#i love doing this historical research and interpreting/combining different outfits and such

[ifindus]

Ancients Countries Appreciation Challenge - for @hetaliamondaychallenge

Persia is probably my fav ancient, he just seems pretty chill

[erikaalamode]

Coloring my latest historically accurate fairytale character designs!! Presenting Princess Jasmine!!! What do you think? . . I was disappointed with the live action Aladdin costume design. It read more Vegas Showgirl Extravaganza than Arabian Nights. Disney had a great opportunity to celebrate Middle Eastern culture, and they didn’t take it. I just thought it was a let down that they’re still filtering culture through western glasses. . . I did a lot of research on traditional dress in various Middle Eastern countries. It’s difficult to determine Aladdin’s origin, because it wasn’t added to the 1001 Nights anthology until the 18th century, and only then by a French translator, who heard the story from a Syrian man named Youhenna Diab. Diab traveled extensively through the Middle East and so he may have collected the tale during his travels, though some suggest that he may have invented the story based on his own experience. . . Because of that, I drew a series of Jasmine designs, each of which is influenced by a different country’s traditional dress. The design for her iconic blue outfit was based on Afghan women’s dress. I love the combination of the billowy pants paired with the full skirted dress, and the ornate detailing just felt magical. I also put Jasmine in a veil, because women are asked to dress modestly in Islamic law. Also, veils and headscarves are such an art form!! . . Anyway, if you know about traditional Middle Eastern dress or have any good resources that might help me do more research, I’d love to hear about it!! I’m definitely not an expert, this is just a fan’s interpretation, and I’d love to learn more from those who are experts!! . . #aladdin #princessjasmine #jasmine #disney #disneycosplay #cosplay #cosplayer #cosplaygirl #princess #arabiannights #1001nights #fairytale #costumedesign #costumedesigner #costume #costumer #history #historicalfashion #18thcentury #fashion #fashionsketch #fashionart #art #sketch #drawing #prismacolor https://www.instagram.com/p/ByjGesGjo4l/?igshid=z9aid2ro2thk

[valentinaforerocreativeblog]

Curation - Drag Queens VR Project: Reflective Blog

As I reflect on my final curation project, I can honestly say that it was one of the most exciting and most challenging projects I have had to do. This project truly taught me several important skills and knowledge which I think will be important for my big leap into the ‘real world’ in a couple of months. I found myself having several mixed emotions throughout the development of this project, but overall, I am glad that I had the freedom and opportunity to tackle this brief. I can successfully say that I have developed several new skills at the end of this project, along with a new way of creatively viewing things.

For my final creative brief, I was given the task to create a project based on activism. After several days of research, I decided to base my project on a special group that I have admired and loved for a long time, drag queens, and their stance in the LGBT community. Their activist movements have changed the course of LGBT history for the better, I have such strong admiration for drag queens especially since they are constantly fighting against social norms by simply being themselves. Drag queens have the courage and confidence to truly show the world who they want to be and not care about other people's opinions, and overall, unapologetically themselves which is something I strive to achieve.

For my project, I wanted to create an experience that showed the viewer the importance in which drag queens had within the LGBT community. Drag queens are famously known for RuPaul Drag Race, a reality competition television series that started back in 2009, ever since it is premiered the show has been a famous icon for the LGBT community within pop culture. Most people outside the LGBT community have associated RuPaul’s Drag Race as their only insight into the LGBT community and the culture of drag. Since I was one of those outsiders who fell in love with the show and drag culture, I took it upon myself to learn more about the history and challenges in which the drag community went through and their influence on pop culture as we know it today. The more I research, the more I realized that there is much more to drag than RuPaul’s Drag Race and most importantly, not many people knew about it. Hence the reason I created my project on drag queens, I wanted to create a VR experience that encapsulated the history of drag queens and their affiliation in several history LGBT movements.

