First of all...
❌👑
IT'S THE GULF OF MEXICO.
Anyway, this is where I post about art, writing, movies, music... all the stuff I like... especially Steam Powered Giraffe, Buster Keaton, Thing Making and Steampunk
Binky graduated to a big boy collar! The kitten collar couldn’t expand any more. Technically I bought this collar for Lewie, but the last time he wore it, a couple of days ago, I watched him lay down and pop it off. He has figured out that a bit of pressure will free him from his breakaway collar.
I may get a harness for each of them in case of emergencies… like if there’s an evacuation, something where we need to bug out in a hurry and carriers aren’t practical or take too long. They can hate the harness but we’ll be able to hold onto them.
But I think Lewie is officially collar free. He’s too danged smart and I don’t want to use a collar that won’t break loose if it gets caught. Binky and Ooky don’t mind theirs, which helps because Ooky is black and harder to notice in the dark, and Binky is too stupid to avoid feet. He is currently profoundly confused by the slight change in bell. If it freaks him out I guess I could swap the bells… but this one’s louder.
We got some pretty wild storms today! Pillomin, who is both a pluviophile (someone who loves and is comforted by the sights and sounds of rain) and a ceraunophile (someone who loves the thunder and lightning of thunderstorms), eagerly awaited the storms' arrival this morning, peering out the window through the blinds. Then, once they were upon us, he begged me to open the doors so he could see what was happening. He happily watched out the front door and then the back door as the wind, rain, thunder, and lightning raged outside. While all the other rootlings in the house were hiding under blankets or otherwise occupied, Pillomin was perfectly content to watch nature's power, finding both joy and peace in it. ❤️
“Here’s a letter for you, old man,” I announced as I sifted through the morning post one grey day in October. “Not a lot else, I’m afraid.”
Holmes folded down the top of the newspaper he was reading so he could see me. “A letter from whom?”
“Not sure.” I turned it over to study it as best I could. The envelope was thick and expensive, postmarked from America. The ink was rich and black, and it smelled unexpectedly floral, with an odd sulphuric note underneath. “Looks to be a woman’s writing, I’d say.”
“If you would.” He held out a pale hand. I passed him the envelope and he neatly sliced it open with his pocket knife. A single page slipped out onto his breakfast plate. He unfolded it with a flick of his wrist, then smiled. “Ah! Morticia.”
“Morticia?”
“Addams. She is my second cousin.”
I was immediately intrigued, for Holmes so rarely talked about his relatives. It had taken several years after our meeting for him to bring up the subject of his elder brother, who lived and worked barely an hour’s walk away. I wasn’t surprised that a second cousin in America had gone unnoted until now.
“Unusual names run in the family, I see.”
Holmes smirked. “Her grandmother was my great-aunt Séraphine, who met and married a quite singular gentleman named Algernon Frump while travelling. They settled over in the States many years ago, and dear Morticia now resides there with her husband.”
“Why does she write you?”
“She is arranging a sort of family reunion on All Hallow’s Eve. Apparently it has been far too long since we have all seen each other.”
“How long is that?”
“Several years at least. It was certainly before you and I met.”
“And will you oblige her?”
“I suppose I will.” He folded the letter and placed it neatly back in its envelope, tucking it into his inside pocket. “You’ve been angling for a holiday, my boy. Would this satisfy you?”
“Wouldn’t it be terribly rude?” I asked, startled. “She has invited you, not me.”
He tutted. “Nonsense, Watson! Morticia knows we live together, of course.”
“How?”
“She will have read your book.”
“Oh! Well that is kind of her. But a family reunion, Holmes, I am not—”
“You are my partner and intimate friend. I assure you there are members of the Addams clan with far more tenuous connections, and many of them also of no blood relation. You will not be out of place, and they will be glad to meet you.”
obsessed with this muppet clip where Gonzo breaks a piece of machinery and then just stares at the camera in an empty room and says ‘GUILT’ in the most harrowing way possible
My Favorite Cheap Art Trick: Gradient Maps and Blending Modes
i get questions on occasion regarding my coloring process, so i thought i would do a bit of a write up on my "secret technique." i don't think it really is that much of a secret, but i hope it can be helpful to someone. to that end:
this is one of my favorite tags ive ever gotten on my art. i think of it often. the pieces in question are all monochrome - sort of.
the left version is the final version, the right version is technically the original. in the final version, to me, the blues are pretty stark, while the greens and magentas are less so. there is some color theory thing going on here that i dont have a good cerebral understanding of and i wont pretend otherwise. i think i watched a youtube video on it once but it went in one ear and out the other. i just pick whatever colors look nicest based on whatever vibe im going for.
this one is more subtle, i think. can you tell the difference? there's nothing wrong with 100% greyscale art, but i like the depth that adding just a hint of color can bring.
