Hey, everyone knows I can't actually afford a getaway, so I'm alluding to it. :)
Aleutian Islands.
Illusion Islands.
Long Island.
I'll take it!
-g
(And Bill, our keys aren't actually under that rock! It's an Aleutian.)
Printable View
I don't think you want to visit the Aleutian Islands this time of year Gary, a bit chilly. The Illusion Islands are much nicer. I've visited those a few times. :)
I remember those little Etch A Sketch toys. They were kind of cool.
As Unofficial Alternate Poster Boy for A.D.D., I must digress at this point.
Now, where was I?
Oh, okay: The first time I got tuned into a working definition of "SteamPunk", the movement was described as similar to the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA) in their role-playing, many times in real life. SteamPunk is an outgrowth of CyberPunk (futuristic fantasy to the extreme), But SteamPunk is based on the hypothesis that all technological development ceased on Earth the moment steam power was discovered.
Okay, StemPunk now embraces much more than an alternative future stalled by prehistoric energy development. In a way, my Etch-A-Sketch tribute a few posts ago would qualify as a SteamPunk artifact: imagine a totally mechanical computing device with which you drew photorealistic graphics by twiddling two knobs.
To take it farther, you've seen how many manufacturers have disguised USB ("thumb") drives as a pair of dice, a water faucet, Star War characters, et al? I love this one: a USB drive shaped like a 1950s power tube. It glows and everything:
Attachment 111965
If it weren't for the fact that I collect two of everything that's neat (one as a backup) and now have no room in the house, I'd definitely buy one (or two) of these drives!
My Best.
Gary
Top story today: two new minerals have been identified today: Russettite (Sp2UD2 ), believed to be related to Eye-Daho, discovered by Professor Gary Priester in 1789. And PomPomogranite (Si2SBu3MBaH2), discovered by Connie DeSalvo, a cheerleader at Oaks Woods High School in Missouri.
Attachment 111966
-g
The glow on the USB drive looks good. I think you could sell a few of those.
I'd like to see the 3D molecular diagram for those new minerals. :)
Dog goneit Gare! Are you drawing these things? You'd better not be!!!!!
Relax, Ron; take slow, even breaths.
No, I'm not drawing these things. This is my Xara non-Art Gallery.
These are models, Photoshop retouching and photos...well, I use Xara for all the typography and a lot of the base meshes I then modify and enhance in modeling programs, but it's all assisted pixel-creation, man.
My Best,
Gary
It's "Yo-Yo" theme today. Later, I'm going to listen to Yo Yo Ma play the cello.
A tribute to Lennie DaVinci, a very funny guy once you get to know him.
Attachment 112191
My other tribute to things that go up and down on a string is more or less right here
Attachment 112193
Absolutely love it, Gary. Everything about it is spot on.
Thanks, Mike! This is a simple model that I rendered out of Maxwell Studio, reputedly the most photorealistic rendering program available to Mere Mortals (!), and then I filtered the daylights out of it using DFT 55mm Tools suite of plug-ins:
Attachment 112279
-g
I think this is the first "large" scene I ever rendered using the Pixar RenderMan engine. Shadows weren't an option in the 1990s for the affordable version. I did a little Fractal Design Painter after the render.
Attachment 112309
Fore all its reletively primitive 3D aspects, I still think it works as art.
-g
Barbara and I visited S-F (as I was told the slang is) for a Macromedia conference (obviously before Adobe bought them), and this was our big chance to take a lot of photographs, especially around the Moscone Center.
So I was obliged to do something weird with one of our better photos. The interesting thing about this picture, I feel, is that the apparent size of the modeled wind-up toy makes the full-size buildings look small, doesn't it?
Attachment 112320
Attachment 112321
My Best,
Gary
Yes it does. Either that or that's a real big wind-up toy.
I remember the popularity of yo yo's in the 50's. Every kid had two or three. Good creative work, Gary.
That last one you blended in well Gary, with the shadows and reflections on the toy.
In the early 1960s there was a UFO "flap" in America, and possibly the world. One more prominant UFOlogist was Geroge Adamski, who claimed he'd been to Venus, Mars and Saturn (but not Uranus), took both motion pictures and stills of something that sort of looked like a bird feeder. Later, I saw that Sears ran an ad for a portable gas lamp; the top was identical to Adamski's fake photos he touted on talk shows and the like.
