I can tell from personal experience and observation that amateur digital artists tend to experiment with different media. They like to play around with all the software they can get their hands on to see what works best for them. So even if we only settle for one particular medium, whether it’s illustration, animation, 3d modeling, or anything else, we tend to have at least some experience with other forms of digital art. Sometimes we get lucky and/or smart and meet or seek other people to combine powers, and go all multidisciplinary on everyone’s asses. This means making music for someone’s video, video for someone’s music, assets for a game, and all other kinds of combinations. Sometimes we like to make that mix ourselves, which is ok too. But there’s one combo that I find to be the ultimate combo, can you guess which one?

Interactively Active

I like interactive arts not just because they pretty much require at least some knowledge of a variety of media, but mostly because, while a good painting or film might speak to you, interactive artworks give you the ability to talk back. The idea of really engaging with a piece of art, the notion of being a part of the artwork just really appeals to me. Combining your potential powers of illustration, animation, sound, storytelling and whatever other skills you might have with the magic of interactivity can really create some interesting results. What is also great is that interactivity in art in this form is fairly young, so there is a lot more for you to discover and reveal to the world, and there are many cool things to be done that haven’t been done before. Because it also combines a multitude of disciplines, there’s a lot more room for real originality.

One thing that does make interactive art seem a bit intimidating is that it adds quite a bit of complexity to the equation. A lot of times some knowledge of coding is required, or desired to achieve the results you want. Visual artists don’t tend to be fans of programming, but there’s always solutions to that, as usual. I’ve met artists who just combine their powers with someone with technical knowledge. I find collaboration an excellent way to achieve projects you can’t achieve by yourself. Besides that, you can always just toughen up and learn to code a little, it isn’t always that hard, and there are ways to make it easier on yourself. Even a simple amount of interactivity can be really cool. From games to weird experiments, interactivity can really broaden your creative horizons.

So how can you actively hop on the interactive bandwagon?

With some of the ways I’m going to list now, in no particular order.

Because I believe action should come before inspiration from similar or related works, I am going to show you all these possibilities first, in the hopes that you will experiment. I will show you some awesome examples of interactive arts in a later post.

Ways You Can Make Interactive Artworks and Stuff

• Flash.Ever heard of it? I hear some people make games and websites with this. Apparently you can animate with it and it has some kind of script full of action, but it’s the third script. They also have a second script. What? Oh yeah, the Flash plugin is installed on pretty much every computer built since 1972, so you’ve got quite audience there. ActionScript is pretty easy to use, and fairly powerful if applied well. One potential problem is the price, which is probably a buttload more than you can afford if you really are an amateur, and as you may have heard, I’m not really a fan of piracy.

• Game making software and game SDKs. Games are probably the most prolific and awesome form of interactive art that currently exists, and it’s pretty fun to make them too. Software such as Game Maker (originally developed at my university ) and Multimedia Fusion allow you to do quite a lot of playing around with your game making dreams. Besides that, game engines, game engine SDKs and game mod tools can let you do a lot more than just create levels. I’ve attempted to make somewhat interactive machinima with Valve’s Source SDK before, and while it wasn’t all easy, the results were quite awesome. Always remember that anything you can use to make games you can also use to create other kinds of interactive experiences.

• Blender. The 3d software package of choice for all amateurs, and not just because it’s free. Blender has had it’s own game development possibilities for a while now, and a little knowledge of Python can get you a long way.

• Max and/or Pure Data. The software of choice for many interactive performances. These are basically graphical programming languages that allow you to let many different sources of input interact with each other by linking objects together. Combined with an Arduino board you can extend your interactivity way beyond the screen/speakers. Pure Data is totally free, Max is far from it.

• Processing. Processing is a programming language you non-coders will love. It is specifically designed for the electronic arts and visual design communities, and makes learning fun by rewarding you with some of that precious instant visual gratification. Processing also allows you to take advantage of that Arduino magic.

• Go old school and make an interesting narrative experience with plain ol’ HTML. There’s actually quite a lot of stuff on hypertext fiction out there, so go do some research if this speaks to you. Some consider it a dead medium, but those people are idiots. There’s no such thing as a dead medium. I bet you could come up with some interesting new things if you like the idea of interactive fiction.

• Go even older school and get your electronics groove on. Making simple robots isn’t all that complex these days, you can even use Lego.  If this appeals to you, do some research, there has been some amazing work done with robotic arts, and there is a lot more to be done, perhaps by you. Just don’t make robots that play the guitar or the drums… I’ve already seen too many of those.

