gavindelThe reason all your softwareis brokenRegistered Userregular
edited August 2017
You know,the line between "adorably amazing Disney-esque" and "abomination of nature" is really rather razor thin. Guess its the same as the difference between anime moe and anime derp.
The moral of this story is that I should not attempt to draw Elsa. Ever.
Edit: Really? Totp? Allow me to grumble and shake my cane.
A thought I have on the physical media thing would be a variation on the masonite thing, using the methodology of illustrators like Wylie Beckert: draft on paper in physical media, copy or scan for digital editing/archiving, and then print it out and bond the new paper version to masonite.
You can omit the copy phase if you are working in watertight media or if you aren't precious about your originals and just make sure you are working on decent paper
but this would allow you to do some work before you start the Masonite stage and would allow you to sort of plan what size Masonite you want by the size of your drawing instead of trying to draft to the size of the Masonite, which imo adds a project variable that might take up some of the brain space that you'd otherwise use in drafting the pieces?
So I wound up buying one of those pose figures I posted even though yeah it's not like it's a particularly accurate depiction of a human body (I've spent money on stupider shit...probably? I mean do I really need brake pads? C'mon.). After messing around with it, yeah you have to know enough anatomy on your own to know how to work around the inaccuracies/stiffness of gesture etc., and yes, real ref or models would be better- but I suspect if I were drawing comics, where the anatomy and proportions can be a little off as long as it reads well, and finding/shooting photo ref for every pose and camera angle would probably be a bit onerous to do, I think it might come in pretty handy for that.
Unrelated: Shin Godzilla is a movie I'm into just on level of, 'conventional wisdom says this movie should not work, but it does', and I have to respect that. Because it's really less "A Godzilla Movie", and more "This week's episode of Government Bureaucracy Adventure, with special guest star, Godzilla!"
It's amazing how much more boring the last American Godzilla movie was with a Paratrooper Bomb-Disposing Special Forces Action Man with a Family To Save, when Shin Godzilla has scenes like when 40 guys in identical suits are having a bureaucratic meeting in a conference room, then they all move to another, more formal conference room, and then they all move BACK to original conference room to have a slightly less formal discussion.
Also it's kinda interesting how identifiable it is that the director originally came from directing anime, just through the sort of composition, editing/pacing he uses. I kinda felt the same way watching Mission Impossible 4, you could tell an animator had directed it because some of the scenes were shot like it had been put together as a storyboarded animation gag.
I got it off Amazon because I didn't want to deal with sketchy Facebook place (of course, Amazon is kinda sketchy by itself, but it's the sketchy I know/already have an account with).
And you could watch Shin Godzilla! Or you could not, because I think a lot of people would like it, but a lot of people would probably hate it (ie: "Why is 80% of this stupid monster movie about petty political finagling??").
I suppose if I wanted to have better conversations with people, I should watch more current and popular movies- but being a film dork I watch all these semi-obscure movies that have something going for them that's really interesting, but I can't recommend or talk about with people, because half the conversation is going to be caveats about why the movie might not be for them.
Like I just watched a movie called Army of Shadows, a French film from 1969 that is a very bleak, unheroic, and unromantic story about a group of WW2 French Resistance fighters, directed by a guy whose style is all about long sustained shots with only sporadic and terse dialogue. Or to take a more popular movie, Phantasm, a horror movie that if you described the plot aloud sounds like the stupidest movie imaginable, and because it was an indie move from the 70's you have to be willing accept some slower pacing at the front and oh yeah a pointless acoustic guitar playing filler scene, but it mostly works if you get the primer beforehand that, "it operates on the logic of a child's nightmare" (to quote Elliott Kalan of The Flop House).
And all that's great if you're the kind of film dork that will put up with a lot just to see one interesting element of a film you haven't seen before- but it's a way harder pitch than, "Hey, have you seen The Avengers? You should watch it, it's good!"
I do like weird film more than most, but I tend to get to anxious to sit around for movies. They are hard not to pay attention to so I cant have them on in the background, but they are a long time commitment. But If I can like Once Upon a Time in the West I can sit through a long shot with the best of them, I think.
I'm thinking about investing in some audio books, since I've been a long time podcast listener. I liked the early days if nightvale and I think I could stand to mix some non-comedy into my daily entertainment. As it stands, I listen to mooostly comedy.
Haha yeah the ability to find the first 10 minutes of Once Upon A Time In The West fascinating rather than frustrating is probably a pretty good litmus test for film dorkness. That's a movie when I recommend I always have to preface it with, 'stick with it, and don't go and do something else while watching it, it's a sit-your-ass down and really watch it kinda movie'.
I've never listened to audiobooks, (gotta listen to music and read on kindle to form maximum "do not interact with me in any way" aura during my train commute, and I think a novel would be impossible to follow while working (my normal podcast listening time).
I'd recommend 99% Invisible, Planet Money, Radiolab for non-comedy podcasts, but I feel like those are a cliche at this point so you've probably already figured out if those are for you or not by now. I also mostly listen to comedy podcasts (Hey, I'm nominally in the entertainment business, I should be able to justify listening to things just based on entertainment value!) which makes conversations with people I know, that all seem to listen exclusively to Serious Business podcasts, pretty awkward.
