notes from underground

On sunday night I was browsing through NoForSeriously.com and found this picture, apparently fanart for something called Popbot. I loved the drawing, and even though the link to the Popbot website was down I used it as an excuse to begin a side project and brush up my Maya skills a bit. By the end of the night I had rendered this:

and just tonight I finished rigging him for basing animation. There are a lot of things I need to work out, and I need to change his head, make the eyes light up, add eye controls and clean up the controls I already have. Here’s the quicktime movie I rendered from Maya, sorry for the low quality but I was having trouble compressing it properly (it’s about 450 kilobytes):

“Dudebot” Animation Sequence 1: Standing Up

Our first assigment for VA131 (Painting 1) was to complete 40 paintings over the past seven days. I technically have three left, but I will have more than enough time before class today to finish those up. I thought I’d post one or two of them, they’re all very small format, only 5 by 7 inches, but I actually ended up liking a few of them more than I’d expected.

The 40 paintings were broken down into eight required categories of 5 paintings each, including copies of [sections of] 20th century portraits, pre-20th century portraits, landscapes from the art building terraces, clouds, shadows, photographs from newspapers, and more. Now, without further ado:

This first one is from a portrait of Sir Winston Churchill by Graham Vivian Sutherland. I think this is my favorite of the whole lot, I really like how it came out!

This next one is a copy of a Giacometti painting of David Sylvester… I “painted’ this one entirely with palette knives, just smearing the paint around. VERY fun technique, although I lost a lot of detail on the figure… I love the background, though!

I don’t like the next one as much, I overworked it… her neck and mouth looked a LOT better about ten minutes before I finally put down my paintbrush. I wish I didn’t overwork stuff so much, so often I’m just sitting there and think, “oh, ok, one last change…”, then I look again and decide I ruined it. Oh well. The source is a detail of Delacroix’ “Massacre at Chios”.

My teacher, Wendy Edwards, told me at one point I should use more paint… this detail of Van Gogh’s “Self-Portrait for Gauguin” is what happened next.

Last one up I don’t like as much as the others, but it turned out fairly well and it was the last detail I got before my camera ran out of power. The source material is Sylvia Gosse’s portrait of Walter Richard Sickert.

There are only maybe seven or eight of the forty I’d actually admit to liking, but as painful as the process has been, it’s kind of nice to have done that much work in a week. Kind of affirming to be doing so much art, since art’s the primary reason I’m in Providence this summer! (On that note, later this week I’ll post an update about a side project I’m doing). G’night, world.

Hung out with Chen tonight, which was really fun…. at some point we ended up looking through old spam emails we’d gotten, reading the subject lines that struck us as particularly amusing. It really would have been fun to have an assignment for Electronic Writing II, “Take the subject line of a spam email, then write a story based on it.” I may try anyway, or do some kind of artistic response to spam. The cream of the crop from the messages in my spam folder today (each of these are a subject line):

Samurai Stock Info
Just published I think, yes.
Full of health? Then don’t click!
The Stock Trading Gunslinger
angrily
You don’t have to sacrifice
concentrated massage
Message Subject
Your health, no man
Flare left field
test wok
Your health, nose-pulled
unmoved black

Nuts, there was one really great phrase that I can’t find… maybe Chen got it. Oh well. Anyway, it sounds like a rediculous way to spend an evening, but we also went for a walk and managed to find a coffeeshop that was still open on Wickenden, so it was not entirely unusual, just consistently fun and interesting. She’s a cool person to talk to.

And now, goodnight, world!

Well, we’ll see how well it works, but there is some hope that I have temporarily thwarted the comment spam on this blog. Leaving comments open on this post to test, feel free to comment, we’ll see how the filtering goes. (you don’t get to comment, Owen, after last time :-p ).

For anyone who’s interested, here’s the set list from the party I DJ’d tonight, in reverse order (last songs played are at the top– the times listed are when I first cue’d them up, not when I actually started putting them out through the speakers.)

