Toilet etiquette cat AI paintover

 

I have been experimenting with AI image generation lately. The image on the left is my interpretation and paintover of the AI generated image on the right.

The task at hand was to illustrate some rules for a toilet at work.

I wanted it to look a bit funny so I searched up in the public gallery of Midjourney (I have a subscription) to look for "Cat toilet" hoping to find some suitable generation of a cat using a cat litter tray  that I could simply slap on the rules. But I got a bit overboard.

Instead I found this cat wrapped in toilet paper. I loved that idea much more than I had envisioned and found it hilarious, so I had to paint what I saw in it. If you have acsess to midjourney you can find the link to the generation here: www.midjourney.com/app/jobs/f7… It was created by user "bunnyduster" with the prompt: "realistic black and white cat dancing with ribbons of toilet paper falling around him"

CNC milling: Stamp part 4

Part 1 - Part 2 - part 3

The day has finally come where I finished my stamp/seal project. Almost a year ago I decided to learn 3D modelling and start making it. Now it is complete.

(although I will add a handle later) 

I had put this project on wait until we got a laser cutter, but in the end the CNC mill is probably the better choice. 

In order to fit my logo design into such a small scale, I decided through some trial and error to make a second version of the logo. It is a symbol form of the original. I made 4 attempts to recreate it using different methods. In the end I settled on making the design with open paths (illustrator) because this assured me that no area would ever be thinner than how wide the drillbit might be.

First I drew the shape as a sketch, real size 2 cm wide. Above is an automated vector shape created with Adobe Capture. It makes messy paths. I tried tracing it, but was unhappy with the shapes I created. There is some appeal to the blotchy looking result above, but not for this purpose, where I wanted a clean look.

Above is the final version using set width open toolpaths. It wasn't what I had thought of first, but I quickly became fond of the symbol.

With the help of Nordvik we milled the seal in aluminium. I believe that the part being in metal helps disperse the heat from the wax fast, making it much more functional than other materials.

The part is 35 mm wide. The path is 2mm

Final results, testing with ordinary candle wax.

Here is a bonus picture of Yoshi at work taking pictures of the milling machine working. We milled at Bitraf.

Recursive photoception

Dragon egg project (wip)

WIP Project: Dragon eggs

(Note: W.I.P stands for Work In Progress. Posts tagged with WIP can be voted on here in order to encourage me to re-prioritize what to work on)

The Dragon egg project consists of trying to make a mould for wax casting cool fantasy candles. The first idea I had is of a simple candle wax egg, hence the name. 

First attempts at a dragon egg model.

First attempt at a mould

.

Mould with tabs to ease opening, holes to line up the pattern, and notch to see how the parts are oriented.

I expect the first version to have a few problems, mainly the pattern might be too detailed, and when trying to remove the candle from the mould I expect it to be stuck, I may have to print the model itself and do a latex cast of it instead of 3D print it directly. I want to 3D print and test it to be sure however, I won't know if it has failed before it has failed after all. Another problem is that it has overhangs and can't be printed in the orientation I wanted.

The next version I am working on will have arched legs stuck to a larger surface of the egg body, for strength and avoiding overhangs when 3D printing.

Post Game Jam Update

Progress update on Global Game Jam Oslo

GGJ went off to great start for us at Oslo, we all gathered in the auditorium, where two talks were presented by Sam Partridge of Failbetter Games and Tom Kail of Inkle Studios. Of course the keynote was also shown.

New this year: we were all split into random practice teams in order to encourage people to form teams with strangers. The teams had a few minutes to come up with a game idea on the spot and then present it. I ended up on team 5. Thanks to this, something funny happened:
During the "find your teams" chaos, we all held up our hands with 5 fingers, resulting in us greeting each other with high fives. This then spawned the idea that we could make a a high five game. It then evolved into a body language and symbol game. We were a bit unclear on the rules, but it goes something like this:

A gesture based game

2 people stand back to back. One person is Leader, and the other is Follower. The leader makes a gesture with their arms. A third person, the interpreter, looks at the gesture and tries to communicate it in 2 words. The Follower then has to mimic the gesture based on those 2 words. If the Follower manages, they win a point and become leader. The next person in the queue then takes a spot as the new Leader. If the Follower doesn't manage, the follower goes to the back of the queue and the next person tries to be Follower.