"Oh, you like podcasts? Me too! I just got done listening to this great 47 episode series about Roman History! What do you listen to?" "...I listen to a podcast where 2 comedians watch the same bad movie every week and see how the exercise slowly drives them insane. Also a podcast where a bunch of idiots watch through every episode of Power Rangers, a show I have never watched and have no affection for."
99% invisible is one I need to give another go. I listened to one or two when it literally just got started, and I think the format did not click for me. I checked out of all the NPR podcasts because I got tired of "Surprise! this is going to depress you on deep seated level!". I think there was a This American Life where it went from a girl not realizing unicorns did not exist to like a mom having cancer, and It was just like "shit guys come the fuck on with this."
My current podcasts are mostly Spontenathon, Stuff you Should Know, Never not funny, and Giant Bomb. It sort of covers the gambit of what I need, comedy in a format, random information being casually read, Comedy in a casual conversation, and gaming news. Stuff you should know covers heavy things now and then, but at least I know what the fuck I'm getting into from the title.
I still listen to Dan savage off and on and just skip ahead if he starts ranting, but I got to the point where I can mostly predict his advice. I never got into season 2 of serial, so that's off the board. I keep trying other things on and off, but none are sticking. I need to listen to the rest of LeVar Burton reads, though, I did like that.
Yeah 99% Invisible I only got into recently, and clicking around it seems to get better as it expanded from 7 minute long episodes to 30+ min episodes, though it does devote too much time to ads IMO. (Also Roman Mars' soft ASMR voice might turn people off, I imagine.)
I certainly get the sort of depression/outrage fatigue that comes from a lot of the more serious shows- back when I lived in Michigan I made a point to never watch the local news because it was always a bunch of depressing shit I could do nothing about (2 arsons, 5 murders today, industry continuing to move out of the area and put everyone out of work, but hey here are the local high school football scores, does it not soothe your soul to know children are still out there getting major concussions for the sake of points?). So I stopped watching that, but whoops now the national and international news is 300% as depressing, but now I feel like I'm being irresponsible for ignoring it for any length of time.
Also we've got like no overlap on what podcasts we listen to- of the ones you mentioned I've only ever seen anything from Giant Bomb. The SE++ podcast thread people are all about it, but while I liked the clips I saw of them making fun of the Fast and the Furious movies, I haven't happened across anything that really got their hooks into me- if you've got a suggestion of where to start with them I'm all ears. I'd be down to check out the others as well.
Stuff I listen to:
The Flop House: Bad movie reviews/weird extended tangents
My Brother, My Brother and Me (MBMBAM): Comedy "advice" podcast with questions like, "Should I wear a karate uniform to court?"
Worst Idea of All Time (WIOAT): Aforementioned 'watch the same movie for a year' podcast
'Til Death Do Us Blart: MBMBAM and WIOAT team-up where they review Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 once a year, ever year, for all eternity
The Adventure Zone: MBMBAM guys and their dad play a D&D campaign
What Should We Draw: Some folks (who also do Drawfee on FB/Youtube) have a silly freewheeling conversation, at then end of which they need to come up with an idea they can draw.
Teenagers With Attitude: Aforementioned Power Rangers podcast from some dudes in SE++, that I started listening to as 'research' because I made my D&D character a Power Ranger, mostly to irritate the DM.
The Bugle: Kind of a slightly more British 'Daily Show' news comedy show. Used to have Jon Oliver, doesn't anymore.
Planet Money: NPR guys explain economic topics. More interesting than that sounds.
Radiolab: It's Radiolab.
99% Invisible: Ostensibly about...design? I think?
It's funny you say that about Roman Mars' voice AoB, I've turned a couple friends onto that podcast and they've been immediately turned off by his voice. As far as 99% Invisible goes though, I used to love it a lot more in it's first 30-40 or so episodes WAY more than I do now. I used to listen religiously but got turned off due to it kind of going off the rails, as in, not really sticking with subjects along the lines of the show's seemingly original intent - Architecture/design/art that mostly goes unnoticed. They also randomly have a "Higher than thou" feel to some of the episodes. All in all, I still listen, but if I'm not grabbed in the first 5 minutes, I turn it off and mark it as listened to.
I still listen to a lot of podcasts, but there are very few which have been "on air" that I religiously listen to anymore. I think it's really just difficult to produce good content every episode tbh, especially at the rate of one or more a week. I started listening to the B&H Photo podcast about 9 months ago, and I would actually recommend it to any type of artist. However, just like with all my podcasts now I cherry pick the episodes I want to listen to. There's a bit of everything including how to market yourself, how to price freelance jobs, but mostly a lot of artist process. The range of photographers they talk to is pretty incredible though, everything from photographers who got famous on instagram to famous photographers who have been documenting NYC life for the last 40 years.
I also cherry pick episodes from:
Radiolab
Star Talk
MBMBAM
Waking up with Sam Harris
Song Exploder (musicians talking about how they made specific songs)
The Truth (a lovecraftian style audio storytelling)
Michael Donovan's Walking Home (this one is hard to describe... spiritual fashion photographer who gets REAL with people? Man that sounds ridiculous - and sometimes is, but I'm constantly surprised the honesty he gets out of people in all walks of life)
Important if True (idle thumbs guys pop culture weirdness)
Design Matters with Debbie Millman (Famous Designer Debbie Millman talks to other famous designers; 1st and longest podcast I've listened to - 11 years now)
Designer Notes (video game designer Soren Johnson talks to other video game designers about where they started and their process in designing games)
So, I do listen to, and like MBMBAM, but I do it in spurts. I have never actually listened to adventure zone, so I may have to start that. I'll give the others a glance too, I know the flop house is well regarded and I think I heard the one on Food Fight.
