OK Mr. Sunshine!

HI INTERBUTTS I MADE STUFF

rydain — Sat, 29 Aug 2015 01:07:03 GMT

This year is primarily marked with work (which I'd prefer to leave summarized as A Lot But Satisfying and Relatively Non-Apeshit Compared to Past Deployments), fitness (highlights - getting a 4-pack for the first time in my life, biking around town a lot, getting back into powerlifting and finally squatting my own weight again without hurting myself), and stuff I made. It's been a pretty good one so far. So here's the stuff.

I broke my 2-year art hiatus with an '80s Miami gangster interpretation of Dynasty Warriors. Cao Cao - the boss. Xiahou Dun - the right hand man. Xiahou Yuan - the straight shooter. Cao Ren - the conflicted idealist. Or, what happens when I mainline New Wave for the 3 months it took to draw this. It was totally worth the effort, as I leveled up a buttload in the process. I'm happiest with my improved nuance in anatomy and clothing, and my new way of drawing hair.

Here's my con report from the 6th year of Intervention, a relaxed and down to earth convention for independent content creators, which also happens to be the brainchild of one of my best friends ever. This year I learned more about voice acting - and even got to act alongside Terry Molloy, a.k.a. Dr. Who's Davros. We also had breakfast together. Yeah, pretty awesomesauce.

My coworker Brian loves terribad movies. He insisted I watch R.O.T.O.R., a cheesetastic Robocop ripoff. It was so surprisingly hilarious, I had to write a review.

I fail at regular updates and stuff

rydain — Sun, 26 Jul 2015 23:18:08 GMT

Half a year between entries once again. Shock and awe for anyone who knows me.

Cliff's Notes of life in G-funk Land (and website updates) -

Dynasty Warriors 5 is still my favorite in the series. I wrote this retrospective love letter to celebrate its 10-year anniversary.

Here's another fond look back on Milon's Secret Castle, a childhood favorite game that the internets love to hate. I may suck at most modern games because minimal depth perception and sense of direction and fast twitch aiming skills, but I beat this supposed impossibility when I was ten. It took me four months, but yay?

I went to see Mad Max: Fury Road because my friends were going, and it looked like reasonable fun. I ended up head over heels in love with its insane craft and adrenalin. Fury Road knows exactly what a straightforward action flick should be and blows it out of the water with surprising nuance and restraint - and also happens to be feminist. Review here.

I'm making arts again, woo hoo. I seem to have improved via osmosis of following pro illustrators while my visual brain was in torpor. I'm working on a 4-character piece and taking my time finishing it to the best of my ability, but it is entering the Zeno's Paradox of its final phase.

We entered the current console generation with a PS4. What finally kicked me over the edge? Fallout 4. Of course I had to get the Pip-Boy edition because I can use more crap in my house when it pertains to one of the very few game series that continues to build on its excellence. I must write my comprehensive review of Fallout: New Vegas - which is probably the best game I ever played, bugs notwithstanding - as I get hyped for the November release. I also foresee myself coming down with a convenient multi-day cold at that time - or just scheduling time off because work is awesome like that.

Speaking of work, the tl;dr version is that this year has focused on a career-defining system switchover and deployment, and I have built - and continue to build - some seriously beautiful, modular, and flexible shit in ColdFusion. I'm not terribly fond of the language - just let me at the underlying Java without all the quirks and "helpful" conveniences that don't do what I want half the time. But Coldbox is a wonderful framework, and I love that I had time to learn and apply it. I PUT ON MY ROBE AND WIZARD HAT

Video killed the radio star

rydain — Mon, 09 Feb 2015 00:40:41 GMT

In my haste to prove my continued existence to friends who primarily communicate via DW and LJ, I forgot to feature one of my more ambitious projects of this past year - narrative video.

Specifically, retrospectives of my two favorite Dynasty Warriors characters - their history and lore, portrayals throughout the series, and my thoughts on how the best aspects thereof should be built on in the future. Each video is ~13 minutes long, which I considered a reasonable compromise between detail and length.

Cao Ren

Lu Meng

These. Took. Forever. The editing process takes some time to learn and maintains unavoidable bottlenecks, and of course there's the scripting challenge of distilling my points into an efficient combination of game footage and narration. I did the stills in Photoshop and the editing in Screenflow, an excellent middle ground between the very limited iMovie - which frustrated me by making a terrible mess of said stills - and the expensive and complex likes of Final Cut Pro. Screenflow also does low overhead full-screen capture with separate A/V (as in a mic or webcam), which will come in handy for any games I play on an emulator. I must get back to that Goonies II Let's Play.

I have a third video planned for Xiahou Yuan, but I've been dragging my feet on buying Dynasty Warriors 6: Special for high-resolution captures of his cut scenes. Ah, the sacrifices I make for shiny happy video quality.

HELLO WORLD

rydain — Sun, 01 Feb 2015 01:56:14 GMT

The last time I posted a journal entry, I was in the middle of recounting my November 2013 trip to China. Then came the polar vortex and a longstanding torpor through which I ground onward and eventually got reinspired.

I made a good amount of novel progress, partly fueled by some excellent critique from quufer. I got addicted to Instagram, bookmarked an absurd quantity of Nanjing photos, and picked up some mutual followers from around the world. I rebooted my personal website as a one-stop shop for the best of my artwork and article-suited ramblings. I reviewed a few local haunted attractions and conventions and brain dumped some advice on writing.

And I finally finished the writeup of China, which you can read here. Please do. It really was a great trip.

So I went to China - Wuxi, Hangzhou

rydain — Thu, 19 Dec 2013 03:53:50 GMT

Wuxi - Tai Lake

Wuxi, Land of Parks. At least from the perspective of our brief time there.

Awesome Guide Eric gave us a Chinese lesson en route to Tai Lake. A person (ren - 人) raises their arms to become big (da - 大) and then gains a stroke to become grand (tai - 太). I recognized the first two characters from my minimal familiarity with hanzi, which I slightly added to over the trip. The last was new to me.

Tai Lake lived up to its name. Expansive. Relaxing. Fragrant with chrysanthemums lining the stone paths, and in a lush arrangement around a scarecrow.

A flutist played calm melodies from a small building in a pond. I wish I'd had a zoom lens for a better view of her attire.

I also wish I had more to write than Nice Day for a Long Walk, but I hope the pictures convey that as intended.

Wuxi - Turtle Head Park

Otherwise known as Buddha Disney World. A spectacle pervaded with surprising reverence - worshippers kneeling before fruit offerings on altars, wooden prayer placards hung on red ribbons from racks and trees. We sprung for the optional tram because the place is huge, with quite a hike between each point of interest.

The central fountain periodically puts on a show about the birth of Buddha, set to Mandarin narration and classical music. Some friends and I staked our claim at an unpopulated section of the central area. We realized too late why everyone was on the other side - we were about to get an eyeful of baby Buddha's butt.

He does a full rotation, so the breech delivery didn't matter much.

Curious birds flock in the courtyard nearby. A fellow bus tourist went to feed them and ended up with a new friend in her hair. And scratches on her shoulder, as it was warm enough for tank tops.

The Grand Buddha - all 88 meters of him - delivers as advertised. We climbed the stairs all the way up to touch his toenail, which is about the size of my desk. The statue's base contains some gift shops and museum displays of various Buddhas and other context that we rushed through due to time constraints and minimal English signage. Even so, it is interesting to note when an exhibit is geared toward domestic tourists more so than foreigners.