That’s about all I can think of now. Don’t hesitate to let me know if I’ve missed anything, that’s what the comment form is for.

Also, if you have already played around with interactive arts, or would like to know a little bit more, I’d really like to hear from you. The contact form on my about page is open during regular office hours, and every other hour of every day.

This is so unbelievably important that I shouldn’t even have to tell you. But I’ve fallen victim to letting my thoughts go unwritten or unsketched myself, so I figure some of you might have the same problem.

The human brain is an amazing piece of evolutionary creation. It can do things no other organ in the history of the planet has been able to do. You can thank it for being essentially everything that you are and make.

But it’s far from perfect.

Your brain (and I guess your mind, if you can even make that distinction) sees or hears or senses some things, combines them together with other things and with some of your memories and thoughts, and there’s your idea. A great story or character concept, a design for something that fits perfectly into one of your projects, a song or part of a song, a music video, a striking image, a game or some other form of interactive artwork, anything. It’s your idea, yours and your alone. Conceived by some beautiful chemical reactions in your brain, your idea is now floating in the vast ocean of your mind, like a small collection of driftwood.

I haven’t yet described the exact vastness of this ocean. It’s pretty vast. Really vast. But also busy. Even when sleeping, your brain is an active little thing. Neurons are flashing about a bajillion times per second, and that small collection of driftwood can get lost pretty quickly.

The point is that your brain is always on, and always looking for more room, and if you don’t write or sketch down your idea, your brain will replace, morph, or forget your original idea entirely.

Keep a notebook on you at all times, even if it’s just a small notepad. Some people like to go all fancy and get one of those Moleskine things, but the quality of a notebook has very littly to do with the quality of the ideas within it. Any scrap of paper will do, really. If you’re on your computer at the time of conception, open up your text editor of choice and write it all down.

Again, the point is that you create a connection from your mind to the ‘real’ world, and through that connection both strengthen the original idea in your mind, and have a reference for the idea outside of it.

I’m sure you’ve had great ideas disappear into the depths of your mind before. Do yourself a favor and do the one thing you need to do to ensure it won’t happen again.

Write them down.

I tend to have big ideas. Not impossible ideas, but big, ambitious ideas. Large projects that will take a lot of time. They come in all forms: stories, games, animations, music videos. They pop into my head all the time, I have no control over it. I know I’m not the only one. I know you have big ideas too sometimes. Either in the form of doing something new and fresh in whichever medium you prefer, or maybe by branching out into new or less explored mediums, or even a combination of them.

As a personal example, besides making posters for school, working on recreating the Battle of the Sabis in Rome: Total War for a professor at the University of Amsterdam, and attempting to get into chiptunes, all of which takes up enough of my time already when combined with school and the girlfriend, I’ve got a giant personal project I want to make this year. Whether or not I’ll actually be able to finish it this year is not entirely clear, but seeing as it’s a personal project it doesn’t really matter. Let’s just say that it’s an animation that will last about 25 minutes and has both 2d and 3d elements. Quite a lot of work, and so far the only thing I actually have is one half-finished 3d model and a notebook full of sketches and, well, notes.

Just like any large, ambitious ideas you might have, this project will require a lot of time and a lot of work to even get started, let alone finish. But the benefits will be amazing. I want this project to be of the highest quality I can possibly achieve, and that should be true for any ambitious projects you might have in your head (or notebooks) as well.

The Challenge

You obviously have to get started first, and this is something that can be challenging enough on its own. It’s likely that you’ve never attempted a project of such magnitude before (or at least not on your own), so not knowing what to expect could make you too afraid to get started. Well, then you won’t complete anything, will you? So forget that fear. Motivation is, as always, a huge factor. The biggest thing to consider is the payoff compared to the amount of work you put in. This can be monetary, if you are intending to enter it into contests or festivals, or even intending to sell it. But you could also be doing it to just get a sense of personal or artistic accomplishment, or to express your emotions. Whatever the case, the payoff needs to be sufficient enough for the whole thing to be worth it. So, do your best to find out what that payoff might be for you, and then evaluate whether or not that payoff will be worth the amount of work and time you will put into the project.

