Monthly Archive for February, 2009

street fighter 4

submitted by andrew kim published on February 23, 2009 in rambling and video games Tags: , , , .

sf4
so i picked up the new street fighter 4 last week and i have to admit that it has grown on me over the past week. i never hated the game, but obviously i really enjoyed it because i spent hours playing it every night with my brother… the online matchmaking is set up really well on the ps3 version, and i would imagine on the 360 as well. the mix of 3d and 2d game play is a fresh change from old school 2d games, especially with modern hd graphics. enough of that though, i’m not here to review video games. i recently popped in a few of my older street fighter and snk games and i suddenly feel as if they are out of date. it was only a month or two ago where my brother and i were playing and i thought the sprites were keeping up with the times, especial guilty gear! it is a solid fighter and i have transitioned from using sakura to chun li (because akuma is a pain in the ass to unlock with lack of time on your hands). i’ve always avoided her because of the fact that she is rather difficult to use, or so i’ve heard… but i honestly like her style. sf4 should definitely hold me off until tekken 6.
chunli
heres a picture of chun li, sexy thighs no? i swear her nipples are ultra detailed in the game… which by the way the legend of chun li comes out in theaters this friday.
driveway
whenever it snows lately my driveway never seems to pack up snow on the top portion… not that i’m complaining at all, i wouldn’t mind not shoveling for the rest of my life, but definitely very odd.
skid_postit
i thought this was the cutest post it note carrier in the world, damn right i said it, its cute! i wish i had a remote control fork lift so i can drive around the skid on my desk all day at work. wouldn’t you!?
server
so our server room at my work isn’t that large, but… well the image speaks for itself. i calmly asked the technician what he would do if i started pulling all the wires out, he calmly replied, “don’t.” it is one of those phrases with such power behind the tone that makes you shiver, like akuma is warning you not to fuck with it otherwise he’ll unleash the raging demon (yes i’m in a street fighter phase, call me a nerd). lol i assume it would be easier to rewire the entire building rather than figure out where every wire came from. lucky for him, the company is moving buildings at the end of the year so he will have to sooner or later.

well that’s it for today’s rambling, i am trying to get in a habit of blogging and keeping up with other things in life. i suppose i feel it’s good discipline and will help me ready up for my next exhibit. the poster colors from korea have arrived so it is only a matter of time before i start pumping out some new paintings. sadly, my old set has hardened and is no more =( will post some new updates soon and perhaps some tutorials. hopefully the last one was useful to someone, and if you’d like to see a specific tutorial just let me know. piece!

how to create actions and batch in photoshop

submitted by andrew kim published on February 22, 2009 in art and tutorial Tags: , , , , .

so nearly everybody has come across a time where they have just downloaded images from a digital camera and the images are huge! if only there was an easier way to resize them all in one step, instead of going through them all manually. until now, perhaps you have downloaded photoshop and played around with the filters, but thats the extent of it. here, i’ll show you how to create an “action” in photoshop that will allow you to make life easier, and you can even expand to other things such as getting photos print ready in cmyk, or even renaming files.

1
first off, you’re going to need photoshop obviously. go ahead and launch photoshop (i am using cs3), then open ONE of your image files. we will need this to record you’re actions so the program knows what to do for all the rest of the images. once the image is opened, we can go on to the next step.

2
you will need to open up your actions menu. it should be on the right sidebar, icon being a play/sideways triangle icon. if this icon is not present, you can also open by pressing ( alt+f9 ) or go into windows menu on top and clicking actions. once this menu is open, you should see a list of options and pre-made actions. click on the “record” icon below (the circle in between square and triangle).

3
once you click this icon, a menu should appear. you will be able to name the action you are about to create. this can be saved for future use so it wouldn’t be a bad idea to think of a name you will remember, for now i will call it “resize”. you really don’t have to touch any of the other options for now. once you have named the action, press record and it will begin recording your actions from now on until you stop it.

4
now every main action you do will record in photoshop under the name you inputed. since we will be resizing images, we will open up the “image size” menu. you can go to image menu and click image size, or press ( alt + ctrl + i ). once the menu is open, you may choose a new image size for your pictures. make sure the constrain proportions checkbox is checked (so your images do not get distorted), and your can press ok. a quick note about online images, your resolution shouldn’t need to go past 72 unless people will be downloading and printing your images.

