tiafernandes

In this session we learned to use a combination of layer masks and settings to enhance images. I also learned to use gradient maps, which prove useful when mapping colours onto digital paintings as well as during image enhancement.

White Privilege and Male Privilege

This is an issue which can be found in many games, and even the most innocent-seeming games often have very poor representations of race. McIntosh states that [as a white person, she] can turn on the television or open to the front page of the paper and see people of [her] race widely represented. However, for people of colour, even famous games such as the Super Mario series do not include any humans with varied skin tones in order to represent a greater proportion of the general public, even though the art is heavily stylised and the environments fictional, which could easily allow for such variations. Similarly, the player characters of most games are male, with some series such as the new Final Fantasy game (XV) receiving controversy for having an all male cast, leaving little representation for female gamers.

Ways of Seeing

Ways of Seeing touches on the issues women face as they are viewed by men as sexual or vain beings, and this is often represented in game's designs. For example, male characters in Fire Emblem: Awakening are often given overelaborate, functional armor, whereas female characters are given visually appealing but functionally lacking outfits, with units such as pegasus riders and wyvern riders impractically having bare thighs.

In order to complete this texture, I started off adding the base browns, beiges and silvers in each section. I then added the wood texture and details, finally finishing it off with the paint splatters. Between each save, I checked that the textured barrel looked adequate by bringing the texture into Maya to see what needed to be changed. I also tried to work in a non-destructive way, as we had been taught.