Also for anyone who’s interested: Award for Best Song I Forgot to Play goes to Bomfunk MC’s for B-Boys and Flygirls. Maybe. There were a lot of contenders.

00:55 - Witch Hunter Robin Soundtrack - Robin
00:49 - Garbage - Milk (Massive Attack Mix)
00:45 - Daniel Belanger - Dans Un Spoutnik

00:42 - Röyksopp - Poor Leno
00:39 - Deep Dish - Say Hello (Rock Mix)
00:36 - DJ Fex - Indie Walk
00:32 - Radio 4 - Dance to the Underground (Prance Mix by The Faint)
00:30 - Placebo - English Summer Rain (Freelance Hellraiser Remix)

00:24 - Vanilla Ice - Ice Ice Baby (Techno Remix)
00:22 - M.I.A. - 10 Dollar
00:18 - Lil John ft. Pit Bull - Culo
00:16 - Royksopp - What Else Is There (Trentemoeller Remix)
00:14 - Daft Punk - Around The World
00:11 - Fatboy Slim - In Heaven
00:09 - White Stripes - Seven Nation Army (Slide Remix)
00:05 - Placebo - Passive Agressive (Brothers in Rhythm mix)
00:02 - Afro-Celt Sound System - Whirl-Y-Reel (Beard and Sandals mix)
00:00 - Martyn Bennet - Chanter
23:54 - Dead or Alive - You Spind Me ‘Round 03 (Ultimix ‘98)
23:53 - Bloodhound Gang - The Bad Touch (12” Rollerblade Remix)
23:48 - Cassius - The Sound of Violence (Club Mix)
23:46 - Studio B - I See Girls (Tom Neville Radio Edit)
23:42 - The Drill - The Drill (Exclusive Edit)
23:40 - Sean Paul - Temperature
23:25 - David Guetta - The World is Mine

[Fire Poi Interlude]

23:18 - Daft Punk - Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger
23:15 - Daft Punk - One More Time
23:12 - David Guetta - Atomic Food

23:09 - Gorillaz - Dare
23:06 - Destinys Child - Soldier
23:01 - Placebo - Pure Morning (Howie B Remix)
22:58 - Gorillaz - Clint Eastwood.
22:56 - Bomfunk MC’s - Freestyler
22:49 - Katamari Fortissimo Damacy - Katamari on the Rock
22:46 - Rihanna - SOS (Rescue Me)
22:43 - Gorillaz - Feel Good Inc
22:40 - Crazy Frog - Axel F
22:38 - Josh Wink - Don’t Laugh

22:32 - Orbital - Initiation (Orbital Remix)
22:31 - Playback - Just ADJust
22:28 - Bran Van 3000 - More Shopping
22:23 - Lemon Demon - The Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny
22:20 - MC Chris - Fett’s Vette
22:18 - Sean Paul - We Be Burning
22:15 - Kelis - Milkshake
22:11 - Ciera feat Missy Elliot - 1 2 Step
22:08 - Gwen Stephani - Holler Back Girl
22:04 - Shakira - Hips Don’t Lie (Feat. Wyclef Jean)

22:01 - Scooter - How Much Is The Fish
21:57 - Culture Beat - Mr. Vain Recall
21:54 - Scooter - One (Always Hardcore)
21:51 - Scooter - Fuck The Millenium

21:47 - Boards of Canada - Iced Cooly
21:43 - Snake River Conspiracy - How Soon Is Now
21:40 - Dido - White Flag (Johnny Toobad Mix)
21:36 - B21 - Darshan
21:35 - Tarkan - Simarik
21:31 - Daddy Yankee - La Gasolina (Remix)
21:28 - Shakira - La Tortura (Reggaeton Remix)
21:27 - Scooter - Nessaja
21:22 - Scooter - Nessaja (Original Mix)
21:19 - Prodigy - Firestarter
21:16 - DJ Tiesto - Just Be (Antillas Radio Edit)
21:10 - DJ Tiesto - Adagio for Strings
21:03 - DJ Alligator Project - Blow My Whistle(Club)
20:59 - Scooter - Fire (Xtd Emergency Rmx)
20:55 - DJ Balloon - Technorocker (Warp Brothers Remix)
20:49 - 02 Three Drives - Greece 2000 (Tatana remix)
20:47 - Scooter - Faster Harder Scooter (Signum Remix)
20:45 - Voodoo & Serano - Slide To The Vibe
20:43 - Brooklyn Bounce - Loud & Proud