5
now that you have resized the image, you have to save the new file. just in case you don’t want to write over your original file, so you have to click on “SAVE AS”. this can be found under “file” or simply press ( shift + ctrl + s ). it would be best to save it in a folder aside from the one that all your images are in. once you have saved, press ok and the menu will automatically close. when saving in jpg and other formats, it may ask you for quality size, medium is usually fine for web, but it is up to you what you set the quality as. just press ok when you are finished.

6
make sure you close out of the image when you have saved. this is very important when doing multiple files because if you don’t record this step, ALL of the files you try and resize through the batch process will stay open and perhaps might crash your photoshop, or you just have to simply sit there and close out of each one.

7
the next important step is to stop the recording process. go back to your actions menu and click on the squard next to the record button. this will stop the recording. notice how a few extra steps have appeared from when you started. if you wanted to throw in a few extra steps such as changing the file to another color mode (grayscale etc), or even changing the brightness, it will all record until you press stop.

8
now that the action has been recorded, we can start the batch process. go under “file” and find your way down to the “automate” menu, inside there you will find “batch…” go ahead and click that and a new menu will appear.

9
we have to assign the action that we created, so under the second drop down menu where it says action, click and select the action you named, in my case, it would be “resize”. once you have clicked this, we should be ready to go by default, but i have included a step to send all the new files into a new folder, rename etc.

10
you will have to tell the batch process which folder to activate the action on. you will have to click on source “folder” then click choose and select your folder with all the images. back on the batch menu, you can select a new filename for the files if you wish, which will automatically generate numbers at the end for you. for instance, if the group of files you are batching are from a camping trip, porn shoot, etc. you may also click on “destination” folder, then press choose to point all the new files to a certain directory.

i hope this tutorial can be of use to someone, and it is 2 in the morning so excuse me for any grammatical errors. let me know if you are confused and need any help. as i am starving to death, i will have to find my way to some taco bell and crash. good night!

it wasn’t me it was you!

submitted by andrew kim published on February 15, 2009 in excess, music and rambling Tags: , , , , , , .

i picked up the new lily allen cd earlier this week and i must say i am quite pleased. i enjoyed all of the tracks on the cd and like them all besides track 3, but i have to admit the lyrics definitely make up for the rodeo-ish beat. i wasn’t as awed as when i first came across lily allen’s work, but the new compilation of songs is equally as refreshing from my usual playlist. she has pleasant vocals and happy upbeat music with lyrics that will catch you off guard. if the parental advisory logo isn’t a hint, track 8 titled fuck you will. i personally appreciate her bittersweet style.

lilyallen - it's not me it's you

work has been rather interesting the past week. the beginning of the week kicked off with a co-worker who cooked me breakfast at work. eggs and ham covered with cheese. let’s just say halfway through i felt like i was eating green eggs and ham… and spent some time in the bathroom afterwards.

breakfast at work

with less than a week before my companies open house, the office has been pretty hectic getting ready. with the work piled up preparing, i had to create decals for one of the rc cars we bought for the event. i haven’t touched illustrator in awhile but i thought i’d have some fun with it. it all started when the other designer came up to me and told me i he was going to write “destroy the blue car” on his hood. i simply decided to visually show his red car getting demolished. i wanted a skull crushing the car in between it’s teeth and finally found a saber tooth skull on google and began creating a vector from that. i’ve posted up some progress images from the past week below. i tried to get as much detail in as i could with the time that i had.

car body

prepping the images on vinyl

vinyl cut onto hood

here are a few images of the vector progress in illustrator

skull

skull 2

skull 3

unfortunately, after i locked the body onto the rc frame, my co-workers and i decided to take it for a spin in the back warehouse. of course, we ran into a few problems. i won’t go into much detail… but let’s just say it ended with me doing some donuts and the battery exploding. now i would’ve loved to take a picture of this but it’s a bit intimidating to ask with the rc car on my bosses desk. of course, there is always that one person that shouts it wasn’t me, it was all andy!

