darw1n.net

So glad I can’t find a price anywhere.

Here’s a quick piece I just wrapped up. The original picture is a sketchbook doodle from earlier in the year redone in Photoshop with a new technique that I’ve been playing with. The process relies upon some automated actions involving rasterizing and manipulating the shapes I create with the pen tool. The automated actions save me a ton of time although I still make each shape by hand/mouse, which took approximately six hours for this little “doodle.” The look pleases me thus far, but I’m still tweaking it.

My first attempt using this style can be seen here, though this was a much simpler piece and probably only took an hour (a significant part of that time was setting up the recurring actions to look juuuussssst right).

I’ll close by giving a shoutout to Philip Pullman and the first half of the The Golden Compass audiobook, which got me through this picture.

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Take a minute to remind yourself of some golden-age darw1n.net content. This particular gems still tickles me and reminds me of the fond days of living in Pete’s underground apartment while eating cold spaghetti and watching countless movies and tv shows with a blaring hangover. Enjoy.

::click_me_asshat::

The final fight from Portal. Definitely has spoilers but is great for someone who probably won’t be able to play that game for a long time. Enjoy.

update: Is the Portal gameplay innovative and brief enough to warrant a completely removed gaming experience in the form of a short film or serialized program. I say “yes,” and would indeed watch a 45-minute to one-hour compilation of gameplay, assuming the player is somewhat adept, though by no means a seasoned pro. All-in-all, not so different from they way I know Jay (and to some extent Shaun) experienced pieces of the Metal Gear Solid series. The notable difference is that MGS is meant to also be a partially-cinematic experience (though what game isn’t?). What do you think?

Another article inspired by the new book about Schultz’s life.

The genius behind peanuts

I’ve been reading a lot of articles about Peanuts lately. This article is better than some of the others because it includes 13 different Peanuts strips. The selected strips are incredible examples of just how grim Schultz can be. The first strip, for example, has some kids watching Charlie Brown walk by. One kid says “Hey, here comes good ol’ Charlie Brown”. He repeats this until Charlie Brown has passed by, then he switches to “Good ol’ Charlie Brown… how I hate him!”. Some of the other examples have even more powerfully negative feelings in them. The strips really drove home one of Schultz’s mottos: “happy isn’t funny.”

Congrats to constant lurker and frequent vicarious contributor Michael on the birth of his second-born. May the child be happy and healthy and may Michael finally realize the value of birth control (j/k).

In honor of the momentous occasion, here are several articles concerning placentophagy. First, a woman who successfully eats her own raw placenta to avoid the severe depression that plagued her after a first pregnancy. Then, a video in which a husband cooks and eats his wife’s placenta in a more cultivated manner. Then, a photojournal of yet another husband who for some reason is cooking and eating his wifes placenta as well. All links are vicarious.

Website courtesy of Kate. Some of you may have already seen this website but, it is an adoption agency where you adopt a child and then steal their organs. It is completely and utterly immoral. People do this so they dont have to wait on a donor list. To be fair, donor lists can be very difficult. For one, you have to be matched for MHC molecules (currently they match HLA-A,B,C,DR). What this does is make sure your immune system does not see the transplant as something foreign and mount a response against it, as well as the transplant mounting a response against you. Unless you have a monozygotic twin, this can be very difficult. Unfortunately, the way the donor lists work is that the people with the biggest need (the most sick) are the priority. In effect, what this can mean is that the percentage of morbidity is even higher because the sicker you are the lower the chance of you having a successful transplant. Additionally, the number of donors is limiting. In a twisted sense of irony, the largest supply of donors USED to come from victims of drunk driving deaths (young, healthy= excellent donors). With stricter drunk driving laws, younger people arent dying in car accidents and can’t give their organs. The states with the most relaxed drunk driving laws tend to have the most organ donation. There has been a huge amount of research recently into Xenotransplantation (using other species, such as pigs, as organ donors). There have been some hurdles, but the field is getting close to making it work.

Having said that, adopting children to steal their organs is NOT a good alternative. Please read through the website, it is so completely ridiculous (and somewhat hilarious). They also separate their children into Platinum, Gold, Bronze and Onyx. Some examples of ridiculousness:::

“I couldn’t get to the top of the donor list because of medical situations I live with, so I went through these guys instead, and in less than a month I had a beautiful, new daughter, and the exact intestines I needed to live out the rest of my life. We’re the best of friends now, and she’s attending community college here in town.”

David G. – Palm Beach, Florida.

“Please bear in mind that you can not sexually victimize your new child, and that, even if your new child is over the age of consent (14 in Mississippi, but older in other states,) we strongly discourage you from participating in even “consensual” sex acts, regardless of gender balance, status of those in attendance, or reasonably traditional nature of the acts. This is a serious “no no” for our agency. “

website
Sorry for such a lengthy post

What happens when someone has nothing else to do, a vast knowledge of photoshop (or maybe not so vast), and a bunch of stock photos? I imagine it would end up as something like this. Kind of messed up, but in the good kind of way.

Here are three pictures that I’ve been working on over the past few days. Some are destined for t-shirts in some form or another and one is an editorial illustration. I’ll let you figure out what is what. Enjoy.

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In the wake of tv-links.co.uk’s downfall, I’ve turned to other sources for tv shows. TV? No. Dear God, no. The networks’ own websites. Fox has the 3 most recent episodes of most all of it’s shows online here. Especially interesting since the Simpsons have been pretty good so far this season (methinks the nadir was perhaps s17 and they’re climbing back up a ways) and their most recent episode guest stars Dan Clowes, Art Spiegelman, and Alan Moore in pretty entertaining cameos. Adult Swim is here, and usually has the last episode of each show fully up, ie. Metalocalypse.

I suspect the services will get a lot worse once it becomes more popular and they start jamming it full of commercials (now there’re only a scattered few).