Our last stop was Fangong Palace, one of my favorite sights of the entire trip. It's a triumph of modern Chinese aesthetics - a well-conceived blend of simpler elements and traditional ornamentation. Elaborate sculptures and trim are set among clean lines oftentimes enhanced with texture, such as glass barricades etched with classic swirly clouds. There's this sense of future-proof timelessness that I get out of my favorite ambient music, and that I love to see in architecture.

And there are rainbows, bringing some modern verve suited to the overall dignity. The ceiling in the great hall changes color, as does that of the huge circular meeting hall.

Wuxi - Pearl Pimping

The next morning brought us back to group tour reality - oh, there goes gravity. And by that I mean the pearl farm. Which was just a showroom where we got to drink tea with ground-up pearls (or not, because I picked the best possible time for a safety whiz) and do the Clueless Shuffle with everyone else who couldn't care less about the merchandise. I mixed it up with an occasional round of Guess Why This Necklace Costs Ten Times As Much As This Apparently Identical Other, which at least kept me moving enough to foil the sales staff's radar. And at least there was some quality conversation to be had with the others disinterested. Having a good group does make such a difference.

Hangzhou - Jingci Temple

The lakeside area of Hangzhou is like Pittsburgh's greener districts on high octane fertilizer. The rental bikes, conveniently lined up at roadside, would have been fun on a longer stay. As it was, our itinerary did provide a pleasant survey of culture amid nature.

Even as one of minimal religious faith, I get warm fuzzies at others' joyous expressions thereof. I love classic church choir Christmas music - the more Latin, the better. So I had dust in my eye, so to speak, at the sheer dignity of Jingci Temple. People read in the study hall, knelt and sang before golden Buddhas gleaming amid riots of flowers. Monks in black robes led worshippers in song and bowing with incense, smiling as they saw us look on. An old woman told fndragon to tie his shoe, breaking the language barrier with a sharp and unmistakable gesture. He did as instructed.

Hangzhou - West Lake

The drive to West Lake produced a new entry in the Comeback Hall of Fame. I swear this transcription is nearly verbatim.

Adventure Time Eric: Can I pee off the boat?
Awesome Guide Eric: When you smoke in a no smoking area, they take your cigarette away. When you do that where you're not supposed to -

Delivered with deadpan fluidity, and that's why he's awesome.

Eric also freely answered questions about the Communist government and ramifications of policies past and present. He spoke of skewed demographics from the birth restrictions popularly known as the one child policy, of Mao's lies to China about how miserable the rest of the world was - only for said lies to collapse upon his death. This tour was modern history Cliff's Notes in and of itself, and added some valuable knowhow to my skeletal understanding thereof.

West Lake can be summed up as misty grey chill time. We enjoyed a boat ride and some time afterward to photograph the scenery.

This statuesque fellow is Yue Fei, a Southern Song Dynasty general that I should probably know more about. My knowledge of pre-20th century Chinese military history is limited to the Three Kingdoms era.

My one regret of the trip - missing out on Impression Westlake, an elaborately choreographed local legend performed on the water's surface. Awkward dinner logistics and general exhaustion led me to crash in my hotel room without thinking to make plans with anyone else who had opted out of the group meal and considered finding their own way back to the lake. Our friends had an entertaining excursion in downtown Hangzhou, and I heard noise of others making it to the show. At least I got some much needed rest.

Shiny object hobby time

rydain — Wed, 11 Dec 2013 01:22:29 GMT

As I wrote about this summer, I revived my dinky little YouTube channel five years after the brief spate of Warriors Orochi videos that I created it for in the first place. With some commentary practice under my belt and an operational Super Nintendo, I decided to do a Halloween special for a game I loved enough to map in its 140+ room entirety.

Play time: 1 hour 10 minutes, one continuous take. Upload time over my tin can relay bandwidth: 7+ hours. And totally worth it for the overall effect of One True Video, especially because no one is using said bandwidth during the day.

The Addams Family (SNES) - full walkthrough with commentary

I am working on a similar nostalgia playthrough for The Goonies II, the first game I wrote a full FAQ for. "Work" involves emulator setup (done, courtesy of a button mapper for my PS3 controller hooked up via Bluetooth), gameplay practice (getting there), and commentary brainstorming (cross-productive for general writing creativity and seriously, y'all, I have been grinding forth on That Dangblasted Novel). I want to sound casual and off the cuff, but it helps to stock my mental library with information to relay and subjects to prattle on about while leaving room for reactive silliness. Such as getting on my own case for failing at the '80s by playing the game before I saw the movie. I probably also get doubleplusungood points for reading the MAD parody - The Goofies - before I saw the movie. Or maybe not. MAD owns.

It's been much harder to refamiliarize myself into some semblance of elegant gameplay, but I've made some nice progress - and have also improved on my original route through the game. Just slightly, but it should look good on video, inevitable failfest notwithstanding.

So I went to China - Shanghai, Suzhou

rydain — Mon, 02 Dec 2013 01:41:45 GMT

Arrival

I packed six shirts, one pair of convertible pants, two pairs of quick dry underwear, two pairs of socks, and a T-shirt and boxers to sleep in. I talked fndragon out of bringing half his wardrobe, promising to include him in the Hotel Sink Laundry Shuffle. All of our checked business squished into one suitcase.

We convened at our stepsister Breanna's place in New Jersey to be driven to JFK. Having easily slept through half of a transatlantic red-eye to Germany six years back, I shrugged off the prospect of a 14-hour flight. Those extra few hours turned out to be the slowest. I was too weary to watch movies, too uncomfortable to fall asleep, and running low on iPod battery - the seat chargers don't work with 2-prong plugs. I tolerated TV dinner fried fish, passed on the mystery salad sandwich that turned out to be turkey, avoided surprise bacon below my rubber omelet, and was grateful for my box of protein bars although they had earned me a backpack search from TSA. Closely packed cylinders must look suspicious on X-ray.

Our guide, Awesome Eric, met us after customs and baggage and shepherded us into a bus to our gleaming oasis of a Shanghai hotel. I took a bath just because it was there and went right off into a lovely sleep.

Shanghai - Whirlwind Through the Museum

First surprise of the trip - waking up early and energetically. From the perspective of my original time zone, I had stayed up all night and flipped to a nocturnal schedule, which I have gravitated to during various periods of vacation or unemployment. I can't keep up the vampire act at home because the lack of daylight is demoralizing, but it works when my circadian rhythm coordinates with the sun.

The breakfast buffet was fantastic. Omelets to order! Kimchi! Pastries! Fruit and yogurt! Lightly fried sesame balls with red bean paste! Jellied bean curd, which I cluelessly pondered until an employee came out to help! It's a white pudding that serves as a base for savory condiments: soy sauce, chili oil, sesame oil, scallions, dried shrimp, and so on. I liked it enough to rotate it into my breakfast selection over the rest of the trip.

We got on the big bus with the rest of our group, receiving yellow name tags that felt like freshman year all over again. I decided to grin and bear mine until I started to recognize a critical mass of our folks within other groups of tourists. fndragon is a tall and distinctive individual, but it's good to have a backup.

I had heard that driving in China was a death wish. Instead I saw traffic flowing to flexible rules that I could not describe in specific terms, but are well known by everyone else participating. There's a give and take of nosing in and backing off, a precise knowledge of one's vehicle dimensions. A constant awareness and communication via honking. Pedestrians, cars, buses, e-bikes, and cyclists - sometimes riding double, or hauling loads from package stacks to plywood to goldfish bowls - all squeeze through and share alike. This fits in with a general cooperative use of public space - vehicles and bicycles parked in tight grids on sidewalks and courtyards, communal drying lines for bedsheets and other laundry too large for the rack off an apartment balcony.