For info on my regulars:
Giant bomb
is basically my podcast that is easy background noise that catches me up on the game industry. If there's anything big coming out, they'll probably talk about it, and they catch indie things too. Its like 3 hours an episode and its my go to if I'm about to sit down and paint and dont want to fuck with anything. I imagine for someone working in games, it might not provide the same level of service as it would for me, as I just use it as an entertaining way to keep my ear on things. Of the gaming podcasts I've tried over the years, they've been the only ones to stick. They are just chill dudes who do games coverage as their real job.
If you are going to try it, I'd strongly recommend against trying to listen to earlier episodes, and instead put the latest on while you are doing something like cooking or cleaning. Its better as a radio show just meant to catch you up a bit, not as something to pay attention to deeply.
Never not funny:
If you really like 80s music, and dad humor, and stand up, try these guys out. He has a lot of the UCB guys through and it can really get you a read on the LA comedy scene from an outside view. Pardo (the host) is also maybe one of the quickest comedians I've ever listened to, and really enjoy him. I LOVE stand up, so this is a really easy one for me. they dont get very political and they have interesting guests sometimes. It is very much so the "chatting" casual format, so that has to be up your alley.
Stuff You Should Know
is basically what would happen if you hit the randomize button on wikipedia and turned it into a podcast. Its casual and just sorta gives you a bunch of facts on whatever topic is at hand. Some subjects are super light (Like, ketchup) and others are heavy (like, schizophrenia) but you always know what you are getting into, for the most part. I also think the hosts are endearing, and the show is mostly pretty pg13, since it skews towards education.
Spontenathon
is an earwolf podcast, Paul f tompkins is an improv guy, and he does a short interview and then a "narrative improv" segment, which is just a continuous story for like 10-15 minutes of improv. I would say that there are a few of these where the sketch itself comes around and I get bored, but thats kinda the nature of improv. Usually, the show is amazing, which is impressive. I will say that there was recently an episode with Ira Glass, and that would be a great intro to it. Since he knew a bunch of NPR people would randomly be tuning in, he took the time to explain the show a bit.
Savage Love
Relationship advice show, I have been literally listening to this since freshman year of college. Dan Savage is a gay dude that has had an advice column in the paper (of.. Seattle, I think) for forever. I think his podcast is alright and he introduced me to a ton of information about sex and gender that I dont think I would have immediately had access too back then. You have to be interested in hearing people call in and get judged, I dont think its for everyone, but I think its sorta a classic podcast, at this point.
Song Exploder (musicians talking about how they made specific songs)
It probably says a lot about how up I am with music that out of their whole episode list I've listened to 3, 2 of which were tv/film composers, because I'd never heard of/don't care about the others.
Edit: also I think the adventure zone takes awhile before it starts getting real good, so you might want to know to be patient for the first few episodes, or start on ep.10, which is the start of the second arc and is a real fun one, then go back and listen to the earlier episodes.
I forgot to stress with savage love, if you try it, skip to the first ad. He front loads his podcast with his politics and you probably dont need it.
Also, if you like music and games, you might like Legacy Music Hour. They just dissect chiptunes a bit. It's been awhile since I heard them, but it was a pretty low budget sort of deal before.
Song Exploder (musicians talking about how they made specific songs)
It probably says a lot about how up I am with music that out of their whole episode list I've listened to 3, 2 of which were tv/film composers, because I'd never heard of/don't care about the others.
Edit: also I think the adventure zone takes awhile before it starts getting real good, so you might want to know to be patient for the first few episodes, or start on ep.10, which is the start of the second arc and is a real fun one, then go back and listen to the earlier episodes.
Eh, I honestly haven't heard of a ton of the artists. Or recognize their names and don't know what type of music they play. That's why I tend to like listening, introduces me to new music and sometimes gives me appreciation of artists I may not have previously just based on outward/media appearances (aka U2 haha).
I'm definitely going to have to check out Legacy Music Hour. I too listen to bombcast - not as much anymore, I like beastcast a little more now. Or Waypoint radio from time to time. Waypoint I really enjoy, as it has some of my favorite hosts previously from the Giant Bomb crew. I also like how Waypoint seems to dissect the games a bit more... but bombcast is still great for background entertainment
I feel like the "\" should be "/". It does have a rather clean look, and is probably easier to read than my suggestion though (which I'm sure he played around with).
I enjoyed something Ian Klarer made along the same lines:
Dood: I think capitalizing on the present moment in a timely fashion was/is a bigger/more important priority than hiding the design behind the velvet curtains while the designer went through the usual round of graphic design iterations to get it just so, like a company might with debuting a new logo. Better to get it out quickly while it's got the best chance of high exposure, and fine tune later if need be.
Not what I would recommend generally, but in this particular situation, yeah.
I totally agree AoB, I realize it was a shoot from the hip kind of thing that I don't think he expected to blow up the way it did.
At the end of the day it is the current art Zeitgeist and you're some of the best artists I know so I thought it would be interesting to hear your thoughts without the discussion getting into a yelling match about the events around it...like the rest of the internet is doing.
My big problem with it is I keep seeing 4S instead of a swastika or 45, which I think thickening would take care of.
