pokemon – Assignment Bank

Enzo as Matrix as Megabyte as The Prisoner as Number One

Ah, the Multi-Frame GIF Story assignment, Animated GIF Assignment 880. Gotta love it.

If you’ve never encountered Reboot (the first full-length, completely computer-animated TV series) then you’ll need a bit of background to fully appreciate this post and the Reboot Season 3 episode, “Number 7″, which references The Prisoner. Reboot was ground-breaking back in the mid 90s as personal computers, modems, and the Internet started to take off. You likely know the early animation work of show creators Ian Pearson and Gavin Blair from the 1986 MTV Video-of-the-Year by Dire Straits, Money for Nothing.

I enjoyed the show during its first run on the Canadian cable channel YTV (Reboot was animated in Vancouver by Pearson and Blair’s Mainframe Entertainment), appreciating not only the wonderful plays-on-words related to computer tech, but also the myriad pop culture references embedded within. The Prisoner was one such reference, joined over the 7 -year run by others such as Mad Max, Star Trek, Elmer Fudd, James Bond, Ash and The Evil Dead, Austin Powers, Mortal Kombat, Clint Eastwood’s The Man With No Name, and The Matrix to name just a few. The opening credits to “Firewall” and the Season 3 recap performed to the Gilbert & Sullivan “A Modern Major General,” are classic examples of the brilliance of the show (both are embedded below for your enjoyment). The day my then-young sons immediately got the Pokemon and Dragon-Ball Z references in the episode “My Two Bobs,” all was right with the world.

Anyway, here is my attempt at a one paragraph summary to set you up for the third season episode, “Number 7,” in case you choose to watch it. If you don’t watch it, you can just appreciate the references to The Prisoner in the embedded GIFs.

In all previous episodes, Enzo Matrix is a young sprite who lives within MainFrame, helping/hindering the system’s Guardian, Bob, in protecting the city from the dangers of Game Cubes and viruses such as Megabyte and Hexadecimal. Following a game loss in the previous episode, young Enzo, his dog Friskit, and his friend AndrAIa are caught in the User’s game and are uploaded from their home system. Between the last episode and this one, time has passed, and young Enzo has grown from boy to man (now going by his last name, Matrix) as they travel from computer to computer trying to find their way home. The episode “Number 7″ explores Enzo’s understanding of his own identity and place in the grand scheme. (Note: There’s a whole “golf” thread which ties back to the usual “game” aspect of each episode. It provides for a few jokes, and the “out” at the end.)

If you choose to watch the Reboot episode Number 7, it is embedded in the prisoner106.us Archive for Week Six. I will leave you to draw your own conclusions on what “Number 7″ says about our understanding of Number Six and the overall show. But I think it offers a good commentary that complements the final two episodes of The Prisoner, “16: Once Upon a Time,” and “17: Fall Out.”

If you want to know more about Reboot, you may wish to do a little background reading about the series on either the Reboot Wikipedia entry, or for deeper detail, on the show’s own wiki — and episodes are certainly available on Youtube should you wish to watch more! However, in closing, I highly recommend the two clips embedded below.

#BeSeeingYou

“Be Seeing You (Bob),” animated GIF by @aforgrave

“Be Seeing You (Dot),” animated GIF by @aforgrave

“Be Seeing You (Enzo),” animated GIF by @aforgrave

Dead-on Bond Parody – Opening Credits for “Firewall”

Brilliant Season 3 Recap to Gilbert & Sullivan’s “A Modern Major-General”

Remix: An Art Critic Reviews My Pokemon Card

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Artist Comments: Strongbad is the essence of my rage. When I am angered by the Internet, by ignorant people working in tech or the gaming industry or other things I love that are known for being sexist, racist, transphobic, and all the other Bad Things, when something is unfair, when I speak up for myself and no one listens. That is when Strongbad is unleashed. Strongbad has sarcasm and writing and will make you repent your injustices.