The Shanghai Museum was a wonderful first stop with an unfortunately short time limit. I spent a while failing at capturing porcelain and jade carvings through glass - especially the glazes designed to mimic different materials. Next up was a view of the Bund and other popular river scenery - rather hazy, but worth a token photo - and the Monument to the People's Heroes, which had stairs down to a carved wraparound mural below street level.

Our lunch venue had spicy tofu specially ordered for me and some great housemade beer reminiscent of hefeweizen. Beer in China is typically like Yuengling lite - smooth and easy drinking, but too subtle for those preferring stronger flavors or a heavy hop punch. Still, pleasant enough to be my go to beverage with meals.

Suzhou - Gardens and Silk Spam

The road to Suzhou is the G2 expressway - a toll road like most, if not all, of the smooth highways between the eastern coastal cities. We passed clumps of power pylons, assorted industry, small farms of neatly furrowed greenery anywhere they would fit. Dashboard Buddhas and Chinese flags and lucky red tassels hung from rear view mirrors. Residences in various states of construction and demolition, from basic shanties to rows of small houses and massive apartment towers all facing south. Newer houses maintaining classic design elements like the upcurved roof trim traditionally adorned with finials to protect the property - such as fish, symbolic of water to ward fire away from a wooden house.

Suzhou's old town is the Gusu district, kept separate from its urbanized regions. The Lingering Garden - 400 years old, beautifully preserved - gave me my first sense of time travel, hustle and bustle of our group and others notwithstanding. I sneaked ahead, lagged behind, and took detours to capture an uncrowded sense of its serenity, keeping Eric within earshot to catch some context about the original uses of various rooms and symbolism of the stone mosaics on the garden paths.

We embarked on a canal cruise, which didn't offer much in the way of informative commentary or views I couldn't have seen from the bridges. The cloudy late afternoon cast a gray pall which preemptively ruined any photos I might have been interested in taking. Those who opted out got to leave the bus and walk around. Having known that ahead of time, I would have saved the $25 and gone exploring as well.

A traditional market street gave a much more interesting view of local life, but left no chance for photography. A dense tide of shoppers carried us past an array of stalls and curbside sellers: produce, housewares, live caged fowl, traditional herbal medicine, precooked dishes beneath whirling streamers to catch the eye and scatter flies. Bikes, some motorized, honked through the crowds.

Back at the hotel, we shared some wine and amusement at the gift shop offering a 72-disc Disney movie set including Batman and assorted celebrities who weren't exactly known as pirates of the Caribbean. We took a brief hike to Family Mart, a local convenience store chain and a great resource for Coke Zero, snacks, and cheap phone chargers for those who forgot theirs at the last hotel. D'oh.

The next morning, a freestyle aerobicizer was in full swing outside the tour bus. We had already seen tai chi groups in parks and courtyards, but this was the first solo act. A particularly outgoing tour bus mate, who I will call Adventure Time Eric to distinguish him from our guide, went out to chat. She invited him to dance, and said that she loves life and is looking for a husband.

The Master of Nets Garden was a smaller but similar experience of peaceful time warp try to listen to Eric and avoid random heads in my photos. In this style of garden, the white walls are a backdrop to rocks and greenery, giving an effect of brush paintings come to life.

I spotted some amusing restaurant chains. I also found better photos because mine were blurry crap out the bus window.

My Hero Chicken

Mr. Stupid Ox

And we were off to the first excursion subsidizing tourist trap - a silk factory, where we passed around tube-enshrined silkworms preserved in various stages of development and observed a small demonstration of silk manufacture. It seems Suzhou has another similar place with some actual displays of silk art in addition to the shopping mall aspect. It would be nice to have gone there instead, but I did take advantage of the dressing room and size variety to buy my obligatory I Went On Vacation nelsonhaha.jpg shirt for returning to work. A silver lining - or silk lining, if you prefer.

Tongli Town and the Sex Museum

Tongli Town is a tourist area, but a relaxing one with a well-preserved impression of its history amid the glitz and gewgaws. At dusk, the trees light up with sparkly white cascades simulating fireworks. There is also rooftop squash.

Our ticket allowed us into a few small gardens, which we skipped after having seen the more prominent ones in Suzhou. The only attraction with separate admission fee was a sex museum. Of course that announcement had me raring to go, and not just due to the cackles of my inner Beavis. I was fast learning to trawl for unique sources of interest, from choice guide banter to sights off the typical highlights and shopping track. Historical and cultural context! Active disinterest from others on the bus! Heh heh heh. It's carved out of wood.

A sign pointed us down a quiet alley with no further hint of direction. I was looking for such when I spotted an enormously endowed gremlin statue through a gate. The grounds were surreally still in the gathering dusk, exhibit buildings among a grass and stone courtyard lined with erotic statuary from prior millennia. Inside, there was plenty of context about the historic sculptures and illustrations on display, and the researchers responsible for curation. One placard stated that China did not historically persecute people over homosexuality - which agrees with the gist of research on the subject - and that alternative preferences should be tolerated if they harm no one. Above it was a 19th century illustration of two women enjoying some Sapphic bonding. Also noted was the difference between a marriage ideal of one man and one woman and the practice of one man and multiple concubines - another subtle nod against legalistic clinging to idealism.

No one checked our tickets, and I'm not sure they would have enforced the rule against photography. I still thought it best to keep the camera off and myself from being escorted from the park. There are plenty of pictures to be found elsewhere. Sexy time ahoy! View with obvious discretion.

China's Ancient Sex Museum in Tongli

A Visit to the Chinese Sex Museum

So I went to China - Introduction

rydain — Thu, 28 Nov 2013 07:53:56 GMT

14-hour budget flights are miserable. A googolplex more so with a sinus infection. Never again am I repeating this exercise without enough packed food and iDistraction battery power to last me through a nuclear apocalypse. I stumbled off the return flight like pasty death. Three days later, I'm almost recovered.

The rest was worth the ordeal. Especially as a springboard to Nanjing and its 2000-year-old urban landscape with the pervasive greenery and down to earth splendor that had drawn me there in the first place. And its connection to the Three Kingdoms era - it was the capital of Eastern Wu.

We had a fun group of thirty, a Friends 'n Family subgroup of ten, upscale hotel accommodations, and an excellent guide. Eric kept us informed, entertained, hydrated, on schedule, and as happy as possible within the constraints of the tour - including the obligatory shopping showrooms relegating disinterested folk to a long game of Salesperson Avoidance Shuffle. They do keep the trip cost down, and enough people found them productive. Even so, fndragon wondered when we would get the time share pitch.

Hotel breakfasts were excellent, as were our personalized meals in Nanjing - local specialties recommended for our tastes. Most everywhere else was a limited buffet able to efficiently handle large groups with nebulous time of arrival - and a crapshoot depending on the variety of non-meat available. I had tasty vegetables and bean curd dishes, some specially requested by Eric. I also had a Build Your Own Stir Fry inedibly strewn with meat nuggets by a grill from the innermost circle of cross-contamination hell. At least that place had good cookies.

I got many great pictures, a few small purchases, and a better understanding of China's industrialization and urban culture, including honest talk about its current challenges. I went through the Three Gorges Dam locks during a cruise ship beer bash. I learned to play mahjong with helpful onlookers backseating. I saw an acrobatics show with muscle men and motorbikes, a chamber performance of opera music, and a sex museum. I have a lot to write up and a fragmented dump of trip notes to sort out in the process. Until next time, yo.