NappuccinoSurveyor of Things and StuffRegistered Userregular
I dig the anti-45 design pretty well. But that may be my anti-45 bias showing. I do share your critique about the 45 being hard to read . . . but I think my bigger concern is other people not knowing Trump is the 45th president. I have to remind myself about it pretty regularly.
Some cool podcasts that haven't been mentioned yet
In Our Time: BBC podcast where Melvyn Bragg talks to a bunch about topics from history, science, humanities etc... Super information dense, so it can be hard to listen to while doing something else
On the Media: WNYC podcast about the media, and politics
Something True: A history podcast with a really short run but very, very good. Also on the Idle Thumbs network
S-Town: Short run podcast about an eccentric guy who lives in a small American town. Made by the same guys who did Serial, only it's not true crime, and much better than Serial (imo)
gavindelThe reason all your softwareis brokenRegistered Userregular
I have only just now realized that the set of Copic inking pens I bought six months ago is not four identical pens but a set of 0.3, 0.1, 0.05, and 0.03 nibs. No wonder my line width seemed to vary page to page...
@Nappuccino Ack! I thought I said hello in my last post, good to see your digital face around these parts.
@flay I'm going to have to check out the "on the media" podcast as I generally like what WNYC puts out. That and "In Our Time" since I'm realizing I don't listen to anything other than stateside podcasts apparently (I don't think "The Allusionist" quite counts while the host is British, I think she's also in the USA).
Going to put in my vote for Something True as well, both hilarious and historic! S-Town was absolutely amazing and kinda blew my mind thinking about how many people there are in the world and how many there could be like that guy. Those who just don't communicate much outside where they live.
I started listening to The Art of Charm again after listening a couple times about 9 years ago, holy shit that podcast has gotten a lot better. Just listened to an episode with a psychiatrist about anxiety that really tickled my fancy. In general the podcast seems to be about human psychology, how we present ourselves both through body language, speech and facial expressions. I've only listened to a couple handpicked episodes, but I've already learned a lot about patterns/habits I have that are both destructive for communication as well as mental health and posture.
I have a buddy who does quite a few that I would recommend:
Watch Out For Fireballs (Retro gaming podcasts where they deconstruct old games)
Abject Suffering (They play shitty video games and go off topic)
Bonfire Side Chat (a deep dive into the Dark Souls series)
I also like:
The Pen Addict (a podcast about office supplies, better than it sounds)
Down In The Hole (a Tom Waits podcast where they discus every album, one per episode)
Retronauts (another retro games podcast)
Welcome to Nightvale (a fake NPR style show for a Lovecraft-ian desert town)
And I have one that I need to update:
Read Me Podcast (Me and my wife recommend books)
I started listening to the Writing Excuses podcast the last couple days, which is a podcast about fiction writing hosted by Brandon Sanderson (the very prolific fantasy author of Mistborn and the like), and two other guys whose work I am not familiar with (some other fantasy/horror/sci-fi novelist and the guy who does Schlock Mercenary, a comic that all I know about it is that I don't like the art and thus immediately stop reading it.)
But the podcast is good! It'd probably be a lot more useful if I was actually in the habit of writing anything ever, though.
Maybe you folks can help me. I bought a surface pro 4 to do some art stuff, mostly 2d animation. I wanted to use flash but my old version (8) doesn't seem compatible with it, I think that's a lost cause due to the old version but I'm wondering if anyone's used any of the newer versions on the surface 4 and how compatible they are. I also grabbed Krita as an alternative for photoshop, and it has an animating option, but so far I can't get my pen's pressure sensitivity or eraser to work with it. I've tried installing the wintab drivers and updating my surface completely but no luck.
I'm open to suggestions for free/cheap alternatives too that people have experience with when it comes to using a surface 4. At this point I just want something that works.
Writing Excuses gets a lot better IMO when Mary Robinette Kowal joins the cast in... I forget, a few seasons in. It's a pretty great show about the writing process, though!
Writing Excuses gets a lot better IMO when Mary Robinette Kowal joins the cast in... I forget, a few seasons in. It's a pretty great show about the writing process, though!
I'll look forward to it then. I started from the start and am slowly working towards the more recent ones, under the (possibly false) expectation that it would first cover broader topics and then move into more niche/specific topics, as to not be redundant.
Writing Excuses gets a lot better IMO when Mary Robinette Kowal joins the cast in... I forget, a few seasons in. It's a pretty great show about the writing process, though!
I'll look forward to it then. I started from the start and am slowly working towards the more recent ones, under the (possibly false) expectation that it would first cover broader topics and then move into more niche/specific topics, as to not be redundant.
oh it goes all over the place but listening chronologically is useful because they do at times reference back to stuff (usually not more than a season or two back but there have been times where I was like "whoops guess I shouldn't have randomly picked this episode out of the hat")
Another podcast recommendation: 372 Pages We'll Never Get Back. This just started and promises not to last that long, but it's Mike Nelson of MST3K/Rifftrax fame and another Rifftrax guy going over the book Ready Player One (which neither of them have read prior), 40 pages at a time.
Obviously if you're a huge fan of the book, maybe give this one a pass.
If you're like me where you heard it hyped to the sky, and then spent a whole plane riding reading through it thinking, "Am I supposed to like these characters???", it might be cathartic.
that sounds amazing but idk if I could endure the show through the entire book. 40-page chunks seems tolerable though?
