Paradium and You - The Citizen Guide to Safety

A short public service announcement on the dangers of paradium. Three days from start to finish, then another two days to make it not look like garbage. Or look more like garbage. I distorted it a bunch to make it look sixty years old, so I'm not sure if that's really an improvement.

But yeah, here.

It's Done! Sorta!

Paradium and You has been submitted to the film festival with fifteen seconds to spare.

The reason you're getting the world's least enticing spoiler gif instead of the finished movie is because I'm not quite happy with how it looks yet.

The animation's done, the voice work is done, but there are certain elements of theming that still need work. It just doesn't quite look and feel like a 1950's PSA. I submitted what I had because the deadline was literally seconds away and it is, more or less, done.

You might be wondering why I don't just give you the version I submitted and call it quits. Not a single one of you has even the remotest chance of giving me an award, and in that way you're pretty similar to the film festival committee. But there is a difference about you, my site audience, that entitles you to the absolute best I can give you.

You don't put deadlines on me.

I'll have the movie up tomorrow, when I feel like it, maybe, whatever.

Abstraction

2D design class again today. The new topic is abstraction. This is my take on a fish skeleton. I feel like it's too literal, though. Still pretty cool.

Janice, the Paradium Gal

Posts are probably going to be a little scarce for the next few days. I want to make this animation for the film festival look good and I don't have very much time to do it. Also I don't know much about animating. I've got my work cut out for me, is what I'm saying.

So for a while at least I'll be putting up work-in-progress updates like this one as I go. Meet Janice, my attempt at a fifties-style cartoon character.

It's a good thing I have confidence in the script or this project would be pretty much hopeless.

Paradium: The Threatening Threat

Poster from a short film I'm working on right now in a futile hope that I can get it done before midnight tonight. There's this student film festival I only learned about today, which gives me about four hours to make a six minute film. Unfortunately, I happened to blab a bit to some folks about possibly entering, so now my back's against the wall. Minimalist animation ahoy!

Update: Deadline was just pushed back three days. Now I feel like I can actually put some serious effort behind this! Here's a shot of the "poster" in "action" which is really just a "rushed photoshop job."



Antiscian Exile

Obambulating through refugium,
here rusticated by zabernism.
Myriarchy of tirocinium,
rules over martinets with nomism.
Cursorial thoughts of athanasic void.
The dacnomania in me forms anew,
as xanthocarpous spinnies make matoid,
as xanthochroic fruits are wont to do.
Anhedonia and analgia,
biune in never diastrophic land.
Ubication seen as dyslogia,
clinamen assigned solely to shend.
Postliminy sublated by bêtise,
A gement puts antiscians at ease.

A Fall from Grace

A fall from grace, a bitter song that mocks.
This wretched form is lost and left behind.
I wander through the bramble and the rocks,
and long for times bygone when I was blind.
Grace taught my heart to fear this dead valley,
how precious did that grace seem to me then.
The hour I first believed, it came to be:
and here I've wandered through and through again.
Succumbed have I to dangers, toils, and snares
at what such price is it to be restored?
The lord forsaketh me no more, nor cares
for it is I who doth forsake the lord.
When I've been here ten thousand years, this Hell
I'll have no fewer days than when I fell.

Interrogation of the Optimist

"Just tell me lest you die upon the shore,
your body pulled into arid expanse."
"A lovely day to die upon the shore,
the sound of crashing waves an ambiance."
"Then tell me lest you die up in the sky,
from splattered guts will jut your shattered bone."
"A lovely day to die up in the sky,
an everlasting free fall mine alone."
"Well tell me lest you die engulfed in flame,
fire licking at your ever-charring corpse."
"A lovely day to die engulfed in flame,
to feel an ember as it slowly warps."
"You bend not to threats of death. Tell me why."
"I fear it's just a lovely day to die."

Temporary Death - Part 3

Continued from Part 2

Part 3

An excruciating sense of heaviness met Mortimer when he felt his thick blood begin to work its way back through his veins. His eyelids weighted down on his face, too weary to lift themselves. Hadn’t he just been sprinting?

He lie still for several minutes, gathering up his strength ounce by ounce to open his eyes. Once he had summoned the pure force of will, he shot his eyes open. The blinding brightness from an overhead surgical lamp burned his retinas and caused his recently underused pupils to dilate at an unhealthy speed, forcing his eyes closed and causing a fair amount of ironic humor. Behind the ambient sounds of heart monitors and life support systems beeping he thought he heard his wife.

He chanced opening an eye again, this time cautiously. A thousand dangling tube fibers hung from the ceiling, each one embedded in his skin. Doctors swarmed above him, gently removing the needles. His body had been unable to process the anesthetic while he had been dead, so his limbs still bore a lingering numbness.

“Welcome back to the realm of the living, Mortimer,” said an intern in an unnecessarily dramatic tone. “You’ll be happy to know that you are now one hundred percent cancer free! We’ll get you a copy of your death certificate as a memento and get you into physical therapy as soon as you rest up, alright?

“Muuhhh” replied Mortimer as eloquently as he could. A supervising doctor took note of this response on a notepad she had been scribbling on, documenting the procedure so that the results could be sent back to the University of Central Michigan. Initial difficulty communicating orally. Potentially permanent side-effect of deadness.

“How are you feeling, Mortimer?” asked the chronicler after she finished her memo. Mortimer turned his head to face her. “Nnnn… Not all that bad, I guess… Am I still dead? Initial difficulty communicating orally. Potentially permanent side-effect of deadness. Effects subside rapidly, scribbled the chronicler without responding.

