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Shiqing (Licia) He (she/her): Generative artist and HCI researcher. Assistant professor @tamuviz . Here to make art. Love machines

Jul 9, 2022, 6 tweets

Let’s talk about the texture of Running Moon today. Texture development is undoubtedly the most exciting and challenging part of the dev process that took most of my time. It is also an element that has shifted dramatically over the months.
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#generativeart #artblocks

Running Moon was initially influenced by my plotter practice: It was rendered in SVG and had a very precise feeling. There were lines and subtle gradients. I think outputs at this stage would produce exciting plotter paintings, but as standalone pieces, they need more.
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When robots physically render my work, they add additional layers of surprises. I hope to find that element of surprise in Running Moon. Therefore, I started experimenting with techniques that were beyond my comfort zone and ended up with many “failed’ experiments.
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With the constructive feedback from many, I decided to focus the texture development on two elements. The first is the rendering of the lines. Instead of a super-precise rendering(left), Running Moon would produce a brush-pen-like rendering of lines (right).
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The next element I focused on was the base shape. In watercolor paintings, certain regions might bleed out of the edge or mix into each other. I attempted to program these surprises into Running Moon.
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The current texture of Running Moon is the result of many experiments and detours. I cannot say that I had a super clear direction when I started. But this slightly bumpy journey indeed led to the best version of Running Moon.

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