AngelaShangHawkenProjects2023

I've always liked AURORA's music. During our car rides all across Cleveland, I'd often put her music in the background. Awakening  was only one of the dozen AURORA songs in my playlist - and I never gave it too much attention until it popped up on the afternoon we came back from visiting the Cleveland Museum of Art. Something in the lyrics caught my eye. "And she's going on a journey / Always walking down the road / And the water is always calling / My little child, please come home / And the stars were brightly shining / Shen she reached out they were gone / And the water started calling / My little child, please come home..." There was something powerful that I couldn't quite place that afternoon, something I think I now have a better understanding as this project comes to its conclusion.  Our original intent was never to make a game. In fact, I couldn't really believe that we could achieve that in merely three weeks until our capstone was finished i...

As you can probably see from my last two blogs, our team has been working on the first one-third of the game very intensively during the first two-and-a-half weeks. If fact, we're almost done with the first scene, now just tidying up some loose ends and finding problems to fix. But here's a huge elephant in the room, so let's just address it directly. ... So, yes, we don't have time to finish the entire project during the allotted three-week period. There are simply too many mechanics to code, too many assets to illustrate, and too many storylines to write in such a short time. However, luckily, we found a compromise - we will sacrifice quantity for quality, focusing to make the first stage of our game the best we can make it, and then creating storyboards for the rest. What is a storyboard, you may ask? Well, a storyboard usually looks like this: It's essentially just a series of frames indicating character action, setting, and the plot that happens for a particula...

 After finishing the first stage of the scene (the alleyway, agora, and garden), it's now time to move on to an even bigger part - tackling the temple of Apollo and its many mysteries. An Iteration of the Temple of Apollo, Assassin's Creed Step One: Research As the artistic director of our project, my main concern is to restore the design of the temple as close to its original as possible. This is an educational game, after all, and an accurate visual is key to introducing our players to authentic ancient Greek architecture. Thus, to ensure the validity of my preliminary research, I requested help from our mentor. Ms. Hoxha provided a brief document that's rich in information about the structure and aesthetics of Apollo's temple at the "navel of the world," Delphi, which gave me important information on its scale, construction materials, layout, and color palette. The floor plans included especially helped to spatially orient myself, finding essential landmark...

After preliminary research, the next step is to bring our idea to life. We decided to focus on each individual stage of the game separately, aiming to completely finish the gameplay for one before moving on to another. And for me, that means building a fictional ancient Greek town from the ground up. The Temple of Apollo Step One: Maps As our game refers to the visual formats of a 2-D exploring RPG, I have to illustrate entire areas with all interactive objects embedded. During the first stage, James (our protagonist) will travel through a dark alleyway before entering a Greek marketplace and garden, eventually entering the temple of Apollo. I did ample research on styles of Greek apartment buildings, the types of stalls and goods sold in the  Agora  (ancient Greek marketplace), and received help from Ms. Hoxha for the floorplans of the temple of Apollo. Below are the progress work and final product of the alleyway, Agora , and garden. Sketch & Lineart Base Colors & Te...

It's not the first time I've been to the West Side Market. I was here three years ago on a field trip, and the experience was admittedly hazy at best. I only remembered the noises of downtown Cleveland, chilly autumn winds, and well-worn beige brick walls. I had a general impression of the place, but it never left a lasting imprint on my memory. This time, the visit is different. Out of the three locations we've chosen, I'm looking forward to the West Side Market the least. I wasn't totally convinced by the idea that cuisines can also be a valid part of our project about art and architecture, but out of pure curiosity, I decided to give it a try. My first thought when entering one of the many side doors is that, wow, this place is smaller than I expected . But after walking between the tightly packed stalls for several minutes, I realized that the building is large enough to be divided into three sections, and it was only the busy visuals that obscured its real size...

We stepped into the Cleveland Museum of Art on Tuesday morning, wishing to find our treasure. From the previous day's brainstorming sessions during walks and lunch, we've decided that focusing on one artifact in the museum is the best way to explore the object's history and represent its story. We had some general ideas - the object would preferably be from ancient civilizations - but other than that, we hoped to go on impromptu adventures and see where history leads us. We entered through the East wing of the Hubbell & Benes building, and under the brilliant sunlight diffracted through the glass ceiling, we saw it: Apollo.  He was a bronze statue, unfortunately missing both arms, standing atop a square pedestal and leaning towards an invisible tree. Apollo Sauroktonos ,  Apollo the lizard-slayer , they used to call him, from his mythological root and battle of wits against a lizard. There are many Hellenistic copies of this story, one of the more famous ones preserved ...

It was raining when we arrived at the Cleveland Cultural Gardens on Monday. Winter is much more tangible than just two weeks before - the wind was slicing through hundred-year-old oak trees - so we huddled under a tiny umbrella while walking around East Boulevard. The Cleveland Cultural Gardens were born in 1916 when journalist Leo Weidenthal established the Shakespeare Garden and conceived the idea of a garden chain that would represent the cultures around the world. More importantly, they would stand as symbols of cooperation, inclusivity, and peace. Since then, 33 gardens sprouted from the soils of Rockefeller Park, serving as ambassadors for the people who voyaged across oceans only to end their journey in this city. We had many things in mind. We know that the cultural gardens are going to b the final chapter in the game, the final destination for the traveler. Which gardens should we include? What aspects should we choose? How can we represent the locations in digital graphics wi...