“There is one thing you should know, sir,” said a different doctor. Mortimer was finding it difficult to keep track of who was talking. He turned his sore neck towards the new voice. “Sometime before you were killed, a tube fiber was misplaced on your left arm. It was a minor artery, but the dead tissue spread too far before we were able to detect it twelve days later. It was necessary to amputate your arm. I’m sorry, sir, but there was nothing we could do.”

The doctor was perplexed at Mortimer’s calm as he thanked the doctor for the news and asked to see his wife. Once he was sure that a reasonable number of the tube fibers had been removed and properly set up for cleaning, he went out into the hall and informed Mortimer’s wife that she was allowed to see her husband. He stood outside the operating room window and watched as Mortimer and his wife were reunited.

Another doctor came up beside him and watched the emotional scene within. “Amazing technology, isn’t it? We just gave that guy his life back.” The calm the doctor had witnessed didn’t bother him so much anymore, as the pure happiness of the situation washed over him. “Yeah,” he replied. “I guess we did.”

In a vast and empty plain, a robed skeletal figure relinquished his search for Mortimer. He had initially found it odd that he had arrived early to that realm, but now found sense in it.

“Sixty three more days, then.”



Temporary Death - Part 2

Continued from Part 1

Part 2

The article would not have helped Mortimer’s disposition towards his situation had he read it. He had listened to various doctors and surgeons explain to him how his version of the still experimental procedure would go: He would be administered a general anesthesia, under which a series of several hundred tube fibers would be attached to every artery in his body, supplying his body with the oxygen his dead heart would be unable to deliver. After that, a cardioplegia would be injected directly into his heart, stopping it cold, and he would die and remain dead until surgeons could remove his tumor.

The concept was still troubling him when doctors carted his bed into a specially equipped operating room, one with hundreds of thousands of plastic tube fibers dangling from the ceiling, each with sharp needle accenting its tip. This did little to comfort him, and certainly did not comfort him as well as the numbing anesthesia which was soon injected into his arm, knocking him into a comfortable unconsciousness.

            Mortimer awoke lying down in a vast, empty plain. At least he thought that he awoke lying down in a vast, empty plain. In the true waking world, his heart had been stopped artificially by a medical intern who was hoping his voluntary involvement with the experimental procedure would earn him respect among his peers. It wouldn’t.

            Mortimer attempted to stand, but lost his balance and fell onto the firm and unforgiving ground. A shot of pain flew through his chest, causing him to curl himself into a fetal position. In the process of this he struck his knee against a rock that he had not previously seen, and let out a howl of agony. Upon this howl, he discovered that his throat was unusually dry. The stimulation caused by his howling had caused severe pain in his throat, which he attempted to clasp with both hands. It was during this attempt that he realized that he was missing his left arm, which turned out to be the cause of his lost balance upon standing. He lied on the ground, shocked and in pain.

            “You might want to try to avoid doing that sort of thing.”

            Mortimer turned his head to see a skeleton in a black hooded robe standing over him. After he had finished a solid two minutes of screaming and subsequently rubbing his sore throat with his one remaining hand, Mortimer managed to stand and face his skeletal visitor. It was a stereotypical Grim Reaper figure, complete with a scythe and low drawn black hood. Mortimer wanted to take a few steps back, but didn’t trust himself to attempt walking with his new balance.

            “A-are you… are you the Grim Reaper?” He asked in an understandably rasped voice. The robed figure shook it’s head, then thought better of it and gave a non-committal half shrug. “I suppose you could call me that. It’s been awhile since I’ve looked like this, though. Humans these days rarely personify me, and it’s good to have a solid body again. Thanks for that.”

            Mortimer nodded in a bewildered fashion. The apparently-not-Grim-Reaper began to twirl its scythe. “So, Mortimer, tell me: what did you die of? The cancer wasn’t supposed to get you for another sixty three days. Trouble in the OR?”

            “I guess it could be… I’m not entirely sure. The last thing I recall was being knocked out by an anesthetic in the room where I was meant to get my Temporary Death treatment.” Mortimer was feeling a bit calmer. He began to come to terms with the fact that he was dead. Then he remembered his missing left arm. “By the way, you wouldn’t happen to know what happened to my arm, would you?”

            But the Reaper-thing seemed troubled. Facial expressions on a face with no skin or muscles are hard to explain, but Mortimer could easily imagine a creased brow and thin lips, despite the lack of a brow or lips. “‘Temporary Death’, you say? How exactly would one go about doing that?”

            Mortimer shook his head. “I’m not sure of the specifics, but I was assured on several occasions that it was the only way that the doctors could cure my cancer. Now returning to the arm issue, you haven’t seen it around here, have you?”

            The skeleton looked towards Mortimer’s stump, then back to Mortimer. “Souls are brought here in the condition in which their bodies died. If you lost your arm somewhere along the line, there’s not much I can do about that. But you say death is temporary now?” Mortimer looked around at the featureless plain that stretched around him in all directions. “If this is death, then I guess not. I’m not sure how I’d get out of here.”

            “You know that this isn’t death,” said the skeleton. “If you did, then I wouldn’t be standing in front of you right now. You would probably be standing on me, and I for one wouldn’t have appreciated you hitting me with your knee earlier. This is more of a foyer, so to speak. And what you think of as death…” said Death, “…is here to usher you inside.”