Forming the new teams

After the team excercise, we were free to form teams any way we liked. I and Tzer0 had agreed to work together, but we had no concrete plans and ended up teaming up with the two speakers who stayed back in the auditorium. As time progressed throughout the event, more and more people migrated to our team, to a total of 7 members! That is the biggest team I have been on in a game jam.

Team composition:
Programming: Samuel Partridge (@SamuelPartridge), Tom Kail (@tomkail), Jan Anders Bremer (http://underhound.eu/), Eivind Hyldmo
Art: Christina Lewis (@SkyfishArt), Martin Joakim Ulstein (@Howlstone), Jonas Nordby,

The new game

Theme: Ritual
The game idea we attempted also came from the practice team session. It is based around a time loop where some cultists are trying to perform a ritual, and other characters are trying to stop it. Since there is a time loop, the player controls all of the character, one turn at the time. (or you can play multi player) The first round there is only one character on screen, the next round there will be two, but you only control the recent arrival. Different goals will be displayed on the screen, so if you play as the knight, you might want to kill a cultist. Or if you are the sheep, you may want to run away.
I don't know much about the coding but it sure looked like the programmers were busy, and we didn't quite finish it. It was playable before the deadline however, so I consider it a success.
Additionally, Tzer0 (Jan) made a fully functional audio system involving fading in and out of synchronized tracks, that would turn in and out from the menu, making  sure the audio was never interrupted. 
That means my goal of having "a game that does not sound annoying to someone not playing it" was halfway met. (the sound effects were still haphazard and the baby literally explodes)

Personally, I contributed to the art. I wanted the game to be set in space but I was overruled, so a lot of my work was made redundant. I wish I had understood sooner. Still, the tiling floor, altar slab, and background were made by me, as well as the blue cuthulu alien character. I had issues taking screencaps near the deadline so they are brutally blurry. I used "Sword & Sworcery" (game) as a style guide for the other artists to make the characters with.

Things I learned:

• Use images with pixel ratio dividable by 4 because something something programming something unity.
• How to pull, commit, and push art into game with git, using sourcetree. Will git again.
• How to open project in Unity. There is a first for everything.
• When something is bothering you, just say it. There is no time to be annoyed and the consequences are probably tinier than you think.
• Don't assume you understand what anyone meant. You never understand what anyone meant.

Global Game Jam Oslo

Global Game Jam is this weekend. 29.-31.January

Global Game Jam Oslo is being held at Westerdals.

I'm participating with my programmer buddy Tzer0 but we might have to look for more team members. We are gearing up for a potentially 3D VR experimental project this time, though I'm woefully under prepared with my mixed noob 3D abilities. I'd place my bets on a simpler game for the jam and the VR for later. See you there?

Dream Bestiary project (wip)

WIP Project: Dream Bestiary

(Note: W.I.P stands for Work In Progress. Posts tagged with WIP can be voted on here in order to encourage me to re-prioritize what to work on)

Dreams are a core interest of mine that I never tire from talking about. I document, study, and draw inspiration from my own subconscious dreams. In order to do something concrete and perhaps commercially viable with the subject matter, I'm thinking about embarking upon a quest of documenting all hopefully most of the strange creatures that form in them. This project is in it's early idea phase, with some sketches and paintings having started. If I were to make a book, I'd either select a simpler art style and redraw the creatures clearly to communicate their designs more easily, or perhaps just select art styles that suit the individual creatures. The original sketches seem too raw and messy to make sense to anyone but me, I fear. I'd like to self publish the results eventually, if I do take this path.

Older examples of unprocessed dream sketches below.
To see dream sketches as I upload them, or to see my dream folder follow me on Deviantart. (That is where all my art images are hosted)

dream sketch: masked characters

Dream sketch: infant bird mole with chains?