(I too heard it hyped to the sky and did not have the experience described by other friends.)
that sounds amazing but idk if I could endure the show through the entire book. 40-page chunks seems tolerable though?
Well if it sweetens the pot any, they do seem to have developed a running theme of going off-topic to talk about their personal grudges with certain families of birds.
I want to get a bunch of blank Munchkin cards and marker them up. One, is there a particular type of marker that might work well on card surfaces. And two, what can I do to maybe seal them? I don't want someone to potentially get one from me and have it scrape off. Would just letting them dry with permanent marker be good enough?
I'll play around with the card I have already to see what's up, but figured I would ask here too. Thanks!
gavindelThe reason all your softwareis brokenRegistered Userregular
The Watts Atelier is smaller than I expected. I'd guesstimate its under 2000 sq ft. Some of the art on the walls is stellar, though. Workshop is about fifteen people, equal mix of younger and older attendees. Got people from across the US, Canada, and Australia. We started out with some demos by Watts and head construction with one of the newer instructors. The biggest knock I have against it right now is the lack of AC. Got pretty toasty in there this afternoon.
Apparently I draw very nice crooked old man noses.
that sounds amazing but idk if I could endure the show through the entire book. 40-page chunks seems tolerable though?
Well if it sweetens the pot any, they do seem to have developed a running theme of going off-topic to talk about their personal grudges with certain families of birds.
Yeah, I had a hard time drudging through the book on Audible a couple years ago. Basically when I've "recommended" it to friends... I've just said it's basically not that great writing that sets off multiple nuclear grade nostalgia bombs. The one positive (?) quality the book has, is that it sets a pretty accurate representation of the powers of VR (and downfalls I suppose). As an optimist, my hope is that when the movie comes out, it will actually shed some light on VR and thereby popularize it more. There's always two edges to the blade, but I guess time will tell.
This podcast may be this week's podcast guilty pleasure though, even if just for the bird tangents. Will check back in with results.
that sounds amazing but idk if I could endure the show through the entire book. 40-page chunks seems tolerable though?
Well if it sweetens the pot any, they do seem to have developed a running theme of going off-topic to talk about their personal grudges with certain families of birds.
Yeah, I had a hard time drudging through the book on Audible a couple years ago. Basically when I've "recommended" it to friends... I've just said it's basically not that great writing that sets off multiple nuclear grade nostalgia bombs. The one positive (?) quality the book has, is that it sets a pretty accurate representation of the powers of VR (and downfalls I suppose). As an optimist, my hope is that when the movie comes out, it will actually shed some light on VR and thereby popularize it more. There's always two edges to the blade, but I guess time will tell.
This podcast may be this week's podcast guilty pleasure though, even if just for the bird tangents. Will check back in with results.
I'm very curious to see how the movie turns out- Spielberg's pretty good at putting together adventure yarns with likable characters (even if there's a general sense that he's past his prime these days), and the necessity of cramming the story down to screenplay length might help cut through the thick miasma of references. So who knows, it's possible he might manage to work the material into something actually decent, by using his strengths to shore up the book's weaknesses.
I would love to have an off-the-record chat with him about his motivations for directing it though.
On one hand, I could see him reading the book and being like, "I can make this good, I can make all these crazy ideas work because I'm a better storyteller than this guy."
On the other hand, he is a 71 year old man, whose youth is less Atari games, and more John Ford westerns. It recalls the story of Sean Connery passing on a role in The Matrix because he had no clue what the hell was going on in the script, then tried to rectify that lost opportunity by going for the next baffling comic-book type script that came across his desk: LXG. After which, he threw up his hands in frustration and stopped acting in movies altogether.
So I could see Spielberg seeing a bidding war for this hot property, and scooping it up figuring, 'I don't understand 75% of the words in this thing, but I do understand that as long as I can get ILM to make a $200mil fight featuring all the toys in my kids' old toybox, I'm in for a real easy paycheck."
I suppose I should note that my own opinion of the book is not really "fuck this book and everything it's about"- I mean, it's not good, it leaves a lot to be desired- but I put it in the category of say, the Speed Racer movie. 'Interesting bad', which makes them a bit more worthwhile than the much more common, 'uninteresting ok'.
These things aren't really good, but there's enough of novelty there that even if you hate it, from a creative point of view, it's usually still worth taking in, because it's a great place to mine for parts.
Lot of people don't like Speed Racer, but it's weirdo editing style is interesting enough that it's worth being aware of, if you're a film person. Ready Player One is pretty functional/basic from a story structure point of view, and the moment to moment reading of sentences can be headache inducing, but I can see someone down the line looking at it and seeing an idea like, "you can have a story that has a 300 foot tall robot in it, but not have that 300 foot tall robot be the thing that the entire story is about", and using that idea to great effect in some other project.
Maybe this book means we get a great rom-com set against the backdrop of a giant robot piloting college, 15 years from now.
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The moral of this story is that I should not attempt to draw Elsa. Ever.
Edit: Really? Totp? Allow me to grumble and shake my cane.
You can omit the copy phase if you are working in watertight media or if you aren't precious about your originals and just make sure you are working on decent paper
but this would allow you to do some work before you start the Masonite stage and would allow you to sort of plan what size Masonite you want by the size of your drawing instead of trying to draft to the size of the Masonite, which imo adds a project variable that might take up some of the brain space that you'd otherwise use in drafting the pieces?
