PSE** PDD**

I believe that's what they're called.

Anyway, I managed to complete my first photoshopped drawing this morning: Cell Shading was impossible at first because the brush type was on Pin Light, but I finally figured it out.

The character is Revan - Sora, my version of the PC from the first KoTOR game.  I was playing around with the idea to make a comic book based in the video game, but expanding in areas I would have liked to see, and cutting content at other places.

Anyway, the character spends many weeks on the second planet, which is why he has long hair. The original head design is an acutal model in the game, although it was designed from memory, and then made into a cartoon, so this head bears no resemblance to the original Bioware design. Also, since it was scanned from a sketch that had no ground or surrounding, and because I was really out of it by the time I was done, the ground is poorly described. Whatever. This was a test run to see what could be done with cell shading, and it is a success.

All Paths, take me to the END

Edward Burtynsky states at the end of Manufactured Landscapes that if he had put this into a more politicized environment then people would be inclined to either agree or disagree. His choice was to focus on engaging people in thinking about what we are doing to our world. Burtynsky states, “many of us are in an uncomfortable spot of not wanting to give up what we have but realizing that we are creating problems that run deep … it’s not a simple right or wrong… it needs a whole new way of thinking.”

What is this new way of thinking? I used to think that if everyone came together and did the small things, over and over, the world would become a better place. So we used to think about cooperation; that if everyone put in two cents, we would get somewhere. But, thing is, small things are forever small. I'm starting to think that just doing your own part is a very self-absorbed way of seeing things. We are "one crew" of the earth. Just pulling our own weight and blaming failure on the ones that did not is not enough. If one fails, all fail. So to succeed, all must succeed. That is the challenge that lies ahead.

Colin, though, asks if perhaps we have the wrong questions. We cannot go back to how things were. Time and life only flow in one direction. There is no right or wrong path. There's just the path. He's right, of course, from a historian's point of view.

Perhaps, instead of being shocked at our current situation and wanting to "fix" the horrors of the world, make them go away, we have to acknowledge and accept them, and go forward. Tomorrow will be new and fearsome, but the world as it was yesterday is history. If you cannot go back, go forwards. That's how it goes in video games, right?

Except you respawn in video games. But hey, there's a lot more players in real life.

Better Together

So this morning we had a Jam sesh at the Ram... with food! I don't know the name of the dish I made but it involved a crazy amount of whipping...

Isn't it always better when we're together?

And as it happens, I'm listening to the song "COME TOGETHER" by the Beatles, of course. Although I don't know how to upload music.

...

Snowfall. Gently flutter to the ground in the afternoon breeze. Echoes of cars rolling off in the distance. Everything is still on this chilly saturday, each reflecting on the time that has come to pass since the last  coming of the long nights. The valley welcomes the new season in silence. No songs are sung.

Mating Rituals of the Human Species, Part I

Today, I must have done at least 6 drawings; too much to scan and show, but my best - that's doable. I have a decent marker sketch of Kirsty, a few drawings of Dawson's landscape, with conte and graphite pencil - and I somehow managed to lose my graphite pencil between the school, KIAC and the residence. My best piece of the day is a mechanical pencil drawing (a return to the roots, perhaps?) of Rian sketching.

[Edit:] I have just noticed inconsistencies in this sketch, and will have to fix them ASAP


[Edit:] Did I say six? I did 9. Many of them are finished, too.

I pondered the meaning of a painting of a mounty receiving a blowjob behind a bar, and also realized that Yukon Gold beer has a really bitter taste, even for beer. My final observation of the night involved three guys who came to chat up two of the Ram girls after the others had all gone, and I got a front row seat to their clumsy and oh-so-obvious mating advances. Not being able to recall ever being in their position (or perhaps once, but I knew at the time that I did not fit in the role well enough to be successful, so knowing myself, I probably gave up early on. Needless to say, I found it quite amusing to be just a bystander to the first, second (the second was denied and more or less managed to save face by going to dance with a lively woman) and third attempts. I cannot see the advantages of having these flies come buzzing to your ear, one per girl, and attempt to have their mating call heard over the band's loud blasts of music. But then, I am not a girl, and I do not feel the need to have foreign objects inserted more or less violently into my privates. However, I would like to document these mating advances in full, with a tape recorder and notes. This time, I was drawing, but I could pretend to draw while taking notes in my sketchbook. Male-Female sexual advances, human species in their canon short-term partner meeting environment, the bar (which, incidentally, features loud music and sense altering refreshments, )neither of which are the most convenient for the purpose of selecting (and slashing) suitable mates.

