The Next Generation of Children’s Storytelling: Interactive Enhanced eBooks

Much like the generations of adults that have come before me, I was raised on traditional print-based storybooks at bedtime. The tradition of reading children’s books has crossed the thresholds of economic, geographic, and social barriers across the world for countless years. It is easy to say that most children have been read a story from a picture book at some point within their early development.

However, unlike the older generations, a new and exciting trend in storytelling has emerged into the lives of the newest generation of readers. Today’s children have been born into a technological world, where they have developed an innate understanding of technology and digital devices from the time they could hold them on their own.  The time of the enhanced interactive eBook is here, and with it come a unique set of educational and interactive-based problems. (Read On)

Inti St Clair/Getty

Forging New Paths in a “Copy Cat” Gaming Industry

We live in a world of trends. Where selfies, #nofilters, Snapchat, and crop tops hit the market like a super sonic rocket fueled on steroids and seemingly fade out faster than they arrived. As trends fade into the dust, so do more trends appear. Thus creates the never ending circle of life where a trend occurs and others looking for a quick profit follow. Sadly, there is not such a place where this occurs as frequently as it does in the casual/mobile gaming market. More people in the world, the rich and the poor, now have access to smart phones and app stores. The Apple App store now reaches over 46 million downloads a day alone.

This quick change in our society and way of living has created a new market need, previously unseen within the past decade. As more people are able to reach into their phones and log into the app store, the demands for quick entertainment and escape from daily lives (and awkward elevator rides) skyrocket. This demand has led to unprecedented successes of revolutionary and inspiring games that fight to hold their rank on the top charts, and close behind them ride the infamous “copycat” games. That is, until recently where one game, so revolutionary and inspiring, hit the market a week ago. While it’s existence will surely introduce a treasure trove of new copycat games, it is my hope that gaming companies use the visions the “Monument Valley” team has laid forth as inspiration to continue to reach new levels of what gaming could, and should be.

 

8 Critical Life Lessons No One Tells you in Film & Art School

It’s somewhere we have all been, or are about to face. Art school is long over and your hunt for your first big gig has officially started. It’s scary, its aggressive, and sometimes, it is just too much to handle. The struggle for all of us 20-somethings trying to find our niche in the working world, no matter what your area is, is challenging. For artists however, especially for those wanting to get into the entertainment industry, the struggle is too real.

You aren’t alone, my fellow 20 something. I’m going through it too. While we can’t change our circumstances, there are things that we can take away from this process and leave advice for one another as well as for those about to graduate. There are some very, very big things our schools didn’t prepare us for that I’ve started to learn from those I’ve met in the industry. As tough as it is to face some of them, I think it’s time to take a good hard look at them and learn from them. (Read on)

Why a background in everything BUT art actually makes you the better artist

Going to a liberal arts college was one of the greatest decisions I have ever made for expanding my artistic abilities. Now I know many artists might disagree with me on this. How can going to a school and not studying art help you find a job in the animation and games industry?

It is a question that I have continually asked myself for the past four years as I finished my college degree, and the one that I know many other students in my field have asked themselves. After spending a long time reflecting on my personal experiences and strange background that got me into the world of animation and gaming, as well as learning from my friends who attended to strong art schools, I really have one opinion:

No, going to an arts school doesn’t make you more prepared or better than liberal arts college students, or those artists that are self taught.

(Click below to read more!)

And then there was a website!

Yes, it is indeed true! Today my personal website is officially online. But never fear, I will continue to post my ramblings loud and clear on this blog. My website will serve as an industry calling card and will host condensed versions of my work that can be found on my WordPress art blog. I am looking forward to the next steps in my journey, and looking forward to being able to post more on this blog as well!

melissasmurphy.com

I’m Graduating, with an Interest in…Everything?!

If you asked me four years ago what I would be doing on this day at this very moment, I would have told you that I would be taking my senior portraits in my over-sized cap and gown, degree in hand, ready to take on the advertising world with my super awesome graphic design poster making skills. Boy was I wrong about that life goal.

