...the reverse side of beauty..//..Mantified

After a near full week of intensive start of term, I think I finally understand what inspiration really is. The dictionary term for inspiration is: "Stimulation of the mind or emotions to a high level of feeling or activity".

I shall further explain in my own words.

We're inspired everyday. Not necessarily in the design sense, but we're always inspired by something. For example, if the weather reaches 30C on a bright sunny day, I'll be inspired to wear my sunglasses and eat some ice cream. Or say...if I were watching a documentary on Parisian city life, I'll probably want to go to Paris for holiday because it looks like an awesome city - which means that I'm inspired to go to Paris. Or maybe I've had a stressful week and I want to take a long candlelit relaxing bath to wind down, then I'm inspired to do so. Then perhaps I'm watching a horror movie and there's a scary little girl in green lights at the top of the stairs, I'll probably start screaming and hiding my face under the covers. All this is inspiration. It's when something stimulates us to want to do certain actions with certain emotions.

Now for the design part. As designers (this is the same for people working in the arts field), our level of inspiration should be a lot higher compared to others. Meaning that we should constantly be aware of our surroundings, frequently taking things in and analyzing why we want to do certain things; finding inspiration becomes way easier once you know where to look. Actually, let me rephrase that: finding inspiration is all about knowing who you are. Knowing your likes and dislikes. Knowing why you like certain things, and why you don't. Understanding what things you're drawing to. Your preferences. Of course, there are more things about yourself to discover through the process, but let's stop here for now.

And given my current mind state, I've been really inspired lately by the GazettE (<3). I've been searching for their photos high and low and I've come across some older ones of what they look like.

This is Ruki from the earlier days:



And this is the cover of Neo Genesis magazine in 2006 (Uruha can really pass off as a girl with those hot pants and thigh boots).



I'm serious when I said that Uruha could pass off as a girl.



Cockroach days.



What I'm amazed at is that despite the fact that they're more of the punk rock look, they could come up with dramatic image changes from song to song and from album to album. And it's just not like...maybe hair up today and hair down tomorrow. They could still manage to look completely different in terms of style while maintaining the same "we're the GazettE" essence. I really would like to follow that as an example.

And right now, I'm really inspired to do a really cool looking vector art on Ruki and/or Uruha. I think their strong make up, hair style, colours, styling and poses could really give inspiration. They're absolutely gorgeous. I could use some eye candy now. *drool*