Winter Approacheth

Being that I do most of my building (anything that involves sanding or the production of copious tiny airborne bits, really) outside, as it gets colder, it gets harder for me to do things. Tools don't like to work in the cold and neither do I.
However, we have been getting a spots of good weather here more often than usual this late into the season. Still, not quite enough for me to do what I want to get done.

Time to pack it in for now until Spring hits. This ought to give me some good quality time with the pen and paper.

Update On Deckard Gun and Miscellaneous Things

 As no one reads this but me, I might as well use this as a reminder for things I need to do and to bitch about. My digital diary, if you will.

First up: The Deckard Gun I'm building (to which I've become fondly calling the "Unicorn")
LOTS of cosmetic and technical work to be done:

• The bolt casing shape needs to be refined again. The size of the 'dip' where the sides began to sink inward was larger than I had thought. I've slapped some more Apoxie Sculpt on there and leveled it the best I could so it's prepped for further sanding.
• Innerds still need to be made. I got one of the triggers sculpted and ready to be refined and tested with some compression springs I picked up from the hardware store. 
• Innerds can't really get all too far, as I have yet to determine the actual thickness of the gun. With some new reference material I've found and scaled recently, the aforementioned shouldn't be that big of a problem.
• Magwell and magazine need to be refined and not as pointed. More work.
• The handle/gripframe is about 15-20 degrees off of where it should be when it meets with the gun frame. That needs a-fixin'.
• I haven't even begun to think how the hell am I gonna make those serial numbers and such on the gun. Engraving stamps was one idea and one that I'll end up putting to use, but the STEYER logo is still an issue I have to work out.

Believe me, there is much, much, much, much more work to be done (I've not yet even thought of how to approach the simple electronics of the thing) but I don't think there's enough room for that post.
I will say this, though, this thing is a great way to spend the weekends when there is light out. You see, in order to keep me from losing all of my sanity, I've regulated myself to just work on this thing on the weekends and focus on other things throughout the week. The next being the biggest thing I focus on.

Next year's Spillm submission.
I've vowed to the two time winner at this year's festival that I'd make sure he won't win the next one.
To his face.
That is something that I have to ensure.
The shame is, however, that I'm not only teaching myself the basic fundamentals of the programs I'm using now, but I'm also applying what I know of animation to practice. Having scant experience working with animation before (unless stickmen flipbooks count), it is an arduous, laborious, and extremely tedious task having to switch between doing it and how to do it, if that makes sense. Especially when I'm going over things that I think need some retooling that I think I can just do, but end up fucking it up anyway.
In any normal case when this shit happens to me, I usually just start over again from square one or give up. The only thing that stops me is this idea that I have of winning, going up on stage, claiming my award, and pulling this gag where I bring up the previous winner to present me with a second award that I made just for the occasion. Rubbing salt into the wounds, as it were.

Besides technical shit, the more I work on the simple stuff (tweening and key frames and that sort), the more my mind wanders on how to make this better. Better backgrounds would be the first thing. Since day one of starting this, I've had in mind of having shifting weather within this 5 minute-or-less feature. It sounds simple enough, I mean, who honestly thinks about something as simple as the sun coming out from behind the clouds? But animation wise, that means I have to have two sets for backdrops for each shot they're in but they have to be affected by the light and the parting clouds. As well as the things on top of the backgrounds being affected by the shadows. Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck. I know it will be worth the trouble if I can pull it off, but I think of that line from Alice In Wonderland every time I begin to think about it, "...whether the pleasure of making a daisy-chain is worth getting up and picking daisies..."



Ah, well, I'll probably end up doing it anyway. I usually do.


Oh! And P.S. - Some more fan builds coming.
A friend recently introduced me to this game called Snatcher and it's successor, Policenauts (which I'm working through, at the 'office') and they're really playing up my Blade Runner fantasies. So, after not-a -lot-of-thinking, I've added Random Hajile's modded shotgun/raygun to my build list, as well as Gillion Seed's desert eagle raygun thing.

Other things I'm thinking about constructing are some original designs from sketches/concept work of robots and character costume pieces I drew up for my short (I'll update this post with pics, if and when I get around to it) if it ever gets big enough to incorporate them. Hell, I'll probably end up throwing them in there for good measure, any way.

And just because I know you're gonna read this, I'm giving serious thought to building Old Bruce Wayne's Bat-tle Helmet from the Batman vs Terminator short.

Let me tell you what I've been thinking about, Sweetie...

 

   So, I was sitting in the tub thinking about why I was destined for greatness....

 

   Not really, but I was thinking on some potential builds earlier (and all last week, come to think of it). Now, some I can make and some I can't off the bat, either way, I'll jot them down here so won't forget:

- Hanar lamp

- Working BANG flag gun

- Shepard's salvaged N7 armor 

- Actual shocking joy buzzer

- Darth Vader's helmet

- C-3PO's head

- Obi-Wan's ANH Lightsaber

- Luke's v.2 Lightsaber

- Garrus' eyepiece

- A shoe knife

- Mr. Freeze's bio-dome/Freeze Gun/Nora Music Box from BTAS

- Headpiece to the Staff of Ra

- Scale sized Ark of the Covenant

- The Fertility Idol

- Sankara Stones

- The Holy Grail

- A Crystal Skull

- A Batarang

- Penguin's knife umbrella

- A v.2 of Emperor Palpatine's robe

Can You Guess What This Is?