The incorporation of the topic of drag queens and VR was another aspect of my project which I enjoyed. The combination of VR, a fake world that feels real once the viewer is immersed, and drag queens which are masters of illusion, making the viewer see something that is not real. Both aspects deceive the viewer, which I thought would make for a perfect experience. My goal was to clearly show the viewer the similarities of drag and VR and introduce them to the world and history of drag on a platform while the viewer can become part of the illusion by simply using a VR headset.

The process of design a VR experience was a bit challenging for me at the start. Since I had never use a VR headset before or even design on VR before I didn’t know where to start. Normally when it came to any other project, I have had experience on a similar project and can start building up ideas from the start, but since this was completely new territory I went straight to researching. While researching I came across Tate Modern’s Modern’s: Modigliani VR, it was a VR replica of Modigliani’s Parisian studio, giving the viewer the ability to move around and even interact with objects in the room. As soon as I saw

this, I had the inspiration of recreating a drag queen’s dressing room using SketchUp. Using SketchUp was an exciting new skill, it was a simple program that was easy to learn by using Youtube and casually guiding myself through the tools. The idea of a drag queen’s dressing room came from the famously known scenes in RuPaul’s Drag Race as an area in which the contestants talk about their personal experiences as drag queens and the challenges that they had to overcome to be where they are. My goal was to recreate a drag queen's dressing room since to me it represented the vulnerable space in which a drag queen can rip away from their daily outfit and turn into their alter ego they thrive in. In addition to the dressing room, there were going to be images of historical moments within the LGBT movements and well-known drag queens which influenced the course of drag. Subsequently, after completing my dressing room there was a sense of dullness in my idea, it felt as if my dressing room did not use the VR platform to its full potential. Unfortunately, I later realized to create the interactive dressing room I wanted I would have to learn a more complex program for 3D art and I simply did not have the time to learn and create the dressing room that I had envisioned. I will say, that after completing the dressing room I created on SketchUp, I have a clear understanding of the program and can confidently put it as one of my skills I look forward to advancing.

Thereafter, decided to move on and change my project idea, this decision changed the course of my project management and consequently the outcome of my project, but I do not regret my decision. I moved on to creating a hyper-realistic theme park that educated the viewer on the history of drag and the influence in which drag queens had in the LGBT movements. I felt a strong connection to this idea since I am from Florida, and one of the main things that characterize my state is the fact that it has several theme parks, most famously Disney World. Learning about hyper-reality, Disney World was one of the best examples due to its unique way of exaggerating real elements such as the wild west theme, along with castles and the concept of monarchy, construction of unnatural landscapes, and distinct vivid color scheme. I also thought it would be ideal to create a hyper-realistic theme park based on Disney World’s aesthetics for the viewer to have a familiarity, which can lead to a personal connection and develop a stronger sense of interest in my project.

After deciding on a new approach to my project, I started researching for the best platform to use, I decided MozillaHubs was the best program since it was easy to create, it had premade objects in store, and it was also easy for anyone to access. Looking back at the development of my project I wish I knew the things I know now. After designing on MozillaHubs, I realized that I was limited to what I could include in my design, there was not enough freedom to choose from. The program did not give you the ability to change several colors or create new objects which made me change the outcome I had in mind. Later, I found out that I need to buy another program called, SketchHub to be able to freely design the layout I had in mind, which in the end was too late. Just like my downfall in SketchUp, I did not feel like I had enough time to learn another program and achieve the design I wanted before the deadline. Either way, I can say that my experience with MozillaHubs was educational, it gave me the experience to work with 3D art which is the future of contemporary art.