As I finish designs for my very last undergraduate course on the week before graduation, I am reminded just how quickly my dreams and life goals have changed in the course of the two years since I decided to drop everything I knew and switch my major to animation at the film school.  I’m never really one for coming up with deep, insightful, life-changing advice, but my mind has begun racing with all of the uncertainty and hopes that new college graduates face. While most strangers spend their energy inquiring what I am going to do after graduation, I spend just as much time telling them the truth.

Like most college graduates, I have no idea what I will be doing tomorrow. What I do know is that I want to do absolutely everything…and that is the problem.

“Pantomime”, my CG animated thesis film, is complete. Now what?

The Importance of Finding Your Inner Child as an Artist

It’s always a shock when someone new comes to visit our apartment. On a good day, when my roommates and I actually clean, it looks rather nice and like any other college apartment. However, that all seems to change when they reach my desk and my side of the bedroom. Anyone who has ever met me immediately knows that I live on that side of the room.

While it may be laughable to some, my Disney-laden, magenta and light blue, pillow strewn fortress is really just an extension of me. So I let people laugh, and question, and let them find it endearing. But there is always that one comment people make that seems to pop up; childish. After battling with this word back and forth for far longer than need be, I came to realize something very important as to why I may have a mind like a grown child. It’s because of art.

 

Critique Session: Approaching every art student’s fear the right way

Critique- it’s the single word that every artist dreads. It’s putting yourself on the front line for criticism, where the very foundations of something that you made out of love is thrown into the direct line of fire. If someone tells you they look forward to a critiquing session they are a pathological liar. There is nothing more difficult and more rewarding than a critiquing session. More often than not though, the lines between what is an acceptable critique and what is flat out uncalled for are blurred. In fact, there is an unspoken moral code that I find comes with critiquing effectively.

So what is it? How do you avoid causing the inevitable sting and burning pain that comes along with critiquing someone’s artwork?

Sleepless in Film School: When it’s okay to take a break

I’m going to be honest here; I’ve been at home in Washington for a little over a month now on my winter break and not once have I experienced a Sleepless in Seattle moment (pun intended). Why is that? Well, that’s because I have simply decided that I wanted a break from life. As in, I don’t want to draw until my hand falls off and my carpal tunnel kicks in to the point I can’t type without hitting four extra random symbols. I know what most people are thinking, why on earth are you wasting most of your time kicking back and watching the entire Band of Brothers series while you could be working on art stuff?

Well, I am indeed working on all those things, just in smaller quantities than I have been for the past twelve months. While I have been spending a fair amount of my relaxation time working on various things to ensure I can at least hold a pencil, I have been thinking a lot about my poor collegues that are still at school. Judging by their status updates, they are yet again killing themselves with only having an average of three hours of sleep a night. It got me thinking, when is enough really enough? When is the time to take a break and when is the time for an artist to just push through it?

Paper or Photoshop? Why not both!?

It’s the eve of finals week, which in a college student’s perspective means that for the past three weeks I have slept an average of 2-3 hours every day, helped to continue to progression of the carpal tunnel symptoms in my right hand, have exhausted my eyes so much that my roommates go back and forth in thinking either I am constantly crying my eyes out or am on some form of drug, and have made the living room couch my new makeshift bed, and of course; there is Starbucks.

It was here that I was “studying” with a few of my friends who are in the business school. While they were actually studying, I was across the table from them blankly staring off into space with my pencil in my hand and my last two pages of sketchbook, desperately trying to come up with a concept for my last Maya animation short of the semester. The minute the ideas started to flow, I sketched rapidly and quickly and before I knew it, my two pages were gone. So I had no choice but to switch to Starbucks napkins, though luckily the barista kept seeing me get up and grabbing one or two more and felt so bad for the crazy girl in the corner that he brought me some Starbucks paper bags to draw on.

Apparently looking like a ridiculous fool, one of my friends finally chimed in with a helpful suggestion. “Melissa, why don’t you just draw all of that on Photoshop? It would save you a ton of time and you wouldn’t be wasting paper!”

I thought about it, that much was true. If you could draw with a tablet well it would save time. But is that really how it should be done? Should all brainstorming be done on the computer? Or is there something more meaningful and necessary that paper can bring you that Photoshop layers can’t?