Week Six 08/15-08/23

Greetings and salutations. This weeks sketches focus on a small mom and pop location. I was originally going to do this small delicatessen called Daglio's but they closed up shop just a few days ago. So I decided to do another food place, a small little location called Hungry Howard's Pizza.

I have lived in this area for six years and I have never gone in there so I decided today was the day to do just that.

So here's what the place looks like when you approach:

The entrance itself:

Here is my sketch of the exterior:

Sorry about the rough lines. I am still having difficulty drawing straight lines while standing. Anyway, when I went inside, it had an open, friendly feeling even though it was far smaller than I expected. Part of the reason for the friendly feeling is because of the color scheme. They use yellow tiling. Yellow is the color of happiness, the sun, and light-heartedness. I was nervous going into the place but that dissipated quickly when I walked inside. The color psychology did it's job there! Here's the interior:

My sketch of the interior:

Yes, no place to eat at all. You go in, order, and leave. However, you don't feel rushed when you go inside.

Now I will talk about the people inside. There was only two of them inside, a slightly heavy set guy with a dark, large thick beard and a cute, petite red-headed girl with glasses (sorry, I like redheads, especially ones with short hair). The redhead was the acting manager on duty. However, I think they were actually the shift supervisor since she told me that the actual manager was out. Anyway, they were friendly enough and she gave me permission to take photos and sketch the place. I also listened in on their conversations and the two of them seemed well caught up with pop culture (something I don't pay attention to very often because I think most of it is rather asinine).

I noticed while I was sketching that the color scheme besides the yellow was red (the bearded guy was wearing a red uniform even though the red head was in blue with an apron, probably to reflect her rank in the store). Red and yellow are good ways to get you hungry so whoever designed the branding for this place is very well versed with color theory.

There were also two items of interest that I noticed: the Pepsi vending machine and the sleek designs of the menu signs. Here is the vending machine:

The menu signs:

Sorry about the lack of detail on the side of the signs. I couldn't really see how they were bolted to the walls due to my angle in the lobby.

Now, the point of this assignment was to put this location into the world of Defiance. I've heard of Defiance but never watched the show and never played the game. Basically, it's a third-person shooter MMO that runs concurrently with a television show of the same name on the Syfy Channel. Interestingly, the show takes place in post-apocalyptic St. Louis while the game is in San Francisco during the same time period. The world is the result of some sort of war between aliens and humans and eventually were forced to live together in the aftermath in a war ravaged Earth.

Now this pizza place reminded me of some of the small decorative stores in the large city environments in Saints Row or Grand Theft Auto. You could see the inside of the store through the window but cannot actually step inside. I can see this place having sort of the same function. Or maybe it can play a much larger role like an actual location where you can obtain special consumables from the place or speak with the NPCs here. The two people that were here in the pizza place when I went inside could definitely be characters, especially the guy with the beard. He was boisterous, load, and almost larger than his current occupation. Imagine if he was actually leading some sort of double life and working at this pizza joint is his front for a more secretive and massive operation? That would be interesting. Maybe then this location could be expanded upon, maybe turned into a meeting place for players. Sounds fun, huh? The name would have to be changed though, maybe like Apocalypto Pizza or Defiant Pizza Pies? I know, cheesy. Unfortunately, I couldn't find enough info to really get a feel of how the game or television show is.

It was fun going into this place. In the end I ordered some pizza and took it home with me. The pizza is not bad either so maybe I will go in there more often from now on.

Week Three 07/27-08/03

Greetings and salutations. This week's sketches are plants with Game of Thrones in mind. Unfortunately, two of the plants I have no idea what they are called and I was not very successful with an internet search on what they are. However, I was more successful on the Game of Thrones research. I don't watch this show nor read the books, but I do know that these plants I believe are native to the desert here in Southeast Arizona and Northern Mexico (I forget what it is called at the moment). Based upon my research, I believe that these plants could be found or used in a place called Dorne.

Dorne is the southernmost of something called the Seven Kingdoms on the continent of Westeros (again, I don't read the books or watch the TV show so bear with me here). Dorne is also the hottest and most arid of the countries on this continent. Apparently it is rocky, mountainous, arid and dry. In fact, it is the only desert on the continent. This place sounds perfect for where these plants could be used.

Now actual uses in the series? I am not entirely for certain. I noticed that all of the plants are rather quite hardy, either very strong, tough or are quite hostile. Did you know that palm trees out here have thorns on the leaf stalks? I never noticed that before.

I can see these plants being used mainly for utilitarian uses such as firewood, fibers for weaving, leaves for shade, and the sort. Here's the plants that I found and sketched:

Mesquite Tree. Bark is very thick, dark and tough. Many tiny leaves to maximize surface area for photosynthesis. Seed pods quite large. They range from green to yellow.

Palm Tree. Leaves are bright green and very large and ridged. The stalks themselves are lined with thorns and the trunk appears to be made of older leaf stalks that have wrapped itself around the main trunk. Very weird.

I am not for certain what this plant is. However, it actually looks dangerous. It is a deep green with strange white threads curling out from the edges of the leaf blades. One of these plants had an ugly looking bulb on top that was tipped in dark red and then ranged from yellow to green in color. It didn't look very nice.

I believe this is a type of cactus or tree. The leaves have thorns lining them on the edges and they are arrayed in a radial pattern around the center. Older version of this plant have a strange stalk like thing rising high into the air. Unfortunately, I didn't see any older ones of this plant, so I couldn't sketch the variations.

Prickly Pear cactus. This one was unusual because it didn't have any thorns on it like others do. It actually had a large chip in one of the pears. I didn't have time to draw that in since it was getting rather dark and hard to see. Someone was telling me that a girl got shot here and the hole in the cactus was where the bullet went through it. Maybe that's why this particular specimen has no thorns either.

That's all for now. There will be no sketchbook update next week since it's time for midterms. Bye-bye! ^_^