#Tried out gradient mapping for the first time which was cool

[cowsnotcrows]

Poseidon illustration inspired by Epic :]

+ closeups under the cut

[nolantan]

Nolantan

Chapter 4 The Dragons

“Get out and don’t come back!”

Jnoque (Jin-no-k) is broken out of his thoughts by a giant green paw in his face baping him on the nose “ Jnoque you’ve been staring again!” Said a green and brown dragon with a flower on her ear “ Oh sorry Dponá.” She ruffled his white hair which was in a small bun he giggled

Jnoque used to be a human but stumbled upon the wrong cave touched the wrong magical object and cursed him to be half-dragon. Now he's got sharp gray ears, purple dragon eyes, and a dragon tooth.

" This is our first patrol of our borders Jnoque" She flaps her two sets of wings excitedly.

Jnoque smiles and he hops on her back and Dponá struts around trying to be like a guard.

After a while, they hear footsteps and hide behind a bolder.

Aurora, Dyani, and Slor stop running, panting.

" That was a close one.." Dyani says tiredly.

Slor looks at Aurora's star clip " How did your clip do that??" Aurora takes it off and holds it " I don't know it hasn't done that before.."

" Where did you get it?"

" My... mom gave it to me...." she puts it back on.

Dyani looks at his map " We should be close." Aurora sweating takes it and uses it to fan herself " Yeah I can feel it too you'd think 'cause of how high we are it would be more cool up here."

Watching them Jnoque and Dponá don’t notice that her tail is sticking out.

But Aurora does “ Hey who’s there!” Dponá quickly tries to hide better.

Then, she quickly finds herself at their line of site.

“Um hi..” she says waving nervously as Jnoque facepalms.

"Wait you are a dragon!" Dyani happily points out.

" Who are you and why are you in the dragon clan territory??" Jnoque asks.

Slor looks at him trying to figure out where she’s seen him.

“ We need help from the dragons.” Aurora exclaims

“ We’re not supposed to let anyone in..” “It’s really important!”

Then a big purple and yellow dragon comes.

“ What’s the problem here?” He sees the group “A human and both Fawns together??” “ Iquén ( I-qwen) they say that they need our help,” Jnoque says looking up at him.

Iquén sees Aurora’s star clip and perks up “How do you?-“ he gestures for them to follow.

Confused they do.

Back in the artic, Iceal is gathering his thoughts after what had happened.

Walking through the snow Aurora stumbled upon the chef's hut now normally she tried to avoid this place as much as possible she hated the chef of the Winter Fawn Iceal but this time she heard voices inside and decided to eavesdrop.

"So you say this weapon will get me what I want?.."

"Yes but since The Frostbite has been sealed away for so long it will take a long time to regain strength.."

"That's fine I am patient I can still freeze the world."

Aurora peaks in and sees Iceal with this sharp sword with a black-and-white gradient and blue glow. Next to him was what looked like a spirit he was all icy and floating.

The second she looked at him her star clip glowed and the spirit locked eyes with her.

"It seems we have a little eavesdropper!~" Iceal grabs Aurora " You..you've always been a troublemaker!"

Aurora struggles and shakes as Iceal points the sword at her she can feel the cold aura of it and it is too much for her even with her crystal.

"It would be rude to not introduce myself I am Glacius Frostbane spirit of The Frostbite. You are in luck child to see us reshape this world--" he stops when he sees the star on her head " The Solar Crest…" The star creates a black shield that pushes Iceal and Glacius back.

Aurora confused and scared runs for the forest.

" We need to go after her now!" Glacius urges Iceal " She has a piece of the only thing that could stop us!"

Since then Iceal has sent a big group to get Aurora.

Usually, Iceal hates being bossed around but since The Frostbite will help him expand territory and freeze the world over he can deal with it for now.

“ So what must I do to get this thing to full power?” Above him is Glacius “ It absorbs the cold around it. So it will get a little warm around here but once it's at full power that cold is yours to command.

Iceal smirks as he practices swinging the sword around and ends up poking a small snow puff.

It makes a squeak and turns to ice.

Jnoque and Dponá walk along with the group." So what's your name? I'm Jnoque and that's Dponá and that's Iquén." Dyani smiles " I'm Dyani and that's Aurora and Slor." Jnoque looks at Slor and tries to avoid looking at her.

They get to a bunch of huts surrounding a lake of lava and lots of dragons around who stare at them. “Woah that’s a big lava pool!” Dyani amazed.

“ We are at the top of the volcano. We dragons keep it inactive." Dponá explains.

They go to the biggest hut where there's an orange and brown dragon talking to an older lilac dragon ones he sees them he snarls at them.

"Iquén! why have you brought outsiders here?!"

" Commander Gmńeon (Gim-eon) Elder Zomkì forgive the intrusion but this is important." “ Um Mr dragon do you know what the Emberstar is?” Dyani politely asks.

All the dragons in the room except Dponá and Jnoque were shocked

“ I haven’t heard that name in centuries..” Zomkì replied.

“ So you know what it is?”

She nods “ I was there when it was created. But it was broken up and scattered into 8 pieces… the only reason you would need it is if the world was in danger..”

“ My Chief has come across The Frostbite!”

“ Impossible!” Gmńeon yells “ That has been sealed away for two thousand years!”

Iquén speaks “ The Winter Fawn has the Solar Crest.”

Zomkì looks at her “ Tell us exactly what happened.."

Aurora looks at her confused but tells them everything that happened at Iceal's hut.

" That star in your hair is a very powerful artifact."

Slor butts in " I'm confused just what is the Emberstar?"

They all sit for storytime.

" When The Frostbite was created by someone named Glacius it caused a giant ice age and no one was safe no one knows why or how he made it but anyone struck with the sword would freeze from the inside out."

" Zomkì is the only dragon still alive to witness it."

" I remember feeling cold that I've never wished to feel again.." she shutters.

" The Emberstar was made to combat The Frostbite eight brave souls called The Emberstar Guardians created a spell to turn their bodies into the eight pieces of the Emberstar and with their combined might they were able to seal The Frostbite and Glacius into the deep artic where no one could find it."

“The eight pieces the Phoenix Feather, Flameheart Shard, Inferno Edge, Blaze Stone, Solar Crest, Ember Cloak, Volcanic Core, and Pyre Crystal were scattered across the land and their spirits going into a deep sleep inside the parts.” “ Who were the people?” Jnoque asks.

“Emberion Torrent the archer and Phoenix feather, Cinderis Emberlight the healer and Flameheart Shard, Lavara Flareborn the unpredictable and Inferno Edge, Scoria Blaze the strength and the Blaze Stone, Solaris Ash the strategist and the Solar Crest, Pyros Ignitia the mage and the Ember Cloak, Emberis Pyra the warrior and the Pyre Crystal, and Ignis Flare the leader and Volcanic Core.”

Everyone takes time to process all that information.

Aurora takes off the star- Solar Crest and holds it.

" How do we even know that they are telling the truth Zomkì? They could be lying to use The Emberstar for bad." Gmńeon warns.

"The spell they used stated that if any of the pieces feel the presence of The Frostbite they will start to active, waking up the spirits."

" It has been doing weird things since I ran from home.."

" Solaris must be subconsciously protecting you."

Dyani speaks up taking out his map. “ Do you know where the other pieces are?”

“Not anymore I did help in hiding them but it’s been 2 thousand years they might not be where I originally put them. But I did keep the Volcanic Core with me." She leaves to go get it.

Gmńeon huffs fire " I still don't see why we have to help them! Even if The Frostbite is really back it's probably weak now! "

" Commander Gmńeon we should still be careful it could still turn all of us into ice." Iquén rebutted.

" How come me and Jnoque didn't know about this?" Dponá asks.

" 'Cause you are too young and he's not a true dragon!" Gmńeon snapped.

Slor finally says something. " I know where I recognize you from you were that kid who got chased out of the village a few years ago yes?.."

Jnoque doesn't say anything and just nods being reminded of sad memories. Dponá lays her head on his lap, and he smiles " I was adopted by Iquén I've been living here ever since."

Gmńeon huffs " You still haven't proven yourself to me yet if I didn't respect Zomkì so much you'd be out of here boy!"

Jnoque just sighs.

" So how are you half dragon?"

Jnoque stays quiet when a dragon comes running in.

" Commander we are under attack!"

Next

[battaliaart]

B yells about in-progress MAP parts, the first one!!!

Aight, let's give this a shot, yeah? Got no idea what I'm doing but I'd like to try.

Well over a year ago now, I yoinked the last open part in this Na Na Na Wings of Fire x Fandom Crossover MAP:

Due to the DMC brainrot at the time that's the fandom I ended up choosing, and I picked the most iconic scene to portray: the Temen-Ni-Gru fight from DMC3. Swordfight translated into an aerial battle? heck yeah that seems cool

Back when the Discord server for the project was still active, I made my designs for Dante and Vergil. These'll still largely hold up for the part now, though the style will be different - it'll be more closely aligned with my Ten Plagues parts since that's the style I use for Wings of Fart now.

I designed them this way for one practical reason and many subtle meta reasons:

They're twins, so I needed a neutral color palette that'd work for both of them and wouldn't clash with their outfits

Went with Ice/Night for grayscale, but also because IceWings and NightWings are typically acknowledged as rivals

Also because IceWings and NightWings are incredibly opinionated on which tribe is 'right' and which is deplorable - very similar to how these two approach the human/demon dichotomy

I also have an unwritten rule to make most dragon designs go from a darker color to a lighter one in a vertical gradient, which I intentionally turned on its head here both to match more with how the siblings go in a similar light/dark gradient.

Back in the day I used to design a lot of hybrids with mixed scale types (shoutout to when Eclipse had half SandWing scales and half NightWing scales, or two rows of sharp scales and one row of round ones) before I realised that's not really consistent with how I assume their biology would work, but this is Wings of Fart and I don't really care for the accuracy of Wings of Fart anymore so we have blended scale styles - if anything, for one last hurrah before I never design anything like this ever again.

aight that's enough about the designs how bouts we get into actual work on the part yeah?

This was the only thing I got done before letting this part languish in my To Do list for over a year. It's the very last shot of the part, designed to showcase just one more aspect of these characters in this crossover: Dante uses fire breathing and Vergil uses frostbreath. I intend to have a more elaborate transition into the close up speen, I just didn't draw it out yet. I sat down for one session and scrawled this out, probably because the idea presented itself vividly in my head and I had to get it down asap. TVPaint, 24fps.

Fast forward a literal year of radio silence and now the MAP server is starting to see sparks of life again, and lil' ol' me is finally undergoing my MCR phase many, many years too late, so that means it's time to pick up this part again.

Had a brainwave the other night and came up with the remaining shots in the part, but it'd only be doable if I could somehow get a 3D reference of the Temen-Ni-Gru because there ain't no way I'm trying a complex rotating 2.5D thing again without a reference.

Thankfully DMC5 has tons of mods. With REFramework and this Bloody Palace mod, I can now freely fly around the silly demon tower and snatch all the reference footage I need. Took a few tries, and it's not the best, but we now got this:

My brain breaks down this rotating tower shot into two parts; the first part consists of four still assets, for parallaxing, and the second part has roughly 3-5 new unique assets, mas o menos depending on, once again, parallaxing. The dragons will be standing equidistant from each other in this shot and the camera will settle on a close-medium shot of one of them, so they'll require extra assets for the second part once I've solidified how I want the shot to continue. With the experience I have from my failed Jojo Reanimated part I acknowledge it would probably be hell to animate those background assets in VEGAS, so I'll be crafting them with Moho's superior camera functions in mind.