Let's see how to fake a UFO in a photo today:
Attachment 112443
I used modo for the model, P'shop for composting, several filters to degrade the final photo.
My Best,
Gary
Way back when we had our very own UFOlogist, His name was Frank -something or other- . It took me some time on the search engine to dig up the goods on our UFO pro, http://www.talkgraphics.com/showthread.php?7370-FRAUD-or-BAD-BUSINESS it is a very old thread and has suffered from neglect.
That is very good, Gary. That looks just like some of those old photo's.
@Mike,
If you'd like to link this image to the thread that is suffering from neglect—try resuscitation—by all means do so with my blessing.
@Graham, thank you, friend. I guess there are several thing I could have done to better "fake" the photo, but we're talking a layer upon a layer...it's supposed to look real, but within the context of both a hoax and the 1960s, a different culture than we have today.
Here's what the unfiltered render looks like, compared to Adamski's photography.
Attachment 112453
Oh, heck, if a guy in his late, late middle-age wants to pube out and get back to sci-fi, I might as well do it all-out:
Attachment 112452
Another unexplained phenomenon,
Gary
The whole fleets arrived now. Must be fleet week.
WOW! Far out man.
Ha! Thanks, all!
I originally wanted to light and render a simple object that no one would notice in a photograph.
Attachment 112491
It then occurred to me that the addition to a snapshot would easily be detected if the time was anything other than 4:07pm.
Attachment 112492
I can't figure this out; you try.
-g
I think so, too. ;)
Thanks, Gary
Attachment 113142
This might have made a better still image than an animation, but then I would not have had the chance to create an annoying music track.
-g
Caught these as I was going out the door for a couple of days of R&R. Love'em Gary, especially the cow girl.
Love that cow girl image Gare, especially the cow! Why? you posted it in the Xone a while back and at the time I had just finished a milk bottle drawing and needed something to go with it, the cow and milk, end of story :D
Stygg
I must have posted that image a long while back on the Xone, stygg.
Or, more likely, I forget things!
Now, who am I writing to? Oh, yeah...stygg!
Central New York is big Dairy Country, hence a repeat of the cow.
Actually, salami repeats more than cows, but that's a different story...
:)
g
I was unhappy with the way the wine bottle came out that I posted yesterday so I picked up my Etch•A•Monitor and shook it, and started over.
Viola! (sic)
Salut to you and all.
Except Big Frank, who get a large à votre santé...
Attachment 114047
Attachment 114048
I'll drink to that. I hope I don't get corked.
Perfection as always, Gary.
Oh, Graham, as always, you are too kind!
I'll settle for "expressive", especially the capability to self-express, over the largely unattainable "perfection" any day.
I'm not denying a compliment...I need as many as I can get! Just like everyone.
I'm just adjusting your praise downward to account for your personal bias for me as a terrific guy.
<evil grin>
My Best,
Gary
I wasn't happy with my render of the model I did, perhaps the lighting, probably the fact that I'm not all that familiar with AutoDesk Mudbox for scraping the scoops a little to suggest coarseness in areas not melting.
Attachment 114141
So rather than try to push the piece toward photo-realism, I pushed in the opposite direction. I used Filter Forge and tweaked a few features of some of the user-created filters.
Attachment 114142
I like groups of pictures. The first time I saw variations on a theme groupings was Andy Warhol's silk screen work back in the late 1960s.
My Best,
Gary
I think I like that lower left. Lots of texture.
Heh heh...when I post a group of variations, it's ore likely someone will like at least one of them!
Thaks, Graham. That was more or less a "bleach bypass" render. These sort of filter effects are freee as a standalone app at:
indispensable filter collection
I paid $55 years ago for a fraction of the number of effects Nik offers now.
My Best,
Gary
Thanks for the link, Gary.
Oh, let me be totally honest, here, Ron. I did not render or model out pet cat Alice. I just modeled the hammer and Photoshopped it into her paw using an existing photo,
Same deal with Domino, our Norwegian Coon:
Attachment 114458
And I'll try to defend the posting of this by saying it's iconic and Fair Use:
Attachment 114459
Photoshop, and Xara, and little pieces od photos and rendered models can produce some very weird and occasionally wonderful results!
In the wrong hands, of course.
My Best,
Gary
You have a large bag of graphics, Gary. They're all very entertaining to see. Keep it up, sir.