Uncanny Magazine!
The Mad Writers Union
Unrelated: Shin Godzilla is a movie I'm into just on level of, 'conventional wisdom says this movie should not work, but it does', and I have to respect that. Because it's really less "A Godzilla Movie", and more "This week's episode of Government Bureaucracy Adventure, with special guest star, Godzilla!"
It's amazing how much more boring the last American Godzilla movie was with a Paratrooper Bomb-Disposing Special Forces Action Man with a Family To Save, when Shin Godzilla has scenes like when 40 guys in identical suits are having a bureaucratic meeting in a conference room, then they all move to another, more formal conference room, and then they all move BACK to original conference room to have a slightly less formal discussion.
Also it's kinda interesting how identifiable it is that the director originally came from directing anime, just through the sort of composition, editing/pacing he uses. I kinda felt the same way watching Mission Impossible 4, you could tell an animator had directed it because some of the scenes were shot like it had been put together as a storyboarded animation gag.
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I wish I had any input on shin godzilla, but I've not seen it and have seen few godzilla movies in general.
And you could watch Shin Godzilla! Or you could not, because I think a lot of people would like it, but a lot of people would probably hate it (ie: "Why is 80% of this stupid monster movie about petty political finagling??").
I suppose if I wanted to have better conversations with people, I should watch more current and popular movies- but being a film dork I watch all these semi-obscure movies that have something going for them that's really interesting, but I can't recommend or talk about with people, because half the conversation is going to be caveats about why the movie might not be for them.
Like I just watched a movie called Army of Shadows, a French film from 1969 that is a very bleak, unheroic, and unromantic story about a group of WW2 French Resistance fighters, directed by a guy whose style is all about long sustained shots with only sporadic and terse dialogue. Or to take a more popular movie, Phantasm, a horror movie that if you described the plot aloud sounds like the stupidest movie imaginable, and because it was an indie move from the 70's you have to be willing accept some slower pacing at the front and oh yeah a pointless acoustic guitar playing filler scene, but it mostly works if you get the primer beforehand that, "it operates on the logic of a child's nightmare" (to quote Elliott Kalan of The Flop House).
And all that's great if you're the kind of film dork that will put up with a lot just to see one interesting element of a film you haven't seen before- but it's a way harder pitch than, "Hey, have you seen The Avengers? You should watch it, it's good!"
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I'm thinking about investing in some audio books, since I've been a long time podcast listener. I liked the early days if nightvale and I think I could stand to mix some non-comedy into my daily entertainment. As it stands, I listen to mooostly comedy.
I've never listened to audiobooks, (gotta listen to music and read on kindle to form maximum "do not interact with me in any way" aura during my train commute, and I think a novel would be impossible to follow while working (my normal podcast listening time).
I'd recommend 99% Invisible, Planet Money, Radiolab for non-comedy podcasts, but I feel like those are a cliche at this point so you've probably already figured out if those are for you or not by now. I also mostly listen to comedy podcasts (Hey, I'm nominally in the entertainment business, I should be able to justify listening to things just based on entertainment value!) which makes conversations with people I know, that all seem to listen exclusively to Serious Business podcasts, pretty awkward.
"Oh, you like podcasts? Me too! I just got done listening to this great 47 episode series about Roman History! What do you listen to?" "...I listen to a podcast where 2 comedians watch the same bad movie every week and see how the exercise slowly drives them insane. Also a podcast where a bunch of idiots watch through every episode of Power Rangers, a show I have never watched and have no affection for."
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My current podcasts are mostly Spontenathon, Stuff you Should Know, Never not funny, and Giant Bomb. It sort of covers the gambit of what I need, comedy in a format, random information being casually read, Comedy in a casual conversation, and gaming news. Stuff you should know covers heavy things now and then, but at least I know what the fuck I'm getting into from the title.
I still listen to Dan savage off and on and just skip ahead if he starts ranting, but I got to the point where I can mostly predict his advice. I never got into season 2 of serial, so that's off the board. I keep trying other things on and off, but none are sticking. I need to listen to the rest of LeVar Burton reads, though, I did like that.
I certainly get the sort of depression/outrage fatigue that comes from a lot of the more serious shows- back when I lived in Michigan I made a point to never watch the local news because it was always a bunch of depressing shit I could do nothing about (2 arsons, 5 murders today, industry continuing to move out of the area and put everyone out of work, but hey here are the local high school football scores, does it not soothe your soul to know children are still out there getting major concussions for the sake of points?). So I stopped watching that, but whoops now the national and international news is 300% as depressing, but now I feel like I'm being irresponsible for ignoring it for any length of time.
Also we've got like no overlap on what podcasts we listen to- of the ones you mentioned I've only ever seen anything from Giant Bomb. The SE++ podcast thread people are all about it, but while I liked the clips I saw of them making fun of the Fast and the Furious movies, I haven't happened across anything that really got their hooks into me- if you've got a suggestion of where to start with them I'm all ears. I'd be down to check out the others as well.
Stuff I listen to:
My Brother, My Brother and Me (MBMBAM): Comedy "advice" podcast with questions like, "Should I wear a karate uniform to court?"
