I just finished up another vector illustration this morning. I tried something new by adding more blur on the background layers of the image as they go further away from the viewer. I like the effect, but I wonder if it’s too distracting?
Designer’s Cheat Sheets
I’ve been doing some New Media work / art lately, mostly in Photoshop, and recently I discovered some very handy cheat sheets that have great shortcuts and reminders for:
- Photoshop CS2
- Dreamweaver MX
- CSS
- PHP
- Adobe Illustrator CS2
- MySQL
- mod_rewrite
- .htaccess
- Hex Color
- Javascript
Caring for Your Introvert
The psychologist Carl Jung introduced the term introvert to describe a person whose motives and actions are directed inward. Introverts tend to be preoccupied with their own thoughts and feelings and minimize their contact with other people.
I’m not sure it’s a black & white situation where either you are or are not an introvert, but I did enjoy reading Caring for Your Introvert. I can’t help but relate this back to why things didn’t work out, and maybe the article offers some clues about why I am the way I am.
Even if I am a bit of an introvert – I try to fight it. (Not very well considering it’s Friday night and I’m not at “Ice” or “The Corn Maze” – two places I was invited to go tonight.)
Duck Doom
Check out this mash-up of the classic Duck Hunt with another classic, Doom.
“The objective is simple. Shoot as many ducks as you can with Doom weapons such as The Super Shotgun, The Chaingun, The Rocket Launcher and The BFG-900!”
Personally I find the regular shotgun to be the most reliable. Total retro awesomeness: Duck Doom.
(via BoingBoing)
Backmasking: Your Opinions?
justcurio.us is an anonymous question and answer system, open to anyone, with one simple rule: to ask a question, you must first answer someone else’s question.
Here someone asks the question: Does Stairway to Heaven have satanic messages when played backwards? Please feel free to add you opinion.
Internet Trivia
Interesting Wikipedia article on Godwin’s Law.
“As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1.”
Google is Mind Boggling
Apparently Google has come up with a way to use the power of “crowd wisdom” to predict market events of importance to Google within the company. Amazing stuff.
The markets were designed to forecast product launch dates, new office openings, and many other things of strategic importance to Google. So far, more than a thousand Googlers have bid on 146 events in 43 different subject areas (no payment is required to play).
I found a link at Sourceforge that appears to be a similar (or the identical?) program.
The Everyman Photo Contest
Take pictures; win awards!
I’m entering this image I took last March (on my birthday) into the People / Portraits category of the Everyman Photo Contest.
MythBusters – Episode Summaries
A summary of all the myths busted and confirmed by the MythBusters.
Update: That link doesn’t seem to work anymore. Try this one: http://mythbustersresults.com/
What Happened to Fraidy Cat?
I’ve been engrossed in a myriad of new animation and art blogs that seem to have sprung up like mushrooms in the last month.
I found this little gem of an entry tonight that relates how Rob Clements & John Musker quit Walt Disney Feature Animation over what happened to Fraidy Cat.
(… Ron Clements & John Musker are the writers / directors of such Disney animated hits as “The Great Mouse Detective,” “The Little Mermaid,” “Aladdin,” “Hercules” and “Treasure Planet.” Over the past 20 years, these gifted filmmakers are personally responsible for billions of dollars pouring into Disney’s corporate coffers.)
So if a picture that these two guys (with their proven track record) have helped create is playing this well in story reel form, you have to assume that Walt Disney Feature Animation is naturally going to be putting that project in production, right?
Well, that’s where you’d be wrong, folks. “Fraidy Cat” (which was originally scheduled to be released in late 2009) isn’t going into production. In fact, this project was actually shelved last month. Which is the main reason that Musker & Clements — after 31 years of working for Walt Disney Feature Animation — are exiting the studio on September 11th and heading for … parts unknown.
“Wait a minute?,” you sputter, “If people inside WDFA are saying that ‘Fraidy Cat’ actually looked that good, then why isn’t Disney then putting this picture into production?” Ah, that’s where this cat’s tail … er … tale gets interesting.
It’s so disappointing that number one, we’ll never get to see Fraidy Cat, and number two, Walt Disney Feature Animation has lost two tremendously talented individuals.