Thesis Paper and Project

I have been putting much time into continuing to work on my thesis paper along with my thesis project.

Originally when I was picturing this piece I pictured it a lot darker and cooler with vibrant colors but I have decided to go for a less fun and slightly more natural look for realism and because I thought it being brighter overall helped the piece more as well as give it a more "light polluted" look. Here are some of the images I have been looking at and using for inspiration.

I hope in the end mine can look half as good as these. I have been struggling with the buildings a lot. I first tried to do a photo matte for the background but I hated it. You could tell it did not belong and felt too real even when I painted over it to soften it. I spent a lot of time attempting to do the buildings this way but in the end scratched it because I really did not like how it was looking. So I started painting in the buildings by hand.... which is taking forever but in the end I hope it is worth it. I also brought all the turtles up to the same level of detail, did the curve, barrier with rail, darkened all the buildings and worked the lines on the road as well.

Click to enlarge and see full piece. Scroll to see previous weeks WIP to see what I have done.

I still have to finish those buildings and then just go through with more highlights and shadows and little details here and there. I still think I wish to make it look like it is/has been raining like in the reference pictures as well so I can have a few more colors bouncing around and add a little more to the piece.

I also worked on my HCI Final which the idea is two paired desk orbs that are hooked up to a server and contain a temperature sensor, pulse sensor, a white LED and an RGB light. The idea is when one person picks up their desk orb the other one at a different location will start glowing, and then if that one is picked up the colors react with each other in a fun yet soothing way. The orbs will aslo puls a soft white light to the others pulse. I won't have time to actually make the orbs themselves by the end of this semester but I will be putting together a nice conceptual bit and then get all the mechanics working on the Arduino Board.