I feel the sudden urge to bring a video camera into the bar and make discovery channel-like comments on an edited version of this scenario.

Done. Next time, I'll set that up.
It'll be hilarious, I think.

I think it would more convenient if the two people that go to the bar for the same reason, or end up thinking the same way, skipped the pointless introductory phase (I am sure that girls know within 30 seconds whether or not they want to have sex with a given partner, and I know that males require about 5 - 10 seconds to make that decision. There is definitely time to be saved here, if only the interested parties were less attached to the formal introductions.

Los Adultos

Santiago Sierra; a controversial photographer and performance artist, known for pieces like taking a starving dog off the streets and tying him up on display in a gallery, and leaving him to starve in plain sight.

One of his other pieces involved ultrasounds - and more importantly, the behavior of people who were subjected to them. Youngsters, you've known this before; the shrill and oh so annoying sound that televisions, computer screens and dog whistles make, the sound that drives us mad when mom is watching t.v. after our bedtime... They think that because they can't hear it, it doesn't exist, but they're wrong!

http://www.santiago-sierra.com/200713_1024.php

Which brings forth an interesting point: Adults can't hear it, see it? Why should that mean that it doesn't exist? Should you not believe your children? Adults have bad hearing? They have no imagination, either.

In the Name of Science

Eternal Sabbath is the story of a genetically engineered man - a man who just so happens to have the ability to feel and manipulate minds. He was created by accident by scientists trying to unravel the mysteries of old age and death - he has a lifespan of 200 years. He was patient ES00. The laboratory wanted to conduct experiments, but they were unwilling to dissect their only sample, and so, ten years later, they managed to create another. Born as a clone to the first, he possessed the same supernatural abilities, but was kept in incubation until mature enough. He was called Isaac, and he was created to be sacrificed in the name of science. His powers allowed both to escape. Isaac, having never been raised, but taught through his mind-reading that life, or at least his own, is expendable, develops a nasty but realistic personality. In fact, the whole story dips heavily into medical science.

One of the key issues that Isaac, the sociopath, brings up, is this:
http://www.onemanga.com/Eternal_Sabbath/24/14/

Excluding the obvious "cruel" side to Isaac, he makes a good villain. He is manipulative, cares little for the lives of others, and he has some humanity in him; he is also a pitiable figure.

This manga questions the presumptuous nature of scientists - indeed, to them, life born in a lab has little value, although as Koujou, the female protagonist demonstrates, she does not feel the same way about her friend, whom Isaac persuaded to commit suicide over her guilt and unhappiness. Scientists are hypocrites, portrayed through her as being totally obsessed by their work and unable to carry their personal values with them in their laboratories.

This paints a pretty negative image of humans, no? Somewhere, out there, there is perhaps an incredible human, born in a perti glass, just to be killed and analyzed by those who brought him into the world. Perhaps it is rather an incredible animal? We do that already. It seems that humans, in playing god, forget all about the miracle of life. What purpose does a mystery have once it is broken? Perhaps life loses it's meaning once it is created at whim. Perhaps that will be our undoing. Creating something as its master, blind to the viewpoint of others... Is this the world as seen by our so flaunted god?

[Edit]: Hmmm... It seems as though I spoke too soon; this sentence summarizes this post.
http://www.onemanga.com/Eternal_Sabbath/25/16/

This is a good idea. A world where humans  have been bio-engineered to become workers, or soilders, inferior beings, born into a world of slavery, unable to become acknowledged by those who created them... the original species. Clashes in a time where the main character remembers the times before the artificial race... Or a time long after when the paradise of true men has been created... and a harbinger of destruction appears to free the slaves, and rebel against their masters...

The Second Renaissance... eh?