Progress!

I've been practicing with photoshop all this week, and I'm very pleased with the outcome! Recently, I have been working on the table of contents for my edition. Ivan had created a model of sorts in paint.

This is the kind of design we wanted, and after a lot of time in Photoshop, we were finally able to create our design! 

The controllers will be fitting into the circles and the titles of the articles featured in this edition will be in the boxes! 

Photoshop Phun!

I decided to do my project with the program Photoshop. I have never used this program before, so I was incredibly confused when I first started. My weekend became an endless marathon of photoshop tutorials. I watched about 6 YouTube videos going through the many tools included in the program. My first goal was to start editing the controllers out of their original pictures.

 This was the original picture taken by my                                               Nikon Camera 

This was the edited image, with a transparent                                    background.

It took me a very long time to crop all the images perfectly, but I finally finished all of them and they are ready to be placed in my layout!

Research and Interviews!

A huge part of my research came from when I was setting up my very own live stream. I revisited some of the sites I used back then to help me research the aspects of live streaming. Some of that research can be found here. Twitch provided an excellent knowledge base. For the article, I mention that having a decent computer is necessary, this was my source for that information. I also talked about OBS and XSplit, the two most favorable streaming software, those links can be found here and here. A majority of my information was gathered through interviews with streamers. Our magazine isn't a tutorial, but more of a descrition of the expirience so I wanted to include personal opinion about streaming. I interviewed a wide spectrum of streamers, from popular streamers, to growing streamers, to small streamers to get a detailed opinion from many points of view.

My questions were:
-How were you introduced to streaming?
-What is one of your favorite qualities about streaming?
-How difficult was it to establish your stream to where it is today?

The biggest streamer I interviewed was Firedragon764.
-I was introduced to streaming one day in summer of 2012. I was looking through the game directory on Twitch and saw that one of my favorite games from my childhood (Super Mario 64) was one of the top games being played. Fereling very nostalgic, I clicked on it and started watching a streamer named Siglemic. After watching his stream, I couldn't get away from speedrunning after that and it completely inspired me to start my own!

-One of my favorite qualities about streaming is just being able to share your adventures with people. You are actually not alone and you are able to interact with people in the chat as you play video games. I can't think of anything better than that!


The second person I interviewed was Geoff, another fairly large streamer.
-I was intoduced to streaming from some friends of mine who watched various things on Ustream back in 2010.

-My favorite quality of streaming is the interaction between the streamer and the chat all while playing the game. it's cool to see how people balance many different actions all at once.

-It was super not easy. It took 4 years to get to where I am today and Im still having to work hard at it. It has taken lots of trial and error and low points to get here but I wouldn't trade it for anything.

The third person I interviewed was a small but upcoming streamer Jerkro.

-I was introduced to Twitch in late August of 2013 because of PAPA (Professional and Amateur Pinball Association) broadcasting their World Championships and other circuit events. I am a competitive pinball player so I got into that really quickly. I eventually realized that Twitch was based for video games and I watched Talon because [Sonic Adventure 2] is one of my favorite games ever. From him I discovered Firedragon764, SnarfyBobo, and Kungfufruitcup, who would all influence my streaming and show me how wonderful it'd be.

-My favorite qualities about streaming is chat interaction. I like meeting a lot of new people and getting to know their personalities. It gives me something to do while playing the game and having people who so honestly enjoy your entertainment and personality who cheer you on is a wonderful feeling.

-I would say it was kind of tough but at the same time I feel like I was very lucky. To be able to get the consistent number of viewers I have to this day and have the amount of followers I do in such a short amount of time is amazing. But I feel like I got lucky because of all the help I've received from bigger streamers and friends and such. However, I realize a lot of this growth was due to my work that I put into this and that some of the luck was just something that happens sometimes. I put in a lot of work with making sure I have working parts of the stream and such when there are problems, but I usually just let it flow naturally and sometimes that involves just rolling out of bed after a long nap and starting stream.

The last person I interviewed was GrandStarYoshi.
- i was introduced to streaming by my good friend, Geoff. i had been friends with him for a few years from back when we both did YouTube, and at the time, he had switched to streaming, and had been for around 6 months. i decided to give it a go, streaming sporadically for about a year or so before starting the daily stream that i run now.

- my favorite quality about streaming is being able to brighten people's day. there have been multiple occasions where people will come to my stream to relax after having a rough day, and they've told me that i'm able to take their mind off of it and help them feel better, and that's pretty amazing to me.

- it's been pretty difficult to be honest. a lot of what has helped me, however, are the friendships i've made and connections that i had when i started. for instance, knowing geoff for a while, being rachel's brother, becoming friends with fifi, kungfu, tooshi, chrism, etc. and the support all of them have given me.

Sketching!

This week, Ivan and I have been working on sketches for our cover, table of contents, and ideas for our double-page spread. Although I'm not the best artist, I'm really pleased with some of the ideas we have come up with.

 With our cover page, we don't want to go an extremely abstract path. From what I researched, covers on gaming magazines are not very "artistic," but what I did notice was the image is usually the main focus. We have already picked out a font for the masthead, I just have to mess with the colors to see what would look the best in relation to our topic. The












The Table of Contents is my favorite design, we are planning a neon border around the pages and boxes, with color coordination as well.

Group Evaluations!

During our class time, we met with other groups to discuss our projects. When we met with them, Ivan and I present our original ideas for the articles and the themes for our layouts. When we presented the idea to do one edition based of of Awesome Games Done Quick and streaming on twitch, the other members felt that it was too similar. At first I got frustrated at their opinions, but eventually I understood their points. So instead of Ivan doing his edition based on the charity marathon, we decided he would do his on Super Smash Brothers. We were just going to use some quotes for a cover line, but I realized that they were right and if we elaborated on super SSB we can also focus on the convergence as well as game play.

Researching Layouts

As we are beginning to plan our layouts, Ivan and I began researching ideas on our layout.

We really like this sort of simple layout, only we are not able to use images from the internet, we are unsure on how we will incorporate our own images.

Week One!

For our final project, my partner Ivan and I have chosen to do a magazine spread. At first, our topic what theatre, but we decided to change our topic to gaming. I especially am excited for this because gaming is something I'm incredibly passionate about, as soon as we picked the topic, I had a lot of amazing ideas. This week, we  really focused on establishing what stories we wanted to do. I feel that if we get our stories out of the way as soon as possible, we can really focus on the layout. We have decided that I will be writing on the streaming service Twitch.tv and Ivan will be writing about the comparative qualities between the Super Smash Brothers 4 games for Wii U and 3DS. I've been gathering as much information as I can, and I will begin writing  this weekend and start learning about Photoshop, as I know that will be a demanding process. I'm looking forward to this project since it's something I'm interested in, and I get to incorporate everything I've learned so far in my Media Studies class!