New job, new distractions

rydain — Tue, 16 Jul 2013 02:49:47 GMT

I like my job. I like the people I work with. I like walking there, although it's officially too hot to do so in dress pants. This is why we have bathrooms and changes of clothing. My duties largely focus on cobbling together data from various sources into a useful form for department staff. This involves some interesting problems of database optimization and wrangling SQL Server to handle logic that I'm used to dealing with in separate code.

I also worked up the nerve to scratch a longstanding hobby itch. A while back, I got into watching commentated video gameplay. It was fun hearing people's reactions, fun seeing how differently they approached open-ended games that I'd already gone through myself, fun reexperiencing said games vicariously in the background as I poked at art or writing. It also seemed fun to do, but I had performance anxiety and no concept of personal style.

Commentary can't be all things to everyone, so you pick a niche and stick with it - minimalism, constant reactive blather, conversation with the game as backdrop, scripted and smoothly presented MST3K-style. I decided on separate game and microphone capture, with a combination of planned points to prattle about and spontaneous reactions to curate afterward. There's some desirable roughness and an overall casual feel, but I can leave out the more pointless brain farts and redo anything that totally fell flat on its face.

Speaking of niches, there isn't much casual YouTube gameplay of Dynasty Warriors 5, and I couldn't find any featuring my favorite characters. So my crash test subjects were as follows:

DW5:XL Destiny Mode - Featuring Roll and her big brother ~~Mega Man~~ Cao Ren. Includes tips and advice on how to be awesome at Destiny Mode in general.

Cao Ren's story - In which I make stupid references to metal underpants, dramatically recount the siege of Fancheng, and break into a rendition of Stout Hearted Men. This was a trip down nostalgia lane and a collection of the character defining material that made the Rockman an instant favorite with his unique emphasis on humbly waging war with the least harm possible. (Still uploading this. The playlist should be complete tomorrow.)

I surprised myself. Pleasantly. The good stuff to meh ratio was great for a first try, with a nice variety of informative chat and emergent lulz. I kept the vast majority of my rough material as is. I tend to go between Jaunty Teacher and Daria depending on how expository or snide I'm feeling, but it works. I think. I also sorted out my editing process, which is generally enjoyable and efficient. It's nice to relax, not expect perfection, and be happy with your voice instead of flinching at every perceived mistake. I did have some false starts to do over, but such is part of the learning process.

There's plenty of other amusement in DW5 - like Xiahou Yuan's story, which has some funny cut scenes and could also use the comprehensive treatment - but I may not get to that for a while. These comfortably familiar projects were a warm-up to The Big One.

DYNASTY. WARRIORS. 8.

It drops tomorrow. I have it pre-ordered. I'm planning to record and publish my first reactions to each kingdom's story, with all the enormous stages and nifty new characters and interactions that hopefully develop relations I'm dying to see fleshed out. This will also have the upside of preventing me from rushing through the game, as I can only handle so much improv in a day. And uploading, what with our whopping 1 megabit/second bandwidth and the need to share with fndragon and his Minecraft enthusiasm. I'll post the playlists here as they're complete, but you can always camp out on my channel for updates.

CONNECT FOUR I WIN

rydain — Thu, 09 May 2013 03:34:13 GMT

I got the job. Not just a job. The job. The high end programming position I applied to at Penn State, whose listing sought a driven and creative problem solver. The one with an interview I prepared for by mainlining '80s tunes in the Kern Building lobby beforehand, and in which I shed my suit jacket and flexed for a room full of staffers in response to an inquiry about my hobbies. It's a position within a department seeking to grow and develop its information technology division. It's my closest approximation to tenure. Said department has lots of other women, who I had a blast interviewing with. You bet your ass I'm stoked.

I can still walk to work. My office space seems quiet and private. I get a deep tuition discount and a boatload of vacation - that trip to China is A-OK with the management and won't put me in time off debt for the next century or so. I do have to dress business casual - a culture shock to someone raised in the jeans and snarky T-shirt world of web development and research engineering - but I have plenty of comfortable options, and I can use a wardrobe refresh anyhow. It's a good reason to kick me back into the Cleaning Out Clothes for Goodwill Project I started a couple of weeks ago.

I've been a lazy vacation bum. I had a full week where my best defense against doldrums was room escape and tile swap puzzle games. I also had breakfast with penm_rx3, who has a creative writing minor and a planned cross-country move. Which gave me a nice novel-related goal of finishing my first act to send them for some hardcore critique. I do appreciate the honest feedback from my friends who share my tastes and understand what I'm going for, but I need that detailed impression of themes and threads and pacing and prose. I understand that such requires money for the hours of work and experience involved. So if I can help my friends build their bank account and shore up Act 1 as a solid prototype for the rest of my structure, style, and tone - ayyyyyyup. It's moving in steady steps, with previously yet undetermined character chemistry falling neatly into place. I had reached my limits for how much I could plan ahead, so focusing on early content is just what I need right now.

Dynasty Warriors costume DLC is at its best when it involves absurd and/or modern themes. The Wei jobs exemplify this. Zhang He is a literal assclown, and Cai Wenji and Jia Xu are also in the circus because they are a popular fandom ship because matchy matchy let's pair up the new characters together I understand why people like it but I don't feel it at all. There's a lot of assorted military business, Xiahou Yuan is a crime scene investigator (who would totally be eating on the job to prove he isn't disgusted by anything) and Cao Ren is one of those technical rescue team guys. I have a perfect reference photo for him going after someone's cat stuck on a roof, but I've been more about words words words and there goes that damn artistic performance anxiety again. Although for once I've drawn something I don't facepalm at the flaws in two months later. Go figure. I'll get over it. And I do have plenty of in person reference for felines.

Productive slacking

rydain — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 03:26:24 GMT

The involuntary sabbatical continues. My first job prospect went to someone else, but I had a fantastic interview for a different one. There's more out there, and I continue to seek. Something will eventually come up Milhouse. At least I'm happily entrenched in Hobby Land in the meantime.

I'm loving the start of Mad Men. Period-relevant conflicts! Retro-flavored production! Entertaining, believable dialog! Characters amusing me even when their knuckles are dragging a groove in the ash-strewn floor! Hopefully it holds up - unlike The Sopranos, which lost me in the morass of Season 4 by shoving major conflicts in the background in favor of wallowing in pettiness and secondhand embarrassment. Wire fans, imagine Season 2 revolving around Ziggy, Valchek, and that fucking window, and maybe bothering to mention a major drug investigation once or twice.

I finished a new illustration, a month-long culmination of last year's improvement and then some. I broke some serious mental blocks with regard to fabric and hair, those dreaded flowing surfaces that I struggled to understand. I tend to do well with solid geometric constructions like heads and armor pieces. In an illustrated style, fabric and hair have to be felt out based on some understanding of their flow. I started to get it last year, but I wanted to learn the nicely variegated locks I envied in other people's art. With this, I found a style of my own to refine.

Dynasty Warriors 8 came out last month, so I was camping the live streams from Japan. It looks a good step above the disappointment of 7, with better battlefields, a fully decloned cast, and something for every character entertainment value with some prayer of approaching my reigning personal Jesus of DW5. While waiting for the English localization, I've been making up my own stupid captions. As well as terrible submissions for Facebook Warriors - the ideal home for all my languishing jokes.