i'll note that the examples i'll be using in this post all began as purely greyscale, but this is a process i use for just about every piece of art i make, including the full color ones. i'll use the recent mithrun art i made to demonstrate. additionally, i use clip studio paint, but the general concept should be transferable to other art programs.
for fun let's just start with Making The Picture. i've been thinking of making this writeup for a while and had it in mind while drawing this piece. beyond that, i didn't really have much of a plan for this outside of "mithrun looks down and hair goes woosh." i also really like all of the vertical lines in the canary uniform so i wanted to include those too but like. gone a little hog wild. that is the extent of my "concept." i do not remember why i had the thought of integrating a shattered mirror type of theme. i think i wanted to distract a bit from the awkward pose and cover it up some LOL but anyway. this lack of planning or thought will come into play later.
note 1: the textured marker brush i specifically use is the "bordered light marker" from daub. it is one of my favorite brushes in the history of forever and the daub mega brush pack is one of the best purchases ive ever made. highly recommend!!!
note 2: "what do you mean by exclusion and difference?" they are layer blending modes and not important to the overall lesson of this post but for transparency i wanted to say how i got these "effects." anyway!
with the background figured out, this is the point at which i generally merge all of my layers, duplicate said merged layer, and Then i begin experimenting with gradient maps. what are gradient maps?
the basic gist is that gradient maps replace the colors of an image based on their value.
so, with this particular gradient map, black will be replaced with that orangey red tone, white will be replaced with the seafoamy green tone, etc. this particular gradient map i'm using as an example is very bright and saturated, but the colors can be literally anything.
these two sets are the ones i use most. they can be downloaded for free here and here if you have csp. there are many gradient map sets out there. and you can make your own!
you can apply a gradient map directly onto a specific layer in csp by going to edit>tonal correction>gradient map. to apply one indirectly, you can use a correction layer through layer>new correction layer>gradient map. honestly, correction layers are probably the better way to go, because you can adjust your gradient map whenever you want after creating the layer, whereas if you directly apply a gradient map to a layer thats like. it. it's done. if you want to make changes to the applied gradient map, you have to undo it and then reapply it. i don't use correction layers because i am old and stuck in my ways, but it's good to know what your options are.
this is what a correction layer looks like. it sits on top and applies the gradient map to the layers underneath it, so you can also change the layers beneath however and whenever you want. you can adjust the gradient map by double clicking the layer. there are also correction layers for tone curves, brightness/contrast, etc. many such useful things in this program.
let's see how mithrun looks when we apply that first gradient map we looked at.
gadzooks. apologies for eyestrain. we have turned mithrun into a neon hellscape, which might work for some pieces, but not this one. we can fix that by changing the layer blending mode, aka this laundry list of words:
some of them are self explanatory, like darken and lighten, while some of them i genuinely don't understand how they are meant to work and couldn't explain them to you, even if i do use them. i'm sure someone out there has written out an explanation for each and every one of them, but i've learned primarily by clicking on them to see what they do.
for the topic of this post, the blending mode of interest is soft light. so let's take hotline miamithrun and change the layer blending mode to soft light.
here it is at 100% opacity. this is the point at which i'd like to explain why i like using textured brushes so much - it makes it very easy to get subtle color variation when i use this Secret Technique. look at the striation in the upper right background! so tasty. however, to me, these colors are still a bit "much." so let's lower the opacity.
i think thats a lot nicer to look at, personally, but i dont really like these colors together. how about we try some other ones?
i like both of these a lot more. the palettes give the piece different vibes, at which point i have to ask myself: What Are The Vibes, Actually? well, to be honest i didn't really have a great answer because again, i didn't plan this out very much at all. however. i knew in my heart that there was too much color contrast going on and it was detracting from the two other contrasts in here: the light and dark values and the sharp and soft shapes. i wanted mithrun's head to be the main focal point. for a different illustration, colors like this might work great, but this is not that hypothetical illustration, so let's bring the opacity down again.
yippee!! that's getting closer to what my heart wants. for fun, let's see what this looks like if we change the blending mode to color.
i do like how these look but in the end they do not align with my heart. oh well. fun to experiment with though! good to keep in mind for a different piece, maybe! i often change blending modes just to see what happens, and sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. i very much cannot stress enough that much of my artistic process is clicking buttons i only sort of understand. for fun.
i ended up choosing the gradient map on the right because i liked that it was close to the actual canary uniform colors (sorta). it's at an even lower opacity though because there was Still too much color for my dear heart.
the actual process for this looks like me setting my merged layer to soft light at around 20% opacity and then clicking every single gradient map in my collection and seeing which one Works. sometimes i will do this multiple times and have multiple soft light and/or color layers combined.
typically at this point i merge everything again and do minor contrast adjustments using tone curves, which is another tool i find very fun to play around with. then for this piece in particular i did some finishing touches and decided that the white border was distracting so i cropped it. and then it's done!!! yay!!!!!
this process is a very simple and "fast" way to add more depth and visual interest to a piece without being overbearing. well, it's fast if you aren't indecisive like me, or if you are better at planning.