            Mortimer soon found that his running was not noticeably affected by his loss of limb. Dodging the rocks of various sizes which appeared before him as he ran away from Death was a bit more difficult, but was still practical enough to lead him away at what he judged to be a reasonable speed. A few moments ago, Mortimer had been telling himself that he was ready to die. But of course, that was when he thought that he had already experienced death.

            Several hundred yards back, an exasperated Death heaved its shoulders. “A game of chess would have been easier to handle.” With that, Death took flight.

Concluded in Part 3



Temporary Death - Part 1

Part 1

            “…And you’re sure this is safe?”

            The doctor looked over the top of the clipboard she was reading. She finished the line she was on before she answered Mortimer’s question. “You have to understand that there are some risks involved. Temporary Death is an experimental treatment option, so we don’t have any statistics to go by. From what I’ve read, though, you should be just fine. Your vitals look well enough to handle the shock, and your insurance covers the hospital time you’ll be spending here.”

            “Alright, but what exactly were the other options again?”

            The doctor rolls her eyes. She looks back down at Mortimer’s chart. “Judging by your current state, I’d say that there’s really nothing much else we can do. Your cancer is otherwise inoperable, and your body responded horribly to the chemotherapy. I understand that Temporary Death is an unusual treatment, but at this point it’s either that or permanent death. Besides, your operation is scheduled in an hour. There’s really not much we could do to change it now.” She simply didn’t understand. The pre-op medicine had been administered at least two hours ago, why was he still apprehensive?

            Despite the mildly hallucinogenic drugs working their way through his veins, Mortimer couldn’t help but feel anxious. He had been ironing out the creases in his will a few days previously with the hospital lawyer and had been planning his funeral out with his wife should worse come to worst. The idea of dying, no matter how short the duration, didn’t settle well with him. A copy of SciNow, a scientific journal, sat on the bedside tray beside him. It had been delivered to him by his wife on her last visit. On its cover were the words, “DYING: A Gateway to Life?” The article regarding the advertisement was printed on pages seventeen through twenty, and went roughly as follows:

            We tend to think of death as the end. Once you lose to a disease, get too old, or happen to be casually stabbed several times in the liver, death is the total and final destination. Dr. Stephen Walhick, DHA of the University of Central Michigan is taking great strides to forever change the way we look at death.

            “A body is officially declared dead when the heart is no longer able to supply vital organ systems with the oxygen they require,” Dr. Walhick explained to one of our field interviewers as the Doctor of Health Administration was fiddling with what appeared to be a corpse. “In the course of natural death, often times the brain will die off long before the other organs, causing massive irreversible damage while the rest of the body goes about ticking happily – though frantically – along.” The doctor gestures towards the seemingly endless arrays of tiny tube fibers hooked up to every imaginable point on the corpse’s body.

            “That is the unfortunate case of Mr. Benjamin Hobbes here, who was admitted to Living Mercy Hospital following a car accident with massive head trauma and a snapped spinal cord. This unfortunate accident allowed him to slip into a comfortable coma from which there is no return. Already the damage in his brain has rendered him a vegetable, leaving his body behind to slowly die. Or so one might think…

            “With the consent of Living Mercy and Mr. Hobbes’ family, I began a new treatment which I prefer to call Temporary Death. Several of my pre-med students and I hooked up what was left of his body to this nifty little device, which supplies every last vessel with pure, rich oxygen mixed with a conveniently electric-soluble blood thickener. After a few days, his heart stopped working, and I had one of my students fill out the death certificate.”

            We later interviewed the aforementioned student, who had no recollection of the event, despite recognition of his signature on the official document. Since the completion of this article, the student was arrested on fourteen counts of illegal drug trafficking and possession. The editors of SciNow Magazine would like to wish Richard Herring luck as he continues to endure the degrading torment of imprisonment.

            “That’s when things really get started,” continues Dr. Walhick. “Once the heart has stopped and blood lies stagnant but oxygen-rich in the cockles of Benjamin’s cold, lifeless corpse, we are able to perform horribly invasive surgery that would kill a living man. The first order of business was to repair the damage to his spine. Normally trauma of this sort would render a man paralyzed from the waist down for the rest of his natural-born life. We decided to perform an impossible surgery to restore Benjamin with functional legs, which involved sectioning off his torso into four pieces and growing nerve cell cultures on his exposed spinal cord.”

            With this new context, the pictures of smiling pre-med students holding what we thought to be an unusually bloody football and an improperly cleaned prime rib steak began to make more sense. “Next, we attempted to reverse the damage caused to Mr. Hobbes’ brain by removing it and manipulating it with electric current. But, alas, the brain had spent too long in a suffocating skull before oxygen finally arrived too late. It looks as though when he comes back a zombie, Benjamin here will truly be looking for brains.

            “And that brings us here, standing in front of the late Benjamin Hobbes. But, with the resuscitation of his heart via electrical charge, we should be able to put all his vital organs back on-line and free up his blood to start flowing again. We didn’t bother putting the defective brain back in, so to prevent excessive bleeding, you may want to note the clay lining the cavity of his head there. We decided to make it a tasteful light blue, but needless to say he is not likely to have an open casket funeral.”

            Striding proudly towards a defibrillator cart next to Benjamin’s bloody bed, Dr. Walhick shouted ‘clear’ long before he had begun to charge the paddles, most likely for dramatic effect. This action made the field interviewer rather uncomfortable and embarrassed to be seen with a character of such unnecessary bravado. As merely a cautionary note, try and avoid attending fancy dinner parties with Dr. Stephen Walhick, DHA.