So far I've doodled out one additional concept so far - see the skeleton statue in the above video's freeze frame? Can't have that being a human in a dragon-centric universe, so here's an idea for a dragon skeleton demon sculpture thing:

That's just about where I am at time of writing - I wouldn't expect future posts to be nearly as wordy, this one's just different because I had a year's worth of time to recount like two to three days of work to rant about.

These posts will all be tagged with the relevant part/number and 'BTS (behind the scenes) Animations with B' unless I come up with a catchier series title. C'ya in the next one.

[hbnotthepencils]

Shimanami kaido the first

Quite the successful day today, even though it didn't start promisingly...

Arrived at the bike rental place for the start of our 2 days cycling. No record of our booking from several months ago, but no matter - bikes everywhere, so we picked a couple of likely looking contenders. 

Then tried to offload our luggage to the luggage handling service that is supposed to do this. The fact that we were doing the ride over 2 days seemed to be a deal-breaker for them, and they couldn’t/wouldn’t/didn’t help. We certainly weren’t going to ride two days with 3 pieces of luggage, so we ended up entrusting our luggage to the gentle services of Japan Post, in the (mildly) confident expectation they will end up at our hotel in a couple of days time. Who knows?!?

Didn’t give that another thought as we headed off on our epic cycling adventure. Let’s go up to the lookout says Dad - it’s not too far out of the way. Sure says Mum, slightly uncertainly. That’s how we found out that 15kg bikes with 5 speeds are not particularly easy to ride up 13% gradients... We had to walk a few little sections, but we got there. 

Cool views to reward us - sort of reminded us of San Francisco with the mist and fog that rolls in suddenly. There was a rusty old gondala ride up there. It must have been pretty hairy back in the day - no harnesses, safety gear, retaining bars...

After every uphill there is a downhill. With very short memories, and a cavalier disregard for the map (which in retrospect told us the route we chose was “advanced”), we headed off on another detour. Quite a few grunty little hills, but wonderful scenery.

That’s how a planned 40km day turned into 62km with 660 metres of climbing, but it was a real blast. We found our glamp accommodation for the night, and they set us up with a free shuttle and a free pass into the Onsen on the other side of this (tiny) island - Mare Gracia. Pink as lobsters, all aches and pains cured instantly. Back for a quick beer, and then dinner across the road with some of the freshest sashimi and tastiest tempura ever.

We will both sleep well and long tonight.

Tomorrow’s “40km”will probably be about 58km, but quite a lot less lumpy, so we will be cruising.

Hope all is well there

Take care

M & D

[cruddyborderlandstheories]

Maya?? Maya!!

also Athenas lmao

finally i am free to work on this

boy i sure hope we don’t get more info soon *squints at Amara’s character trailer just around the corner*

tl;dr: athenas. wow. uhhh temple areas with the weird vault-shaped statue things might be a teleportation hub or something like a Stargate cuz, uh… they’re probably not Vaults. i mean. given what we know maybe they are Vaults but not like vaults with important stuff inside, just teleportation vaults. you know what im trying to say? i mean it’s not like the eridians had any spaceships we’ve seen. but they had to get around somehow. 

also it’s possible the big temple area we see is on Athenas, is in that giant fucking pyramid in the background that i completely and totally did not notice for the longest time. 

i also discuss Maya and her thoughtlock skill (if she gets her powers taken away from her) and if she’s gonna die or not. because she’s got the Cloud Kill legendary (’oh noo she ded’), an apprentice (let’s be real, the cliches aren’t looking great), and she seems to working beside rampagers in that giant temple area (also another reason i think it’s on athenas) and tbh i didn’t see her tattoos in either of those shots (but that could be cuz she’s so smoll). so that’s cool. 

oh also the order of the impending storm was probably pretty respectable back in the day, since they can track sirens (maya’s assassin in son of crawmerax), and maybe that’s how maya figured out ava was gonna be a siren even tho she hasn’t manifested her powers yet. and Maya’s probably unearthing all this buried Siren/Vault knowledge and bringing the Academic District back into power while also protecting the Order from Maliwan. who’s still v sus.

wow we have a lot to go over

so to start, im taking a wild guess and saying the temple is on Athenas. why? because we really haven’t gotten a lot of looks at either of those areas too much (compared to promethea and eden-6) and the architecture lines up to me. 

also i, an idiot, was all like ‘mannnn Athenas is super mountainy, that’s wild. love it’ and neglected to realize there’s literally a giant fucking pyramid in the background of a lot of shots

on the right

behind the tower

to the right of ava

on the left

so i feel really dumb right now for not noticing this sooner and writing it off as a mountain. It's literally the fuckin Vault symbol like. ~triangles~. i played skyrim i should know what mountains look like when they’re not 1 polygon

either way, if that’s not at least part of the temple, it’s definitely important. somehow.

but let’s talk about the temple. the parts we know.

let’s try to look out the windows of this wild place

see cause this looks like inside a mountain

so my first instinct was eden-6 because we see a volcano on there

i mean im under the assumption this is eden-6???

bc all the plants match up

… maybe there’s more than one temple?

oh god i don’t wanna separate these by temple that’s going to be IMPOSSIBLE

but yeah i guess it’s possible there’s one on Eden-6 and one on Athenas… dear god…

but yeah my first instinct for that was ‘inside a volcano’

possible mountain on the left there

very rocky all around. im assuming this is underground or smth?

it feels like we’re underground

so maybe it’s a thing where it just keeps going further down. iunno.

it’s hard to place exactly where this is going to be because of the whole ‘underground’ thing

the part that’s throwing me off the most is this

because this looks like Pandora bc of Elpis and the rocks

and it looks like we’re walking outside a temple with the same friggen tiles on the floor, which means it is possible that this is The Temple, but you think we’d know about a giant-ass temple just on pandora. especially with the big dig site

but then we see a super similar dig site (supposedly on promethea). so what the HELL

im almost inclined to believe this is some sort of Eridian teleportation system. i know, i know, we have Sanctuary-III so it’s pointless. but… will we always have Sanc-III throughout the story? yada yada orange/gray -> blue/yellow/red markings. you get the dealio by now.

to

when taken by the cult or smth.

idk it’s possible we won’t have sanc-III for the entire game (just like normal sanctuary in bl2, in that we’ll get it back eventually (or ill kill someone for taking my room decorations)) and then we’ll have to use this wicked eridian tech to move between planets with these gateways. sort of like a stargate…

this thing is a stargate. I’ll call back to this in a hot second.

what kinda shit am i tripping on? i don’t really know. but given how it seems like these temples could be on ANY of the planets we see, im trying to figure out wtf the connection could be.

and give me this: we have never actually seen an eridian spacecraft, but we know they’ve traveled across the galaxy, putting vaults on different places. how in the fuck could they have done that if, you know, they didn’t have spaceships to travel through… space? 

well we know they have the power of teleportation down pat. i mean down so hard they were able to create a ‘teleportation gland’ that allowed a giant vault monster to teleport at will. (now im wondering if lilith has one… hm.) 

this blue thing (which… is the same color as siren stuff. okay. im sorry. i won’t get off topic this time. but it’s stewing in my gray matter)

and given that we know all the (okay, we only know for certain some) vaults open up into this other dimension (space place), would it be so hard to believe that they’re created links between planets using this dimension? i just… something isn’t right here and this seems like the most logical solution. 

take a look at Eleseer. look at all those holograms of labeled planets. of galaxies and stars in the distance. it’s possible eleseer is like the Hub for this teleportation system (explaining why it’s always open) and explaining why it’s got all those weird planet holograms sitting around. could also explain why Moon = Key.

These aren’t Vaults, they wouldn’t show up on the Vault Map- explaining why we never saw this one on Pandora- these are like… gateways or something, iunno. name pending until sept. 13th i guess.

so why tf am i going off about this on a post about maya and athenas?

because i think athenas has a gateway in it too

yeah you should recognize that thing in the background!

that’s this place!!! from the behind closed doors demo!!

and it still

doesn’t look like a vault to me

it’s intact (also it looks like stairs…). all the Vaults we’ve seen are 100% not intact. they’re all chunky and in pieces (we’re gonna ignore eleseer and uhhhh all that business right now, but even thinking about how the sentinel tried to emulate a vault by spawning it in chunks and THEN assembling it)

chunky

im just saying there has to be a reason these vault-like shapes are intact. they’re either just statues/monuments or they have a purpose.

so why tf am i convinced they have a purpose?

bc we’ve seen one light up

taken straight from the void itself (seriously it’s like a gradient back there. which is weird.)

so there’s gotta be a reason it does this right? and if it’s not a Vault, because it’s on Pandora and the Crimson Raiders would have seen it on the Vault Map, then what the fuck is it?

welllllllll i just don’t know. but my best guess right now is some sort of teleportation system to travel between planets. if there are ‘temples’ on every planet then it would make sense that there is some way for eridians to travel btwn them. 

personally i think there’s one on eden-6 (maybe in that volcano area??) and one on Athenas (cause we really haven’t seen a lot of athenas yet and… i dunno i just have a feeling). and there’s apparently one on Pandora (given we see it with elpis in the background) and possibly one on Promethea. i don’t know what that instagram video was trying to imply. i don’t wanna think too hard about it right now my brain hurts enough already as it is.

but uhhh i was gonna talk more about athenas than this

i promise this is gonna lead into maya

the academic district, with a Vault symbol on the door, to boot.

so this place is really interesting to me for a lot of reasons.

1. that vault symbol on the door

2. they’re flying flags with the vault symbol on it

3. giant pyramid in the back

it’s staggeringly huge

4. they have siren tattoos on the building in the back there. specifically, amara’s tattoos

yeah. maybe this is Partali? a smaller area on Athenas, like Meridian is a city on Promethea, and this is Amara’s way of tagging her presence/an area under her protection as the Tiger

more shots of Athenas from the amd horizons e3 stream

it’s a very pretty planet

so if anything, this is the place we’re going to go to learn about Sirens.

and i don’t know how much the Order of the Impending Storm actually KNOWS about Sirens, because all we know about them from maya’s backstory is that they were assholes and using maya to keep the people scared and giving them money

also that they knew how to track sirens

that’s probably important…

“Maya, you’ll like this next dude. He’s a Siren tracker named Mordo Sophis, Father of Brother Stephen Sophis, that dude you ganked back on Athenas. And boy, oh boy, is he just itching for vengeance.”

who isn’t, mr. mordo, sir? get in line

anyway apparently the Order knows how to track Sirens. Which could explain how Maya has a Siren apprentice when Ava uhhh apparently hasn’t manifested her powers (or tattoos) yet. might also explain how they got their hands on Maya when she was a baby. cuz yeah… i got the feeling they stole her and killed her parents… just a feeling.

y’know if tannis didn’t kill that siren tracker dude maybe she could’ve learned something from him first. that could’ve been interesting.

anyway, idk. maybe at one point the Order was respectable and, like, didn’t force people into giving them money by using sirens as a scare tactic. 

it looks like they have/had an academic district (which im sure maya is helping cultivate) focused on Sirens/Vaults.

and there’s a lot of importance on books this game

seriously

apparently

there’s

a

lot.

but let’s get back to this in a minute, because i do wanna talk about the name of the Order.

it’s full name is the Order of the Impending Storm.