The Organization

Oh, you silly amateurs, you don’t need to be organized, right? You just do things, and then stuff happens, and then you’re happy. Well, if you want to do things that are a little harder, things that take a little more time, you’re just gonna have to act at least a little professional and get a little organized. I know, I know, it’s no fun, but it’s just part of the whole ‘hard work’ thing, there’s no getting around it. Don’t worry, you don’t have to do that much. Just set up a rough schedule for yourself, and narrow that down to whatever kind of schedule works for you. Set yourself some deadlines, but don’t go cry in a corner if you miss them. Write things down, get yourself some structure, be at least a little disciplined, and you’ll be well on your way to the end of your project so that you can be bored again and can kill that eventual boredom with an even more ambitiousnesserer project.

The Education

It is extremely likely that you will have to pick up some new skills for a project like this. Both technical skills and techniques, and general (or specific) artistic principles that you will need to apply. You also might need to learn to work with new software, or even hardware, depending on the scope of your project. There are many ways to get yourself educated. The most common path amateur digital artists take is the path of the trusty tutorial. Now, while there’s no doubt that you can learn a lot from tutorials, there’s only so much they can teach. My advice would be to only resort to tutorials when there’s a specific technical trick you don’t understand. Besides to tutorials, there are plenty of other ways to learn. Even books about art history can give you insights you hadn’t considered before. You can also start taking some classes, or workshops, and attend seminars. This can usually be very motivating because you have a physical place to go to, and have other creative people to interact with. Last but not least, the very best way to learn: experimentation. It is only by playing around, both technically and artistically, that you can really create new things.

The Alliance

This is something I will probably talk about a lot in the future, because I think it’s very important. Maybe, depending on your lifestyle, you do not have the time to learn new things. Maybe you don’t have the interest. But you still have ambition, you still want to do something new, something much bigger than you’ve ever done before. What to do?

Collaborate.

If you lack a certain skill you do not have the time or interest to learn yourself, find someone else who does have that skill. While I might not always be a fan of digital art communities, one thing they are good for is finding people to work with. Need an animator? Need someone to make the music? Need someone to help with the programming? Ask for help. If there’s one thing I know about amateur digital artists, it’s that they’re always willing to help, especially if the project is large and ambitious. Beware, though, because collaboration does not come without it’s problems. Make sure the rules are clear. If you want to maintain complete creative control, say it. If you are willing to accept any ideas the other person(s) might have, it’s just as important to let them know. Communication is essential when you’re working with other people. Set up regular chat sessions, private forums, conference calls or maybe even real life meet ups, whatever it takes. All the stuff I mentioned before about organization still counts, only it gets a little more complicated and the whole group has to be aware of it. Don’t be afraid to kick someone out of the group if they’re not doing their part, just be sure to be fair. If everything goes right, your big idea will become a reality, and you might even make some good friends in the process.

And always give credit where credit is due.

The Backup

Hate other people? Hate learning? All hope is not yet lost! You can still resort to free resources, and if it comes to it maybe even paid resources. There’s certainly enough free stuff out there, but as I’ve said before, using resources you did not create yourself (or were not created specifically for you) does not come without risks. Be aware of them, they will have a big influence on your project.

The Consequences

The project can end up in two ways, success or failure. What determines whether or not it’s a success or a failure is entirely up to you.

A failure will at the most make it seem like you wasted a lot of your precious time, but there is no better way to learn to walk than to fall flat on your face. And with an ambitious project, you must have learned a lot, so there’s absolutely no reason not to try again, which something that will surely lead to…

Success! What is success? Success is different to everyone. For some, it might just be the journey of attempting to bring a big idea to life. For others it’s the recognition of the quality of the finished products. For others, it’s making a fat ton of cash from all the hard work put into the creation.

Both end scenarios will have consequences, both positive and negative, so be ready.

And make sure you’re wearing a parachute when you jump.

image by Chaparral [Kendra]

Well, to be realistic, everyone has the power of imagination, it’s pretty essential to the human experience. But you, you know how to harness that imagination to create things, new things, great things. The problem is that imagination does not come from nothing. You need to be inspired. Inspiration is the coal you need to burn to power the steam engine of imagination. Wait, it’s 2009… Inspiration is the wind that turns blades of the windmill of imagination! Yes!

