The Creativities of a Brook.

But an update. I've added colour to the people and they are now created within the shape of the country they live in. The shape... Detail... As always, click on images to see larger version. .

. Just thought I'd post this first one to give a taste of things to come... I'm, unfortunately, not expecting to finish all the colours in time for the print. But I'll carry on this project after wednesday so hopefully it will happen! .

. (The homeless guy looks small cos otherwise he wouldn't fit in his column. You can click him to see him slightly bigger.) .

. Not a lot of change, but these are almost the final look of the images. I'm thinking the people will have shadows and the Philippines will have a little more diversity. Oh, and on a white backdrop to show off the shadows. Here's a comparison of the 2 nations... .Click images to see larger versions. (Please excuse the image artifacts... That's Blogger's fault) .

. .Click here to see larger image. ---- 3 Megs ---- .

. Ha, it's ridiculous how out of practise I was... I'll post them in a random order, but you can work out what order I drew them in as the quality increases drastically from image to image. I still can't draw shoes... At all. Probably doesn't help that most images I used had the feet cut off. .

. I attempted to create the image using 2D software. I'm not as comfortable using Apple Motion as I am with Electric Image, but I think I'm safe to say that it shouldn't be producing images like these... Can't see anything here... Little better here, but looks to have gotten bored at the bottom. .

. Here is what the new method can achieve reasonably quickly. .Click to see larger image. ---WARNING 12MB---- This is 1/50 of the full population of healthy males in the UK. There are about 463,700 people in this illustration, divided into 4 ethnicities (British, other White, Black and Asian). The final illustration won't cut people into bits round the edges, this was just a quick and dirty test. ::EDIT:: I've just found out that there's actually less than 467,000 people... It rendered that many, but some are hidden behind. The software I'm using keeps creating people on top of each other, which is annoying. I'm trying to find a way to stop it as we speak. .

. This version actually uses Electric Image, 3D rendering software, because it's the only piece of software which has a particle system I'm accustomed to and understand thoroughly. So yeah, this is ready now to have different types of people in the crowd, the toilet man is just a placeholder to test it. .Click to view larger image. I've decided to use this method as, for starters, I prefer the randomness it achieves. The previous version was created in Illustrator using symbols, and it creates them in a more regular, computer-created-looking pattern. The particles, as well as looking more natural, are also much faster to setup now that I've done the original tweaking. And also allow for easier use of bitmaps for the images, so once I've drawn the people I can simply stick them onto ready-placed particles. .

. Each person on this visualisation was supposed to be 1,000 people... But using illustrator I'm finding it difficult to get exactly 77,000 figures on the page. As is stands, it's waaaaaaay off... And I'm thinking even 1,000 is too many people for a single igure to represent. So when I get access to Electric image I will try to create 770,000 figures. If it's too many, 77,000 or 150,000 will do. Anyway, the figures represent people and the circles will... circle? The number of people in the group represented. .Click here to view larger image. .

. Philippines Red <-------- -- - -- -------> UK Blue - Click to view larger image - .

. Some images depicting police hats and badges from the UK and from the Philippines. The fact that UK has 4 an the Philippines has 3 isn't arbitrary. It's due to the fact that the ratio of Police in the UK and the Philippines is around, well, 4:3. And the fact that the Philippines has a higher population and crime rate than the UK, that is a little worrying. I also found that our worries over space in UK jails are rather moot when you compare our 144 jails to the 7 in the Philippines. UK Philippines .

. While I was in the Philippines I visited the cemetery with two of the girls I was staying with. They first showed me a grave, similar to some of the larger tomb-like graves found in the UK, shared between three family members. The second place was a large cuboid of cement, stepped down the sides, with many holes in each step. This was there for anyone who's loved one didn't have a grave to place a candle to pay their respects. And finally I was taken to rows of what looked like shelves. Each shelf had a plaque, or sometimes just writing engraved into the back, denoting the deceased. Pinitensya is a filipino tradition during holy week. Men, repentant for their sins, will put on a hood (many of the ones I saw were red, some had a turin shroud design on white) and walk the streets of the Philippines whipping their own back. On the last day of holy week they became more agressive in their whipping to the point where, when taking photos, I had blood flick off've a whip a...

. I haven't dug deep into this, but I have been told that an overwhelming majority of students (boys included) are aiming to become a nurse, with HRM (Hotel, Restaurant Management) tagging along behind in second. You may think, how nice and caring these Filipinos are to want to comfort the ill and... People eating and staying in restaurants. But the main reason is that they seem to believe that other countries are short of nurses and hotel, restaurant managers. Therefore they are hoping the course will bring them out of the country and into a better life. Another thing worth pointing out, is that even many menial jobs appear to require you to have graduated from college in order to apply, no matter how irrelevant it is to the job. This may seem odd, but I guess it helps to filter out the applicants when there are so few jobs to be had. .

. Crime Take this information with a pinch of salt. Some of it is out of date by around 10 years. It may possible come as no surprise that the murder rate is much higher in the Philippines than it is in England. Partially due to war, but the criminal murder rate is still more than 5 times that in the UK. And, again, the number of police is only two thirds of that in UK while the number of prisoners is on par with ours... Although, there isn't enough room to hold all of them in the Philippines with the share of prison capacity being around 156%. One of the biggest crimes in the Philippines is software piracy, with an estimated 69% of purchased software being pirated, with more obviously being downloaded freely. The UK comes in at around 26%. The total crimes recorded, though, is around eighty five thousand in the Philippines with the UK topping six and a half million. I assume this is due to many petty crimes not being so diligently pros...

. A Crucifix vs. A Crucifixion Filipinos genuinely do nail themselves to a cross. They fasten themselves using ropes and they have a pedestal to stay stood up, but, once they find a good position, they proceed to hammer nails through their hands and feet. I was surprised to see how little blood comes out, though. .

. Buses vs. Jeepney Getting around in a jeepney in the Philippines is the equivalent of getting on a bus in England. Basically you get on through the lack of tail gate, take a seat (if you have to stand you'll be slouching a lot...) and pay the guy at the front. There are no designated stops, it just keeps going rather slowly and you get on whether it stops or not. .

. Recently been to the Philippines... Was a great experience. Would be silly not to do a project involving it, so I am. I want to compare and contrast it to England and it's culture... Trying now to figure out/decide how exactly. Maybe Info Graphics, as my dad suggested... http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/ http://www.flickr.com/groups/infografias/ . .

. .Click to view animation. .

. Just hit my first deadline on the 10th, so not been wanting to do anything. Anyway, just a quick show of what bunny and fox look like together on a screen. I have a few things ready to show on here, but I won't be doing anything new cos my head died, so I'll stagger putting them up through the next few days. Fox and Bunny .Click to view animation. .

. I kinda animated him twice. The first time with no ears, because they need to follow nicely after, and it's hard to do that if you draw it all at the same time. Lesson learned from the fox. So I thought I'd post a line test with and without the ears so you can see the comparison. .Click to view with no ears. .Click to view with ears. .