            Once the paddles were indeed charged and it was necessary to clear the immediate area, the paddles were applied to Benjamin Hobbes’ chest. After a few moments of relative silence, a heart monitor began to beep slightly and the heaving motion of breathing could be seen taking place on Benjamin’s chest. Behind the various monitors which all indicated life could clearly be seen a death certificate, signed three weeks prior by a coked up hand. Benjamin Hobbes had effectively become the world’s first zombie, and not in the previous medical sense where the subject is dead for a few minutes. Apparently, that doesn’t count anymore.

            To demonstrate that Benjamin was once again alive on his own body’s accord, Dr. Walhick swept his arms out before him, ripping delicate tube fibers out of the living corpse’s flesh with unusual force, causing what would have been read by a brain as excruciating pain. The light blue putty was more forgiving on this point. It also looked as though around five thousand dollars worth of damage was done to the tube fibers, which further indicates that if you are set on arriving with Dr. Stephen Walhick, DHA at a fancy dinner party, be sure it is not one that you are hosting.

            “While this subject was devoid of a functional brain when we got him, I see no reason why the same process would not bring a perfectly healthy dead man back to life. So long as conditions could be set ahead of time, doctors could use this process to hook up some tube fibers, kill a patient, perform otherwise impossible operations, and then flip the switch back on. In that sense, this could very well cure cancer. Called it!” The editors of SciNow Magazine would like to acknowledge that Dr. Stephen Walhick DHA has officially called dibs on a cure for cancer. You all saw it.

            As of yet, this new method has not been tested on patients with functional brains or those with whom full recovery is expected. Dr. Walhich is offering free experimental treatment to patients with conditions previously deemed inoperable, claiming that the money awarded from a Nobel Prize and royalties on his patent should be more than enough to cover any arising expenses.

So, can dying really be good for your health? Probably not, judging by the look of Benjamin’s quartered abdomen and putty lined head cavity. But for fear of Dr. Walhick and his misshapen zombie army, we must applaud him and his efforts to cure every non-viral disease known to man, and wish him luck in his future endeavors.

Continued in Part 2

Ambrosia

Ambrosia, or “nectar of the gods,” is a dish of Greek origin. It has a distinct sweet taste and some medicinal benefits, namely immortality. While difficult to prepare, ambrosia can be served as a food or a drink and enjoyed any time of the year, especially during those hot summer days when you need to cool down a bit or avoid the consequences of mortality.

Difficulty: Lethal

Prep Time: 20 Eons

Cooking Time: 5 Eons

Servings: 1

 

Ingredients:

15 Large Olives, chopped
½ Lb. Lentils, cooked
2 cups Whole Wheat Flour
3 cups Human Heart, chopped
3 Tbs. Honey
1½ tsp. Olive Oil (extra virgin)
Pomegranate Juice to taste
Salt
Pepper

Directions:

I.      Preheat an oven to 350° C

II.      Preheat a different oven to 500° F

III.      In a large, non-metal bowl, combine the olives and lentils. Mix with a wooden spoon until smooth.

IV.      Sift half of the flour into the lentil paste. Mix with a copper spoon only until combined. Place dough in an ungreased wooden bowl and set uncovered in a freezing place until doubled in volume.

V.      With half of remaining flour and the honey, dredge the chopped heart.

VI.      Heat a small skillet over the setting immediately below Low. Add olive oil once heated.

VII.      Place the dredged heart strips into a food processor and blend until a paste is formed. Add additional olive oil if desired.

VIII.      Scoop paste into skillet with a leaden tablespoon. It may be required to cook the scoops in batches. Grill for three years on each side.

IX.      Once dough has doubled, transmute into a sauce and reduce by half. Add salt and pepper to the taste preferred by someone else.

X.      With half of remaining flour, sacrifice a goat to the Greek god of your choice. Burn the flour as incense.

XI.      Set aside the amount of pomegranate juice you intend to use in a custard cup made of solid gold.

XII.      Discard grilled heart patties.

XIII.      Spread goat carcass with the reduced lentil sauce. Broil in a third oven for six seconds on each side – no more, no less.

XIV.      Retrieve grilled heart patties.

XV.      Once preheated, place the 500° F oven inside the 350° C oven. Smash the timer display with a rolling pin.

XVI.      Place two of the heart patties within the goat’s mouth for good luck. Then, with half the remaining flour, garnish goat carcass.

XVII.      Dissolve goat carcass in a hotel bathtub full of lye. Retain one cup of this mixture. Leave the remainder for the next guest.

XVIII.      Add one half of the remaining flour to lye mixture. Reduce by five eighths.

XIX.      Extol the virtues of high-fructose corn syrup. Coat one remaining grilled heart patty in high-fructose corn syrup.

XX.      Discard high-fructose corn syrup coated grilled heart patty, as it would likely cause Type II Diabetes.

XXI.      Place lye sauce into a microwave preheated to 6° C. Microwave on 44% for eight hours or until a powder.

XXII.      Once the lye powder is complete, add half of the remaining flour.

XXIII.      Consider adding the pomegranate juice, and then don’t.

XXIV.      Once preheated, place the 350° C oven inside the 500° F oven. Smash the remaining timer display with a clay rolling pin.