With my art bender out of the way, I'm gearing up for Camp NaNoWriMo in April. I like to line up a bunch of detailed scene concepts and get into prose mode to have at them, and Camp is nice for this because it allows user-specifiable goals. Word count is not an ideal metric for me, but I can deal by assigning reasonable targets to each scene and picking my total accordingly. At the very least, I hope to do 10,000 words. If I really go on a tear, I might finish Acts 1 and 2 - the first third of the novel. The rest of my outline is trickling in and not nearly as built out. But it has gone from a giant question mark to anticipation of developing conflicts, and the new material should give rise to more inspirational specifics.

The gleam of daybreak

rydain — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 01:37:16 GMT

Let's get the worst out first. I got laid off. My reviews were stellar over four years of employment. I just happened to lose a game of Contract Musical Chairs during a time of uncertainty in the realm of government R&D funding. I have contacts, I have references, I have excellent prospects lined up - including an interview soon to come with a desirable employer - along with a high security clearance and the magical decade of experience required to bill myself as a senior software engineer. I'll be fine.

It's still a shock absorbed with its share of high octane beer. Spring House Big Gruesome Stout is a new favorite in the Strong 'n Flavorful lineup. It is peanut butter drunky time, and it is glorious. But consumed in measured quantities, all things considered. I continue to put in my quality time at the gym. I enjoyed a four-odd mile hike to get my just repaired car, which was backed into by a very nice and apologetic friend of a friend. I could have pinged the body shop's ride service, but where's the fun and celebratory pancakes in that? And mud-splashed pants, but they needed a wash anyhow.

I'm outlining. I'm pushing conflicts forward into the Great Unknown of my narrative's center. I'm researching soporific details required to contextualize and develop assorted business machinations. Readers will only see the tip of the iceberg, but it needs the apparent weight and fortitude to sink a ship.

I'm working up the nerve to draw again. I get art performance anxiety in ways that writing rarely pings. Oftentimes I'll make a godawful first sketch that needs to be thrown out. Then the next one starts to get it, and the connection clicks between brain and hand, and I surprise myself with some improvement or another, and I wonder why I ever feared the challenge to begin with.

Herf derf blerf

rydain — Sun, 03 Feb 2013 01:52:19 GMT

What I've been up to lately:

Noveling, which has been more about slow steady steps than a race worth describing in its entirety. Lots of outline shuffling, pacing grumbles, recontextualizing scenes so they fit within a timeline instead of floating in space. I need to jump off my cliff after the vague shapes within Act 3's fog, and I've just about shored up the foundation required to do so. I keep meaning to write up a master post explaining the project, my source list, and my progress metrics.

Enjoying a slow marathon of Deadwood. I expected realistic Wild West. I was pleasantly surprised to get realistic Wild West with heavy historical basis. I don't know much about the TRUFAX behind it, but I appreciate the research and focus on the unique conflicts of near-lawless gold rush frontier towns. And Calamity Jane is awesomesauce.

Finally excited about a new KOEI game. Dynasty Warriors 8 is nearing release, and a hell of a pleasant surprise after the disappointment of 7. Costume designs are back to that heavy Chinese aesthetic influence I love so much, and the stories seem to offer the something for everyone appeal that DW7 threw out the window to focus on its few anointed characters. I'm preemptively in love with the new Wu characters, Han Dang and Lu Su - historically nifty, known to interact with my other favorites in the same force, and drawn as unique, mature, down to earth men rather than cookie cutter avatars.

Rehabbing an owie in my sacroiliac joint, which led me to realize that my longstanding intermittent hip and back grumpiness was the result of undiagnosed glute weakness. Turns out that squats and deadlifts don't necessarily hit the posterior chain like you'd expect. Your hip and low back muscles can end up taking the brunt of the load, which leads to unpredictable strains and other fun bullshit. To get my butt back in order, I've switched over to one-legged exercises like Bulgarian squats and single leg squats and deadlifts. I also picked up a Rumble Roller to eradicate muscle knots that a regular foam roller can't quite hit - and oh does it ever work. OW OW OW. At least my upper body has been behaving itself.

Listening to weird electronic music, from atmospheric to catchy. The awesome soundtrack to Sleeping Dogs made me itchy to assemble something similar for my own triad-related novel. I haven't made any real progress on that, but I did discover some new tunes thanks to label websites and related videos - including the current music selection, whose full album is excellent background for programming.

Trying not to do the year-long bathroom dance because

I'M GOING TO NANJING

(The setting of my novel, for those unaware)

In November. With a group of family and friends. As part of a tour featuring cultural highlights in Shanghai, Suzhou, Wuxi, and Hangzhou, plus a cruise down the Yangtze. The tour showcases important locales like Sun Yat-sen's mausoleum and the massacre memorial, and gives us a free day to explore the city. I hope to spend that free day with a local guide, going off the beaten path for a strong sense of Nanjing's character. There is that matter of a 13+ hour flight each way, but I have a known superpower for sleeping on airplanes.

NaNoNoMo

rydain — Mon, 03 Dec 2012 03:39:21 GMT

My final word tally: 17,000 and change. Which doesn't include the leaps I made in planning, both in substance (notes, detailed brainstorming) and getting the best ever handle on my writing process. As I mentioned, just forging onward doesn't work well for the narrative I'm going for. Instead I need a somewhat iterative combination of the following:

Decide on the overall development of a plot or character arc - main points, where it might lead afterward, implications, thematic aspects, etc.

Consider how to show it in scenes. Sketch scenes in as much detail as you need. If I'm lucky, they jump into my head all at once. Otherwise, I need to hammer at them by brainstorming about the intended feel, finer points of content, and dialog hooks - which help me conceptualize tone and character chemistry, even if I don't use them all as originally conceived. If I'm struggling with an opener or ending, I brainstorm it separately, and perhaps alter or redo the scene to fit.

Save every dialog snippet and scene idea that comes to mind, even if you don't have an intended home for it. If you're ever stuck, go through the list for inspiration.

Lay out your scenes and notes on events that haven't yet been sketched out thusly. Is the pacing too rushed? Think about what other conflicts are going on - whether strongly pertinent to a main plot thread, tangential, or worth including to reinforce a theme, add depth and nuance, etc. Is the pacing too bogged down? Think about what could be cut or compressed - for instance, development might be better incorporated as exposition instead of shown in a scene. (Though you might not want to get too cut-happy before your rough draft is even done. If in doubt, make a scene and deal with the streamlining afterward.)

When you have a compelling scene concept, write it out. This is where the Just Write Crap concept can help. Sometimes your first whack at prose will fall flat on its ass, but you can't improve it if you're afraid to try in the first place.

My outline has begun to split itself into acts separated by time, which is helping me organize those main points and build out the requisite subplots around them. There's the initial challenge, the delicious optimism, swimming in the proverbial money pit, and subsequent danger and resolution. Act 1 is mostly planned into scenes, Act 2 is getting there, the last act is vague but has a known general outcome, and the rest is main points that need to be nestled among that subplotty awesomesauce. And this provides some metric of rough draft progress far more meaningful than raw word count, even if I don't yet know how many scenes I'll need. At least I feel like I'm going somewhere substantial and sustainable.

NaNoSlowMo

rydain — Sun, 18 Nov 2012 22:56:43 GMT

The word count of my NaNoWriMo revision is around 15,500. Today's goal is double that. I'm cruising toward a C-C-COMBO BREAKER of my past four wins - and enjoying my best NaNo experience to date.