Trying fusion 360

Thought I had enough having attempted to learn 3ds max, blender and mudbox? WELL YOU THOUGHT WRONG!

My new crush is currently Fusion 360.

Fusion 360 looks very enticing.

I haven't abandoned blender of course, I'm sure they have pro's and cons. Fusion is more of a full scale product design creation tool. But I won't find out for real until I have tried them both sufficiently. I am hesitant to learning new programs before I even know the others, but the user interface was just too smooth and the built in tutorials are super alluring.
Neither Adobe programs and 3DSMAX can compare to such a intuitive UI and pleasant look. Besides, fusion is free for small business and students.
Unfortunately I'm getting bugs trying to import my vectors so I have no idea where I will go with this until I find a work around.

Work In Progress - Decide what I do next

Want to affect what I do? Now is your chance!

WIP stands for Work In Progress.
I have got many ideas I would like to work on in the nebulous "some day" time. Most of my projects start off enthusiastically before I forget them in a corner somewhere. In order to complete more projects I have now decided to keep a little directory here with projects that have gone on ice. If you want to see me work on that project, all you have to do is comment about it, this will be sufficient external motivation to rejuvenate my enthusiasm and re prioritize (within reason).

This post will be updated to list blog entries tagged with WIP as I document and upload them.

WIP: Aquarium sculpture

WIP: Fantasy wax candles

WIP: 3D Printed stamps and seals

WIP: Ridiculous Dreamcatchers 

WIP: Dream Creature Bestiary

WIP: Dragon Bestiary

WIP: Masks

WIP: Ugly Duckling

WIP: Dream Fakemon Bestiary

WIP: VR experimental interactive gallery

Commission: Dragon Chomping Moon Cheese

First artwork of the year!

It's based on a funny photo of the commissioners pet rat and his dragon character (who is based on a ferret).

Reference:

Want to commission me? Send me an email.

Ludum dare 33 post summary

It's that time again, Ludum dare 33, our favourite game jam, had been and gone.

The resulting game can be seen here: Pokemen - Ludum Dare 33

Indie game about Pokemen. From ancient Cornish, meaning: Stupid, clumsy.

The theme: "You are the monster". I took the familiar concept of Pokemon, everyone's favourite monster battling game, and replaced the monsters with "pokemen" instead. In my design, you control the monster directly, becoming a literal interpretation of the theme at first. However, as the battle progresses, you can see your trainer off to the side shouting commands and encouragement. After a while the trainers dialogue will become progressively more abusive. The worse you do the more abusive the trainer becomes. The pokemen battle to the death and we attempted to implement some gore. This way, it is actually the pokemen trainer who is the true monster, for abusing their slave pokemen. 

3 different pokemen to choose from

Charlog, Bulbabud and Squirtop.

The game plays a bit like a 2D fighter. tzer0 did all the programming and sound and definitely worked the hardest of us two. Next time I'd like to find one or two more people since the time really doesn't stretch that well in such a small game jam.

Ratings

#338	Audio(Jam)	3.23
#587	Graphics(Jam)	3.27
#625	Innovation(Jam)	2.88
#628	Theme(Jam)	3.31
#671	Humor(Jam)	2.54
#791	Overall(Jam)	2.92
#791	Fun(Jam)	2.69
#823	Mood(Jam)	2.71
#1314	Coolness	47%

I was hoping to beat my Ludum Dare rating from my last game "Escape from Animal forest" but we somehow did worse on all scores. This I find somewhat disappointing since I tried much more to work hard this time around. It just goes to show that effort does not always equal output. Many of the small decisions and shortcuts I had to take left this game looking less interesting than the last one. I'll list some reasons I suspect we had a worse result here for my own reference next time:

