The Third Edition of my Book – 102 Lessons in Art, Life and Video Games is now available on Amazon

My Books

Why 102? – the book is not 101, and there are infinite numbers between 101 and 102…

The third edition of my book which started long time ago in a galaxy far far away. I created it more as a comic book rather than a reflowable document that you have to read, a fun thing with a few serious pages in between. A tale of several covers, and several titles.

Mirena Rhee was a Star Wars artist, 15 year veteran of the Video Games industry, and created video game art for blockbuster franchises like Iron Man Shrek, and X-Men. She was a well-regarded video game artist in the Silicon Valley and at Lucasfilm when she decided to leave her six-figure salary and job in paradise to commit to creating art for the betterment of humankind full-time.

In this motivational, sometimes irreverent and funny, and tongue-in-cheek collection Mirena Rhee addresses diverse subjects like how to dream, how to get a job in video games, best practices in creating art for video games, notes on productivity, and sharpening one’s artistic creativity. What is a video game, what does a video game artist do, how to create great games, how to think of the big picture. The second half of the book is filled with personal insights on living a life as an artist and her philosophy for a human-centered artistic practice.

Click below for high-resolution image of my cover:

102 Lessons in Art, Life and Video Games
102 Lessons in Art, Life and Video Games

 

 

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07YP26D6J
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This book began a long long time ago in a galaxy far far away. This is the third and greatly improved edition which I will keep improving and polishing with things whenever I can.

It is also epic,  with over 100 pictures and chapters and lessons you will never forget.

I did not have enough cat pictures to illustrate the book properly so I am using instead screenshots of actual Video Game levels I worked on, glitches, photographs I took, boring documents I wrote and some frivolously Photoshopped memes which you can luckily skip –just swipe left! I never use images or levels I haven’t worked on myself.

Despite the lack of enough cat pictures, the book contains useful things that you can immediately use in your workflow – Tips and Tricks and Best Practices for how to develop great Video Games, and how to get the most of your creative drive. Hard core stuff like Asset Spec Sheet templates. The Video Game Playbook gives you play-by-play on what you need to do to get your game done, as well as ideas on what to do before, during and after making your game.

Some chapters I devoted to my personal understanding of Video Games and Digital Entertainment, my experiences as a Video Game Artist and how I tackled hard stuff.

The later chapters are very personal, some are lessons from my Star Wars afterlife as an artist and creator of many things, including photography, drawings, paintings, installations, animations and performance art. Some chapters towards the end contain my very own special productivity hacks which may surprise you. Don’t throw your Kindle!

I developed this book as a comic book because the pictures are as important as the words. What is amazing about digital books is that you can always make them better – their printing press is very light – just a button and the efforts of the Author.

If the universe is indeed a simulation it is probably the best video game ever. I am sure aliens fall off their chairs giggling whenever one of us falls through the world. There’s nothing you can do about it.

But there’s something you can do to play it the best you can, and I think being an artist, a creator, is the most fun way to do it. Just make sure not to fall through the cracks. Remember that The Game of Life is the best and most important video game you will ever play.

One of the best things that happened in my life was working on Star Wars. One of the greatest things that happened in my life was leaving Star Wars and finding my own Force.

Hands Electric New York City

**Pick Me Up and Don't Ever Put Me Down, Animation, Unity 3D

Hands Electric New York City is an animated hands landscape.

A tribute to New York City and its people.

A city electric and luminous with many people, we are all so different and we live in peace.

With Hands Empire State Building. I have been watching the heart of New York City beat on top of the Empire State Building, I watched the moon rise over it.

Here’s a little tribute, to Empire State Building, New York City and its people.

Created by American NYC based Contemporary artist Mirena Rhee while in lockdown in Manhattan.

Watch high resolution here:

https://www.mirenarhee.art/hands-electric-new-york-city-animation-mirena-rhee.mp4

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Hands Electric New York City is an animation with hands created in Unity 3D. A tribute to New York City and its people created by American NYC based Contemporary artist Mirena Rhee while in lockdown in Manhattan.

Hands Electric New York City is an animation with hands created in Unity 3D. A tribute to New York City and its people created by American NYC based Contemporary artist Mirena Rhee while in lockdown in Manhattan.

Hands Electric New York City is an animation with hands created in Unity 3D. A tribute to New York City and its people created by American NYC based Contemporary artist Mirena Rhee while in lockdown in Manhattan.