I sketch scenes if I'm blanking on them. I reread previous sections to weave in development I'll need later. I took a day off to plan a strong foundation for a subplot that had remained vague. I'm putting out 500-1000 well-founded words a day on a draft that I can continue into December and beyond instead of gutting for revamp after the post-NaNo crash and burnout. I can dial back the writing emphasis while still making steady progress. I haven't touched art in a month, and damn do I miss it.

I still write the crap that NaNo encourages me to, as it's important to move forward instead of nitpicking over polish best saved for a future revision. Yet the crap in question is a reasonable first draft stepping stone - ineffective delivery of sound concepts, not concepts doomed to fail. Last year, I Leeroyed up a Jenga tower to fill in the outlining I had neither the time nor knowledge to develop properly. This produced a fair amount of repurposable good stuff on the fly, but plenty of structural garbage. I didn't see any sense in repeating the experience for the sake of a perfect NaNo record - infinitely less meaningful to me than writing the best novel I can and reinforcing the sustainable habits required to carry it through to completion.

Seven years ago, NaNo gave me a fun and frenetic kick out of a lengthy writing torpor. I loved the thrill of going from a bare story concept to Holy Shit, I Wrote All That? "That" ended up like watching someone else play an adverb-heavy video game, but it was an enjoyable idea farm to inspire a better story and a start on getting back into a once beloved hobby. The breakneck pace has lost its luster, but the joy of November remains. NaNo is still an encouraging communal time to write, regardless of personal goals and working style.

Look into the eye of the storm

rydain — Tue, 30 Oct 2012 19:35:16 GMT

Sandy came. Sandy went. Sandy largely passed us over. The spousal unit went out in the gusting wind to redirect our rather ineffective downspout away from the house, then resumed playing video games. I spent most of yesterday with the Suspended Piano of Dreaded Impending Power Outage hanging over my head, and I was convinced I would jinx it by going out to the gym, microwaving food, and taking a shower. Turns out the storm blew a bunch of energy elsewhere and veered below us instead of hammering Happy Valley as we had expected. We were damn lucky, and I feel for those that weren't.

My art inspiration has gone on hiatus, and creativity has been slow this month in general. It seems that my brain wants to wipe its slate clean for That Very Special Time of Year.

Again.

My months of planning have given me a much stronger footing. But I still have outlining left to do, a subplot whose details remain frustratingly out of reach. I can't finish that to my ideal standards in two days. There's a certain amount of process that can't be rushed, and that needs to percolate and iteratively refine itself over time. But I do have enough solidified to bang out plenty of useful scenes and perhaps extrapolate some reasonable ideas for the rest. This year, I should make my word count with structurally sound material, a much better wheat-to-chaff ratio, and no emergency Russian gangster crossover antics - although I haven't ruled out the possibility of another such outtake for the lulz. I haven't done squat for cottoncandy_bingo either, so perhaps there's some double duty writing to be had there.

I'm trying to make myself brainstorm, or at least pick up the reference books I had been saving for a power outage. My brain is pulling a Hoagie and giving me a major case of the Don't Wannas. It will come around. It always does.

I WILL GO DOWN WITH THIS SHIPMEME

rydain — Wed, 17 Oct 2012 03:59:38 GMT

Pick three of your favorite ships without looking at the questions.

- Carver/Herc (The Wire)
- Cai Wenji/Cao Ren (Dynasty Warriors)
- Cao Ren/Lu Meng (Dynasty Warriors)

Or, if you're like me, rearrange them after the fact because the answers would have otherwise sucked. To experience the intended randomness, pick pairings based on canon material.

1. What made you ship 3?

Crushing on them both at the same time. Imagining that they would get along well with their down to earth cooperative concern for their men. Imagining them getting along far better than that and being distracted for a week until I caved and wrote My First Erotica(tm).

2. Is 2 canon?

No, which was yet another of my DW7 waste-of-potential gripes. Wenji and Ren share a somber, contemplative maturity about the pain of war. It only makes sense that they should therefore share a friendship. But they don't, because KOEI doesn't give a rat's ass about underrated characters.

3. What is your favorite moment between 1?

If I have to pick just one - the time in season 2 when Herc tackled Carv into the couch and got yelled at for grabbing his dick. Or when Herc snapped photos of Carv, got yelled at for wasting film, and responded that they’d been up there on surveillance for so long, even Carv was starting to look good to him.

If I can be greedier - the entire One Guy, One Act, One Time subplot. The writers nailed a taste for pigheaded homoerotic BROS BROS BROS that I didn’t know I had.

4. If you could put 3 in any scenario, what would it be?

Historically, Ren and Meng opposed each other at the siege of Jiangling, then collaborated in the campaign against Guan Yu. They would be awesome as respectful rivals turned allies.

5. Favourite line said between 1?

Herc, offering a compromise in One Guy, One Act, One Time: “How about a handjob?”

6. Did everything you want happen between 2?

See #2, with more grumbling just because I can.

7. Recommend a blog dedicated to 2.

I wish.

8. Recommend a fic about 3.

This school AU DLC-inspired story made me smile. It’s Gan Ning/Ling Tong focused, but the writer was kind enough to throw me some Ren/Meng friendship candy. I can also take credit for the pot dealing line that inspired this.

9. What is 1’s shipper name?

BRB, translating fist bumps and high-fives into text.

10. Favorite episode/chapter of 3?

Once again - I wish. Rare headcanon pairing land is lonely.

11. Does anyone in real life know you ship 2?

Yes. I leave most of my fandom squee unlocked.

12. Do you also ship 1’s actors?

No.

flop

rydain — Tue, 16 Oct 2012 02:15:06 GMT

My focus on drawing has slid me down into the asscrack of the Dunning-Kruger curve. I can see knock-kneed hints of professionalism, see how far they fall behind the superb form and gesture and composition and volume in the works I admire. Art is hard, for reals. You read the classic references, like the amazing Andrew Loomis. You study pro illustrators and browse critique threads on Concept Art until you feel unqualified to pick up a box of Crayolas. You gnash and sweat over your own work, wrest life into your flat lines through countless do-overs, feel the lightbulb flick on, still know there's Something Missing but can't tell exactly what. Then you get a fresh look at your finished piece and wonder why you never noticed its shortcomings to begin with.

And at some point, you remember how to give yourself a hand for progress well earned.

Yes, it's cheesy fan service. It's also an exercise in constructing anatomy. The original pose came from a badly lit snapshot. I reposed and rendered it with help from Loomis textbooks and muscle photography. My goal was to capture weight and volume while learning about the underlying structure and developing my own style for representing landmarks of the human body. For a first attempt at such an exercise, I'm proud.

I finally figured out this coloring business well enough for a start. I tried a couple of years back, but the piece fell flat and weird because the underlying structure just wasn't there. Simple as this style is, it was a pleasant and fun surprise. And I can build on it in the future.

Say hello to the best damn lines I've done. Ever. The original took me weeks of on and off poking while I was still shaking off a load of rust from my post-high-school art inactivity. The redraw took 10 days - including the challenges of learning proper facial construction, further loosening up my style, and starting to comprehend hair in locks. Still, I have to give the original fair credit. It shows the symmetry and parallel line measurement I brought over from my cosplay drafting experience, and the tassel has reasonable volume. And I would have never improved if I had been afraid to try.

The joys of my perpetual childhood

rydain — Fri, 31 Aug 2012 04:52:22 GMT

The annual Grange Fair rolled around last week. It's no ordinary rural gathering of livestock, crafts, and any food that will maintain its constitution in a deep fryer. It's a settlement - literally. Families pass down their tents for generations, and every year is a reunion as neighbors watch each others' kids grow up to take on the tradition themselves. Pittsburgh transplant that I am, I don't exactly have a stake in these long-term local fuzzies.