• fewer team members = a LOT more work per member
• less time available = crappier result
• Maybe avoid pixel art due to over-use in game jams. (hard to say if this was a cause or if my poor use pixels was, still, I love charlog)
• more animation frames = less time on overall art
• prioritise UI, menu and splash page better (didn't make these in time) These make up a lot of the game's "overall visuals" especially in screens that people judge us by.
• Figure out what went wrong with colour palette before theme announces
• make actual mock game before team announces to test for unforeseen consequences:
  -tzer0 didn't have "playable-game-in-browser"
  experience and lost a lot of time because of my unexpected demand for it.
  -Figure out what went wrong with colour palette before theme announces
  -Figure out how the art style will look in an actual browser (size of game border vs scale of objects etc)
• add "fix user experience" as a responsibility on my timeslotting list to ensure the overall is ok.
  -many people had problems with getting the game to work including myself.
  Our commenters said the game wasn't "fun" yet this is the most complete game I have made in any gamejam, and it is the first where people complain about the lack of fun. I suspect that if you release an incomplete game, people get more lenient on the whole "no fun" but if you have a functioning game that is still not fun then it counts against you a lot more. I personally thought our "Escape the forest" attempt was very unfun and that pokemen was miles better, yet "Escape" had a much higher score. I suppose it is hard to tell with only two tries, perhaps simply better competition could explain the scores after all.

Below is my journal of this Ludum Dare proceeding for those interested:

I started early this time, one day ahead so I could test my setup. That was wise, as I had to update 7 programs (all adobe programs i use plus krita) plus one bug fix in krita. Besides I had to dust off my Krita - photoshop workflow. I rely on Krita for game making because of it's wrap around mode, mirror drawing, and generally the brush engine just feels easier to sketch with for some reason.

I drew my first pixelart in my testing. I MAY have been inspired to do so because I saw this cool artist just the day before: CELLUSIOUS his pixels are worth the watch. Pixels is really fun to work with because it frees me of my bad habit of getting lost in details.

Also played around with a screenshot of mario to see how it works and speculate about why it looks like it looks. I'm not fond of the style but I wanted to see what it could take to make Mario surreal. I like how I accidentally touched upon a potential answer to the theme that was chosen.

The theme this time around is "You are the monster"

Here is my 5 o'clock rambling list of ideas that I woke up to write (including spelling mistakes!):

Sheep or wolf u font know

• Game mechanicallt
• Morally
• Hurt self to hurt others
• Dentist,
• Kids perspektive
• Ea eat games
• Hold your ground by waiting.
• Bugs in software
• Mario clone but play as koppa
• Godzilla demolished.
• Ant, wasp, wolf fight for survival
• Anorexia, psychological monsters
• Enemies controller, parasite swap body.
• Pokemon re angled :
• Bulbabud, birdy, rodentish, charmangler, char ming, squirtoob, s
• Don't step over the line. He
• Stepped over the line.
• You are the dice in dnd campaign .

I think this theme is going to be fun, even if there will be a lot of obvious takes on "you are the monster" it will still be fun.

Once the game making actually began I rediscovered timeslotting. I had to complete 

• creature design (pencil drawing)

• creature render (pixel drawing)

• level design (pixel drawing)

• ui design

• animation (magnificent 2 frames per action!)

• moves (hopefully)

By dividing each task by the total time I had, I ended up with only about an hour or two for each task. ( I could not use the full LD time due to work)

Long story short, I had 7 minutes per frame of animation and I could only afford 2 frames per action (jump, attack, run etc). It may seem like a long time for just moving a few limbs, but I am not very experienced with animation OR pixel art so this felt like a very short time when I was actually doing it. Photoshop tricks like "transform" does not work with pixel art. pixels don't rotate (unless it's 90 degrees i guess). Some frames took less and some took more. 

All in all the project was as tiresome yet educational as gamejams always are for me and I will take my experience forward.

Leading a video game community

I play Natural Selection 2 competitively, (clan: T.A.W ns2) but recently our Team leader had to quit, and that leaves me as the new Team leader.
If you want to see what NS2 looks like, I actually stream a lot of our sessions from my first person view on Twitch:

http://www.twitch.tv/skyfishart/c/6806618.


A typical match sees one person "commanding" the team from an overview point, who can think about the game strategy and place tactical structures.
The rest of the team play on the field in First Person Shooter mode as aliens or marine side. Despite being team lead, I play on the field, as these roles are not connected. I don't have as good a grasp of tactics as someone who is trained in commanding in game.