XXV.      Discard solid gold custard cup, reserving pomegranate juice.

XXVI.      Place leaden tablespoon into lye powder. Add salt and pepper to taste.

XXVII.      Place half of remaining flour next to pomegranate juice.

XXVIII.      Refrigerate leaden spoon mixture overnight, or until natural gelatin forms.

XXIX.      Toss half of remaining flour over a preheated Bunsen burner. Collect the flour that burns and add it to half of the remaining raw flour.

XXX.      Once gelatinized, pour leaden spoon mixture into a tall wine glass. Top with flour mixture.

XXXI.      Hold wine glass over inactive charcoal grill. With wineglass in hand, activate the grill with your mind.

XXXII.      Once grill is heated, place self-recurring oven directly on the coals and grill until it collapses into a gravitational singularity.

XXXIII.      Ensure that you are tethered to an immovable object before proceeding.

XXXIV.      Invert wineglass over gravitational singularity, pouring the gelatinous leaden spoon mixture into the center of the void.

XXXV.      The contents of the wineglass will be replaced with equal part ambrosia. The wineglass will invert its direction, so take care not to spill.

XXXVI.      Turn off the grill and diffuse the gravitational singularity.

XXXVII.      Replace the pomegranate juice into the pomegranate seeds, otherwise all will be lost.

XXXVIII.      Optional: Discard half of remaining flour, reserving half of remaining half for garnish.

XXXIX.      Revision: In step III, the olives should not have been added with the lentils, but instead stuffed into the chest cavity of the goat in step XIII.

XL.      Serve warm or chilled with feta cheese. Enjoy!

-92

            The machine beeped again. The beeping was entirely random, happening at some point during an interval of four minutes. It was difficult to keep track of the four-minute cycles, as the beeping could take place at any point during the duration, not necessarily at the beginning or end. Sometimes a beep came almost immediately following another beep, and Keiger knew then that the cycle had just begun anew. He tried not to keep track of the cycles, though. Keiger thought that that would be hurtful to the machine should it ever learn that he was wary of it.

            He needn’t have worried, but since worrying seemed to be inevitable for him, he should have worried about more important matters. The machine was a simple random number generator, assessing a myriad of vibrating particles in tiny, two-sided tubes to determine whether each was at one end or the other in a binary function which gave it two values to work from. The first was the millisecond value that would be assessed to determine at what point during the four-minute interval the beep would sound. For instance, should the value be 15000, the beep would occur a minute and a half into the cycle, and if it was a negative of the same number, the beeping would occur two and a half minutes into the cycle. The second was a far more specific function. Every time the beep sounded, the machine would add together all the values of the particles, positive and negative. If, at the instant of the beep, the value were to equal exactly negative ninety-two, the machine would expel from itself a volley of knives in an array specifically designed to kill Keiger almost instantly with no chance of escape. There was no danger of the machine beginning to distrust Keiger, but certainly, there was danger present.

             “Ah, I see you’ve beeped again. That’s wonderful, isn’t it?” asked Keiger of the machine. “It lets me know that you’re still doing well, still fit and fine.” Keiger shifted awkwardly in his seat. At his feet lay a knife, which he had thrown on the ground as a sign of his trust in the machine. You see, the machine received its power through a large wire which lay about on the ground in front of it. One determined swipe from Keiger’s own knife would have saved him from a multitude of knifes moving in the opposite direction.

            Keiger eyed the knife with what he thought would be perceived as a demeanor of distaste. “An odd situation we’re in, wouldn’t you say?” said Keiger, still eyeing the knife in a manner that he thought the machine would appreciate. “I know you could kill me whenever you wanted, but the fact that you could have all this time and chose not to is really appreciated. I just want you to know, I have no intent of killing you. Let’s just continue to enjoy each other’s company, alright?”

            The machine did not respond, but silently began its cycle anew and decided that the next beep would occur in three minutes and twenty-eight seconds. The apparent silence unsettled Keiger. “I know you must be nervous, but it’s okay. I’m a very non-violent person, and I would never kill someone. Besides, I barely know you. I’m sure that you’re really very interesting.” Both Keiger and the machine sat in silence for a moment. A beep sounded, and the machine quickly counted a number of vibrating particles. The number it arrived at was three hundred and four. The number not being negative ninety two, the machine erased it from its memory. Keiger breathed a silent sigh of relief when he saw that no knives were flying from the machine.

            “They want us to kill each other, you know. I have no idea why, but they’re under the impression that one of us needs to die soon. Well, we’ll show them, eh? We could just as easily sit here peacefully like any two normal, rational people.”

            The machine beeped, and for the first time since his imprisonment Keiger felt a sense of communication between himself and the machine. “That’s right! Who do they think they are, handing us knives and expecting us to fight like animals?” Keiger picked his knife up off the ground and waved it about in a mocking manner. “We really don’t need these, anyway. What purpose do they serve? To anyone else they might be tools, but between us they are weapons of murder! I’ll gladly cast mine aside. I just sort of wish you would do the same.”
            Keiger shuttered when he realized what he had said. “No, no, I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to say that! It’s not that I don’t trust you with your knifes; I know you don’t want to hurt me. I just…” Keiger struggled to find the right words, fearing with each passing second of the four-minute cycle that the machine would become offended and decide to kill him. “I guess I’d just feel better about everything if we were both unarmed, you know?”

Keiger shifted uncomfortably in his seat, the knife still dangling in his limp wrist. After an unusually long silence, the machine beeped. Keiger looked up hopefully. “You agree? I knew you would. You’re so understanding. I mean, if either one of us has a knife, it’s just going to end with one of us stabbing the other.”

