Imagining a new story or world is one thing, but it can be difficult to make that world come to life on a digital screen. While there are many different methods to bring these worlds into existence, a fair number of systems are difficult to use, expensive, and don’t quite tap into the creative, hands-in-the-mud, feeling of playing make-believe as a kid.
Artist Natalie Paneng hopes to change that with her workshop on accessible world-building. This workshop is focused on using models against a greenscreen to make exciting, playful, and digital stories. It requires just a few arts and crafts materials, all of which can be found easily and affordably, to help workshop attendees gain perspective on realizing their world to scale. These models can then be digitally translated and accessed through virtual means.
The workshop started with basic world-building instructions and an introduction to world-building from Natalie’s perspective as a digital artist. Then it dove into the basics of greenscreen principles and how to put together a simple project. The main structure then focused on how to build models, and how to prepare and execute a vision in miniature. Finally, the workshop was ended by bringing these elements together.
About Your Instructor
She is awkward, complex, and has a quirk to her expression. She lives in Johannesburg and the cyber village called the Internet. Natalie Paneng (b. 1996, South Africa) is a digital artist who completed a BADA(Hons)from the University of Witwatersrand in 2018. She majors in Production Design (Set and Costume Design) and Art Management. Natalie uses both her self-taught digital skills and her theatre background to create multidisciplinary digital art.
Paneng’s work has been exhibited at the TMRW Gallery, The National Arts Festival, Blank Projects, Michaelis School of Fine Art, BKHz Gallery, Le Lieu Unique, and Galerie Eigen Art Leipzig. Along with this, she has participated in local artist residencies such as Bubblegumclub Future 76 Residency(2018), Floating Reverie(2019), and Fak'ugesi Digital Innovation Artist Residency (2019). Natalie also published creative research through Ellipses Journal and Artist Research Africa and was a 2020 Fellow with the Institute of Creative Arts and UCT.
Through her work, she explores what it means to have an online presence, the personas we develop online, and how the Internet and its algorithms control and influence us and our perceived reality. Her video work and art become a way for her to interrogate and share how she manifests and navigates the world she lives in and creates for herself. The internet is MTV, and she welcomes you to her crib.
Imagining a new story or world is one thing, but it can be difficult to make that world come to life on a digital screen. While there are many different methods to bring these worlds into existence, a fair number of systems are difficult to use, expensive, and don’t quite tap into the creative, hands-in-the-mud, feeling of playing make-believe as a kid.
Artist Natalie Paneng hopes to change that with her workshop on accessible world-building. This workshop is focused on using models against a greenscreen to make exciting, playful, and digital stories. It requires just a few arts and crafts materials, all of which can be found easily and affordably, to help workshop attendees gain perspective on realizing their world to scale. These models can then be digitally translated and accessed through virtual means.
The workshop started with basic world-building instructions and an introduction to world-building from Natalie’s perspective as a digital artist. Then it dove into the basics of greenscreen principles and how to put together a simple project. The main structure then focused on how to build models, and how to prepare and execute a vision in miniature. Finally, the workshop was ended by bringing these elements together.
About Your Instructor
She is awkward, complex, and has a quirk to her expression. She lives in Johannesburg and the cyber village called the Internet. Natalie Paneng (b. 1996, South Africa) is a digital artist who completed a BADA(Hons)from the University of Witwatersrand in 2018. She majors in Production Design (Set and Costume Design) and Art Management. Natalie uses both her self-taught digital skills and her theatre background to create multidisciplinary digital art.
Paneng’s work has been exhibited at the TMRW Gallery, The National Arts Festival, Blank Projects, Michaelis School of Fine Art, BKHz Gallery, Le Lieu Unique, and Galerie Eigen Art Leipzig. Along with this, she has participated in local artist residencies such as Bubblegumclub Future 76 Residency(2018), Floating Reverie(2019), and Fak'ugesi Digital Innovation Artist Residency (2019). Natalie also published creative research through Ellipses Journal and Artist Research Africa and was a 2020 Fellow with the Institute of Creative Arts and UCT.
Through her work, she explores what it means to have an online presence, the personas we develop online, and how the Internet and its algorithms control and influence us and our perceived reality. Her video work and art become a way for her to interrogate and share how she manifests and navigates the world she lives in and creates for herself. The internet is MTV, and she welcomes you to her crib.
Our Approach
Game-Making Practice
It's for everyone! We believe that game design and thinking is not limited to "the video game industry." It's a creative point of view that any discipline can use.
LEARN FROM Doing
Our workshops are focused on activities with a majority of time spent on making things.
this is only the start
You'll grow from here. We hope that this is a stepping stone for you to permanently work with the material of games.