Worst Idea of All Time (WIOAT): Aforementioned 'watch the same movie for a year' podcast
'Til Death Do Us Blart: MBMBAM and WIOAT team-up where they review Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 once a year, ever year, for all eternity
The Adventure Zone: MBMBAM guys and their dad play a D&D campaign
What Should We Draw: Some folks (who also do Drawfee on FB/Youtube) have a silly freewheeling conversation, at then end of which they need to come up with an idea they can draw.
Teenagers With Attitude: Aforementioned Power Rangers podcast from some dudes in SE++, that I started listening to as 'research' because I made my D&D character a Power Ranger, mostly to irritate the DM.
The Bugle: Kind of a slightly more British 'Daily Show' news comedy show. Used to have Jon Oliver, doesn't anymore.
Planet Money: NPR guys explain economic topics. More interesting than that sounds.
Radiolab: It's Radiolab.
99% Invisible: Ostensibly about...design? I think?
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I still listen to a lot of podcasts, but there are very few which have been "on air" that I religiously listen to anymore. I think it's really just difficult to produce good content every episode tbh, especially at the rate of one or more a week. I started listening to the B&H Photo podcast about 9 months ago, and I would actually recommend it to any type of artist. However, just like with all my podcasts now I cherry pick the episodes I want to listen to. There's a bit of everything including how to market yourself, how to price freelance jobs, but mostly a lot of artist process. The range of photographers they talk to is pretty incredible though, everything from photographers who got famous on instagram to famous photographers who have been documenting NYC life for the last 40 years.
I also cherry pick episodes from:
Radiolab
Star Talk
MBMBAM
Waking up with Sam Harris
Song Exploder (musicians talking about how they made specific songs)
The Truth (a lovecraftian style audio storytelling)
Michael Donovan's Walking Home (this one is hard to describe... spiritual fashion photographer who gets REAL with people? Man that sounds ridiculous - and sometimes is, but I'm constantly surprised the honesty he gets out of people in all walks of life)
Important if True (idle thumbs guys pop culture weirdness)
Design Matters with Debbie Millman (Famous Designer Debbie Millman talks to other famous designers; 1st and longest podcast I've listened to - 11 years now)
Designer Notes (video game designer Soren Johnson talks to other video game designers about where they started and their process in designing games)
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For info on my regulars:
Giant bomb
If you are going to try it, I'd strongly recommend against trying to listen to earlier episodes, and instead put the latest on while you are doing something like cooking or cleaning. Its better as a radio show just meant to catch you up a bit, not as something to pay attention to deeply.
Never not funny:
Stuff You Should Know
Spontenathon
Savage Love
It probably says a lot about how up I am with music that out of their whole episode list I've listened to 3, 2 of which were tv/film composers, because I'd never heard of/don't care about the others.
Edit: also I think the adventure zone takes awhile before it starts getting real good, so you might want to know to be patient for the first few episodes, or start on ep.10, which is the start of the second arc and is a real fun one, then go back and listen to the earlier episodes.
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Also, if you like music and games, you might like Legacy Music Hour. They just dissect chiptunes a bit. It's been awhile since I heard them, but it was a pretty low budget sort of deal before.
Eh, I honestly haven't heard of a ton of the artists. Or recognize their names and don't know what type of music they play. That's why I tend to like listening, introduces me to new music and sometimes gives me appreciation of artists I may not have previously just based on outward/media appearances (aka U2 haha).
I'm definitely going to have to check out Legacy Music Hour. I too listen to bombcast - not as much anymore, I like beastcast a little more now. Or Waypoint radio from time to time. Waypoint I really enjoy, as it has some of my favorite hosts previously from the Giant Bomb crew. I also like how Waypoint seems to dissect the games a bit more... but bombcast is still great for background entertainment
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I keep telling myself I need to start drawing again, and maybe I will.
How's everyone been? I see a bunch of you all elsewhere on the web, but not everyone.
Personally I get the idea but I just don't see the 45 all that well, I think all of it needed to be thicker.
I enjoyed something Ian Klarer made along the same lines:
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Dood: I think capitalizing on the present moment in a timely fashion was/is a bigger/more important priority than hiding the design behind the velvet curtains while the designer went through the usual round of graphic design iterations to get it just so, like a company might with debuting a new logo. Better to get it out quickly while it's got the best chance of high exposure, and fine tune later if need be.
Not what I would recommend generally, but in this particular situation, yeah.
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At the end of the day it is the current art Zeitgeist and you're some of the best artists I know so I thought it would be interesting to hear your thoughts without the discussion getting into a yelling match about the events around it...like the rest of the internet is doing.
My big problem with it is I keep seeing 4S instead of a swastika or 45, which I think thickening would take care of.
In Our Time: BBC podcast where Melvyn Bragg talks to a bunch about topics from history, science, humanities etc... Super information dense, so it can be hard to listen to while doing something else
On the Media: WNYC podcast about the media, and politics
Something True: A history podcast with a really short run but very, very good. Also on the Idle Thumbs network
S-Town: Short run podcast about an eccentric guy who lives in a small American town. Made by the same guys who did Serial, only it's not true crime, and much better than Serial (imo)
@flay I'm going to have to check out the "on the media" podcast as I generally like what WNYC puts out. That and "In Our Time" since I'm realizing I don't listen to anything other than stateside podcasts apparently (I don't think "The Allusionist" quite counts while the host is British, I think she's also in the USA).
