What I did this week – 7/27

Well, I skipped a week, or almost, things have been busy, though I’ve neglected writing. I saw a few movies to review, Michael Jackson’s Moonwalker, and Paprika, and I’m planning to watch Perfect Blue this next week, but I haven’t actually finished writing up the reviews, so I’ll want to do that first.

I designed the logo for my roommate’s business that she’s starting that I’m helping her out with, but I need to learn how to do two more things before it’s actually done, so I need to try to do that soon, so she can have her logo actually available across her sites. It already looks really good, but there’s a couple of things that I need to add that should still look good, and add some neat magical accouterments to the design, both neat for its meaning, and neat for the incredibly well-read occultist. (Specifically pulling from Reginald Scots Collection of Magical Texts (1584))

What is her business? Well I’m glad that you asked, I complained to her about how most of the wizard robes for sale are garbage, they are costumes, with no real function, often not even including pockets! Additionally, the fabric is cheap, and are too flimsy to wear and wash more than a few times, or are fitted strangely, dragging on the ground, or difficult to move in. So, we’re fixing that, by creating Order of the Sacred Loop, which will design functional, comfortable robes for the appropriate seasons, essentially creating a category of fashion that I like to describe as “magic casual”, “everyday magic”, and even “formal mage”. Unfortunately, being forced into working a full time job means, much less time to focus on it, so the start will be slow.

I have spent much of my time working in Oculus Medium on a sculpture. I don’t totally understand why I’m putting so much time, and detail into it, I mean, it looks really cool, and gave me an idea for a pretty simple, chill game for VR, but I have put a ridiculous amount of intricate detail into this sculpture of my interpretation of an Ophanim. Hopefully, it’ll turn out really well once I finish sculpting it, and finally get to coloring it. It’s taken me nearly 6 hours to get as far as I have on it, and it’s probably the most intricate thing I’ve ever made, period. I mean, my series of novels has a minimum of 14 books planned, and it’s not as complex as this, haha (which by the way, if anyone is interested in the series idea, I’m willing to sell rights, or my soul to produce the idea into a show instead. Heck, even an animated series would work well in the right style, lots of visual storytelling to be had, low amounts of dialogue, a lot of inner thoughts, focused mainly on a single character, and the thing takes place in eastern Europe, how convenient for cheap filming locations.

Anyways, enough of that brief moment of uncharacteristic desperate self-promotion, and back to the reflecting on art. Part of me wanted to make something pretty simple at first, but for some stroke of madness I decided to add hand drawn scroll work to the central eye, which will have wheels of eyes orbiting it. Originally, it was going to be a single image render, but, the amount of detail that has been put into it would be lost if you simply saw a single still image. So now it’s going to be some kind of demonstrative video, with sweeping camera angles, zooming in to see the crevices, and I’m definitely going to use it as a boss design if I ever make a game where that would be appropriate, or sell it to someone else for use, it has a very eldritch feel to it, and despite being an angel, has a dark, creepiness to it, even in all white, which I expect will probably be enhanced with color.

I barely managed to catch up to my podcasts these weeks, it ended up being more hours than usual, at over 40, due to longer episode lengths, and a few updated less regularly that got new episodes. I started on Making Money by Terry Prachett, I know, another Discworld novel? Well, I couldn’t help it, I love economics, and Prachett manages to explain complex concepts through his narratives, and to explain some of the consequences of those changes to society. I had already loved his explanation on the importance of the post office in Going Postal, and how it cannot be replaced by the internet. In Making Money, they create paper money for their fantasy world, and even abolish the gold standard so far in it, and I was so excited for this development, that when the character declares it, I actually cheered out loud. It’s not the most academic work, but as I’m getting close to the end of the series, I feel more drawn to complete it, and check it off the list.

Speaking of checking things off the list, I finished rewatching “Peaky Blinders”, which I absolutely loved, finished off the last few episodes of “A Bit of Fry and Laurie”, and have made a large amount of progress on “The Office”, after finishing the British version of the show earlier this year.

I even also managed to figure out why I feel like I can’t breathe most of the time, turns out that I’ve got collapsed nasal cartilage, which for most people will produce effects that are more noticable, such as loud snoring. I however, just feel like I’m drowning, never able to get enough air, and feeling super tired from less oxygen. Turns out that you can wear nasal strips to help, or you can get surgery to fix the shape of the nasal package. To be honest, I would rather not do either of those things and would much rather have a DIY solution. 3D printing a nasal prosthetic with TPU filament, fits snugly in the nostril, maybe with a little hook to hold onto the outside of the nose, or the bridge, that presses the nostril out from the inside, but won’t roll or slide up the nose, for what would undoubtedly be much cheaper. If anyone has a 3D printer they’d let me use to print a design I sent them, I’d love you forever. I’m so much more productive when I don’t have to drink like 6 cups of coffee a day to stay awake.

Right, so next time, it hopefully will only be a week before I update again, but until then!