I know while writing bl2 they probably didn’t know that they were gonna be building towards a war in tps, but it’s still interesting that they decided to bring them back into play now. because they 100% could have just left them as a background monastery that Maya came from and have maya refuse to return/start her own organization. but they made her specifically return there.

so does their name have significance now? i’d be willing to bet a yes. I mean, war is coming. Impending Storm sounds like it’d be a pretty fitting name for an organization that knew this. Especially because according to Maya’s cosplay guide, they worshipped her like a God (seriously lol are all Sirens worshipped as minor deities? most people know Sirens are Sirens right? like just people with magic powers..? hmmm)

And if Maya returned to learn more about Sirens, then isn’t it implied that the Order did, in fact, know more about Sirens than Maya did? hell, maybe even Tannis…

especially if the temple or eridian ruins are nearby. Say… In this giant pyramid…

so this doesn’t fit in with the aesthetic of Athenas at all. it’s almost like those are caution colors on the bottom strip there. warning you to not go inside. i don’t know if this was built by the eridians or by whoever is on Athenas to keep whatever’s inside… inside (cough Rampagers cough)

either way that pyramid is FUCKING HUGE

seriously, just compared to the academic district, it’s insanely big (that is the BASE in the background)

also guess who just realized this would be a hilarious joke by gearbox

to have pyramids built by ancient aliens. oh, you.

also, side note, there’s a crew challenge for moxxi in the academic district

i just have no idea how we’re getting up there…

oh but the Order. yeah i get the feeling they know A LOT about Sirens/Eridians. maybe even what’s about to go down. but maybe a majority of that was lost in the archives when some corrupts assholes came into power. and now Maya returned and is slowly but surely unarchiving everything we need to know about Sirens.

perhapith this book has some Siren-y knowledge within it? from someone who went into the temple on Athenas and… never came back out.

and I would bet Maya is waging war against Maliwan at the same time as she’s uncovering all this buried info (protecting the Order) because Maliwan is trying to get this info as well. 

Seriously, anyone else notice Maliwan is SPREADING?? They’re not just on Promethea. they’re on Eden-6. They’re on Athenas. They’re even fuckin on Pandora in some trailers (although I would not trust any trailer with roses at this point. something’s really fucky. I will make a seperate post about that i think, once we get Amara’s and Fl4k’s trailers). I’m really suspicious that Maliwan has either joined the cult, or they’re going to become the main villains. which, y’know, given corporations are the big bad in borderlands always… that seems about right.

I wouldn’t even be surprised if Maya/the Order knows something about the Children of the Vault. Given that one pic of her holding a book with the CoV symbol on it.

that she seems to be passing on to Ava

I dunno. I don’t think Children of the Vault is a name that the cultists/Calypsos just HAPPENED to come up with. And I still don’t think that the broadcast easter egg is from the Calypsos. it doesn’t make sense. I know I went over this in-depth in the Promethea post but god damn it im going to do it again because i feel so strongly about this.

i feel like the cult stumbled upon this name and decided to adopt it as their own. or tried revive an old cult with the same name. and if they didn’t, why in the hell does the message say ‘Do Not Open the Vaults’? How do the twins know about Tannis by name?

i mean, okay, granted we don’t know exactly how she fixed the Vault Map and it could be that the twins know how she did it. Because I still haven’t been able to place that one shot of them walking outside the Recruitment Center 

this one

and we know tannis fixes (??) the Vault Map in the recruitment center, so, maybe they saw it happen or there’s some sort of record in the vault map? that shows her fixing it and when they get to Promethea they send out that message?

i meannn she seems pretty surprised it’s functioning, herself.

so maybe they come while/after tannis fixes the key/map to get it back and Lilith like alright everyone let’s book it to Ellie’s garage with the Map. she’ll help us get to Sanc-III.

and in that they see that she’s able to fix it (possibly with weird Siren/Destroyer/Slag/pickurpoison powers) and that’s how they know Tannis is not what she seems.

and maybe the twins just don’t want their cultists opening the vaults because they want to be the ones to open it.

Sure

BUT that’s boring sauce to theorize about because it’s all just there. I’m still partial to the idea that Children of the Vault is actually referring to Sirens tho. It would explain why Maya has a book with the symbol for the CoV on it and is offering it to Ava. Because why would Ava need a book about the Calypsos? who would WRITE a book about the Calypsos?? and make it look THAT old? like… c’mon.

At the very least, it’s an old name for a cult that got revived by the Calypso twins.

At the most, it’s the name for Sirens.

Or it’s the symbol for the Order of the Impending Storm, back when they were respectable. tho you think we’d see maya wearing the symbol somewhere in bl2, so maybe not. unless she took it off her clothes because they had her try to kill unarmed civilians.

I mean, why is the cult’s symbol the Vault symbol upside down, anyway? We know that the symbol for the Vaults in Eridian is the upside-down V in a circle, because Tannis tells us so in bl1. So why would a cult of people who believe the Vaults to be their birthright go around slapping what is essentially the opposite symbol everywhere?

i personally wouldn’t be surprised if that’s the symbol for Siren or something, given how closely intertwined they both seem to be to that alternate dimension.

regardless. let’s keep going

so let’s talk about Maya’s fate in BL3. Is she gonna die? is she not gonna die? i dunno. let’s discuss.

i personally would not be surprised if she does, but i’d be a little disappointed regardless. if any Siren is gonna die… Lilith is going to finish her character arc this game. not that I want her to die, but still. I get that they gotta keep the Siren cycle going.

sooo one big point in the ‘maya dies’ category:

“Oh noo she ded” i mean. that’s just mean, gearbox. 

of course we don’t know if that’s talking specifically about Maya, could be talking about Tyreen, or a miniboss, or something. but i do think it’s interesting that it’s on maya’s legendary. plus uhhh given we had a death out of Roland in BL2, and in TPS 2 of those VHs died as well, I think it’s a given at least one BL2 VH isn’t gonna live to see the end of 3. as much as that actually physically pains me to type. 

And… to tip the scales further to Maya, Zer0 has crew challenges, which probably means they won’t be biting the dust anytime soon, unless you wanna completely ruin doing all the crew challenges by beating the game before doing the assassination quests. which doesn’t seem like something they’re keen on doing, if Roland giving out side quests had anything to say about it. Of course there’s always the argument that someone will take over Zer0′s crew challenges if they die, but… who would? Rhys? maybe. i get the feeling he might be too busy with Atlas though. Lorelei..? … i don’t know her well enough to make a statement on that.

taken from K6′s awesome legendary loot vid

Back to the legendary. we know it’s hers based off the name ‘Cloud Kill’, which is one of her best skills (after the buff lol). It’s a corrosive only Maliwan smg (as far as i can tell. it doesn’t look like there’s the option to swap elements. so it’s cool to know uniques might throw out their manufacturer’s alternate firing modes). i’m gonna take a guess and say it mimics cloud kill by spawning a cloud on top of enemies that are shot with it. that could clean out an entire room in seconds, especially on Amara with Phasegrasp.

anyway i got more

so Ava is Maya’s apprentice, hmmmm?

well i dunno about you guys but whenever a character gets an apprentice/kid/whatever, it’s not good news for the character. and given that borderlands definitely doesn’t need children to keep the premise fresh, I’m a bit worried for Maya.

Ava must be important to the main story, or they could’ve taken her out or put Gaige in. The devs themselves said they only wanted to bring in characters that they knew had significant importance to the plot and so that characters wouldn’t feel shoehorned in.

so there’s a few ways things can go down with Ava, using apprentice stereotypes:

1) She takes over after Maya dies/has her powers stolen/is brainwashed and helps us bring Maya back by proving herself using the stuff she learned from Maya (or, the stuff she taught herself that Maya said wasn’t important)

1b) she inherits Maya’s powers and Maya trains her in the way of Phaselock

possibly maya handing over her class mod or smth

2) she’s evil and the cult is using her to get info and secretly hates maya or whatever

Given Ava is like… 12… I wanna believe she’s not evil. of course we don’t actually know if she’s 12 cause apparently the Siren lore got messed up knowing Angel had her powers manifest at 5. but that’s not canon until mentioned in-game, so fuck it: let’s believe Ava is 12 and not evil and is just Maya’s kickass Siren apprentice.

The apprentice Maya was able to find because the Order knew how to track Sirens/determine if someone is going to exhibit Siren powers.

yes, let’s go with that.

So… what’s gonna happen to Maya, then?

I personally believe she’s going to have her powers stolen and used against her. One major part of her powers is that she’s able to ‘Thoughtlock’, which basically brainwashes an enemy to fight for her.

That sounds like it would be insanely powerful in the hands of the Calypso twins, especially since Maya has gotten more powerful since bl2, and tbh I can’t see them wanting to pass it up. Of course it could also be story-breaking, but let’s say they can only have one person ever Thoughtlock-ed at a time and suddenly it’s a lot less troublesome.

so this scene makes me do a big thonk

(also, another reason im thinking this temple area is on Athenas is bc Maya’s there! plus there are triangles everywhere. Triangles… pyramids… iunno. just spitballing)

also idk if this is just cause she’s super teeny-tiny buuuut

im worried i can’t see maya’s tattoos

she’s also entirely focused on the player instead of… oh, idk, the giant rampager right next to her

and idk it looks almost like she’s holding a gun and aiming it at us?

which hey, i wouldn’t jump to conclusions right away because she does have a skill that allows her to heal allies by shooting them

but also… if she doesn’t have her siren powers, then that’d just be like… regular shooting, wouldn’t it? and if she DOES have her Siren powers, why in the hell is she not using them on the giant monster right next to her???

we see her again in the background of this shot

again… tattoos not 100% clear.

she also seems to be taking radiation damage from the rampager! which is good. but also she doesn’t seem to care that much about it.

we can also see her gun here

sorry it was kinda being obscured by the youtube progress bar

but uhhh it’s not looking good.

boy i really hope Maya doesn’t die

we also know it was hinted that Krieg might be making a return! from his voice actor’s twitter:

tho, he also soon made a tweet after that was all like “this doesn’t confirm nor deny that krieg is returning” which, yeah i get that.

either way, if Krieg is coming back, it’d be interesting to see what goes down with him, especially if Maya dies. or even if Maya’s ‘just’ in trouble, I could see him going absolutely apeshit.

maybe krieg will sacrifice himself to save maya, somehow. maybe he’s have a moment of pure lucidity and save her. maybe she’ll die and he’ll lose his mind and become a boss battle. maybe she’ll save him and they’ll live happily ever after ;w; who knows~

maybe ava will have heard about Krieg through Maya and will go to get him to try and help save her. that’d be really interesting to see- krieg smashing through a wall with Ava riding on his shoulder lol

anyway, holy shit im exhausted. i gotta wrap this up because it’s like 1am and i’ve been working on this post for like… 3 days straight now. ech.

if maya does die, it would be interesting to see is Ava inherits her powers after we kill the Calypsos. like, would the powers try to go back to their original host? would they see she’s dead and just find another Siren to give the powers to? i wonder if maya dying/being about to die would be enough of a traumatic experience for ava to unlock her siren powers.

ohh it’d be cool if Ava unlocked her siren powers and used them to save Maya from the cult/brainwashing/whatves

alright. im tired lmao

good night.

[asterlizard]

UK trip summer 2019

(Argh! I’m sorry for the delay! I meant to finish this back in June, but I haven’t had much time to finally get around to it)

I haven’t been to the UK in 3 years, and while the feelings were admittedly mixed, because it involved a lot of cleaning up and donations of my grandparents’ items, I did get to have a bit of fun and do some new things on this trip.

Our flight would leave in the middle of the day, but we still had to wake up early so that we could arrive at the airport, do airport security, and get to our boarding gate in plenty of time.

This started off by waking up at around 7:00 in order to meet a Lyft driver (for a first time rideshare, Uber failed to find someone for us) who would take us to a bus stop, which would take us directly to the airport.

As we were arriving at SFO, I could have sworn I saw some beehives in a patch of grass between the weaving roads. However, researching it doesn’t seem to bring up anything. Hmm...