But I sure as hell love the bungie trampoline.

Length of line: half an hour. Price of admission: $6. Time permitted: a good five minutes, which is plenty - I got loopy and had to pace myself. Best fair ride ever? My audible WHOOOO! says it all.

Back in the tail end of elementary school, my cousin and I used to watch wrestling. He was all about the Ultimate Warrior. For whatever reason, I had a crush on this guy.

So what if he was Bad, whatever that meant in the utterly serious world of 1990 kayfabe. DAT MULLET!

(In other words - I was 11. Shut up.)

I caught a match some years back when our cable was out and I had nothing else to watch. Oh, the hilarity. Betrayal commented about ad nauseam for those who managed to miss the other 409812 expressions of shock that Rhyno just came out of nowhere and gored Kurt Angle! Breaking out of pins at the last microsecond! Apparent exhaustion followed by inexplicable bursts of strength! Chants of USA for two guys from the same country! Botching the big bang signature move, followed by hard-fought victory!

I was recently directed to this over a friend's amusement at some random Japanese wrestler who could have been Cao Ren and Xiahou Yuan's long lost angry cousin. And there went that glee again. The stage mannerisms are more animated, more scrappy, more cartoonish. The moves are sold awkwardly at times, which somehow makes it even more amusing. Too bad for the language barrier. I'll just have to tolerate the pain of never knowing the deep and nuanced reason why Abbad got whacked with a crutch.

Asshattery deluxe

rydain — Wed, 22 Aug 2012 05:38:35 GMT

Back in the day, I tried out various Grand Theft Auto games for the ridiculous gangster antics. I never got very far. I had to get through too many story missions to unlock any suitable playground, and the difficulty ramped up too fast to be any fun for someone with minimal skills at fast twitch aiming with a controller.

During our traditional August Week of Nothing, the spousal unit convinced me to try out Saints Row the Third. It totally was the glorious asshole game I'd always wanted.

Saints Row the Third is an action movie playground that keeps on handing out the toys. You get confronted with some giant overpowered pain in the ass, and then score it as a mission reward a short while later. You accrue more and more cash to go after that next weapon upgrade or power-up dangling just out of your reach - and at max level, you can eliminate those pesky concerns about your health and ammo supply. Experience is constantly handed out for driving on the wrong side of the road, near misses, wheelies, and other typical sandbox antics. There are minigames involving mass destruction and essentially reenacting Ow, My Balls. Checkpoints are generous, and death only costs a pittance of cash. Apart from a couple of early rough spots where the need to KILL FAST KILL MORE is hammered home, the learning curve is encouraging and friendly. The game is well on the easy side, but I like that.

Plot? Who cares? It's enough to facilitate more and more great set pieces to race and annihilate your way through - including some welcome surprises, like a particular computer simulation - and it involves characters with entertaining quirks and interactions. And it starts with you airlifting a bank safe, hanging off said safe to shoot more bad guys, skydiving out of an airplane, then jumping back into the same airplane because there's yet more asskicking to be had. You can redo your character's appearance - gender, voice, and all - at any plastic surgery center, which plays a fittingly absurd role as well. Games with serious intent tend to fail it for me in myriad ways. It's refreshing to play one that only cares about bringing the ludicrosity.

I also finished another ~~awesome~~ awful fan project - Cao Ren and Xiahou Yuan's Alphabet of Manliness. Because the world totally needed a set of testosterone-soaked Dynasty Warriors alphabet cards, and of course I had to step up to the task.

Come ride with me through the veins of history

rydain — Mon, 30 Jul 2012 05:33:13 GMT

This year has been a strange one for personal sense of accomplishment. I'm trudging up my own mountain, head down, one foot after another. The sense of motion is there, but the scale just doesn't seem to register until I turn and look back on the valley below.

Art

Four years ago, I was scouring Dynasty Warriors fan sites and desperately wishing that I could draw. I was decent in high school, but severely out of practice at capturing any sort of likeness. The learning curve of my favorite characters seemed damned near vertical. I bought a Wacom tablet and a face anatomy book, and I struggled for months to make sense of poses and loosen up my stiff lines. After some more slow and painful progress, I put the hobby aside in favor of writing. Then came this year, a lightbulb of Getting It, and an avalanche of improvement. I don't like looking at my old work any more, and I've shoved my first cringeworthy finished piece into the deviantArt storage locker forever and ever, amen. But that's one small price to pay for being able to draw my choice of fan service in a timely and ever better manner. Case in point -

I even colored it, which is a total WUT for me. Check the deviantArt submission for more on the technique used. I also plan to make a tutorial out of the hair at some near future point. Which is epic for me, as I used to fear hair and phone it in like whoa. If I can help one other person understand how to build it up and feel its form, I'll be happy.

Writing

Last summer, I got way into inFamous over Fourth of July weekend. I was simultaneously engrossed by its grungy, kinetic atmosphere and frustrated to high hell over its clownish back story and binary sense of morality. The sci-fi plot device had that wondrous air of handwaved plausibility until we found out that the Big Bad was really me who had traveled time for the future of mankind. The moral decisions boiled down to saving a schoolbus of puppies vs. trollface.jpg. At least the gameplay was hella fun, and it all kicked off this nebulous itch to write Something Really Big and Energetic and Way the Fuck More Nuanced. That collided with my other longstanding itch to make some form of full-blown adaptation of Cao Cao and pals being badass. Arise, my novel, was born.

That blasted thing is a monster. It went from speculative alternate future to modern day real world. It mutated and writhed out of my grasp as I researched and poked at it. I rushed my planning to be able to bang out enough draft to finish NaNoWriMo 2011. And then kicked myself, repeatedly, as I acquired the references I had lacked the time to discover.

My fast tracked research had given me a cursory sense of life in Nanjing, Chinese garment factory operations, business conventions, and the mentalities of counterfeiters. A stronger sense of the above cannot be rushed, and it slowly filtered in as I continued to read a wide variety of reference books and articles, from the specifically relevant to more general societal discourse. Some of my concepts turned out to be inapplicable. Even the better ones had seemed to be floating without context in that dreaded plastic sitcom realm, the Uncanny Valley of veracity. Somewhat quoth the raven - nevermore, yo. My notes are more nuanced, my foundation far more solid. Some subplots continue to frustrate me, and I need to remind myself to look well beyond that. At this time last year, I had shiny starry eyes for the setting and little else to go on. Is this progress? Oh hell yes I win.

I still find myself holding back from writing a single line of prose. NaNo may have put up a good fight last year, but I came out standing - and I'm itching for another round.

Computational relics

rydain — Fri, 27 Jul 2012 02:54:03 GMT

Last week, we doubled the RAM in my computer and swapped in a faster hard drive. After three successful data migrations, from OS upgrades to moving all my business onto this current machine, OS X decided to put on its best trollface and only copy over some arbitrary subset of my profile. Repeatedly. Which kept me up past 4 a.m. on a weeknight until I decided to fuck it all and manually drag over all the missing data on my old drive, which was left untouched and mounted externally. A computer without satisfactory customization is like a fire hydrant that some other dog peed on, especially with the complication of Data Restoration Whack-a-Mole. I need to be able to come home and sit down and listen to my music while diving into any current project - and I was closing in on my latest artwork at the time - so I took a morning off to recreate that comfort for myself.