What I do have to do though, is train, organize, monitor, and keep motivated a small team. I don't feel like I have the time for it much, but I manage. So far I found it surprisingly inspiring, When our clan (group) leader (of 60 people) told me that he moved into leadership because he enjoyed it, I didn't understand why he would enjoy more work, but now I think I start to see it. The camaraderie is much stronger when you have to be the glue of the group and the one to deal with all the problems.

Below: Doodles of "Lerk" the alien lifeform I play as.

Official Lerk picture from Unkown Worlds:

3D print: deal with it glasses

"You wouldn't download a meme"

Thingiverse.com is a directory where one can download and upload 3D models for free. (The authors choose the licences. ) The system is geared towards collaboration and iterating on other's designs. It is probably a great asset to humanity in the long run.

So of course I use it for downloading and printing internet memes.

Original (unknown author)

This is my first "make" as recreations are called on thingiverse. Modeled by everysecond initially (this is called a "design")

Now all I need is (actually good) 3D modelling in VR and I will be living in the future.

3D modelling: stamp part 3

(part 0) (part 1) (part 2)

I feel I have come a long way since "part 0", it is funny to look back at it.

Progress:
Tested the 3D printer's resolution at a small scale. The ultimaker is much too rough at 2 cm. 

All the pieces together, the dish fits the mold perfectly.

 Closeup of the ~5cm print (blue) The design is almost recognizable at this scale, but the printer is still too rough for such a delicate logo. I'm considering making a simplified version, but I'd prefer not to. I will have to learn how to use the "roland modela 3d plotter mdx-15" and engrave the stamp surface in wood instead, I'm told the plotter is more suited for such tiny work, though I have yet to see what it can do.

 I tested the mold as a stamp just to see if the plastic can function as a stamp surface, the answer is "meh, depends" I had to sand it down to even leave an imprint, it looks flat to the human eye, but it isn't flat enough. I used simple watercolour to test, the plastic was oddly hydrophobic, but it may be because i put the stamp in stamping paint in an earlier test and washed it with soap. I'm not sure what part made it hydrophobic or if it is the plastic.

As a bonus, I attempted to use the 3D pen (a bit like a glue gun) It is true that they are difficult to use. Very unintuitive, like modelling with unpredictable gravity adhering spaghetti. Doing useful things with it probably will require a fair bit of practice, for now I will use it to weld 3D prints.

This marks the temporary end of my stampmaking adventures. My next step to concluding this successfully is learning the new machine, but there is going to be some time before I will do that as I have other priorities at the moment. At least now I know how to 3D print on my own, and enough blender to extrude most kinds of models. It was more enjoyable than I expected and I will definitely come back to 3D printing for fun.

Good day!

Suddenly Gamejam Season

Last weekend was Sonen game jam. Next week (17th april 2015) is Ludum Dare, I haven't organized anything, but I'm still considering it last minute. 
For sonen, this time I participated much more casually with an intent to get an excuse to learn using Krita with only my laptop (built in drawing technology) I have been avoiding it because of a whole host of problems, inconveniences and simply being out of my comfort zone. Dragging out the trusty and superior wacom tablet was always too tempting, so for the gamejam I elected not to bring it. Of course, this resulted in no game entry this time. Though I did make a few sketches on the last day where I caved and brought the wacom tablet.... (sigh, but I don't regret it!)

All in all it was successful:

• Krita doesn't seem to crash anymore (why? I don't know.)
• Ntrig now has pressure sensitivity in krita (driver update+krita update+nvidia update)
• Contributed bug reports to krita community
• Met some cool old and new people
• Rediscovered my favourite photoshop brush
• Laptop can be used for drawing in a pinch or with external keyboard

The problem with the vaio flip is that both krita and photoshop are cumbersome without hotkeys, and the vaio hides the keyboard under the screen in tablet mode. Perhaps with a third, simpler drawing app I could enjoy lap-drawing better, might try microsoft paint again, it does have the undo button in plain sight unlike the others.