I was looking forward to eating pizza at the selection of restaurants before the security checkout, but unfortunately it was closed, and all of the other restaurants seemed to have been replaced. So the only thing that appealed to me then was Chinese food. It was pretty tasty though.

The entertainment on the flight was a little different than what I’m used to (then again I haven’t flown in a few years). They had more limited music options, and the only decade available was the 80s. I could also zoom in anywhere on the map, which is a horrible distraction for someone like me :P Also, the food was pretty tasty, especially the mango sorbet, which was the definite winner for me :P

Cool view of Alcatraz just before we flew past it

I witnessed an airplane halo, also known as a ‘glory’!

Since we travelled light, we didn’t have to wait to collect our luggage afterwards. We also breezed through the passport check, since we’re British citizens.

I like this mirror effect, but the distortion made it extra cool

At this point, it was 7 in the morning, and we had to meet up with a family friend who lives in London, where we would stay at overnight before progressing to our destination. Along the way I saw some students using the Tube to get to school (it was a school day after all). This was kinda interesting as someone who grew up in America and never had to wear a school uniform.

We actually had to meet our friend by walking from the nearest Tube station to her house (which is fine, I don’t mind walking! Especially after a 9 hour flight). Not long after we met up, she showed me this little fox sleeping outside her window (I don’t think I’ve ever seen one in person before!) It likes to do this when the sun is out. Unfortunately for it, it was sleeping next to a couple of squawking magpies.

We then went on a short walk along the canal. There we saw a swan family and a coot family (and babies!!)

We would then head over to the British Museum. Our friend told us in advance that it would be hosting a manga exhibit, and we arrived the day after it debuted. Just before heading over, she brings up that the Rosetta Stone was also there. I didn’t anticipate this, because I thought it was held in a different museum. So I was getting more excited to see the Rosetta Stone over seeing the manga exhibit xD (I joked that I was about to meet my ‘rock star’)

It was about ￡20 to enter the exhibit, so only I went, while our friend and mum explored the rest of the museum. The exhibit started off with a ‘trip down the rabbit hole’, in reference to perhaps the most influential British work in Japanese media, Alice in Wonderland, and its appearances in manga over the years.

Then it showed the history of manga, manga influences, a brief manga how-to, and genres of manga. I saw some familiar works, like Astro Boy, DragonBall, Sailor Moon, a work from the creator of Akira, One Piece, Golden Kamui, Saint Young Men, etc. I also saw some works that I've never encountered that I'm interested in (a rugby manga, a wheelchair rugby manga coming soon, a murder mystery manga at the British museum, a manga about a saxophonist)

There were also some video exhibits, whether it's clips from anime next to their respective manga, creators/staff talking about their creative process, artists drawing their manga, or a series of clips from Ghibli films, but you weren't allowed to take pics of these.

At one point, I even saw an Attack on Titan cosplayer! (ready to take down the giant inflatable titan head I presume)

It’s difficult to read, but this is Morohoshi Daijiro, and it says that Hayao Miyazaki was strongly influenced by him. I’ll have to look at his stuff sometime.

I probably spent about two hours in there, longer than I expected. Admittedly I was tired, and my legs were getting sore, and a little over half an hour before I was done I needed a loo. I was feeling all sorts of physically gross at this point, and I had no idea how much of the exhibit I was actually absorbing even though I tried.

Before the end of the exhibit, I waited in line to get a photo taken, so the machine would add a comic-like gradient to it and insert it into a comic panel. Once I was done, I made a beeline to the nearest loo (for a split moment I panicked that they would be the ‘pay-to-use’ loos, and I didn’t have any money on me, as all of my stuff was with mum, thankfully it wasn’t).

After meeting back with mum and our friend, we headed back to our friend’s home, as I was feeling too exhausted to do anything else.

By the way, I did get to see the Rosetta Stone, but I would need to see it again when I’m not jet-lagged and there’s less people. By the way, I also learned that the figures on the pediment over the British Museum were created by my ancestor, so... y’know, there’s another reason to revisit the place.

I finally went to bed after some dinner, dessert, and a refreshing shower. I had been awake for about 32 hours!

The next day, mum and I stocked up on food (most of which I missed after a long time of not eating them. I still wish I could eat them more often!) and travelled by train to our destination.

The train also was different than what I’m used to. The livery is different, and instead of there being a ticket(?) on the top of an occupied seat, there was a red/green light above the window that indicated whether the seat was occupied or not.

At some point our passenger neighbours were cracking up and couldn’t stop laughing, which was contagious enough for me and a few other strangers to laugh. It was a great moment. When we arrived, we met up with my aunt, uncle, and cousin, and we had fish and chips and a good chat.

The day after we arrived, we already got started with clearing my grandparents’ house. At this point, I already made peace with the fact that we would need to sell the place (nobody in the family wanted it, plus it needed a lot of work done to it, which would have been pretty costly). Unfortunately, because they had a lot of things, we had to be a bit ruthless with what we had to get rid of, because we certainly couldn’t keep it all. I also let go of a few things I grew up with that I was willing to part with and donate. Still there were several items we were able to keep and bring home with us. Thankfully mum’s friends also would try and keep other things for us. It was still a bit of a heartbreaking process though.

I also finally (after a long time) had a 99! It feels good to walk into an ice cream shop and order one, and they'll know what you're talking about :P

Speaking of food, according to my friend, it’s apparently a crime that I haven’t been to a Gregg’s yet, so I tried some of their food, which were delicious! Unfortunately, they didn’t have an iced split, which my friend has, and is apparently really good. (I love international chats, because my friend can say something like 'try a 99 with monkey blood', and it will make no sense to non-Brits) Even the berries are tastier here! idk if it’s because we’re closer to berry farms, but they’re sweeter and juicier than the ones I get back in America.

Speaking of which, the shops in town are different than what I remember. Only a few places I visit regularly remained.

I also got to see a circus for the first time. Although the acts were amazing, my favourite part of the show, believe it or not, were the clown segments. They consisted of a father and 10-year son duo, and the antics were amusing (the duo trying to run and hug each other but missing and in the end hug ‘around’ each other instead, the father getting an audience member to throw a potato onto a carving fork held in his mouth and epically missing, the father getting some audience members to ride an invisible motorbike with him, etc) Unfortunately the show did have some strobe lights and animal segments (even if they weren’t hurting them, I still don’t see the appeal of watching wild animals doing unnatural things :/ )

One of the things that hadn’t changed was our local cobbler still being in business. Even before the trip, mum wanted to pay him a visit so that he could repair her shoes. He's one of the last relics of the old town, he's 78, and has worked for 57 years including 7 years as an apprentice. He was even one of mum’s first memories from when she was small! There’s something charming about a town shoe shop having several piles of stuff, topped with a huge pile of shoes and the smell of glue and shoe polish while a shoe repair motor runs in the background :)

The local bookshop owner also had a charming shop, with piles of books everywhere. And yes, it’s so small and narrow, only one person at a time can visit. We visited his place a few times to donate most of my grandparents’ books, as well as old items like maps and photographs. We can breathe a sigh of relief that they will be protected and given a new home.

Went for a 2.5 hour walk, first along the beach, then through a newer and more secluded area of town that I’ve never visited before (I ALMOST saw a robin, I’ve only seen the American robin in person)

At one point after shopping, I was holding a leek in my hand, and a lady passing by quipped to me, “I know we’re Welsh, but that’s a bit excessive” :P

Also, idk what made me think of it, but I imagined, instead of dog shows, there would be snail shows. It would last for hours, walking the snail would last for 10 minutes instead of 10 seconds, and the awards would be something like: 'Largest Snail', 'Fastest Snail', 'Hungriest Snail', 'Perkiest Snail', 'Longest Antennae'...

>:U

(I took quite a few panorama shots during this trip)

Unfortunately, a pathway I like to take was closed off

We visited some friends of ours, and some friends of ours visited us. My family and I also did a little burial ceremony for my grandparents (originally mum wanted to buy sweet pea flowers, as they were my grandmother’s favourite. I then ask if my grandfather had a favourite flower. Mum didn’t really know, but she did remember he would always buy my grandmother a rose because he loved her so much. So we bought a red rose as well (afterwards I learned from a friend that sweet pea flowers are a symbol of protection and goodbyes, which is INCREDIBLY SWEET BUT SAD 😭))

The next day we had miserable weather due to Storm Miguel. It was surprisingly the only bad day we had weather-wise. And yet, for some reason mum and I decided to eat out at an Indian restaurant (the food was pretty tasty)

During most of the trip, my family have been fervently trying to research who the people in my grandparents’ paintings were and how they were connected to my family. The only thing I got out of it so far is that my family might be more Scottish that I thought!

Went shopping in Carmarthen (and crossed a bridge next to some sheep, close enough to hear them), but I had to make a train that arrived half an hour after I woke up! Ate at Pizza Express (the food was tasty, but the strawberry still lemonade was PERFECT) Unfortunately we had to cut our shopping time short, because our earliest trains to catch were at around 14:30 and 17:30, and we would rather get back home as soon as possible. We were able to get most of what we wanted though.

One day while I was hanging out with my younger cousin (we chatted a lot during the trip, he does Irish dancing, and he taught me the difference between the different dances), he introduced a couple of fun games that the family got to play: Camping, and Spoons

Camping: Preferably played with 3 or more people It's a rotation game in which the rest of the group has to figure out what the leader's pattern is Starting with the leader, each person says 'I'm gonna go camping, and I'm gonna bring...' and then a noun. When the leader says their phrase and noun, they have an unspoken pattern they decided to follow, whether it's a bit of subtle body language they make while saying it, or if it has to do with the nouns themselves. The next person then says the phrase and a noun in hopes that they will follow the pattern. If they do, the leader will respond to their phrase, 'you can come', otherwise 'you can't come'. After the pattern is revealed, the next person becomes the leader, and the cycle continues. Players are allowed to guess the pattern depending on how many people got it (eg: you are allowed to ask for hints if stumped, and if everybody gets it, the pattern can be revealed) In hard mode, if your attempt is part of the pattern, regardless of whether you know the pattern or not, you have to sit out the rest of the game. (examples of patterns: saying whatever while having both feet on the floor and hands on lap, dog breeds, alphabetical succession between players (eg: 'hedgehog', 'iodine', 'Jamaica'...), the nouns have to begin with the same letter as your eye colour (lol I never got this one because I don't regularly make eye contact with people), the noun has to begin with the same letter as the cardinal direction you're facing, the noun has to begin with the same letter as the colour shirt the player after you is wearing)

Spoons: Preferably played with 3-13 people It's a game of speed, similar to musical chairs There are n-1 spoons in the middle of the table for n number of players and n number of ranks One player becomes the leader, in which they shuffle the cards and deal four per player. When the leader says 'go', every player including the leader removes a card and places it for the person to their left to grab, while each player must always end up with four cards per 'go' (when saying 'go', the key is that there shouldn't be much time for thinking, the game must move quickly, but there should be about a second or two to organize your cards if needs be, so roughly every 3-5 seconds per 'go') If a player has four of one rank, they must grab a spoon, and all of the other players must grab a remaining spoon as quickly as possible, in the hopes that they won't be the last player without a spoon A player that ends up without a spoon loses a life, and after three lives are up, they're out of the game. With this, a spoon and a group of four of a rank also sit out of the game When it's down to two players, one of the players sitting out must shuffle the remaining deck, so that the two remaining players don't know what kind of deck to expect, and say 'go'

Went for a lovely walk near the beach

Tiny friends!

Ah yes, this bed of rocks looks comfortable to sit on...