Hands Electric New York City is an animation with hands created in Unity 3D. A tribute to New York City and its people created by American NYC based Contemporary artist Mirena Rhee while in lockdown in Manhattan.

Hands Electric New York City is an animation with hands created in Unity 3D. A tribute to New York City and its people created by American NYC based Contemporary artist Mirena Rhee while in lockdown in Manhattan.

Hands Electric New York City is an animation with hands created in Unity 3D. A tribute to New York City and its people created by American NYC based Contemporary artist Mirena Rhee while in lockdown in Manhattan.

Hands Electric New York City is an animation with hands created in Unity 3D. A tribute to New York City and its people created by American NYC based Contemporary artist Mirena Rhee while in lockdown in Manhattan.

Hands Times Square – Animation and Simulation with hands drawings in a digital Times Square Landscape, created by American Contemporary Artist Mirena Rhee and dedicated to New York City

**Pick Me Up and Don't Ever Put Me Down, 3D, Animation, Simulations, Unity 3D

longer version video https://www.youtube.com/L-SR0SZWzP4

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Hands Times Square now has its own page with video stills and the full version of the animation https://www.mirenarhee.com/hands-times-square-animation.

Watch a high resolution mp4 here:

Hands Times Square is dedicated to New York City and its people – the city I love, the city which inspires me, the city which paints on the sidewalks for no reason at all, the city that loves art and artists, the city where everyone is so different yet we live in peace.

Hands Times Square Animation and Simulation with hands drawings in a digital Times Square Landscape, dimensions variable, 2020. Created by American Contemporary Artist Mirena Rhee.

Story as told by the artist

Hands Times Square or as originally named – Times Square NYE 2020 – is an animation I created for Times Square Alliance and a part of a bigger Hands Scape’s project that involves New York City – it is only appropriate as New York inspires me and was the reason I do hands in the first place, it is a New York thing…

I spent new Years Eve here on Times Square ( hey it’s 2020, spent 2000 in Chicago, 2010 in San Francisco.. so time for a one of a lifetime experience ). I was amazed at how beautiful and exciting it was to share it with a million others. I learned quite a few things while there, one of them was how the NYPD does crowd control. It is quite fascinating and a science. Have you ever asked yourself why a million people running around like mad to get a glimpse of “the ball” don’t trample and stampede each other to death? Crowd control, it is good trust me – once I saw people running towards televisions I realized it would be easy to die under the heels of a half million tourists. This project is the evolution of this whole thread of thoughts and the expression of overwhelming number of exploding colored confetti.

About

This animation is also inspired by New Year’s Eve 2020 at the center of the World – Times Square. Where at midnight fireworks of Confetti explode into a colorful supernova at the stroke of midnight. Times Square is a supernova of exciting imagery, of people and movement, and lights and colors. People from all over the world, ages, walks of life and languages, come here to mingle in this Babylonian Square and bask in its energy. In this animation colorful hands draw extraordinary three-dimensional shapes. As they move through space they create flowing, complex structures of hand trails. The hands travel in a series of gestures creating abstract shapes. The hands coalesce into an ephemeral three-dimensional Times Square made of beaming hands. The camera floats through the beaming hands of Times Square and hands fireworks explode and saturate the space with color.

Statement

This animation is inspired by my own experience spending New Year’s Eve 2020 on Times Square, the Confetti, excitement and energy that fills the space. New York city has always been an endless animation, with hands of various sizes, colors and shapes moving and gesturing endlessly in public and private spaces in the city. It is literally a stream of hands of all kinds. This series of ephemeral hands structures arose from the realization that during simple and mundane daily activity, like holding onto the rails in the subway, the hands draw extraordinary three-dimensional shapes. As they move through space they create flowing, complex structures of hand trails – this body of work explores these ephemeral constructs. The hands are based on paintings of hands, scanned, animated and simulated on the computer. My own hands serve as the models and main building element of my work because they are present and available, constantly traversing and dominating my personal space.

