Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Candyland Design

Unfortunately I was absent when we were told to do this, so it's a little late...
When I was first given this project I honestly was coming up blank. I didn't know what I wanted to do... I just kept thinking of how bright the newer version is and how over done it is and so loud and way too much is going on on the bored. I didn't like this one bit, so my first thought from the beginning, was bringing it down and bringing it back a little to when it wasn't so bright and loud but still playful enough that the kids were attracted to it and wanted to play with it.

I was having a hard time coming up with character ideas, due to characters not being my forte I really didn't know what I wanted to do. After actually talking to my 8 year old sister and doing some research of course I came up with the idea of bringing back mr. mint, I wanted to change lord licorice to lord sour (making all candy sour tasting). I wanted to have an ice cream man ( like a snowman, but ice cream) I also wanted to keep lolly and princess frostine cause those were characters that have always been consistent... other candies I wanted to bring in was marshmallows, cupcakes, a really big cake, donuts and all other different kinds of treats that kids always love to get.

I changed up the board spots using originally a gumball idea but looked more like the dot candy and that circle, instead of the original square. I then wanted to use different pieces of candy and instead of just making them the same and just different colors I wanted to try to incorporate the different places as my pawn pieces instead of just one item a different color.

Monday, December 6, 2010

Fax Show

Cat in the Hat


For my candyland project I am doing a Dr.Seuss theme. While I was going through some images for the project I found this one. I like it because it's clearly the cat in the hat, but it's almost like he is from some alternate universe. He is nothing like the real character. He is dark and a little creepy, especially with the eye in his stomach. I'm not really sure why that is there but it is very strange. Also the sceene in the background is something from one of the books, but it's missing the cheerfulness of the real thing just like the cat it.

Monday, November 29, 2010

Candy Land

When first presented with Candy Land many ideas started going through my head. I looked into Candy Land further to see if any of them were possible. When I saw that there was a Dora the Explorer I realized my idea was possible. I am making Rocko's Modern Life Candy Land. As a child I would watch Rocko all the time. Though it is not "educational" I feel that is kid friendly through the different "cartoony" characters. My color scheme derives from different colors within my main characters.

My pieces that move around the board will include;
  • Rocko
  • Heffer
  • Filburt
  • Spunky
The places to go around the board will include:
  • Mr. & Mrs. Bighead
  • Peaches
  • Chameleon Brothers
  • Mr. Smitty
  • Hippo Lady
  • Really Really Big Man (to win the game)
  • Dr. Hutchinson
Each character will have some type of candy. I am modeling mine off one of the older games which has 3 spots where you get stuck (Gooey Gumdrops, Lost in Lollipop Woods, and Stuck in Molasses Swamp). My locations will all relate to the candy that is with each character in that general area. My colors are more of pastels instead of the more vibrant primary colors.

Sunday, November 28, 2010

design brief

So my idea is to have a holiday version of candyland. I want to focus on all the holidays during the year, using the characters to represent the figures throughout the game. It is candyland, so each character will have candies or sweeties around them, ones that are usually around during that holiday or time of year. The background will be scenic settings, each season will be shown throughout the game board. The pathway will be the same design as the original candyland games, with different colors on each block. I'm still thinking about my game pieces, but I believe they will be children or elves.
My characters will be Santa Claus, Mrs. Claus representing christmas time and their sweeties will be cookies, milk, and candy canes. During the fall season of the game, I will have a turkey character for thanksgiving with a candy corn mountain. In the original candyland games, one character is usually a villain that can send you backwards in the game, so to represent Halloween, I will have a scary pumpkin as the villain. My other characters include Cupid, Easter Bunny, maybe a groundhog, an american flag character for our independence day. We talked in class about other holidays represented by different cultures and religions, so I may also have other holidays such as Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Chinese new year,or cinco de mayo. I related to these characters when I was younger and I think kids will have fun with the game and it could also be educational.