Pokemon template courtesy of http://www.mypokecard.com/en/

Critic Comments: On initial glance, Strongbad Pokemon Card appears to be a piece of juvenilia. The cartoon nature of the self-portrait, the minimalist icons, the simple, repetitive color scheme, the imbalanced layout. It all suggests an underdeveloped design skill, an unrefined taste. But ultimately rage is simple, unrefined. It is a base instinct. So to have a visual representation of rage, it must be emblematic of that nature. We see a lone figure on a barren white field. He is pugnacious, bright red, a caricature of anger. But also the truth of anger. Anger exaggerates just as a caricature does.

We can also see this in the chosen “energies” – the simple icons that adorn the card, the background color. Strongbad isn’t primarily fueled by fire as one might expect in an underdeveloped concept of anger. Strongbad is fueled by grass – by nature. Strongbad is a righter of wrongs, a defender against injustice, he stands up for those who are treated unfairly because of who they are. Their own natures. Strongbad is much more sophisticated than pure fire, though fire does fuel his more advanced anger, the fire of writing.

This piece was created for the DS106 remix assignment Pokemon Card: Stuffy Art Critic.

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3 Stars: I choose you!

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So, for today’s assignment I chose to make a Pokemon card for a cool, breezy 3 stars. We had to choose a good picture of ourselves and imagine ourselves as a Pokemon.

Here is the Wino’s pokemon card. Abilities include my unique ability to not give a shit (note, not actually a unique ability). Also, I enjoy cooking/baking. Here’s something else I made today, although I did not injure myself today.

Hey girl, let me challah at you. HAHAHAHA I’M SO FUNNY AND ORIGINAL.

Gonna go through the steps it took for me to make the first masterpiece. First, I chose a card from this site. I heavily used the tutorial from G O’Brien’s blog here. It was not easy, but I really had a lot of fun messing around with the clouds feature in the filters-> render menu. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get the text at the top to work properly. I couldn’t quite remove just the text from the image. I think a better option for me to do would be to use the rectangle select tool and just delete the entire text top part and then try and replace the color with another cloud layer. But, alas, I didn’t have the foresight for that.

5/15 Stars down. I think the designs are getting better. Kind of wish I had saved this assignment for later in the week so I could keep improving. Oh well.

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Love Letters: Part 2

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DS106 Assignment:

Make a creative Valentine’s Day card.

The Process:

This was done completely in Photoshop. Just for fun, I created the Pokeball from scratch.

The Story:

I recommend to pay the extra few dollars for a Hallmark card if you don’t want to be rejected. Go for one that sings.

…This card would be even more epic if it played “Gotta Catch ‘em All’ when you opened it! : P

~NOMNOMreeses~

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Vannever Bush Pokemon

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So my first DS106 assignment I chose to do the Pokemon card assignment. I chose to make Bush a Steel type Pokemon because of his association with technology and computers. His attacks are based on his contributions to computer science as a field, as well as his idea of the Memex which was never actually created, but was a very accurate depiction of some of the devices we have today such as smart phones and tablet PCs. the process of making the card was fairly simple, there is a variety of websites that allow you to make your own custom Pokemon cards. the one I used only took me 10 minuets or so to make this. here is the link to http://www.mypokecard.com/en/. All you have to do is upload a picture of your choice and edit the stats such as Name, HP(health) Attacks, description of attacks, Pokemon type (such as Fire, Water, Physic Ect.) and a variety of other traits that will update your card image as you make your selections. After you are satisfied with how it looks right click the image and save it or you can even print it and glue it over top of a real Pokemon card if you want.

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I am a glutton for punishment

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I started on the pokemon card assignment and thought, “That example isn’t really a pokemon card. Let’s see what the cards look like nowadays… SNAP. No, not going to do that. Too complicated.”

Too complicated? TOO COMPLICATED?!?

Hah! I wound up getting most of the pokedex entry done, apart from the description. Then I thought, “Why not make it a GIF? It’s only animating text. How bad can it be?

Well, I started on this assignment at 4:00. It’s almost nine now.

But I have something to offer from all of this tedious work:

Moves:

Analyze
Test
Squeak
Apocalypse

EDIT: I made another one! With this one, I made the choice not to animate every letter. MauveShirt suggested I animate each line. This is what MauveShirt would be as a pokemon:

Moves:

Mutter
Dig
Disorienting Stare
Confusion