 

Hands Times Square Video Stills

Hands Times Square – Animation and Simulation with hands drawings in a digital Times Square Landscape, created by American Contemporary Artist Mirena Rhee and dedicated to New York City

Hands Times Square – Animation and Simulation with hands drawings in a digital Times Square Landscape, created by American Contemporary Artist Mirena Rhee and dedicated to New York City

Hands Times Square – Animation and Simulation with hands drawings in a digital Times Square Landscape, created by American Contemporary Artist Mirena Rhee and dedicated to New York City

Hands Times Square – Animation and Simulation with hands drawings in a digital Times Square Landscape, created by American Contemporary Artist Mirena Rhee and dedicated to New York City

Hands Times Square – Animation and Simulation with hands drawings in a digital Times Square Landscape, created by American Contemporary Artist Mirena Rhee and dedicated to New York City

Hands Times Square – Animation and Simulation with hands drawings in a digital Times Square Landscape, created by American Contemporary Artist Mirena Rhee and dedicated to New York City

Hands Times Square – Animation and Simulation with hands drawings in a digital Times Square Landscape, created by American Contemporary Artist Mirena Rhee and dedicated to New York City

Hands Times Square – Animation and Simulation with hands drawings in a digital Times Square Landscape, created by American Contemporary Artist Mirena Rhee and dedicated to New York City

Hands Times Square – Animation and Simulation with hands drawings in a digital Times Square Landscape, created by American Contemporary Artist Mirena Rhee and dedicated to New York City

Hands Times Square – Animation and Simulation with hands drawings in a digital Times Square Landscape, created by American Contemporary Artist Mirena Rhee and dedicated to New York City

Hands Times Square – Animation and Simulation with hands drawings in a digital Times Square Landscape, created by American Contemporary Artist Mirena Rhee and dedicated to New York City

Hands Times Square – Animation and Simulation with hands drawings in a digital Times Square Landscape, created by American Contemporary Artist Mirena Rhee and dedicated to New York City

Hands Times Square – Animation and Simulation with hands drawings in a digital Times Square Landscape, created by American Contemporary Artist Mirena Rhee and dedicated to New York City

Hands Times Square – Animation and Simulation with hands drawings in a digital Times Square Landscape, created by American Contemporary Artist Mirena Rhee and dedicated to New York City

Hands Times Square – Animation and Simulation with hands drawings in a digital Times Square Landscape, created by American Contemporary Artist Mirena Rhee and dedicated to New York City

Hands Times Square – Animation and Simulation with hands drawings in a digital Times Square Landscape, created by American Contemporary Artist Mirena Rhee and dedicated to New York City

Hands Times Square – Animation and Simulation with hands drawings in a digital Times Square Landscape, created by American Contemporary Artist Mirena Rhee and dedicated to New York City

Hands Times Square – Animation and Simulation with hands drawings in a digital Times Square Landscape, created by American Contemporary Artist Mirena Rhee and dedicated to New York City

Hands Times Square – Animation and Simulation with hands drawings in a digital Times Square Landscape, created by American Contemporary Artist Mirena Rhee and dedicated to New York City

Hands Times Square – Animation and Simulation with hands drawings in a digital Times Square Landscape, created by American Contemporary Artist Mirena Rhee and dedicated to New York City

Hands Times Square – Animation and Simulation with hands drawings in a digital Times Square Landscape, created by American Contemporary Artist Mirena Rhee and dedicated to New York City

Hands Times Square – Animation and Simulation with hands drawings in a digital Times Square Landscape, created by American Contemporary Artist Mirena Rhee and dedicated to New York City

Hands Times Square – Animation and Simulation with hands drawings in a digital Times Square Landscape, created by American Contemporary Artist Mirena Rhee and dedicated to New York City

Hands Times Square – Animation and Simulation with hands drawings in a digital Times Square Landscape, created by American Contemporary Artist Mirena Rhee and dedicated to New York City

Happy Easter and much love from NYC

**Pick Me Up and Don't Ever Put Me Down

A message from Mirena Rhee.

Here is the short link:

I have been thinking long and hard,

while painting.

Here in Manhattan.

But I decided to spare you my lecture,

I will leave it for another time.

This is simply a message of love.

Because I’m not really sure I’d like to think of anything else today.

There are so many things in the world. That could be better, potentially,

we are such marvelous living machines.

We can do anything, we can be anything. We can make wonderful machines and things, we can communicate and convey messages. We can look at the sky and see giraffes.

So, be well NYC, and World, and see you soon.

And here is my get well card – from me to NYC and World. Get Well soon!

#getwellNYC #wellbeback #nyc