Reviewing my notes throughout the semester, I have learned several topics that I have found useful for my project. One of the topics I found myself interested in was digital exhibitions: storytelling narratives and exhibition outlines. This class was the guideline that I needed to structure my project around. It helped me plan for my viewers to be symphony goers and be completely immersed in the experience. Along with participation, I had also realized that while I was creating my experience, I needed to keep in mind that virtual exhibitions do not stimulate all the viewers' senses, which is why I decided to create

the hyper-reality essence, to attract the sense of sight in substitute for the sense of smell and touch in which they would normally have in a real-life exhibition. In addition to planning the atmosphere of the experience, I needed to set the storyline of the narrative I wanted to achieve. Since I decided to create my project on a VR platform, I had to create my narrative in a non-linear structure because of the freedom in which VR gives the viewer. The whole point of VR is for the viewer to have complete freedom in where to wonder, feeling as if they are in their reality, and by setting up a linear outline it would obstruct the viewer from this freedom and cancel out the sense of being within in another reality and ruin the experience. Even though my project is based on historical factors, I believed that the viewer did not need to see the events in chronological order to truly understand the importance of every moment, instead, they can take their route and create their understanding and unique interpretation of drag history.

Another key element I wanted to add was a short video interview with real-life drag queens. I thought by adding this real element into my hyper-reality experience, it would give the viewer a full circle experience and understanding of the world of drag. I started by contacting several UK drag queen’s on Instagram by sending them a short message explaining what I was trying to accomplish with my project. In the end, I only got responses from three out of the hundreds I messaged, unfortunately, my plan didn’t work around either one of their schedules, but it was encouraging to see the support they gave me knowing what my project was. This gave even more motivation to create an experience for more and more people to understand the courageous history and inspirational essence of drag queens.

All things considered; this project has given me immense insight into my future. This was the first project I had to tackle completely online, which I did not think was going to be any different from my other project, but I was wrong. Deciding to take my semester online was a huge change for me, even though I took a careful decision to stay at home due to the pandemic situation, I must admit it was hard for me to focus as much as I would normally do if I was at university. But I learned from my experience and I am lucky to have had this experience in university so I can be ready for when I graduate. Another struggle I had to tackle was the element of digital design, I have never thought of creating on VR before this project and this experience helped me understand if the digital design was the job path I want to take. Fortunately, this project gave a sneak-peek into digital design and after reflecting on my work I must admit it might not be the path for me, but I am glad that I had tried it out and can show my efforts on my portfolio. Overall, my honest opinion on my project is that I do not feel this project showed my full potential, I tried to convey my ideas, but I feel that unfortunately the platform which I choose wasn’t the best for me. I did have an interesting time working outside my comfort zone but there is a part of me that isn’t truly content with my work. I do not regret the decision that I made, I’m simply going to take my experience on this project and learn from my mistake while focusing on my curatorial/event career.

[tumblunni]

HEYO! oh man now my friend helped me get all inspired again for working on my Cathedral Tower Defense game so WOO lets have another long post of miscellaneous ideasies for storyness! may not be very coherant tho cos i am super tired and ill! but happy!! THANKS SUMMON-DAZE FOR BEING MY ULTRA BESTIE

* Okay now I am super sure that I’m gonna let you choose the gender of the protagonist! And I wanna keep it so that their name is Amity either way, cos that’s kinda stuck in my mind. Surname Amity, player gets to decide the first name, but people will still be calling you Amity a lot at first cos you start off all awkward and formal with everybody. You’re a newcomer to this cathedral town and nobody knows whether to trust you, from their perspective you’re this dangerous person theyre forced to accept just because they need you to help protect them, whether you’re good or bad. They’re all worried what price they might have to pay for this, trying to figure out how to minimize the damage if you turn on them... and its not like they’re bad people for being untrustworthy, they’re just scared people huddling in a church and trying to keep their families safe at any cost. So try and prove your worth to them, and help them learn to protect themselves too, and make this ramshackle settlement into a real home! ....anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, gender selection is a good! And it could be relatively easy to impliment too, cos of the situation. Doesnt even necessarily have to be a menu or anything, it could just be like sir amity/lady amity/master amity. Cos you’re this paladin knighto, itd make sense for them to ask for your title. And it could just be like a shot of protagonist’s badass silhouette in the gateway of the cathedral and then you get the dialogue choice to pick your identity, and its all Super Cool~!