1. Get Inspired.

Well this one’s obvious. Probably too obvious. Even if you have your own little sources that have worked for you in the past, consider expanding your horizons. Go to museums, not just art museums, but also natural history museums, aircraft museums, tobacco and pipe museums, medical freak show museums, anything interesting. Go to amateur theater performances or experimental art festivals. If you usually stay outdoors, go outside and see what the world has to offer, from nature to architecture. If you’re out all the time, stay inside and analyze your own environment. Just go explore.

2. Try Something Different.

This is about getting a different perspective on things. Don’t actively search for inspiration, just keep your eyes open and let the inspiration happen to you. Take a break, do something completely unrelated, and let your mind soak up its surroundings. Better yet, do something outside of your interests, maybe even something you’ve never done before, to get the ultimate freshness perspective. I’m not saying you should go BASE Jumping, but… Wait, no, BASE Jumping would be totally awesome and I’m sure it could inspire a ton of creativity. So now you know what I’m talking about, yeah? Different perspective = more new stuff. And imagination is all about thinking up new stuff.

3. Do Some Research.

It’s important to increase your knowledge. And there is so much knowledge to increase! Learn a bit more about the theory of whatever medium you prefer. I know that, as an amateur, you are probably lacking some basic theory required for your discipline of choice. There’s a ton of info both online and in books. Look up some color theory, or some of the musical basics. Don’t let you imagination be hindered by ignorance. Use some tutorials, but not too much, increase your technical abilities, by taking some courses for example. I recently got the chance to take part in a Blender animation workshop at a discount price, and for what I learned it was worth the full price. Get your hands on some reference material. My girlfriend was kind enough to give me a book full of pictures of interesting materials that has not only been useful for accuracy, but has been an invaluable tool to pump some of that inspiration juice. Besides that, you can also get some insights into the minds of other digital artists, both pro and amateur, figure out how they work, what they do to turn inspiration into imagination (and eventually into creations.) Don’t be afraid to go far outside your domain either, remember that digital arts are in many ways themselves inspired by traditional arts.

4. Don’t Drown.

Knowing when to stop is pretty important. Actually, it’s very important. Don’t let yourself get too deep into trying to get inspired. If for some reason you just can’t get yourself to be inspired, try a different technique. If nothing works, just stop, take a break. The more time you spend trying to find inspiration, the less time you actually spend making anything. You also run the risk of getting a bit too inspired and you might end up emulating your inspiration a bit too much. That’s a bad thing, my friend.

5. Make Something.

Just make something. Sketch something down on paper, make a few notes with your instrument (or software) of choice, record some video, open up whatever software package you prefer and just get to work. You don’t have to have starting idea, you don’t have to have a plan, you don’t even need an end result. One thing can lead to another, and this can mean that the process of just trying to make something can generate enough inspiration to finish the project, or at least bring you one step closer. Sometimes you just don’t know what something is going to look, sound, feel or even taste like until you start making it. Besides that, sketching, through whatever medium you like, puts your thoughts down on paper. I have about 4 notebooks filled end to end, each with at least a year’s worth of sketches, doodles, ideas and, dare I say it, prose. Because they’re on paper, I don’t have to rely on my feeble human brain to remember them, I always have a reference to my own creative thoughts. Get inspired by your own inspiration, and turn that windmill into a jet engine of creativity!

Does that make sense? Oh, whatever, it doesn’t matter, you know exactly what I mean.

