiny sparkle that will appear after everything else has loaded. Click on the sparkles! It's fun! Trust me...I play it all day while I'm in class, even though I created it and I know exactly where each sparkle will appear.
So now that you've had your fun trying to locate all the sparkles at RhythmInTwenty, you might be asking yourself, "But Aaron, what are you up to this month?"

And guess what...I'm about to tell you.

This month...I...AM...STOKED!  I've got two classes, "Motion Graphics" and "Typography and Page Layout".  Both of which, I'm very excited for.  

In Motion Graphics, we'll be using Adobe After Effects to make some sweet...well...motion graphics.  I guess the name of the class is pretty self-explanatory.  

And then in TPL, we'll be using Illustrator, Photoshop, and InDesign to use type in some very interesting ways.  For our first project, we had to choose one word, any word like cityscape, rain, person, whatever.  And then we had to illustrate that word, using only that word.  That sounds really confusing.  

Anyway, here's what I came up with.

So, the word I chose was "washington", so everything that you see in the picture, is made out of the word "washington."  Get it? Got it? Good.  Zoom in for added awesomeness.  (sorry about the crappy .jpg quality....it's the best i can do)

 

So with crazy, fun classes such as these....I probably won't be sleeping much this month.  You better check back often. Marvelous things will be flooding these black pages very soon.

Yours Truly,
Aaron J Harms

Editorial Ill-US-trat-ion

For my final project for ADG, we had to create a full page illustration for a magazine article.  We had a couple different article titles that we had to choose from, and then we had to include that title in our illustration somehow.  The title I chose was "Robot Future Poses Hard Questions".  So without further ado...



All photos and illustrations that we used had to be our own. So I ended up shooting and putting everything together in a little less than 24 hours. The robot in the picture was painted in photoshop, which I'm not particularly proud of. Anyway, I think it turned out alright. It's a little congested, but i kind of wanted to make it look like a collage of some sort. Enough about me...what do you think?

statuS meteR...

so...in our ADG class, we had one of our lab specialists (Amy Something-or-other) come in and give a presentation/tutorial on painting techniques in photoshop.  pretty much like traditional painting, but on a computer screen.  it was amazing!  the things she could create in photoshop from absolute scratch blew my mind!  she used to be a sort of concept artist/digital painter and her work was incredible.

anyway...then we got a photoshop assignment to create some sort of status meter, like one you would see in a video game.  the meter also had to have a scale from 1-10. so for my meter, i decided to apply some of the same painting techniques that she showed us in class.  this was an in-lab assignment, so we only had 4 hours to work on it, which for me, was only 2.5 hours since i was a little late to class.  whoops!  so....here's the (not-so-final) final.

for my scale, each half of a bar would represent 1 out of 10. so in the picture...it's displaying 9 out of 10. get it?

for you photoshop junkies out there, this whole thing was done with brushes only, minus the one outer glow and the drop shadows under the status bars.

it definitely could have been better, but im proud of it, knowing that i pulled it off in a little over 2 hours.

also, be expecting some sort of still life painting in the next coming weeks.

ADG:First Project

so....I've gotten a bit lazy with this blog, and for that I apologize. I mean, I'm letting down all of my devoted readers...all....ummmm...12 of them (including me). im deeply sorry.

anyway, this month im taking "advanced computer graphics" and "geometry and measurement (very lame)". im having an awesome time in ADG(which is Full Sail's acronym for "advanced computer graphics"), diving even deeper into Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop. I'm loving it! Our first project in this class was to create a realistic looking mechanical object of our choice. I chose my cell phone. here's the final product.  (this .png is kind of bad quality, but you get the gest)



i would tell you how many hours this illustration took me, but you wouldn't believe me if i told you. lets just say its somewhere around 10-15 hours. i told you you wouldn't believe me. this type of work is very time consuming. wait, i just told you how long it took me even though i said that i wouldn't. dang, im an idiot!

whelp, until next time. peace.