I also got to finally try a 99 with monkey blood, though the syrup isn’t called monkey blood where I’m from apparently. Mum and I also tried to feed the sparrows, but larger birds were lurking and wanted to sabotage the efforts.

After some final decisions on what to bring and what to keep, mum and I left the house for what might have been the last time. We will miss it though. I did take some videos of the place not long before we arrived, as a kind of snapshot of the place, not only for memory, but for a potential reference in one of my stories.

At the airport, I got a pat down for the first time in my life because I had worn the wrong trousers that had more metallic fixings on them >:[

During the flight, I chose a better selection of films on the plane:

旅猫リポート: Cute but kinda sad film about the life of the man who adopted a cat and why he has to give it away to someone he can trust.

Christopher Robin: Very charming film, and the British wildlife scenery was depicted beautifully

Wonder Woman: Well-written film

(I’m curious to know where this is near London)

Overall, this trip was different than what I’m used to, not just because it was less of a family visit, but rather a lot of aspects of what I’m used to have changed a lot over the years. I’m hoping, even if I never live in that house anymore, that I can still pay the town a visit somehow in the future, as it’s still a dear place to me that I had grown up with all my life.

[jackednephi]

@starseedjenny you have observed my tags and for this you get an infodump

So Dylan (my husband) took levels in carpentry. He's no master carpenter but he can make furniture. His absolute favorite thing to do is to get gnarly tree roots or branches and carve them into odd length walking sticks and then sell them at the local wood shop. It's easier to use a stick instead of a cane (my back hurts a LOT from using my cane but never with a stick) and different people are different heights. Plus, something people don't think about is there are incredibly short people or even children. So why not have something beautiful and sturdy?

What he does is he carefully exposes what it is about the piece of wood that is unique. Are the different bark layers different colors? He'll strip the bark carefully to have a gradient flowing up the stick until the heart of the wood, its true color as it were, is exposed. Did it have a lot of branches? Find a way to show off the cool knots. Basically, he works with what he has to let the thing speak for itself. Less actual carving like swirls or whatever and more revealing what it is that makes that stick special. Takes less technical carving skill but a good eye for natural beauty. My uncle carved my grandmother her cane before he passed and while it's a beautiful piece, it is definitely carved if that makes sense

Anyway, as you know I love arting and crafting and making pretty things with my hands. Because of church, I know how to embroider, quilt, scrapbook, make pretty much anything you could ever want from cloth from actual clothes to scripture holders, and all the usual home stuff afab people get taught in YWs. I know how to knit (with a loom), make paper art, draw traditionally, paint traditionally (and know how to stretch my own canvas), create beautiful digital art, create rough architecture blueprints that are less rough with minecraft now, stain wood, cook, make rugs, and basically if there is a craft out there I don't know, I learn very quickly as I'm great with my hands and my hand-eye coordination is fantastic. Thank you 15 years of piano lessons

Dylan, knowing this, encouraged me to take up wood burning. Painting is difficult as I don't have an easel and unless I find a comfy recliner or wheelchair stat, I can't feasibly paint anytime soon. Due to disability (and lack of materials) there are a great number of hobbies I can no longer engage in as there I'd nothing but pain and frustration. I was a little intimidated, I'll admit, because I had no idea what a wood burning tool looked like and how would I work it anyway? From my time around big saws and other wood working machinery, I wondered if it would be something unwieldy and dangerous

Plus, let's be honest. I have a very hard time justifying spending money on myself if it's more than $5 at a time

He'd been goading me into it since November. He'd basically finished up my stick except for staining and he knew I'd want to burn it. But I hemmed and hawed. Finally, we had a pretty decent paycheck with loads of money leftover and he talked me into it. Even got that nice flat piece to get me started before taking the tips to my stick

It has been a genuine blast and a complete delight. It's like a very hot, very fat pencil and he saw right away I was going to need gloves or I'd burn myself and have loads of scars all over my fingers and hands. I'm glad he did because it hasn't been a day and already my gloves have marks on them. He got real expensive deerskin so they'd be able to move with my fingers and give me more mobility than anything else. They were expensive too and wouldn't hear any complaints I had about money. He wasn't going to have me melting my flesh or unable to do delicate work like I like

What I've been doing is outlining the thin layers of bark he left. He noticed that while the outermost layers were ugly, the innermost were interesting. You can see the grain in a way you can't with the lighter wood and you have a cool looking shade that's a nice contrast to that lighter heart. I've been going over them with the round tip (really good for drawing and writing as it's super smooth) and doing those hair thin lines with the point tip. It feels very similar to drawing a fantasy map all over my stick

I'm about 1/3 of the way up my stick though definitely not 1/3 of the way finished. I lose hours at a time bent over and carefully burning. I found out I can take the tips off hot and put them in a ceramic dish to minimize cool off and maximize time spent working. Which is critical for me as I can't spend more than about three hours tops bent over burning

It's so fun because it's like line art but it's on a piece of wood so it feels like I'm doing something new. It's very methodical and cathartic and I lose so much time focusing on doing this. It keeps me calm and downright happy! Which is EXCELLENT because it means I'm combatting seasonal depression in a very big way. I've already agreed to do this with all of his pieces to enhance what he's already carved. Eventually I'll probably Do Things like Actual Wood Art but for now I'm happy with this

We already have some projects planned too by the way!!! He loves making furniture and he can build better stuff for cheaper than buying it from a furniture store. So he's going to build a lift top coffee table and a dresser for sure that I'll burn. The first piece I want us to do, I'll burn the wood BEFORE he cuts it and see how that turns out. It'll be a little box (probably to hold bunny stuff) but I want to see if that does something unique or if it just is bad. If it's not something we like, hey I didn't waste weeks or months on something huge that ended up looking bad

We're probably going to make all the tables and dressers that go in our home. Maybe an entertainment center. I know we'll make my sister stuff just on the condition she pays for materials and getting it into her place. We'll probably make stuff for people who want it and I KNOW he's willing to take commissions. Closest family (parents, my sister, etc) will only have to pay for materials/shipping. Friends and other family will probably pay that and a little extra because friends and family discount. Everyone else is gonna have to pay retail value on top of materials and shipping because they'd get a unique piece you can't find anywhere else and it'd be worth it y'know?

But that's like way off sometime eventually probably

For now, I LOVE this new hobby. I can't wait to see what my stick is going to look like finished! I'm going to burn "support" on the bottom in kanji before the no slip grip goes on. Not really for any particular reason so much as like. Sentimental? I guess? Kind of like I'm burning a prayer for it to be sturdy and useful and good into it. I tried carving my wife's kanji on it (the first kanji of his middle name means dragon) but it didn't work out well so I'm gonna burn it onto the top and that'll be its name. Again, sentiment. There is also power in naming things and like. Just in case?

It has been such a very long time since I've been able to make something with my hands that I had the materials for and I'm just absolutely pink over it. I really super want people to see this stick and want some useful beauty for themselves that I can give. I love giving and making and seeing people smile over stuff I've made. It's been such a long time since something I've done has made someone smile and I just really want to bring that back y'know?

Anyway thank you for letting me gush. I just super love this and like yeah it's the butchest hobby like ever (according to Phoebe who has the most femme hobby ever of macrame) but it really fits me. It sparks joy in a way I haven't felt in a very very long time and I can't wait to see all the things I can do

[iu]

oh okay i'll send my ask again!! so this might make me sound rly dumb but basically i was looking through ur ps help tag and i kept seeing people asking for the psd you use and i was wondering what that means exactly?? like i know psd is the file extension for photoshop files but what exactly does it mean when you use a psd for gifmaking?? i hope that wasn't worded too confusingly jfkljsld

yay okay so!!! (if you view this on desktop i think my theme cuts off the large pics so i recommend checking this post out on mobile haha)

idk how proficient you are already so i tried to be as descriptive as possible + a lot of visual aid!

the first step of giffing is importing a scene from a video, resizing it to tumblrs format and setting it’s timing right? (if u need help with any of these too hmu im always glad to help u can even do it off anon in pms) 

but the thing is that even though the video itself might look good and have nice color grading etc, in gif form it looks kinda boring and bland.. 

maybe it doesnt Look like that but since ppl edit their gifs so much on here it’s now considered bad taste to gif without any PSDS on top. so it has become a custom in the gifmaker community to add a lot of Adjustment Layers to the gif, which in total are called a PSD. 

so you click this button

and it gives u a list of various things you can do to change the look of a gif. The most simple to understand is i guess Brightness/Contrast, where moving the handles adjusts the brightness and contrast of the gif:

so for my first step i slightly raised the brightness and lowered the contrast (it doesnt mean you always have to do that it’s just whatever the gif is, or the look you want to go for!)

and this is the result

Hmm.. Now let’s say that i feel like i want the purples in this gif to me muuuuuch more vibrant, so i make a layer of Vibrance and raise it a bit to make the colors pop more

and maybe raise the saturation just a liiiiiitle bit

I still feel like it doesnt look cool enough.. Like i dont want a subtle soft purple from the original i want it PURPLE with a capital P and capital every other letter lol. There’s a bunch of fun ways to get that effect that you’ll get after playing around with those Adjustment Layers. 

I went into Hue/Saturation aka my fav tab, and made the settings for Blue and Magenta just a bit to the right of the spectrum and more saturated (it might not seem like a big diff but those little changes pile up to give the gif a distinct look)

then i went to color balance and changed it towards slightly more red and magenta

this is all the work we have done so far, it’s pretty visible already i would say

Now what i showed so far is i guess the more like bare simple ways of color manipulating ur gif. It’s nothing crazy but it already gives it a distinct and more pleasant look!

There’s so many of them that tbh there is no One tutorial, it’s just about experimenting with each of these options and seeing what kind of results you get! Because there’s sooo many possibilities in adjustment layers that i haven’t even started describing the tip of the iceberg. some examples:

I made a Solid Color layer in a darker purple shade ur seeing in the little box, set its Blending Mode (the lil box next to opacity) to Luminosity and changed the Opacity to a lower one bc it looks crazy on 100%, and achieved this nice toned down effect to the gif if you’re going for this kinda look! i also like it cos it returns some color to her skin shade

another cool feature with like .. endless possibilities is the Gradient Map. With this one you also gotta use Blending Modes and lowering the opacity of that layer so that your gif doesnt end up looking crazy... ooh also play around with Photo Filters, those are really easy to grasp and have already st presets that can make the photo colder/warmer/etc!

after playing around some more this is my final result lol...

before

after

(i also sharpened the final gif)

So if you take all these adjustment layers and group them in a folder, it’s called a PSD! A lot of people share their psds online as do I! Not every psd works for every video, but some might be more universal than others, and you might just have to tweak it a little bit to look nicer! So to use someone else’s PSD on your gif you just open them in Ps side by side and drag the folder with the PSD on top of your gif!

[flakandforay]

Epiphany 結 Theory

overall: so finally, the last intro of the Love Yourself series. will we finally have the answers that we are looking for? 