1-4  reverse process on a "pokefusion" sandslash and machop

5 pokefusion beedrill and ghastly drawn with only my favourite photoshop brush (chalk with low flow)

6 abstract brush practice

The above image is the result of my doodling. I use a little photoshop plugin called "layersToSprite" to automatically output layers into one image, but lately I can't control how many rows it adds due to a weird problem I can only fix with a fresh windows install. (do not want) I also realize they are in the reverse order so that is something to keep in mind next time.

Logo Design process

Personal Logo: Skyfish Art

For my personal logo I already knew approximately what I wanted, the symbolism behind it has formed over years of background noise that I won't go into here. The earliest iteration is from primary school, a C and an L interlocked (my initials). I kept that C and L in my design and introduced the Skyfish that I am now known for. Initially I was using the pure sketch for a logo, I wanted to embrace the rough. Peer pressure convinced me to vectorize it however, this was before I felt comfortable with the modern-sleek-flat-gloss seemingly curated by apple. The logo reads much better now, I have to admit, as it is very detailed for a logo, but I'm happy with this for now. I intended it to be primarily a watermark, so some complexity is desirable for me.

Final iterations on skyfish logo.

Finished vectorized skyfish logo.

Logo Design for LRC

I was approached by the client to create a logo for general use, and given colour scheme, previous marketing material and a mascot to work from.

Completed Logo Design.

Below is some of the process behind this Logo, hundreds of thumbnails. The design was settled primarily by the clients decisions and a tight dialogue.

I primarily worked to come up with a design that echoed the former mascot and the name by incorporating the image of a rat in the logo, abstracting as I went along. Meanwhile I also tried to incorporate shapes that would communicate the complex technical field that LRC conducts its business in. The client selected thumbnail nr 11 for further development and eventually became the end result.

3D modelling: stamp part 2

(part 0) (part 1)
Yesterday I said I had made some progress on learning how to use blender, and today I made my first (purposeful) model! It is probably not as optimal as it could be, I had to hack it together with my limited knowledge. Seeing as it's for 3D print, polycount and such is not really a concern for me (that I know of).

 What you see here is my logo stamp (v1.0) the green is the handle, the red is a dish to hold the sugru (stamp surface) and the brown is essentially a cast for the sugru to go in. I suspect the design is too minute to really get all the details, nor do I know how minute details the Ultimaker 3D printers can really do, but I shall see. Worst case scenario, I will print it larger. It's designed to be about 2-3 cm in diameter across the dish. I am also considering what other material could replace the sugru, it is definitely the most costly part of this plan (I'm planning to make many), and I'm sure there are other moldable materials that might hold/print ink/liquids better than sugru around. I'm not up to date on clays and such, so suggestions are very welcome.

As I modelled it, I was realizing it might be hard to remove the cast from the sugru and to get the sugru to stick to the correct surface and not just get pulled back out. I will have to test this. I added 2 flaps to the cast to make it easier to grab. I hope they are not too thin and will break. I will test it and see if I shall make them bigger for v.2.

I wanted the red dish to screw onto the handle, but screws were a bit too advanced for me to get my head around right now, so I will just glue it on and hope for the best. Alternatively I might make the dish square and have it slide onto the handle, but that doesn't look as cool in my opinion.

Messy blender mesh from messy illustrator path. 

 The logo was imported from Illustrator, I did have some trouble with that due to how I initially created it: with an automatic conversion from a raster image to vector, (I then manually went and deleted hundreds of vector anchor points and adjusted them to fit, I found this process easier than creating a path with the standard pen tools and tracing it myself. The reason for this is I get stuck in "making perfect curves" who end up ruining the design. By converting it I get the design straight away, but a messy path. it works for 2D.) Of course that made it convert poorly in blender, paths were crossed, facing odd directions, who knows. After making the path function (I got some help), the extrusion went mostly fine, I had to patch up a missing face and make sure the model was watertight. (In blender this is called Manifold, I have yet to learn how to use this word in a sentence. "The model is Manifold?" sounds as alien as 3D modeling is to reality haha.)