* It also actually gives me more of an idea of what i could do for their design, like I dunno maybe they have some sort of face-concealing helm or headdress or something. I was just thinking of them being dressed like a generic nun or princess but maybe emphasize more on the knight aspect instead of the holy part? So like anyway, maybe they have a very all-concealing outfit and that could be the framing of the first scene instead, its like *pulls off the mask and you’re into the character selection screen* Orrrrrr maybe there doesnt need to be any magical setup for a gender selection and it can just be a menu before the first scene starts XD Or maybe you have a cool face-concealing helmet thing anyway, like all three gender options just have a different one, lol

* More random magical names i got via the cool name generator site summon-daze linked to me! Dunno if I’ll actually use any of these but im writing them down here so i dont forget. Berebath, Betnia, Amurziz, Jetre, Miemahl, Semdach, Batxahl, Sidefarch, Botolohn, Vausach, Thammoch, Droibhal, Lekonach, Zeidhal, Tieloch, Rabrohm, Maesur, Smoiroch, Baelbuhr, Axoth, Jige, Chushou, Hukru, Nejeget, Roucu,  Jinah, Aujus, Yekoth, Nugresah, Israfel, Jabriel, Tabris, Douma

* Also I’m remembering Jade Cocoon and how I liked that the different ‘families’ of monsters shared naming traits. Like how all those weird snake/slug cutiepies that i loved best were nushab, rashab, etc etc. And tamatoch and somethingtoch and so on. I think there was at least one where the modifier was a prefix too? I dunno why i’m talking about this, but there you go. I just think if i wanna do full original made up names for demon species then i wanna make em stuff that just... feels like that. I dont actually wanna make like five different elements of each one tho, i wanna have only one per element and then they have like two different higher level finalized forms. Like, the human characters can have two job classes each and the demons can have two specializations within an element. That helps me think about how to limit it down to four or five elements, if we can combine common fantasy elements together! And yeah I was thinking it’d be cool if the demon ‘job classes’ could have their own evolving appearances and new names!

* Thoughts for the ol elemental groupings! The only one I really have finalized is grass + poison = same thing. Florin, why u always the character that gets developed faster than everyone else XD And I’m thinking giving them their own made up names would make it easier! Like how in SMT you have spells being stuff like ‘media’ and ‘agi’ instead of cure and fire. But here (hopefully) it’d be easier to memorize cos its just the element names that’re fantasy words, and the attacks themselves would be a little more self explanatory. i just think it’d work cos like... the idea i had of rock and fire being one single demon type, you could just call that magma. But i mean, what can you call plant + poison? Except.. like.. plant. Cos poison is reasonably often a grass type skill anyway. And i mean, game creators dont often worry about making sense, what with how ‘grass’ is the common element name when thats just one plant in a million. I cant stop thinking about that now I’ve noticed it! I legit thought grass was a synonym for plant when i was a kid, i learned to read from pokemon yellow... ANYWAY IM GETTING OFFTOPIC AGAIN The other idea I had for groupings was fire + non-elemental together? I was just thinking like... aura. Non elemental/physical attack as a ‘magic’ could be fighting spirit! And thematically speaking it tends to be shown as fire effects in anime, i guess XD But then i couldnt put fire with rock and that means I’d have to redesign malachi again. his design ended up looking more firey than rocky :P Another idea is maybe darkness + non-elemental together? like, interpret non-elemental as ‘void’. Or light and dark could be together actually, that could be an interesting way to do it, instead of having them opposing. Like maybe the elements could be colours! Grey element, able to specialize into white or black but neither is any sort of ‘good and evil’. And then the rest could be like green or like.. instead of red maybe fire could be bronze and thats why it has rock skills too? or man, maybe rock and metal could be one element and fire could be grouped with something else. And would water and ice be too ordinary and boring? do they already kinda count as one element? should I throw in something else? GAHHHHHHH