            Keiger scanned the machine and found the covered ports where the knives were meant to be fired from. He looked down at his own knife. Slowly, while keeping his eyes on the machine, he began to rise to his feet. He took a tentative step forward, grasping the knife with uncertain resolve.

The machine beeped. Keiger stiffened instantly, “No, it’s alright! I’m not going to kill you!” The covered knife ports remained covered. Keiger relaxed. “It’s okay. I’m just trying to disarm you. Don’t worry about it.” He took a few more uneasy steps forward, and found himself standing mere inches away from the multiple points from which death could fly swiftly towards him at any moment. The panels themselves were sunken into the face of the machine, about four inches square, covered by a metal plate which extended an inch beyond the external frame of the port.

Keiger took all this into account. Prying the cover plate off would be impossible, that much was clear. He looked into what he perceived to be the face of the machine, though no such thing existed. “I think I’d need to puncture these doors. I don’t know if it will hurt you, but you have to understand, it’s the only way I know to disarm you. Is that okay?”

The machine gave no response. Keiger stared down at the knife in his hand for what seemed like an eternity, and finally brought it level with the knife port closest to him. He placed the tip gingerly against the corner of the frame, so that it was perpendicular with the metal covers surface. Pausing once more to listen for the voice of the machine, Keiger forced his eyes shut and thrust the knife as hard as he could against the knife port.

A metallic click was heard. Keiger opened one eye. The sheet of metal guarding one of many unfired knife projectiles showed no sign of having been touched. The knife in Keiger’s hand had slid across the surface of the port and slammed against the side of the frame, not having even scratched the surface. On the floor by Keiger’s feet lay the tip of his own knife, broken free by the impact.

Shaken, Keiger made his way back to his seat, his knife hanging broken and limp against his side. The machine beeped. Keiger nodded. “I guess that didn’t work out too well, now did it?” The machine arrived at the number seven and counted off the rest of its four minute cycle in silence, leaving Keiger to run some silent calculations of his own. He knew that the machine was a random number generator with no personality, with no free-will of its own. He knew that it could not hear his friendly banter, nor did it feel the knife sliding across its port. But he also knew that no number was truly random. There were always outside factors to consider, and without knowing what those factors were, Keiger could only act in the manner which he believed would be most favorable to whatever unseen forces were holding the projectile knives in their place.

“You… you can’t hear me, can you?”

The machine said nothing in response, having decided one minute prior that its next beep would sound in two minutes and twenty seven seconds. Keiger noted the silence, “I mean, all you do is come up with numbers and shoot knives at people. Do you like either of those things?”

The machine, of course, had no strong opinions one way or the other. Keiger sorted his thoughts, trying to find the words to what he hoped was the solution. “You don’t like those much, do you? I know you must not like killing, as we’ve been here for quite some time and you have yet to kill me. And it must get so tedious, having to deal with all those numbers all the time.”

“What if…” Keiger began, trying for all the world to sound as though the idea was just occurring to him, “what if… you didn’t have to do either of those things anymore? What if you just stopped?”

The machine had thirty one seconds remaining before it would beep. In the interior of the machine, hundreds of tiny tubes vibrated in their place, sending the particles within bouncing from one end to the next, back and forth, positive and negative. Near the surface, several dozen knives were loaded just under their respective knife ports, poised like bullets in a gun, awaiting the count. Keiger pretended to notice none of these things, and continued to state his position. “Well, you know, both of those things would stop if I were to just cut your power intake. That’s all it would do. You wouldn’t need to die, just rest for awhile. Would that be alright with you?”

There was no signal, nothing that could be interpreted by anyone as an affirmative or a negative. Keiger held his broken knife in his right hand as he stooped to the ground and picked up the thick input wire in his left. He held the wire against the blade of the knife, the soft rubber coating marked already by the meager pressure Keiger exerted from his shaking hand. He looked up at the machine. “I’m sorry.”

The machine beeped. Keiger froze where he kneeled, his arm becoming too tense to move. He dropped his knife beside his trembling legs, which had begun to spasm. Blood seeped from his mouth, and he found himself unable to cough or breath. The blood had begun to pool just under his tongue when he fell forward, his elbows no longer able to support his weight. The uncut wire pressed against his blood-soaked side, and a knife with a broken tip was engulfed by a puddle of blood, slowly advancing from Keiger’s body.

            The machine closed its empty knife ports and cleared the number negative ninety-two from its memory. It then began to wait out the remaining one minute and twenty three seconds before deciding the time when if would next beep.

Midterm Week! Day 7

Proximity is the principle that allows us to perceive groups based on how close their components are, like that rectangle made of smaller rectangles. To further drive home the point I tried adding another strip of color on the opposite side and adding a break in the lines to create two distinct groups, but it just ended up looking silly and I settled on this. It would have been a lot more impressive if I'd have taken a sepia image and selectively added color, so let's say I did that and call it good for a day.

The picture comes from Nunce.

And with that, Midterm Week is over! This project was completed way ahead of deadline, and now I can enjoy my spring break without having to worry about homework. So that's good.

Midterm Week! Day 6

 

Balance can refer to the amount of one element in relation to another, or how the elements are arranged in an image. In this picture the amount of night greatly outweighs the day, but the day has a stronger vibrancy and a more defined shape, giving it emphasis that equals that of the night.