Blender screenshot: logo impressed into cylinder with boolean operation.

When I have tested it and settled on decent version, I will upload the stamp design to thingiverse (or something like it) under creative commons licence, yay for sharing! (there are already some good stamp designs on thingiverse, but I wanted my own handle, round and grippy) I will make a new post when I have a working version, so stay tuned.

Learning a new skill: 3D modelling

(part 0) (part 2 here)
A little while back I mentioned on tumblr I was starting to learn 3D modelling. After much time-consuming and perhaps -pointless- deliberation, I settled for learning Blender. Despite it's bad reputation, the updates to the program in the past year has made it much more appealing. It's features are many and versatile, and most importantly: open source with a great community and learning material. I put it down shortly after I began, but now I am back on it again, and thankfully have gotten past the *head to desk* stage of initial frustration. I'm learning with the book called "blender for dummies" this time around while supplementing more and more with youtube, manuals and general googling the further I get. I underestimated the book due to it's name, I never expected the "For dummies" series to be more than "sell-bait" however, using it has been a un-frustrating and productive experience. I'm on chapter 4 so far, and am starting to get very close to my goal of making my first 3D print.

Blender screenshot: My first 3D model, how sentimental (Babys first extrude)

Blender screenshot: The Skyfish logo imported from .svg (illustrator) to Blender. (I have no idea what I'm doing.) There appears to be a problem with some of the vectors facing the wrong way or maybe crossing. I'm still working on figuring this one out.

The goal is to make a stamp with my logo on it using 3D model from blender and some sugru (for the stamp surface) It's 3D printer weekend at the Oslo makerspace Bitraf this weekend, so I'm hoping I will have it all figured out by then.

DnD character design scribbles

I'm playing in a Dungeons and Dragons campaign set in Elderscroll lore, in Morrowind.
For this reason I have to figure out what my lizard person actually looks like. I am going to be a pirate ninja lizard, so I'm tempted to base it off a black iridescent snake, but I like the hooded one too.
The red faced one is based on a frilled neck lizard, because the character is borderline feral and specializes in punching things. I Thought the aggressive neck display and colouring would go with the angry punchy charcter, apparently it doesn't speak. It's name is JAWS so I should probably emphasise that more. half shark maybe.
This sheet also depicts events in our trial dungeon, we fought a skullfaced ox dude, and Jaws was paralyzed for the whole match while being poked at by zombies. My supposedly professional ninja also failed to attack anything due to bad dice rolls sweaty hands.

DIY addiction suddely

I only recently discovered Pinterest and was immediately lost in it's DIY tags.
Pinterest also conveniently solves my problem that Tumblr didn't: I wanted inspiration and reference galleries with viral potential and ease of use. Tumblr's broken tagging and more or less dysfunctional search does not support finding a thing you once saw ever again. Pinterest however, finds you things.

So here I am, hoarding pins, but I didn't want to be all talk no do. Therefore I elaborated on a simple pin I saw, a fabric cactus pincushion.

I wanted to make one that only used rest materials, this is the result:

Life drawing at blankspace oslo

Link to High resolution image

This is the result from yesterdays trip to blankspace oslo, a gallery that offers life drawing sessions. Drawing the human form is one of the most efficient way to improve drawing skill. For the first time I used my laptop and wacom intuos 3 for life drawing. that means both a pc and a tablet on the lap ( I used a second chair to hold the pc) It was surprisingly difficult. I never realized just how much disccrepancy there is between my eye movement and the hand drawing. Normally I can correct for the tablet movement by seeing the line on screen, but when watching the model, my lines are off by many degrees, resulting in thick and thin limbs and a lot of frustration on my part. Frustration was highest around 12-15 and nearing 20+ I started to get the hang of it and resumed working on figuring out what method of looking that actually results in me having reasonable proportions in the drawing. Actually measuring doesn't seem to work out well for me yet (at least not in 1 minute drawings), but getting one contour with (semi) blind drawing and then just going with it has the nicest looking results, even if they are inaccurate.