Going to put in my vote for Something True as well, both hilarious and historic! S-Town was absolutely amazing and kinda blew my mind thinking about how many people there are in the world and how many there could be like that guy. Those who just don't communicate much outside where they live.
I started listening to The Art of Charm again after listening a couple times about 9 years ago, holy shit that podcast has gotten a lot better. Just listened to an episode with a psychiatrist about anxiety that really tickled my fancy. In general the podcast seems to be about human psychology, how we present ourselves both through body language, speech and facial expressions. I've only listened to a couple handpicked episodes, but I've already learned a lot about patterns/habits I have that are both destructive for communication as well as mental health and posture.
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I have a buddy who does quite a few that I would recommend:
Watch Out For Fireballs (Retro gaming podcasts where they deconstruct old games)
Abject Suffering (They play shitty video games and go off topic)
Bonfire Side Chat (a deep dive into the Dark Souls series)
I also like:
The Pen Addict (a podcast about office supplies, better than it sounds)
Down In The Hole (a Tom Waits podcast where they discus every album, one per episode)
Retronauts (another retro games podcast)
Welcome to Nightvale (a fake NPR style show for a Lovecraft-ian desert town)
And I have one that I need to update:
Read Me Podcast (Me and my wife recommend books)
Also, Hi @Nappuccino !
But the podcast is good! It'd probably be a lot more useful if I was actually in the habit of writing anything ever, though.
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I'm open to suggestions for free/cheap alternatives too that people have experience with when it comes to using a surface 4. At this point I just want something that works.
What's the significance of the 45?
Trump is the 45th US President.
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Uncanny Magazine!
The Mad Writers Union
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oh it goes all over the place but listening chronologically is useful because they do at times reference back to stuff (usually not more than a season or two back but there have been times where I was like "whoops guess I shouldn't have randomly picked this episode out of the hat")
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Obviously if you're a huge fan of the book, maybe give this one a pass.
If you're like me where you heard it hyped to the sky, and then spent a whole plane riding reading through it thinking, "Am I supposed to like these characters???", it might be cathartic.
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(I too heard it hyped to the sky and did not have the experience described by other friends.)
Uncanny Magazine!
The Mad Writers Union
Well if it sweetens the pot any, they do seem to have developed a running theme of going off-topic to talk about their personal grudges with certain families of birds.
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I want to get a bunch of blank Munchkin cards and marker them up. One, is there a particular type of marker that might work well on card surfaces. And two, what can I do to maybe seal them? I don't want someone to potentially get one from me and have it scrape off. Would just letting them dry with permanent marker be good enough?
I'll play around with the card I have already to see what's up, but figured I would ask here too. Thanks!
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Apparently I draw very nice crooked old man noses.
Yeah, I had a hard time drudging through the book on Audible a couple years ago. Basically when I've "recommended" it to friends... I've just said it's basically not that great writing that sets off multiple nuclear grade nostalgia bombs. The one positive (?) quality the book has, is that it sets a pretty accurate representation of the powers of VR (and downfalls I suppose). As an optimist, my hope is that when the movie comes out, it will actually shed some light on VR and thereby popularize it more. There's always two edges to the blade, but I guess time will tell.
This podcast may be this week's podcast guilty pleasure though, even if just for the bird tangents. Will check back in with results.
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I'm very curious to see how the movie turns out- Spielberg's pretty good at putting together adventure yarns with likable characters (even if there's a general sense that he's past his prime these days), and the necessity of cramming the story down to screenplay length might help cut through the thick miasma of references. So who knows, it's possible he might manage to work the material into something actually decent, by using his strengths to shore up the book's weaknesses.
I would love to have an off-the-record chat with him about his motivations for directing it though.
On one hand, I could see him reading the book and being like, "I can make this good, I can make all these crazy ideas work because I'm a better storyteller than this guy."
On the other hand, he is a 71 year old man, whose youth is less Atari games, and more John Ford westerns. It recalls the story of Sean Connery passing on a role in The Matrix because he had no clue what the hell was going on in the script, then tried to rectify that lost opportunity by going for the next baffling comic-book type script that came across his desk: LXG. After which, he threw up his hands in frustration and stopped acting in movies altogether.
So I could see Spielberg seeing a bidding war for this hot property, and scooping it up figuring, 'I don't understand 75% of the words in this thing, but I do understand that as long as I can get ILM to make a $200mil fight featuring all the toys in my kids' old toybox, I'm in for a real easy paycheck."
I suppose I should note that my own opinion of the book is not really "fuck this book and everything it's about"- I mean, it's not good, it leaves a lot to be desired- but I put it in the category of say, the Speed Racer movie. 'Interesting bad', which makes them a bit more worthwhile than the much more common, 'uninteresting ok'.
These things aren't really good, but there's enough of novelty there that even if you hate it, from a creative point of view, it's usually still worth taking in, because it's a great place to mine for parts.
Lot of people don't like Speed Racer, but it's weirdo editing style is interesting enough that it's worth being aware of, if you're a film person. Ready Player One is pretty functional/basic from a story structure point of view, and the moment to moment reading of sentences can be headache inducing, but I can see someone down the line looking at it and seeing an idea like, "you can have a story that has a 300 foot tall robot in it, but not have that 300 foot tall robot be the thing that the entire story is about", and using that idea to great effect in some other project.
Maybe this book means we get a great rom-com set against the backdrop of a giant robot piloting college, 15 years from now.
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