⇝ theory masterlist 

listen to Epiphany 結

theory: so it has been noted already that Seokjin would be the one doing this intro considering that the other vocal line members have already done theirs with the most recent one being Taehyung’s Singularity.

bighit then decides to drop Epiphany on 9 August with a video that’s 4:22 long. in all honesty, i actually thought we would have the full song but of course, knowing bighit would mean that there’s an underlying story with it too ( since Lumpens is the one directing this again ).

looking at the video, it’s actually pretty simple in terms that only 2 sets are used, mainly the small house/apartment fitted with a living room, a small closet, a bathroom, windows and a door and also the scene where Seokjin leaves the house only to be drenched in the rain.

but moving on, the colour scheme here is very neutral, mostly fixed with monochrome and the blue-yellow gradient. one would say this is kinda similar to the video of Serendipity and Euphoria; even certain scenes from Singularity, Intro: HYYH if you observe closely. ( read my whole yellow colour theme theory which was from the Euphoria era )

Intro: 花樣年華 

Serendipity

Euphoria 

Singularity 

Fake Love

Epiphany

also, one would be able to see that the latest HYYH: the Notes, they are also in the blue-yellow colour scheme. 

yet, towards the ending, the last scene caught me off guard and emotional. because it was none other than the HYYH: the Prologue scene - the scene of all 7 of them by the sea at the beach. 

moving on, notice how often the scenes in Epiphany are in monochrome but then at 0:57, Seokjin reads a book - could it possibly be the notebook that he picked up based from the notes? 

also, notice the calla lilies which are someone similar to those in the highlight reel. 

moving on, i realised that in some of the scenes, it shows there are 2 Seokjins etc, maybe because the other one existed since he failed to correct his mistakes as based on the HYYH: the Notes ( 180807 ). 

Seokjin 3 August YEAR 22

I entered the storage classroom after opening the door of it. In the middle of one summer night, the yet to be hot air was mixed with mold and dust. In a moment, many scenes flashed across my mind. The shining heels of the principal’s, Namjoon’s expression as he stood outside, the last day that I turned around leaving Hoseok and went home alone. Suddenly, my head hurts and I had chills. A complicated emotion came over to me like pain, one that could be of annoyance and one that could be of fear. The obvious signal could be felt with my whole body, my whole heart. I had to get out of here.

Taehyung grabbed my arm, after reading my expression. “Hyung, try a little bit more. Just try to remember what happened here.” I shook off Taehyung’s hand and went in. With the heat wave, it has been a few hours that has passed. I was exhausted. The others looked at me with expressions that explained that they didn’t know what to say. Memory. The memory of when Taehyung spoke was meaningless to me. Maybe, that was what I did, maybe I could have done that, our story when we were together. That could have happened. That was what I hoped would have happened. Yet, this wasn’t the convicted memory. This wasn’t the experienced that I grasped. It has to be something that takes root deep down in your heart, your head and deep down in your soul. But at the place that I was at, everywhere was a bad memory. I was in pain, I wanted to run away.

A quarrel arose between me wanting to leave and Taehyung blocking my path. But we were both tired. Our attempts to hit or dodge or push felt tiring and heavy, much like a warm, viscous liquid. In a flash, Taehyung and my feet were tangled. I thought I had hit the wall, in the next moment, I staggered and was not thinking straight.

At first, there was no way I would have known what happened. Because of the thick dust, I had to close my eyes and I had a hard time breathing. Since I couldn’t breathe properly, I coughed a lot. “Are you okay?” Someone asked as I realized that I was on the floor. As I got up, I realized that what I saw as a wall was crumnling down. Beyond the wall, there was a wide space. For a short while, there was no movement. “Oh my god. How much time have we spent in this place?” Someone said. No one would have imagined that there was such a place beyond this wall. However, what is that over there? As the dust begun to settle down, my eyes grazed across a cabinet that was standing in the middle of the wide space.

Namjoon opened the door of the cabinet. I took a step closer. Inside, there was a notebook placed inside. Namjoon picked it up and turned the first page of it. In that moment, everyone stopped breathing. It was obvious that the notebook had been left behind for such a long time, yet on the first page was a name that I couldn’t even imagine. It was my father’s name. I snatched the book as Namjoon tried to turn another page. Though he was shocked, I couldn’t care. I went to the desk. I turned the pages of the notebook carefully as though they would crumble.

It was a diary of my father who handwrote everyday what he did experienced together with his friends when he was a high school student. There were stories everyday. Sometimes it skipped a month, other pages were unreadable because of the bloodstains. But still I knew that he went through the same things that I did. He made mistakes and blunders just like me, and kept on running and running to make up for them.

My father’s notebook recorded his own mistakes. In the end, he gave up and failed. He had forgotten, turned away and avoided them. He threw away his friends. On the last page of the notebook, there was nothing but black ink stains. The stains had bled through the pages. The next page and on the next page, the next page until the last page, those pages showed my father’s failures.

Many hours have passed and every angle was hazy. At the window with the cool breeze, I could see the darkest time of the day, the time before the sun rises. Namjoon and the other younger ones were asleep at where they sat down. I lifted my head and looked at the wall. This was where my father had personally written his name on. On top, there was a sentence written there. “This is where everything has started.”

The moment I closed the notebook, I felt as though something was starting from my fingertips all the way to arm. I saw faint letters appearing on the smeared ink stains. From behind the window, I could feel an ominous energy. It seemed that the sun would rise soon. Yet, it wasn’t the end of the night. It was the time where it’s not night and it’s not yet dawn. It was like a hint of darkness yet of a grayish light, letters appeared between the black lines.

The notebook held more memories than recorded. Above the letters, between the margins and the empty spaces were those memories that my father wanted to forget, things he didn’t want to remember but were left behind. The indentations of writing once the colour faded remained started to whirl underneath my fingertips were his struggles and fears, despair that he couldn’t overcome and his weak hopes. My father’s wounded soul remains here, right in this note.

As I closed the notebook, tears streamed down my eyes. I sat down there for a while and turned my head to my sleeping friends. One by one, I threw them away. Anyway, I don’t know when we would even return here. Here is our beginnings, I knew that when we are together, it is meaningful and when are together, we can smile happily, My first mistake, one that I never acknowledged by my mouth would remain as an open wound.

I thought that this isn’t just a coincidence. In the end, maybe I had to come to this place. And so, in the meantime, only then would I be able to find the meaning behind my mistakes, the pain and anxiety that we suffered as a result. For the first time, I was able to take a first step to find the map of my soul.

so it’s as if he is trying again and again to correct his mistakes. 

only did the colours begin to seep in to a light grey blue similar to that of Serendipity.

when Seokjin seems to be getting ready to step out, as if to say as if he is getting ready to fix his mistakes and overcome his blunders. 

here from 1:15 onwards to the time he steps out of the house, he is doing meagre things, like getting ready etc. 

but look how as when he stepped out of the house, he is drenched from head to toe, but there is the scene of like some sort of reversal rain, just like Jimin’s one in Lie. 

also, it’s as if Seokjin is doing all of the boys’ actions in this Epiphany video.

Seokjin staring in front of the mirror just like Hoseok ( from I Need U ) and Namjoon ( from Fake Love and in Reflection ). 

this could be seen with HYYH: Notes ( O Version Her )

Hoseok 25 February YEAR 21

I danced without taking my eyes off my reflection in the mirror. The me in the mirror had his feet off the ground, lifted up and was free from the standards and looks of the world. My body moved in sync with the music, there was nothing important, nothing that made my heart beat in my chest.

The first time that I danced was when I was 12. It must have been a talent show incident. My friends were pulled onto stage. I could still remember that day when I heard the applause and cheers of joy, I have never felt so confident. Then again, that was when I moved my body to the music and had fun doing it. I would only learn much later that the joy was not a joy that came from the applause but from within me.

The me outside the mirror is weighed down by many things. The feet that have leave the ground for a seconds, when I hate, I laugh and when I cry, I smile. There was no need for me to take my medicine since I could collapse anywhere. And so, when I dance, I try not to take my eyes off the mirror. The moment I can be my truest self. The moment where I could throw away everything and I could fly, the moment where I believe I could be happy. I protect these moments.

Seokjin crouching down and cradling himself at the corner just like Taehyung. ( from Stigma ) 

Seokjin wiping his face just like Yoongi. ( from First Love VCR ) 

see how it matches with these HYYH notes, O version ( Tear )

Yoongi 19 September YEAR 16 

The fire burned crimson red. The house that I had been living since this morning was engulfed in flames. The people I knew were running and screaming. The people in the neighbourhood walked with quick steps. I couldn’t hear the entrance of the fire truck into the road. I just stopped and stood there dumbfounded.  

It was the end of summer. Autumn was about to start. The sky was blue and the air was dry. I couldn’t even think, feel or do. Yet, I could only reflect back to  “ah, Mom”. The next moment, the house collapsed with a loud sound. It was engulfed in flames – no, the house that became the flames, the roof, the piallrs and even my room crumbled like a house of sand. I stood there watching it dumbfoundedly.  

Someone pushed past me. I could hear the fire truck. Another person grabbed me and asked me what happened. He even looked me in the eyes while asking yet I couldn’t hear anything.  “Who is inside?” I looked at the person confused. “Is your mom inside?” The person shook my shoulders. I didn’t know what to answer. “No, there isn’t anyone inside.”  

“What do you mean?”, the neighbourhood old lady said. “Your mother? Where did she go?” “There isn’t anyone.” Even I didn’t know what I was saying. Someone pushed past me again.  

Seokjin in the rain; drenched from head to toe and reversal rain just like Jimin. ( from Lie ) 

it coincides with the HYYH notes ( O Version; Tear )

Jimin  6 April YEAR 11 

I stood alone at the flower arboretum. Though the weather was bit cold, I felt great. My mother and father were busy on picnic day. At first, I was a disappointed. But at the flower drawing contest, I was praised by my friend’s mother who said “Wow, Jimin is so mature.” From then on, I started to feel that I was cool.  

“Jimin-ah, wait here. Teacher will come soon. When the picnic day ended, my teacher asked me this but I didn’t wait. I walked with confidence alone. With both hands, I held onto the straps of my backpack and walked with dignity. It seemed as though others were looking at me, and so I spread my shoulders wider. Rain began to pour then. My friends and their mothers left, no one was looking for me and my legs began to hurt. I covered my head with the backpack and crouched underneath a tree. The rain began to pour even more, yet no one was passing by. Eventually, I started to run in the rain. I couldn’t see any houses or stores. In the end, I ended up at the back gate of the flower arboretum. The side door was open and I could see a storage room of some sort through it. 

Seokjin in the domesticated setting of an apartment/room just like Jungkook and the rain inside. ( from Begin )

interesting how it’s combining with most of the boys’ short films. not to mention how they coincide with the HYYH: the Notes. 

Seokjin is also seen to have closed the curtains instead of opening them. see, throughout the series, it has been a usual scene to have Seokjin opening curtains yet not so much of closing them. 

Seokjin opens the curtains: I Need U, Awake, Euphoria

Seokjin draws the curtains: Fake Love ( Ext ), Epiphany 

yet interesting, i found out this meaning. 

draw the curtain on = To cease doing something; to bring something to an end. ( Reference ) 

so every time Seokjin draws the curtains, he wishes to stop doing it; possibly stopping himself from correcting his mistakes and maybe in the end, become a failure like his father. 

but also, i found about this. 

open the curtain = realising or ‘seeing’ something previously hidden, secret or unrealised. It can also mean removing barriers or limiting factors in yourself.

draw the curtain = night, privacy or blindness to something. While drawing a curtain can, as in the theatre, suggest the end of something, privacy or drawing a veil of secrecy or forgetfulness over something.

( Reference )

or 

To dream of shutting the curtains represents you attempt to conceal something or keep a secret. Your repression of ideas or information. You are concealing some personal matter or something about yourself. To dream that you are opening the curtains, represents your readiness to reveal something hidden about yourself. Revealing the truth or a secret. No longer feeling the need to repress ideas or information.