20:37 - The Killers - Somebody Told Me (Josh Harris Club Mix)
20:33 - O-Zone - Dragostea Din Tei
20:31 - Scooter - Shake That
20:27 - Led Zeppelin - Immigrant Song (The Dirty Funker Remix)
20:25 - Timo Maas - First Day (feat Brian Molko)
20:20 - Basement Jaxx - Do Your Thing (Jaxx Club Remix)
20:18 - Stardust - Music sounds better with you (Dimitri From Paris)
20:15 - NERD - Rock Star (Nevins Club Blaster Remix)
20:12 - Kill Hannah - Kennedy
20:10 - Jay Chou - Ren Zhe (Ninja)
20:08 - M.I.A. - Fire Fire
20:04 - Prodigy - Poison
20:01 - NERD - Lapdance (Paul Oakenfold Mix)
19:57 - Chris Brown feat. Bow Wow & JD - Run It (SoSoDef Remix)
19:51 - Chemical Brothers - Galvanize (feat Q-Tip)
19:48 - BT - Smartbomb
19:45 - Nobuo Uematsu - For the Reunion (Beatmixed with “Stripped”)
19:42 - Rammstein - Stripped (KMFDM Mix)
19:39 - Massive Attack - I Against I
19:36 - Fat Boy Slim - Weapon of Choice

Just got back from Ravinia, an outdoor music pavilion about 20 minutes north of where I live, where I saw a Blondie concert with my family. At least that’s what I’d been told I was going to see… Until last Wednesday I thought it was just Blondie, with some no-name opening act, and even when we got to the theater I assumed the new incarnation of ’80s band The Cars, now headed by Todd Rundgren, would open for Blondie, the big-name lead act.

Frankly, if Blondie had played second I doubt many people would have stayed.

She started playing right on time at 7:30, and although Kip stayed behind on the lawn to read his book I followed Mom and Dad into the pavilion. Dad has a thing for strong female vocalists–a few years ago we came to see Pat Benetar here–and this was really his treat, but Mom liked Blondie too and I followed more out of duty than anything else. Deborah Harry can still sing, but she hasn’t held up as well as singers in other bands I’ve seen, particularly Yes, who I saw in concert a number of years ago but still carried their show off with an amazing degree of musicianship. The band played good songs, but Blondie’s been around 30 years according to the Ravinia site for the show, and Deborah Harry has gotten kind of old (and is a little wider, perhaps, than she had been in the late ’70s). I went back out and spent the first half of the show on the lawn, reading my own book.

I didn’t go in for the start of the second act for The Cars, preferring to finish my chapter instead, but when I got up to walk around the lawn a little later on I kept drifting towards the pavilion. They were playing good songs (turns out I recognized more of The Cars’ music than I thought I would) and they sounded great, a little overmic’ed but very strong. When Kip and I figured the concert was dying down we packed up our blanket and chairs, then I went back to the pavilion while Kip finished his book. I missed my favorite song they played (don’t know the title), but the last few songs were great and their encore opened with “Just What I Needed,” a great song which I did know. Really fun.

The best part, I think, was the way the band looked… Todd Rundgren had what Mom described as a “Skunk Wig,” and the keyboardist was described by Rundgren quite accurately as a garden gnome. The backdrop, set and general atmosphere was very retro at times. I don’t know what it was like for the whole time, as I only saw the last segment of the show directly, but some of the music I heard while on the lawn felt a lot more epic and progressive too… they were all over the place, but despite being a bunch of old guys they managed to still be very cool, in a way Blondie couldn’t quite carry out. Very fun show.

Now, it’s sleep-time for Adams. G’night.

-A