I kept coming back to this desert trying to find an effect that worked with it. At one point it was divided up into colored strips like yesterday's image, but I felt like it had too much of its own color for that to work. Eventually I decided to take out the sky and see if I could jam anything in there, and a few layer masks and brightness sliders later the result was awesome.

The images used are the Pinnacle Desert in Western Australia (taken by Ilya Genkin) and the night sky over Vermont (taken by Chensiyuan).

Midterm Week! Day 5

Rhythm is probably the easiest principle to represent. It's the defining aspect of a pattern, anything that repeats in a noticeable way. Like these concentric rings, for example. The colors in this image are common print primaries, Key (Black), white, cyan, yellow, magenta, blue, red, and green. The image is of a cloudy day over the Flint Hills in Kansas and comes from photographer Lisle Alderton.

Midterm Week! Day 4

Continuation is the idea that a number of elements that differ from each other in a recognizable pattern can be perceived as a curve or bend. Here you can see a number of rectangles forming a curve with their shape.

This one was a hassle all around. I don't own Photoshop and I didn't have much access to the computer lab at school today, so the whole process was rushed and I got it done much later than I'd have liked. This is the first week-long event I've done where I don't have the images made up beforehand, and I'm struggling a bit. I might re-do this one before I hand in my midterm. We'll see.

Image is from Oceana.org

Midterm Week! Day 3

The source image for this one came from the Apollo 16 mission. Emphasis is the principle of organization which states that any element can have attention drawn to it if it's notably different. In this example, the only part of the image not anaglyph'd is the top portion, which also differs from the moonscape below by being text.

I can't recall exactly what I did with the warps on each individual color of this image and I don't have a pair of red/cyan 3D glasses on me to test it, so if you look at this image in 3D and it detaches your corneas, I apologize.

Midterm Week! Day 2

Similarity is where elements are seen as the same group if they have a similar shape or texture. I tried to embody both with these separated panels. Funny thing is the panels are actually taken from the original image, and the only color manipulation used is on the background.

The picture is San Pedro de Atacama in Chile, taken from the Santiago Adventures website.

Midterm Week! Day 1

Spring break is fast approaching, and that means midterms are upon us! Most of my midterm assignments are pretty basic. I've got a paper to write for Composition and a report for Journalism, but 2D Design is going all-out.

Some of you may remember the gestalt and organization posts I've made in the past for this class. Well, our midterm project is to find seven nature photographs and modify them to reflect what we've learned. Four for the principles of gestalt (proximity, closure, similarity, and continuity) and three for the principles of organization (balance, emphasis, and rhythm). I'm making this a week-long series so that I can motivate myself to get them done at a steady pace. Here's the first. Closure, based on a panorama of Split Apple Beach taken by Amiram Zocowitzky:

Closure is a gestalt principle that states that familiar shapes can be seen as complete even when they are not. It's easy to perceive this planetoid as a circle despite the variance of form seen throughout.

I'm probably not going to go in any particular order with this project, so I can't say which one I'm doing tomorrow. Let's check back here tomorrow and we'll both find out.



Capture the Sword

This is a little outside of my focus in graphic design, but it's been engaging quite a bit of my time as of late and I'm proud of how it turned out, so I figued I'd share it here. It took a bit of world-building and game design but I made a new style of player vs. player game in Minecraft.

Introducing Capture the Sword! Think capture the flag, but with swords.

Download (Mediafire)

Rules and How to Play

One side of the battlefield. The sides are mirror images of each other, with equal ground, resources, weapons.

The gate that marks your entry into hostile territory.

All the resources needed to protect your sword from invaders are available, but some are more difficult to find than others.

The castle will be your base of operations. Massive and winding, you'll have to navigate both safely in one life if you want to win.

The bedrock altar holds the sword of the each castle, and will be the primary target of attack. Guard it with your life or try to fight your way to the enemy's altar.

The team spawn point is located just above the altar, so if you plan to hack and slash your way in, be prepared to deal with the continuous onslaught of vengeful victims.

And of course, there are secrets to be found. Treasures to be unearthed.

And that's Capture the Sword! Download it and try it out!

Download (Mediafire)

Making Pixel Art from Scratch

It's been a pretty text-heavy week, so let's get some colorful drawings in here. And a tutorial, no less! Today I'm going to show you my method for pixel art. I'll be using a recent icon I made for a friend to use on a Minecraft forum. Meet ChiefofPigs. This is the finished product we'll be working towards.

Let's begin. This is her skin in-game that I'll be using for reference. While we're on the subject, Miners Need Cool Shoes is a pretty good resource for looking up and editing Minecraft skins.

In Minecraft, you can attach carrots to sticks and use them to lead pigs around. This pose seemed fitting. Sketching your idea beforehand is useful to determine angles and detail.

If you've had a lot of experience designing sprites, it's possible to go straight to the pixel-drawing stage from here. But if you need some help, you can make a template to work off of. This is where you open the image editor of your choice and get your guidelines established. I use a vector editor like Illustrator (or PowerPoint, if that's your thing). Just as a side note, a hard black outline adds a lot of bulk at a low resolution, so if that's your plan try to make everything just a bit thinner than normal.

Add details. Keep in mind that you're going to be reducing the resolution quite a bit, so don't add anything too miniscule. To give you an idea of scale, in this instance the pupils ended up being only two pixels tall.



The specific colors you use aren't important, because you'll be drawing over them with new ones when you refine your pixel image. The important part of this step is making sure that you'll be capable of distinguishing all the parts of your image by color. For instance, the skin further away has a darker shade to separate it from the foreground skin. Stuff like that.