( Reference )

so i guess when Seokjin opens the curtains, he is ready to reveal his secret but when he closes it, he chooses to repress it. the same secret that is brought up at the end of Euphoria when the screen showed “Hyung, is that everything? Isn’t there anything else that you’re hiding?”

but anyway, notice how before every time Seokjin goes out of the house/apartment, he changes what he does slightly, instead of picking up the book and reading it in the earlier scenes but by 3:29 instead, he closed the windows before standing up to change clothes etc. and also towards the end of the video at 3:57 - before Seokjin leaves the place, he brings the book out.

i have a feeling that the book is Seokjin’s father’s notebook; possibly the same one from the highlight reel in which the girl dropped it here. 

this would then bring us back to the whole theory of going back into time for Seokjin to correct his mistakes. 

yet, towards the end, there are some lines on the screen. 

based on @/doolsetbangtan translations on Twitter:

나 자신을 찾는 여정의 끝에 다다른 건 다시 제자리 결국 찾아야 하는 것은 모든 것의 시작이자 이정표인 영혼의 지도 누구에게나 있지만 아무나 찾을 수 없는 그것을, 나는 지금부터 찾아보려 한다 

=

At the end of the journey to find myself, I reach the initial spot. What I really need to find is the map of my soul that is the beginning of everything, the signpost. The thing anyone possesses but not anyone can find - I will try to find it from now

here, Seokjin wishes to find himself actually; so that he would love himself. maybe all those times he goes back to correct his mistakes and saving the boys, he also wants to save himself; he wants to find himself.

yet, notice how the colour changes when the boys are together. yet it is monochrome when Seokjin is alone. as if to say that when they are together, the boys bring colour in his life. 

also, note how that the screen kinda glitched when the boys are together, which you can refer to my previous theory ( Wonder: Euphoria ) about the glitching; as if from Seokjin’s camcorder. 

perhaps only when he found himself, could he let the boys into his life. 

[Photo Source] Bighit Entertainment  Credits: maxine ☕️ DO NOT REPOST ©

[chloeokeeffefmptrendsyr1]

New edit for my magazine

Loosely inspired from this Harry Style’s ‘Fine Line’ poster, I really wanted to use more of the images I took on Tuesday. I saw this on Pinterest earlier when I was browsing for more edit ideas. I really like the texture that’s used, it’s similar to the plastic texture I used in one of my album cover edits. I also really like the use of liquify on the Harry Styles edit. In my edit I think I’ll use a shade of purple as the main colour, not green like the edit below, to help fit my magazine a bit better. 

When looking at this edit, I immediately thought of a random sentence. “She’s beautiful, isn’t she?” I feel like it kind of keeps to the theme of the devil/demon girl. A lot like how angels are seen as the irresistibly charming and how devils are seen as menacing and odious. So I imagine the demon girl asking the question to the reader almost. It’s a really weird way of describing it but my imagination is very broad. 

First dragged and dropped my chosen image into photoshop before cutting it out with the polygonal lasso tool. Before cutting and pasting it to a new canvas, I added the black plastic texture as the background to mimic the inspiration edit. After placing the cut out at the bottom of canvas, I wanted to explore the gradient map which is something I discovered on photoshop in the previous project I did. The gradient map tool creates a new adjustment layer which chooses a new color for each pixel of a certain value. The darkest areas of your gradient replace the shadows and below of your image, the middle replaces your general exposure, and the end replaces your highlights.

The gradient map has loads of different colours to choose from, ranging from purple and red to iridescent and pastel. When using this tool, I usually use the greens, blues or purples. I really liked these three colours below. I love the contrast with the dark and light of each colour. Both the purples are fairly similar and considering my colour palette, I think I’ll go for the second purple as it’s definitely the darkest out of the two. The green is a really nice shade but I want to stick to a slightly darker green within my magazine. 

Like the image that inspired this edit, I want to use the liquify tool but not as excessively, just subtly because I think liquifying too much will ruin it. In the original image the model’s eyes are slightly shut, so the face area seems like the best place to liquify. I tried liquifying it a few times and it didn’t look right. Something about it just looked really weird to me then I had the idea of making the eyes look like they’re streaming with tears. So the image/edit has the contrast of the “She’s beautiful, isn’t she?” question, with her crying. I really like the mix of wanting validation (kind of) because of being a demon then her “crying”. 

I finished liquifying the image, I thought the background look a bit bare even with the text that I placed at the top of the canvas. I went onto Dafont.com as I knew it had some logos/little characters in the horror theme. I downloaded a few that had some skull and crossbones or snakes/bats/spiders. I used the eye dropper tool so I could make the characters that I want on my background the same colour as my model cut out. I tried a few different characters out against the textured background and the spider from the Mephisto Dingbats that looks really cool. For some reason it actually reminds me of Marvel’s Spider-man. 

I decided I wanted loads of different spiders all over the background so I had to duplicate the single layer a few times to make a line that fit all the way down the canvas, then I merged all those spider layers together. I duplicated that layer a few times so I can place them across the canvas, I turned every other layer but the textured background off so I could line everything up better. Halfway through completing all the spider infested background, I thought it would look cool if one line was placed normally, with the spider facing up, then flip the next line, so the spiders on that line are facing down. I think the idea is really good but I’ve definitely made the whole editing process harder and longer for myself, but I think the edit will look amazing. 

[hellotechsgeeksfan]

Apple Watch Series 4 | Review-Its all About Time

Hey what is up guys I'm Charles here and I've always carried an iPhone with me as you guys already know but I've never been much of a watch person like I've gone on and off with a bunch of different smartwatches over the years that I've tried the original Moto 360 previous generations of Apple watch even the new Samsung Galaxy Watch that just came out but always on and off with them, I've never been consistent with it this one looks like it might be changing that this is debatably the best thing Apple announced at that latest event the biggest upgrade for sure and while I was there I spent all my time with the phones but now I've gone to spend a lot of time with the watches over the past couple days and I gonna say it's about time we got something like this so series 4 is the first real redesign of the Apple Watch and it's massively better in a lot of ways more powerful more modern more functional and just more fun it comes in two new sizes the previous small 38 millimeters has turned into a 40 mil and the large 42 millimeters has turned into a 44 mil so I'm rocking the new larger one in Space Gray aluminum and it's low-key way nicer than the series 3 now naturally when you hear it's bigger you'd be concerned about the watch is too big on your wrist but basically.

The actual size of the watch itself is nearly the same as a couple fractions of a millimeter taller and a bit wider but on the wrist, you don't notice it's like if you like the old size you'll like the new size but thanks to the bezels shrinking so much you get a way bigger screen a 30% bigger screen area in the same size body no not needed that is HUGE every SmartWatch deals with bezels in some way and this is a great way to do it it also does have rounded corners which I'm not as big of a fan of but it matches the shape of the watch now and overall it's a less bulky thinner more modern looking piece it's a bit thinner in that sensor area on the back too and all the changes put together to make every previous Apple watch look terrible in comparison to this is. 

The first Apple watch that to me actually looks pretty sleek there are some other minor cosmetic changes - this is the LTE connected watch and that huge red of paint from the last-gen has turned into a more subtle red ring the sensor array on the back even they don't necessarily look at it that much is now ceramic and looks way better the mic has moved from one side to the other so it's further from the speaker that's functionally better and the speaker is now made way bigger but overall it's still, familiar Apple watch shape and the bands from the previous year's are all still compatible with this new one and using the watch software is now the same but better meaning it's now watching OS 5 which all Apple watches are getting now and functionally it's the same it doesn't do anything differently it's still the bubbly app launcher all that stuff hasn't changed but it's now better so it's on this larger display already and then they've made all the buttons bigger and easier to press and all the fonts and texts larger and easier to read so it just makes the working surface area of the watch so much bigger on your wrist to the point where it's actually not a horrible thing to pull out Maps or open photos up.

On the watch, you can actually kind of see stuff now if someone sends you a link an iMessage and you open it on the watch you might not hate trying to read it and Apple showing off these huge new displays the best way they can with some new watch faces that happen to look super good on an OLED display of course with these inky blacks but there's a lot of that by design there's the infographic watch face they've seen like in the ads and all this new promo material it has a ton of complications in all four corners and then four more in the middle plus an hour and a minute hand and it's just a ton of information I happen to like it a lot it's the one I've been using some people absolutely hate it it's like a crime against design by the amount of colors people see it's kind of meant to emulate those super high-end watches with tons of visible mechanical parts but a sort of a more digital and the more colorful version I got the temperature in one corner my battery and another the UV index outside I don't check that or care about that and my activity rings I don't know it just kind of looks cool I like it I don't know why you can definitely tone it down them and there's also now a new infographic the modular face that's a more digital version that still has a lot of complications with a similar gradient color style teach their own there's also a new vapor watch face and a fire watch face and a water one and these were all made this is the part that the video nerd in me absolutely loves these were all made using practical effects and recorded with an actual camera so they actually made a giant Apple watch sized bin of metal with a camera over it and filled it with fire and recorded it fun fact and probably. 

The most gratuitous Apple thing ever I love it so the bigger screen and the new design I'd say those are the main draw the biggest reasons to get this new watch but I'd say there are two other reasons one the new specs it's a bit faster which helps the s4 chip helps swiping through the UI which you don't do nearly as often as you do on your phone but it used to be painful on the watch so I'm grateful that they focused on they can it smooth now switching between watch faces adjusting complications scrolling launching apps all that and launching Siri is actually noticeably faster and getting responses from her is snappy there's also now just raised to talk so you can raise the watch up and immediately just start talking and it'll quickly hopefully answer your question if you're asking one so how tall is the Empire State Building when it doesn't work though it kind of just looks like you check the time and then just started blurting out words which are probably not the best look so I definitely still prefer like holding down the watch crown and holding and talking and letting go even though it takes an extra hand and an extra second so how many feet is a hundred meters.

It's fast you could probably also just hear then the speaker is actually a lot louder the big slot on the side I'd say it's significant so if you're one of those people that makes a lot of phone calls on the watch or like get a lot of responses from Syria or just talking to it a lot or even does walkie-talkies then that that louder speaker will matter which brings us to your final reason you might want to get this watch and that's just the sprinkling of new features Apple tossed in here and they're like the new walkie-talkie mode is maybe the most gimmicky thing ever but in case you want to talk to people on your watch but don't want to call them there is a walkie-talkie mode that you can enable that lets you push the talk over and with that throwback to Nextel and the 90s I think that falls in the bucket of old people are gonna love these features alongside fall detection and EKGs all detection is exactly what it sounds like so it is after all an accelerometer and a gyroscope on your wrist so Apple tuned this and studied a lot of people falling and with that if you take a hard fall and then don't move for a while, it will automatically call emergency services and notify your emergency contact which is actually pretty smart and I'd say an Apple watch for someone is way cooler than the pendant of Shame you normally see for fall detection.

But also construction workers and painters and many other people who work at Heights will love this too of course an EKG feature is actually extremely impressive it's not enabled yet but when it is you'll be able to just hold down the watch crown and it will connect the circuit and the watch can accurately read your heart and produce an EKG that you can then export as a PDF and send directly to your doctor and it will detect things like irregular heart rhythm a fib this is a feature that when it's available could legitimately save lives so the new Apple watch has a lot of things going for it but it's not all great there's definitely it's still very Apple in a couple frustrating ways meaning there are some things that they could definitely do with it that would clearly make it better but they just don't do there is no sleep tracking at all which you would think would be kind of a big deal and a watch that's so focused on health and fitness but it's not there there's also still no completely custom watch faces just the customization of the ones Apple made now to be fair apples and made a lot at this point but I feel like if Apple opened this up to developers and had an app store for watch faces it could be huge right you still can't use any assistant other than Siri, of course, I'm not surprised by that but if I could switch it to Google assistant I would be so happy there's also no always-on mode that I think they could totally do with this battery life and these OLED displays it is as consistent as ever with the whole race to wake thing but a lot of people I've talked to you want it to look more like a normal watch even when you're not using it and part of that would just be showing a watch face all the time now that would definitely bring battery life down but it's already 2 to 3 days that I get now so would bring it down to maybe one day and that's not the end of the world I'd think it would be fair to give that as an option but at the end of the day this is the best Smart Watch by far all over again and obviously the one to get if you have an iPhone is the best productivity watch the best for notifications and responses to them the best fitness watch the best health tool on your wrist now the price ranges a lot based on what size what material and then whether you go with LTE or not ranging from 399 all the way up to like you could spend eight nine hundred bucks on this thing.