The silver lining? This gave me a good reason to go through assorted downloads and notes from long ago. I threw out all sorts of random offal just sitting around, and I came across quality amusement long since forgotten. I present to you a dream log from five years back, which still brings the relevant images to mind.

7/3/2007

This dream was in cartoon form. Happy Mr. Owl was wandering around the peaceful wilderness of his home. He looked into some magical flower and I saw a 3-D Matrix pan around his face. The flower was actually some giant owl statue that he was about to go into. The music had a dark undercurrent at this point, and I knew it was time for Serious Business because I had seen previews for this movie. Mr. Owl would go into the giant statue, where things wouldn't be so happy.

I remembered something about him trying to pull out some treasure with his cane, and I had the idea that he would get greedy and it would be his undoing. The entire thing had to do with evil developers who were going to bulldoze the wilderness. The sign for the "Future site of whatever" actually said "shit", but it didn't look vulgar in context.

7/4/2007

There was a ship in some desert area about 20 minutes away from State College. It used to be owned by some group perceived as a cult (although they weren't really that bad). I was out late on the ship working on some [client at my then-current job] stuff with [coworker who is basically The Dude in programmer form]. I left the room to go to some other area on the ship. This involved walking through this alleyway behind a building. Huge pipes were overhead. I sped up out of paranoia that it would fall on me.

At the other building, I kept feeling paranoid, and I thought about taking a knife with me on the way back. I worried about accidentally knifing one of my coworkers if they surprised me. I left the knife there and went back to the original building. There was a sign on the door warning some professor guy who came by the ship. It basically said there were sex and drug traffickers - RUN. It was written in red Magic Marker. I freaked out and ran.

All of a sudden I was on North Atherton near what looked like the Blue Course intersection. I called [The Dude] on my cell. He wasn't concerned. There was a police station right there, and it looked quite old-fashioned. The police officers all wore blue uniforms that reminded me of English bobby clothing. They took me into a dormitory of sorts with a bunch of women in way too short bunk beds. I started writing a police report. The end.

8/9/2007

Dad and I were driving around Pittsburgh through the Grandview Tunnels. I'd never gone through those tunnels, and the setup was pretty scary. You bought a ticket and then drove around this giant column of doors leading to the tunnels. Doors would open and close, and you'd just go in one at random. Sometimes cars would be lined up at a door. The masonry seemed to be old and cruddy, which didn't help the scariness at all. We wound up circling a few times and not going in. I knew that the tunnels were disliked and in need of an overhaul.

I was living with my dad and (mom? stepmom? I forget). The owners of some business (or possibly our house) had voted to move it into the house, so there were retail clothes displays everywhere. To say that I was pissed? An understatement. I hollered THIS IS A NIGHTMARE and woke up in my own bed within the dream. The clothes were still there.

Tori Spelling did my hair.

The synergy of scatterbrains

rydain — Wed, 20 Jun 2012 03:27:05 GMT

I spent the past three weeks on a new illustration, building up lines and torturing myself with the sort of fussy detail that has a way of bringing out every form irregularity and perspective fail. I finally enjoyed drawing hair, and I'm beginning to learn the ways of fabric. Both are cut from the same cloth, so to speak - flowing surfaces with volume that my brain just didn't seem to get for the longest time.

Also on deviantArt as usual. Pose was adapted from a photo reference.

I want to color this. I tried for a long evening and set it aside, frustrated by my inability to choose flats in the sweet spot between dull bleh and oversaturated clown barf. At least Pennywise seemed to have been snacking on a cohesive set of Crayolas, so I figured it was a reasonable first try. Then I got to wondering why I was trying to choose flats to begin with, as I never seemed to get along with that process on any other prior failed attempt to color my work. The uniform fields of color look weird and trip me up. Instead, why not paint as I had drawn - built up and relaxed into, just as I'd done with traditional media in high school?

Inspired by this faux watercolor tutorial, I gave it another go. Damn, what an improvement. Slowly deepening washes just look right to me, and those stupidly saturated colors mellow into desirable brightness when layered in patient steps. I need some study practice before returning to the piece, but I should be able to finish it true to my nebulous vision.

While my conscious effort was focused on art, the rest of my brain was chewing away on my novel. The missing gist of plot came in one fell swoop, and I now have a solid high-level concept for the full story. I'm working on the next level of detailed planning for each subplot and conflict. Some specifics have changed or gone back up in the air, but I have a better handle on the more important aspects - thematic or plot purposes served, fundamental character motivations that drove the original ideas. The anti-counterfeiting investigation went from a giant question mark to quite the light bulb, not requiring any real stupidity on the part of a cautious supply line. Accidents happen, patterns can be seen with enough comprehensive surveillance, and fake bags aren't going to be guarded with the same extreme care as fake cigarettes. One bum link, no matter how temporary, can expose the chain just enough to be latched onto. What happens from there is a series of snapshots, further questions to answer, and a resolution satisfying enough that the rest will surely fall into line.

Homeward bound

rydain — Mon, 18 Jun 2012 00:00:10 GMT

June, my unofficial 2012 month of Pittsburgh reunions.

The first was a meetup with some of my best friends ever at a noodle restaurant that hasn't changed since high school, from the menu to the blown-up photos on the striped orange wall. This week's occasion was my old neighbor's summer party. Her mom and my mom go way back, and we always got along well over the years. I invariably enjoyed loafing around with her friends as well, even though I tended to be the runt of the group because I was two years younger.

It was a hell of an awesome party. Nice buffet, cookie tray, keg of quality brew supplemented with a variety pack from the neighbors. Friendly dog, backyard up the hill, kids running around with Super Soakers and chasing fireflies in the dusky blue twilight. Very chill and down to earth and reminiscent of various others hosted by my parents' friends over the years, in which the young ones found their common ground as the grownups sat and drank beer. One's demographic may change, but the get-along aspect remains the same - with a bonus case of Small World Syndrome as I realized that I was sitting across from one of my first online friends. Conversation ranged from renaissance fairs to Halloween costumes and the Toledo Zoo, which apparently has quite the impressive hippo exhibit. Interesting people tend to be educational by sheer virtue of their variety of knowledge, and I was reminded of some American historical tidbits that I hope I had only forgotten rather than never learned in the first place. At least I remembered "Tippecanoe and Tyler Too", even if I didn't recall the specifics of Tyler's presidency itself.

My mom still lives in the house I grew up in, and I stay in my old room whenever I visit. The neighborhood noises are strange and the bed is rather short, but I always sleep well.

The tempestuous whims of my right brain

rydain — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 03:02:17 GMT

So I wanted to focus hardcore on novel outlining, and then my Department of Visuals whacked me over the head with an idea. And then it demanded said idea to be used as fodder for style study. Three weeks of grumbling and headscratching alternated with the blissful downhill slide of form and volume falling into place, and here we are. That's the sound of me leveling up as I perform the Done at Last Deskflop.

KOEI went joyously apeshit with fun anachronistic costumes for Dynasty Warriors 7. First came the school uniforms - more recently, fairy and folk tales. I imagined that Huntsman Lu Meng and Robin Hood Xiahou Yuan would have a friendly rivalry over the merits of bullets vs. arrows, and there you have it.

Also on deviantArt as usual, and named after a New Wave song that I unironically love, awkward dancing and gold lame suits and floating geometry and all.

This took on a storybook illustration feel that I like very much. I pushed the value range and line weight further than my prior inclinations, which was also fun when I figured out how to beef up outlines to enhance the form instead of smashing it flat.