Resolution reduction results in a ridiculously ragged replica. The next step is fixing this. Scale your image down to the desired dimensions of your finished product. Finding the right balance is crucial: the smaller you make it, the more detail is lost. Always keep a backup of your source image. In the image editor of your choice, draw over your low-res image using the shapes and colors as a guide. MSPaint works well for this, but Photoshop with a one-pixel pencil brush has the added benefit of letting you work on a new layer to keep your reference and product separate.

A lot of what you do in the refining process is up to your judgement. You'll notice I added a bit of shading on the legs and arms, and used a less solid outline on the headdress to give it a more feathery look. This can be a little tedious, but I've had nothing but great results with this method.

And there you have it! Have fun making your own pixel art and sprites! I'm bad at ending tutorials! Say hi to the family I guess!

The Tanzanian Sun

Composition homework time! We were asked to write about a life experience in the form of a news article. So I did that. Here's that thing I was just talking about. It's right here, under these words you're reading. It's also words, so don't get confused now. They're the words that aren't all slanty. Yeah, you see them. You should read them now. Go on, I believe in you.

The plane begins descent. The captain makes two announcements, one in English and one in Swahili. The view out my window is that of a desert spotted with lush tropical trees as the plane makes a few more rounds and finally touches down at the Kilimanjaro International Airport in Tanzania. I exit the cabin and take my first few steps on African soil. It’s been a difficult journey just getting here, months of preparation, vaccinations, language courses, and fundraising. But the most difficult task is ahead of me. I’ve come here with a group of volunteers from my local church, thirty-five in total, to construct a building dedicated to saving lives. It is an eye clinic, and nowhere on the planet is there a more desperate need for an eye clinic than Mwanza, Tanzania.

There are several traditional African tribes living in the shadow of Lake Victoria, where Mwanza is located. These are groups of people who to this day are led by witch doctors and superstition. In these tribes, it is the woman’s duty to collect firewood for cooking and heating in unventilated mud huts. When they get too old to go out and chop down trees, they will often resort to burning cow dung. Toxins released in burning coupled with the old age of the women will very often cause cataracts. To the witch doctors of certain tribes, cataracts are seen as a sign of demonic possession. It is not uncommon to hear of women being trapped in their homes for years out of fear of being seen and targeted by members of her own tribe. When such an observation is made by these spiritual leaders of the tribe, the woman will be led out of her home in the middle of the night, taken far away from the village, and hacked to death with machetes.

In America cataracts are hardly a serious issue. The surgery is a simple one, and has a 90% perfect recovery rate. But here in Mwanza even this simple procedure is a luxury that remains unobtainable even when facing death. There are optometrists and ophthalmologists from all around the world willing to volunteer their time and talents to benefiting the needy in Africa. Our mission is to give them an eye clinic to work out of.

I am just a boy of sixteen at the time. I have been outside my country, but never my continent. A strange mix of fear and excitement is brewing inside me, probably the same feeling any traveler has when they find themselves suddenly immersed in a strange new culture. But underlying all this is a conviction stronger than any I’ve ever felt in my life. I have a goal to achieve, the noblest task I’ve ever undertaken. I’m still young, and I don’t understand exactly what it means for me to be here. What I do know is that it’s good that I’m here, having this experience and making the most of my efforts.

The roads are rough and dusty as we make our way to the Nyakato Health Clinic. It doesn’t have the proper qualifications to call itself a hospital yet. They lack the staff and the facilities to request a subsidiary from the government. It is nearing sun-down, and around us as we exit the bus are half-finished buildings and astounding exotic brush that must look as common to the locals as petunias look to our suburban church group. Many have come before us, any many will come after us. It is an ongoing project funded and built by volunteers from all over the Americas and Europe, and this week it’s our turn.

I will be staying in one of the completed buildings that have yet to see medical use. The Patricia Ward was named for an elderly benefactor, one so dedicated to the hospital that it would one day become that she had requested her ashes be mixed with the concrete foundation. It will someday be an isolation ward for infectious patients who cannot be kept in the main building. But for now, it is a sleeping quarters for incoming volunteers.

The room is plain. Not much has been done with the interior, as construction remains the primary focus. There is a gurney to the side draped with an overhead mosquito net. Malaria is a very common disease here, carried by nocturnal insects, and the daily precautionary pills can only do so much.

The day begins, and with it construction. Building on the equator is sweltering, and by the end of the first day we have the frame for a single wall completed. Day two sees the completion of two more walls and signs that our acclimation is nearing completion. By day four we have all the external walls in place, and begin work on the rooms and halls. The support beams for the room are up on day six, and on day seven – our final day of construction – the frame of the building is complete. It’s far from habitable at this point. Three months would pass before I would receive word that the eye clinic was completed by another church group, one in a line of three that had worked on it since our contributions. But at the time, we were all filled with such an immense sense of pride at having done all we could do. Markers were passed around and blessings and scripture verses were written on the wooden frame, messages that would eventually be covered with concrete and dry wall. The next team would see it, though. And perhaps they would pass on the blessings to the next team. And even when the messages we wrote on those rough wooden planks have been hidden for decades, maybe someone, somewhere, will remember the effort and good will we poured into those blessings with every bit of conviction that we poured into the construction of the building itself. I know that I will never forget the time I spent in Africa, doing everything within my power to let the lost see the light.