my parents have been playing tennis and working out for the past few weeks but my mom always comes back home with her knees shredded up. they’re hardcore! recently my mom came home with her finger disfigured on both joints. she finally agreed to get an x-ray and found out there was a crack on the bone near her nail. it will have to be in a splint for a few weeks or so. all asian doctors ever seem to do is throw some herbal crap on the spot and tell you to wait it out and come back. you just end up spending so much money when all you had to do was spend a little more in the beginning and get it fixed right at a hospital or even a local doctor.

dad

tonight, my dad injured his finger as well and it is still bleeding! the best finger for a photo too. found this nifty article on how to treat blood under a fingernail. it’s perfect for when you stub your fingertip or smash it with a hammer on accident. i tried following the steps with my dad but he nearly killed me when i went near his finger with a burning hot paper clip. check it out at: e-zine articles. my dad had warned me that my brother and i were next, but i’ve already cut my hand at work before the weekend. i shall watch my brother with a video camera very closely for any juicy accidents.

construktive criticism

submitted by andrew kim published on February 8, 2009 in art and rambling Tags: , , , , , .

the forums have been launched and can be reached through two links: www.underconstrukt.com or www.ucboard.com. for those of you that have been supporting me and look out for updates; urban.construkt has come a long way from being a simple idea. thank you to all those who continue to support me and inspire me with kind words. i would really like to take some time to thank those who told me i wasn’t good enough and explained why. in a certain sense, it’s good to point out the faults of an artist with a reason to back it up.

i was always one with an idea, but too lazy to take action. one of those people who always talked shit but never acted, artistically speaking. sooner or later you realize everything is just an excuse. for me, school was my biggest excuse. i was always too tired or too busy with school to do the things i really wanted to do. to incorporate your own style at a school setting epicly fails at times.

one of my biggest issues when i look back is the fact that everyone gave me props. i am certainly not being cocky, but simply making a point. i grew up learning fine arts and creating a portfolio of pieces before i even entered design school, so it automatically gave me an upper hand. in the beginning, i had already dealt with things such as color theory, balance, and the fundamentals. fast forward three years later and i’m suddenly behind while everyone moved on ahead. it was never the fact that i was cocky, but placed in a setting where i became lazy. whatever i did the night before was good enough to get me by and i never felt the need to put in much effort. i had a strong concept, but a half assed project.

critiques were always one of the things i hated most. whether it was a piece of mine, or a fellow classmate, i always hated hearing that it was “awesome”. art can always be improved and any artist knows that one is always learning new techniques and applying new skills. half the people didn’t even have a meaningful concept behind their work, they just thought that it worked because the color were pretty! constructive criticism is important to any artist. it isn’t going to help anyone hearing that their work is perfect. it isn’t about comparing the ego or making another feel salty, but simply giving an honest opinion of how it could be better. of course, the advice doesn’t always have to be heeded. some of you may have already seen my post on the forums, but here is an example:

here’s an example of constructive criticism:
the colors are a bit dull and i don’t see any depth, i see a few tangent lines in the photo (the objects create lines and it touches the edge, same concept in math) but the models expression is great! try adjusting the levels in photoshop and it should create some nice shadows bringing the models out, and maybe crop out the edges so the focus is clear~

here is an asshole:
what the fuck is that did you wipe your ass with it? holy shit you don’t even know what the focus is supposed to be fucking lines are hectic as shit. that bitch is ugly as hell too…

i have always been pretty blunt about things, but it was always backed up with a reason of my own. somewhere along the line of my perspective, the artist is already thinking of ways their work can be better. i am honestly not good with criticism myself because i am always wondering in my head why the fuck it didn’t turn out like i thought it would, and i don’t want to hear shit i already know. i may not always follow the advice of an artist, but i will definitely listen and come up with something better the second time.

i suppose after all this writing i don’t even see myself as an artist, just a person with an idea. i’m no different from any of my friends who i have conversations with and come up with crazy ideas. i am definitely no better than my past classmates who have poured their heart and soul into every project that they’ve done. i am just looking for a place where i fit in, like everybody else (i am totally not emo).

it’s that time again to prepare for another exhibit. i have known about it for almost a year now and find myself with the same collection of pieces from the last show, which was over three years ago… i have been on a roll uploading the website and launching the blog and the forums, and i hope to approach my new pieces differently. i hope to open up my eyes and take the advice of any criticism positively. i also hope to collaborate with various people and make 2009 the foundation of u|c.