1. Be aware of your abilities. While a challenging new project can be a very good reason to pick up new skills, learn new techniques or even completely new software packages, and this is indeed a strategy I have used before myself, you have to realize that this does not come without a price. Learning for the project can be very educational, but also time and energy consuming, and if you cannot learn whatever you need to learn in time, very demotivating. Besides that, if you jump into a project without the intention of learning new techniques and so forth, but just to make something nice without realizing that you are just not that far along yet, you will run into quite a few roadblocks and you will just end up wasting your time. So… Make sure you have the skills, and if you don’t, that you are able to pick up and learn those skills within a realistic time frame. Yes. Indeed.
2. Figure out how much time it’s going to take. If you’re aiming high in the first place, chances are this is a project that will take some time to finish. First, you have to make sure you actually have that time at all. Next you must use that time effectively, so do away with laziness and distractions, and make yourself a little planning. It doesn’t have to be anything too extensive. I’ve noticed that effective planning differs from person to person. Some may need to have everything written down exactly in an organizer, and others can just have a few notes scribbled on a scrap of paper. Just use whatever works best for you. Just remember that you’re making a significant time investment when working on a large or challenging project, and if you can’t make that investment, you shouldn’t bother.
3. Learn from your past mistakes. Because it’s a bit hard to learn from the mistakes you will make in the future. You should really use your experiences with failure in the past to you’re advantage. If you keep in mind the stumbling blocks you’ve had in the past you will be better off in the present. If you know you suck at planning (see point #2), you should take more time to better that part of yourself and stay disciplined, or figure out ways to work around it if that works out best for you. You will fail in the future, and I’m sure you’ve failed many times in the past (I know I have), but the more you learn from those mistakes, the smaller the chance that you will make those same mistakes again. To extend this idea even further, you can use those past experiences and your knowledge of your own weaknesses to theorize and prepare for potential mistakes you are prone to now.
4. Cut the project up into separate parts. If the project is potentially too much for you to handle efficiently, cut it up into separate parts to make it a chain of smaller more manageable projects. This will give you a lot more flexibility in both the time and the energy you put into that particular project. You are an amateur, you don’t have a lot of free time for this work, and you have less experience, especially with large scale projects. Cut that mother up. Every time you finish a part you will get an extra boost of motivation that will help towards finishing the next part, until  you are done with every single part and look back at the completed work with pride and perhaps even glee. Yes, glee! I am currently doing this myself with a large project and I find that especially being able to reuse assets intelligently makes the entire process much less daunting.
5. BE REALISTIC. The most important commandment of all, so important I wrote it in caps, is the last four points all bundled together in two little words. Well, one little word and one larger word. But it’s important, very important. For the title of this post I used the metaphor of aiming. Aiming is a conscious act, and the best thing to do with all conscious act is to be aware of everything. Your surroundings, your own abilities, everything. It is only by being honest to yourself that you can shoot down your target and bathe in the glory of a thousand exploding pieces of whatever it was you were aiming at. If you don’t have the abilities (yet!) and don’t have the time or energy to learn them, if the project is just too large for you to handle, don’t waste your time. With this I don’t mean to say that your idea is a waste of time, or that you’re not talented enough, or whatever, so don’t get all wound up over nothing, ok? I mean that instead of trying to tackle projects you aren’t ready for yet, it’s a much better strategy to spend your time wisely on the work you are more than capable of.

It’s great to shoot for the stars, as long as you remember that you have to overcome the earth’s gravitational pull first.

1. Write down or sketch your ideas as soon as you have them! Look, if you don’t write down your ideas as soon as they pop into your head, they will change. They will change into something completely different, and by the time you start developing the idea into something concrete, the original idea is long gone. And guess what? Chances are that the original idea is totally much better than what you’re trying to make now. And then you start kicking yourself in the head for not writing that idea down before. So what do you do? Nothing, you can’t do anything, that idea is gone and you will probably never get it back. So for the next time, keep a notebook of some kind handy. Any scrap of paper will do. Write that thing down and make it concrete. It will probably need some changing, but at least now you can be in control of those changes instead of letting your mind link some random cool looking/sounding stuff together. Keep a notebook. Keep a notebook. Keep a notebook.
2. Get started! This is a continuation of keeping a notebook. Get started. Let your ideas out of your notebook. Develop your ideas beyond a few lines of text or sketches into something more concrete. Create storyboards, turn your sketches into concept art, just start writing or modeling or making the music or whatever. The only way to see/hear how something looks/sounds is to make it and have it there. From there you can see whether your idea is good enough for you, and really get going.
3. Make time! Even the smallest project requires a certain amount of time to complete. Plan that time into your schedule. As an amateur, you are less likely to be able to accurately judge how long a project might take, so you might not be able to set a solid deadline for yourself, but still plan in some extra time for your work. How do you expect to make anything if you don’t make time for it?
4. Make preparations! Even the smallest project requires some preparation. Once you have your ideas on paper, see what resources you might need and collect them. See what new things you might need to learn and find out where you can learn them.
5. Stay motivated! This one’s really simple. Unless you’re some kind of freak, if you’re not sufficiently motivated, you will not create anything. Find out what motivates you, what drives you, and use that to keep going. Ask yourself if the work is worth the payoff (whatever that might be for you), if it isn’t, don’t waste your time.
6. Seek help! If your project is too big for you alone, find someone to help you. If you want to know what people think of your work, show them and ask them. If you don’t know something about whatever software you’re working with, look up tutorials and such. If you need help with your inspiration or something like that, go to your favorite amateur digital artists blog!