   Just a project added to the my already overflowing plate of things I want to get done.
 

    Lots of sanding and drilling ahead of me. LOTS of drilling and sanding.
    Then comes the making of the interior mechanics. (Can't wait for that part of the job)
   Also, gotta work on modifying the shitty recast above it even more. The bolt casing is what I need to do the most work on. It's not as even upon closer inspection. It's hard to see where some areas dip but you can certainly feel it. Along with that, I have to do some touch ups on the magazine; the tip is too narrow for my liking.

   A lot more research on the anatomy of guns is going to have to be done, as well.


   Oh, and before I forget: I'm working on this, sparingly, too.

   Revisiting a few animations that could do with some smoothing. Godamn timelines, I hate how it makes everything looks so cut-and-pastey. Ah well, gotta work with what I have. The sequence after this is done in flash and I'll have a better time fixing stuff there because, you know, frames and all. Much better results.

   Can't let golden child, Stephen, win three times in a row, now can we? My ultimate goal is to set the bar so high, no one can touch it. In fact, I just want my submission to be better than his or the ones he's submitted. I will have won if it is so. I want my hands so tightly gripped on the bar that I set, that it won' slip my grasp when I bring it down onto his shit's skull. My quality bashing it's godamn brains in.


Too much?

You Only Got One

Hm, I feel that I need to get this off my chest, as this has been bothering me all day.

I wish I weren't such an asshole.
I wish I were a better son.

What makes me say this? Why, I'll tell you.

   Today, I just got a call from someone who've I've not met or heard from in a long time. My father. Last I remember meeting him was when I was in my teens. I'm in my twenties now. He had got my mobile number (something I normally just don't give out nor answer often) from my sister, who got a call from my mother, who got a call from him.It makes me sad to say it, but I near forgot about him until today.
   Now, before delving into too much personal stuff, but I feel that I need to give some background.

   My mother and father were never really together (weren't married), they just met and got along one auspicious evening and were a pair for a bit (Mom often says it's because my dad was funny that she liked him). They had me and my sister but he was really never around. He's an adventurer. An explorer. He always had to go someplace and could never sit still. I recall my mother telling stories of when he'd go (he used to be an Alaskan fisherman working as a mechanic and a fisherman) and come back after the seasons were up; I would be terrified of him because I never recognized him as he had a full, heavy beard to keep his skin from freezing in that climate.
   But I digress,  eventually, as my sister and I grew older, I started seeing less of him. I'd have to go to school, go to work, or I'd just make an excuse not to see him because I was just too either lazy or nervous to make the trip to see him. My sister is very close to my dad. She is the youngest of the family and the only female offspring my mother ever had. My father and I have this odd/old-fashioned mindset of the relationship we have. I am his male son; I'm his boy! The heir to the name and carrier of the bloodline of both families! There's a love and respect there for each other in this odd machismo, old-era fashion. It's really hard to describe. Anyhow, I spoke to him on the phone just briefly today, and without realizing it or changing it, I went through the ol' parents/child spiel of going 'Yes', 'Uh-huh', 'Yep', 'Alright' to everything he was saying. It wasn't until he said these four simple words that just hit me in the heart. Right when the conversation ended and we were to hang up, he said, "I miss you, son." and hung up.
   That killed me.
   That hit me so hard.
   The tone of his aged voice and the sadness behind it.
   It hit me where it hurt; a place I felt no longer existed.
   All those years, all those excuses, all the lies I'd just make up not to go see my man who helped in my creation. The man who did everything he could just to keep my sister, mother, and myself content with what he had. Though, he was hardly ever around because of his need to move, he still popped by to say 'Hello, how my kids doing?' and help out the best he could.
  There were moments when we didn't get along and there were golden moments, but all those times together, good or ill, come together to make what we have between us as father and son.

  Do I have daddy issues? No, but I just think back on the times where I just could've done something as simple as seeing him and backed out, and it stings me now. I feel I have to make amends. He's getting older now and he's becoming more isolated. He's got friends, sure, but he's never married and he's not had any other kids (that I know of, anyway); he's getting old and lonely. He's never been rich so he's never been one to afford and splurge on things to satisfy his mortal desires and the one thing he has in this world that kept him going for years, his kids, his son is too much of an ass to go see him from time to time.

   I'm surely venting but this is something I feel I have to rectify. Next family trip to the general area where he resides, I'm gonna go see the old man. I have to, now. No excuses.

   The moral of the story, kids: your mother, your father; treat them well because you only have one and sometimes for not that long.




...Now back to your regularly scheduled tom-foolery.

Well well well...

Look who finally decided to join Blogger to---not blog.

I'm sure I can come up with something in the future. So in the meantime...