Friday, November 26, 2010

Holography

Surprisingly there aren't many artists working with holographic plates, although not surprisingly it is very expensive, so it's no wonder. The process requires a laser, the actual holographic plates, a dark room, some development chemicals, and of course the object or thing you want to holograph. It's amazing what can be done, and I could think of many applications for this process, however, it's greatly limited by the availability of large enough holographic plates or space to holograph the object. There is essentially a 1:1 ratio on size of object and the holographic plate itself, which obviously results in a scaling of price. However there are a number of artists working with this medium, here is a small list of artists and some of their work.

http://www.physics.ohio-state.edu/~kagan/holo_pics/holo_artists.html

Candyland Brief

Design Brief For Candyland


My overall concept will be elemental, in reference to the actual confections
themselves and the scenerey I will use, such as volcanoes, mesas, islands.
There will also be an underlying theme of the elements of the universe,
such as fire, earth, air water, metal, stone, wood, etc. I considered
using actual products such as Snickers or Reese's in the board, however I
didn't want it to feel like an advertisement since that diminishes the
spirit of the game. Instead I decided to focus more on ingredients and
generalized forms of candy such as mallow, chocolate, peanut
butter/peanuts, caramel, ice cream, licorice and sugar. Included with each
of these representations there will be references to where the ingredient
comes from, or part of the process of how its made, or who helped create
it. For example, a character I have representing peanuts and peanut butter
will be Sir Carver of Castle Le Gume. Sir carver will have an impaled
peanut on his sword in front of a castle full of peanuts. I want the
representation to say "Peanuts" while also giving way to curiosity about
the name Carver and Le Gume. I want to provide insights where possible so
that adults and children can learn something from the game. Instead of
trying to push people to eat more candy I wanted to provide a neutral
ground where it doesn't feel aggressive in it's advertisement of candy,
but also provide some minor educational benefits.

My game will have a lot of soft, animated and mostly cartoonish imagery.
However I will include a lot of shading to create more 3D elements
throughout the game to reflect our current standard of minor realism. For
example, the Taffy Factory will not be a flat 2 dimensional object, it
will stretch according to perspective. Many of the elements I will use
will be perspective based, will have shadows and shading to create a
slightly cartoonish viscera. As the pieces move through the board, they
will encounter areas such as the Sticky Fields where they will get stuck,
or the Licorice Copse/Forest where the player will get lost. There will
also be the traditional bridges between parts of the track. Also, I had a
chance to look at the newest Candyland, and was almost shocked to see how
insanely busy it is and how it almost reflects the ADDism of recent and
contemporary generations. My board will be less visually cluttered than the
current board as a result of seeing the messiness of the newest board.

Overall my intent will be placed on appealing to a large demographic, and
I am borrowing the idea of cartoon style with adult content from such
companies as Pixar and Disney, who offer entertainment that is simple
enough for kids to follow, but provides some sort of insight into wisdom
and understanding of the origins and processes of candy.

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Comic Book - Candyland

For my Candyland design I am going for a comic book theme. Rather than the traditional comic book style however I am going to try to make my designs more kid friendly by adding vibrant colors to my hand drawn characters. So far I have developed a color scheme (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple) along with the CMYK numbers to plan out the pathway for the base of the game board.
As of now I am working with a combination of ideas from the 1990's version and the latest 2010 version to come up with ideas for candy choices along with the character ideas to go along with them.
- cupcake castle (princess- goal)
- fire ball (devil- villain)
- mint mountain (fairy)
- freeze pop forest (raining gum balls, frog)
- lollypop land (lizard)
- ice cream creek
- gummy bear lane (bears)
- gingerbread house (grandma's cookies)

My playing pieces are going to be a children in simple outfits two boys and two girls. (yellow, green, blue or red)

Halloween Candyland

My Candyland game is going to be Halloween themed. The board will follow the traditional path with an altered color scheme consisting of dark, but vibrant, shades of yellow, teal, purple, orange, magenta and kelly green. They will be on a dark, "almost-but-not-quite-black" grey. My illustrations are going to be friendly and cartoony, without being too heavy or boldly outlined. They are inspired by the work of Alberto Cerriteno, as seen in this piece here.

My gamepieces are going to be children wearing iconic Halloween costumes: A witch, a ghost, a clown, and acprincess. They will be done in the existing style of the gamepieces, a solid piece of plastic (large enough to not be a choking hazard), but I will be updating the colors to match the scheme I have. On the board, the candy spaces will still be candy, only a bit more "Halloweeny" (like candy corn, gummy worms, fun size candy bars, taffy, lollipops, and possibly caramel apples and pennies, which are clearly not candy but still popular halloween "treats") The accompanying characters will be either adults in goofy monster costumes or actual friendly monsters handing out candy from their homes (I've been wrestling with this idea all week, any feedback would be great. Real monsters or adults in costumes?)

The "villain" in the game is going to be a crotchety old man (who happens to be a retired dentist) that doesn't believe in Halloween and refuses to give you candy. You will waste a turn asking him for some. The goal of the game is to return to your "home" (the final space) and eat all your candy! YUM!