* Ideas for the multiple religious groups aligned with each element! I’m thinking I want one of them to interpret the setting’s absent god as two deities. like, every perspective on this deity is a wildly different character, this one is just even more so! they’d see malahat (tentative name) as two people, but kinda more like a shared soul that can manifest as either a male or female form. But there’d be ambiguity and debates in the mythos over whether this is actually a genderfluid god, or if its ‘twins who were cursed to never exist at the same time’, or various other variations on the story. I wanna make it like real life, where even within (for example) catholocism, there’s different sects and different translations of the same text. And where there’s predjudice against minority groups and people like to twist their faith to ‘justify’ it, even when parts of the original tale could easily justify treating those people with kindness too. So there’d be some followers of the twins religion who are very openminded to LGBTQ people, and historically anyone trans was able to hold a unique position as a priest, being treated as someone blessed by god. But like in norse mythology, this wasnt necessarily a sign that society was 100% okay with LGBTQ people. Its kinda depressing to read about how trans women and gay men were considered the only people able to become a specific kind of witches, but also how you kinda HAD to take this one safety net in society to stop people from making you an outcast. It was like ‘make them fear me so they dont fuckin kill me’. You had to become a medicine person and at least claim to believe in these magic powers, you had to be blessed by the gods to prove you were like.. one of the good ones. Otherwise its like youre saying the gods made a mistake when they made you, or youre choosing to be a deviant against nature. i can only imagine how terrifying it must have been if you believed in that religion and had to like.. be forced to go against it and leave society, or be forced to lie about being chosen by a god for a higher purpose, while believing that any moment you might get struck down for lying. And then I read in other history books about how the concept of homosexuality was far different in that old society too, how male-on-male sex was accepted at sea as long as you were the dominant one and you were forcing something unwanted onto a lesser shipmate as punishment. Like ugh, rape being more socially accepted than consensual LGBTQ relationships! I guess the only solace is that we can never be 100% sure how much of historians’s theories are correct and what might have changed in retellings of history, but honestly I can believe the past is this fucked up when the present is already fucked up in different ways. BUT ANYWAY I wanna explore those themes in my story maybe. And I wanna do more research into the subject to make sure I’m doing it justice, even though its a very sad subject that might be quite stressful. Maaaaan, I remember how I used to obsess about researching norse myth as a kid, it was one of my first Special Interests and I really wanted to see all the different reinterpretations of Loki and write my own fanfic/adaptation/vaguely inspired original story about What If He Stayed A Good Guy. Man I had soooo much sympathy for the poor sod. I mean it depends on the retelling whether he was always evil or whether he was like a comedic neutral ally to the gods who just abruptly becomes evil and gets killed off without remorse in the final story. And gahhh he’s like the biggest LGBTQ bastion in the whole mythos, and how can I not feel sympathetic?? When we get all these stories about him being a literal genderfluid shapeshifter and giving birth to half of his children and just like seriously its like The Story Of the One Trans Man In Homophobic Transphobic Valhalla and he was probably meant to seem Bad and Funny and whatever but im gonna sit here and grumpily cling onto the idea that he was deliberately written as trans, or that if these gods actually do exist out there somewhere then Loki would support me. *pout* I just have a lot of good memories of how this was like the first sign of me realizing my own gender, back when I first learned about Loki in school and then devoured every damn history book about the dude. And got in a million internet pissing matches about how innacurate the marvel version was XD Also it sucks that we like to believe that modern times are always 100% more enlightened in every way, yet its modern adaptations that always censor out the bits about him shifting gender identities and getting pregnant once. ... man this has gone offtopic too much, im really tired but seriously its funny how teenage bunni had NO CLUE they were nonbinary, no clue why they got so obsessed researching gender-defying mythological figures and historians who created gender neutral pronouns in the 1800s. i was so supernaturally oblivious, holy shit...