let's do another comparison. personally i feel that the hint of color on the left version makes mithrun look just a bit more unwell (this is a positive thing) and it makes the contrast on his arm a lot more pleasing to look at. someone who understands color theory better than i do might have more to say on the specifics, but that's honestly all i got.
favorite bits of the cast interviews in the LOTR special features:
Dominic Monaghan, Billy Boyd, Elijah Wood and Viggo Mortensen all taking the piss out of Orlando Bloom for going on about a cracked rib too much, while Orlando Bloom desperately tries to wriggle out of talking about it (special mention to Elijah Wood’s “oh it hurts, babes, and I can’t ride the horse, babes” and Viggo Mortensen’s “they can be very fragile, elves, especially the…Mirkwood strain…”)
Ian McKellen commenting that “they never did find any suitable underwear for Gandalf…”
Dominic Monaghan going on and on about how Viggo Mortensen apparently had a crush on one of the Rohirrim extras (who like a lot of the Rohirrim extras was a woman in a fake beard) while Vigoo Mortensen just mutters “one could perhaps say something about Mr. Monaghan’s…proclivities…”
Dominic Monaghan’s imitation of John Rhys-Davies ordering food at a restaurant for the whole cast. “You have partridge? BRING THE PARTRIDGE!”
John Rhys-Davies talking about an incident with the Lothlorian boats and saying “if an elf and a dwarf are in a boat…and…the boat goes under…let us say that the blame was not placed on the elf” while Orlando Bloom splutters “he’s a big guy, man!”
Elijah Wood talking about how the hobbit actors shared a trailer with Ian McKellen and sometimes they would hear inarticulate bellows of protest from his side when they played loud music in the mornings
Viggo Mortensen talking about how, while filming with those same boats, Kirin Shaw (Elijah Wood’s scale double) started telling him “if the boat tips over…save yourself…I can’t swim.”
Elijah Wood describing how Sean Astin would try to direct the helicopters to land while they were on location, while the other three hobbits were screwing around and throwing pinecones at each other
Christopher Lee recounting how he had so much trouble going up some steps in Orthanc with his long robe that he stopped in the middle of the scene and said, “I cannot get up these goddamn steps, Peter.”
Viggo Mortensen mentioning that he left a weekend rehearsal and went walking down the street still swinging his sword around, and promptly got the cops called on him
My fav LotR extra is Peter Jackson and Christopher Lee talking about how Peter was trying to coach Lee to be more vocal during his death scene, and Lee straight up was like, “That’s not the noise people make when they die to a knife in the chest. It’s *this* noise,” and while he’s demonstrating, Peter remembers that Lee was a special forces guy in WWII and back away slowly and lets him do this thing.
just saw one of those cat mom bumper stickers but the 'c' was a little too curly and I had a big lunch so I just spent a solid 40 seconds staring at it going '...eat mom?'
I love Matilda because it's a story about a child who sees injustice around her and gets mad about it and questions why things aren't fair, and instead of the ending being that she learns how the world works and that life isn't fair, she catapults one of the adults who abused her out of a building with her mind
I finally caught Binky’s signature move! So to speak. He has some good tackles and other tactics and fights a bit more skillfully than Lewie, who is a straight up tank. Binky had other cats around longer.
But his coolest move is at the end, and Lewie never has a defense for it. And there’s about a 2-2.5 lb difference between these two. That’s a lot when the larger one is only 10 lbs.
Edit: Correction. We did a weigh-in, and there is now only 1 lb difference. Binky is now 9 lbs. What a big boy!
I dreamed we found a weird-looking dog that I concluded must be a bulldog/husky mix. It had the bow-legged stance and squat body and a shorter muzzle than a husky, but part of its back had thick fur. It barely looked like a dog.
I looked up “bulldog/husky mix” just now and let me tell you… none of them looked like him, but they’re just as weird-looking.
I’m disturbingly pleased with this. Now, this is a beat up, around-the-house shirt, mind you. The age shows in the message… Stranger Things, Season 2, bought on clearance, cut off the arms for comfort.
But it was still too translucent for me and since I was doing some tie dyeing of other lighter tops, I added this one and decided… what the heck, let’s make it themed. I had pink and black fabric dye laying around from old projects. I added a little black to some pink, crumpled it longways to make it veiny, and hosed it down. Left it for like, 15 hours and rinsed it out and washed and dried it and while it is a bit more subtle than designed, I am content.
Now my bra line is less visible (I figure my kids would rather not see that, though they would never say so) and I am delighted to walk around covered in mock gore. Beats real gore. I may have to try and make it out to the Oddities and Curiosities Expo… I have the perfect shirt for it now.
So here’s a piece of bad news for those unaware… now we got a parasite rolling around. Cyclospora, if I’m spelling it right. Well, this doctor has put together a pretty good video for those wanting to avoid it or to know how best to treat it.