Conclusion

I wouldn't recommend that but yeah overall I just feel like I've always been in this weird place where I know I carry an iPhone and I've always been a fan of the Apple watch but I never feel like I'm missing out on anything when I just don't have one but this one I'm gonna keep on me I'm pretty sure biggest upgrade to the Apple Watch yet and I love it and I think if you're looking for an Apple watch you will - thumbs up from me till the next one thanks for reading this blog catch you later.

Shop Now - Apple Watch Series 4 - Click Here

Do check Review for Huawei Watch GT Smartwatch | REVIEW

[infotainmentplus-blog]

Oppo Find X review: finding space When we’ve talked about full-screen phones in 2018, that’s meant around an 80 percent screen-to-body ratio with a small bottom bezel and a notch housing the front camera. The front-facing camera is an integral part of the phone so this design was necessary — until now. With the Oppo Find X, the Chinese company follows in the footsteps of fellow BBK-owned phone company Vivo, hiding the camera in the top of the phone. However, Oppo’s approach is a little different the Vivo’s NEX, and feels pretty unique. Design The Oppo Find X is a stunning phone. With beveled edges, a beautiful gradient back design and probably the highest screen-to-body ratio available, this thing is quite the looker. The body feels quite similar to the Samsung Galaxy S9 with its curved sides — even the top and bottom contour inwards to create a nearly uniform design. The most obvious design component here is the omission of the rear and front-facing cameras. While Vivo’s NEX showcased the dual rear cameras on the back of the device, the Oppo Find X takes this design to the next level. The small curved window on the rear of the phone would make you think the cameras were hiding in the shadows, but in reality the camera mechanism is much more unique. When you launch an app using the camera, the Oppo Find X will lift the shaded window to reveal the cameras beneath. I know what you’re thinking. Moving parts are a bad idea. I would agree here. Moving parts seem like a bad idea, but I commend Oppo for trying something innovative Oppo claims the camera module can be raised and lowered over 300 thousand times, but the phone prompts you to use the camera much more often than you would on a daily basis. The device has no fingerprint reader, instead relying on a 3D face scanning feature, which uses infrared light to create a depth map of your face. It works well, but moving the camera module up and down every time you unlock your phone seems like a bad idea. It remains to be seen how durable it will actually end up being. The device will be available in Bordeaux red and glacier blue. Be warned the red is definitely purple — at least the one I used was. Nonetheless, the phone is gorgeous. The color is a sloping gradient, transitioning from black in the center to purple on the rims. It looks great, and reminds me a bit of how the OnePlus 6 mirror black edition reflects light. The right side of the phone houses the power button while the you’ll find the volume rocker on the left side. The bottom of this phone is a little different. It’s got the standard USB Type-C port and bottom firing speakers, but Oppo also opted to place the SIM card tray on the other side of the charging port. I think this is perfect positioning, especially there’s no headphone jack. This placement adds a form of symmetry to the phone. Only the power button and volume rockers off axis. Heck, even the word Oppo is a palindrome. See also: Which manufacturer updates its phones fastest? Android Oreo edition As Android Oreo approaches its first anniversary, and Android P looms on the horizon, we thought it was time for a bit of a retrospective. Android Oreo, the latest major Android version, officially released n Aug. … Overall, this is one of the most beautiful phones I’ve ever used. Xiaomi told me that its Mi Mix was accepted into some museums as an art piece. I think Oppo deserves to fight for that title. Display Besides the camera module, the display is definitely the most striking aspect of this device. The face of the phone is almost completely display, clocking a screen-to-body ratio of 92.25 percent. This is one of the highest screen-to-body ratios we’ve ever seen, only rivaled by the Vivo NEX. The phone’s bottom bezel is comparable to that of the OnePlus 6. It’s often said the newest Oppo phone is the reference design for whatever OnePlus releases next. I’d be happy for the 6T to look this good. The display is also fairly massive in general, with a size of 6.42 inches and a 19.5:9 aspect ratio. This display is curved as well, so if you’ve used a recent Samsung phone you’ll know how that feels. Unfortunately, this can lead to some awkward handling especially while taking photos. Edge detection isn’t great here, and I’ve heard Vivo’s software detects accidental presses much better. The phone’s 1,080 x 2,340 AMOLED display looks phenomenal. Colors are punchy and vibrant, and I have nearly no issues with it. I’d also like to give a nod to how dim this display can get. I’m the kind of masochist that reads Reddit and Twitter instead of sleeping, so it’s nice to have a display that doesn’t hurt my eyes. Performance With some of the latest hardware available on the market, the Oppo Find X performs admirably. The one issue I saw with performance which I also saw on Oppo’s R15 Pro was poor RAM management. My model has 8GB of RAM, but keeping just a few apps open used almost 4.5 GB. Having more RAM to work with doesn’t give you an excuse to manage it badly, and I hope Oppo spends some resources making its skin a bit less taxing. If you’re into benchmark scores, we ran the Oppo Find X Plus through Geekbench 4 and 3D Mark. Antutu didn’t want to run on this phone for some reason. Geekbench 4 gave the Oppo Find X a single-core score of 2,391. In comparison, the OnePlus 6 scored 2,454, while the Galaxy S9 scored 2,144. The Find X achieved a multi-core score of 6,216, while the OnePlus 6 scored 8,967, and the Galaxy S9 scored 8,116. Ouch. The Oppo Find X scored 4,148 in 3D Mark, while the OnePlus 6 and Galaxy S9 scored 4,680 and 4,672, respectively. Hardware As I mentioned earlier, the Oppo Find X competes head to head with the latest and greatest from Samsung, OnePlus, and more. No more Snapdragon 600 series — this phone is the real deal. The Find X packs a Qualcomm Snapdragon 845, 8GB of RAM, 256GB of internal storage, and a 3,730mAh battery. This kept the device running smoothly the entire week or so I had to use it, and I really didn’t notice any hiccups during this time. This phone flies, packing Qualcomm's latest Snapdragon 845 chipset Weirdly enough, Oppo omitted a fingerprint reader this time around, which really pushes the user to use the 3D face unlock feature. I was pretty hesitant of this at first, because the phone needs to physically open the top portion of the device to reveal the front-facing camera. While I’m not a huge fan of moving parts being actuated every time you want to unlock your phone, I was surprised how fast the process was. It seemed like the phone was unlocked before I even noticed the camera opening and closing itself. I tried to get some friends to unlock the phone quite a few times and it proved secure every time, so I’m pretty confident in Oppo’s engineering. This 3D face unlock feature works similarly to how the iPhone X and Xiaomi Mi 8 explorer edition do, using infrared light to get an accurate depth map of your face. This makes the phone much more accurate — up to twice as accurate as its fingerprint reader according to Oppo (which doesn’t exist anyway). It’s unfortunate that BBK opted to include the in-screen reader in the Vivo NEX but not the Oppo Find X — I would have liked to see that here. Editor's Pick Best True Wireless Earbuds What are the best options out there? Sadly you wont find a headphone jack on this device, but Oppo includes a dongle in the box. There isn’t any water resistance rating on this phone, but I’m not sure how Oppo would make this water resistant. Having the entire top of the phone lift to reveal the cameras is a cool concept, but bad things will happen if you use it in the rain. There isn’t any expandable storage available on this device. Oppo instead opts for a dual-SIM tray. I would have preferred it added support for a microSD card in this space like many other manufacturers. 256GB is ample storage for a lot of people, but it’s always nice to have more options. Battery This device’s 3,730mAh battery performed really, really well. As noted in my Oppo R15 Pro review Oppo doesn’t meter screen-on time in its ColorOS skin, but I got a solid day and a half with this thing before needing to charge it. I don’t play mobile games, but I still use my phone quite a lot in an average day. I’m often jumping back and forth between Twitter, Chrome, Reddit, and a number of messaging apps throughout the day. See also: OPPO R15 Pro review: Notch what I was hoping for Oppo is a company consistently adopting the latest trends to stay relevant in the market. The R9 added dual cameras to compete head-to-head with flagships from Huawei and Honor, and the R11s slimmed down its … The Find X uses Oppo’s VOOC fast-charging standard, and it juices up the device very quickly. The company has finally moved to USB Type-C after much deliberation, which is really great to see, considering I only have like one microUSB cable left in my house. Unfortunately there is no wireless charging in this device. We would have liked to see that here since the body is made of glass, but such is life. Camera Despite being hidden inside the phone, the cameras aren’t actually that bad. The rear-facing 16 and 20MP cameras perform quite decently. I found they tended to overexpose images more often than not, but the dynamic range was pretty darn solid. If you want to take a look at the images for yourself, you can see our gallery below, or pixel peep by taking a look at the source files here. The 25MP front facing camera performed just as well. Selfies seemed to have nice skin tones, but could have been a bit sharper in my opinion. The biggest issue I encountered with the camera was how long it took to actually launch. Though the mechanism opens up pretty immediately when you launch the camera app, the live view didn’t appear for three or four seconds. Oppo definitely needs to fix this, because it made catching fleeting moments hard. Don't miss: Best Android smartphone cameras (April 2018) In recent years, smartphones have effectively replaced point-and-shoot cameras, and many even outperform them. For many of us, these portable computers have become our main camera, making photo quality a priority when picking a new smartphone. … Oppo included a portrait mode in this device, and it performed quite a bit better than I expected. Despite the live view’s slowness, the processing did a good job of separating the subject from the background. It still suffers from the over-exposure issues of the general camera, though. The camera module got dirty very easily. Just keeping the phone in my pocket normally collected quite a bit of dirt and lint, and left me wishing I kept a cloth with me to clean it out every now and then. Software If you’re not familiar with ColorOS, it’s basically iOS. There isn’t an app drawer, and all your apps will be spread across your home screens as you download them. You can still make folders and such, but I prefer to hide most of my apps to get as stock an experience as possible. ColorOS 5.1 is based on Android 8.1 Oreo. I’m glad to see it updated to the latest Oreo version, because the R15 Pro was still stuck on Android 8.0. While ColorOS on the R15 Pro felt slow and laggy, it really flies on this device. This is more than likely due to the Snapdragon 845, but it’s still nice to use an Oppo phone that doesn’t feel like I’m making huge performance compromises. There was an entire suite of apps installed on this phone out of the box, but I ran the Chinese version. Oppo has announced this phone is coming to the U.S. and some other markets, which will probably come with the Google Play store pre-installed. I had to download the Google Play store from the Oppo app store, but you likely won’t have that issue. I’m really not a fan of this software, but it’s not terrible. I’d still use a custom launcher like Nova to make the experience more manageable, but I used ColorOS during my time with the device so you won’t have to. You’re welcome. Specs Oppo Find X Display 6.42-inch AMOLED 2,340 x 1,080 resolution 19.5:9 aspect ratio Processor Snapdragon 845 Octa-core, up to 2.8Ghz RAM 8GB LPDDR4 Storage 128GB/256GB MicroSD No Camera Rear: 16MP sensor with f/2.0 aperture + 20MP sensors with f/2.2 aperture Front: 25MP Battery 3,730mAh Non-removable VOOC Flash Charge (5V/4.5A) SIM Dual nano-SIM Headphone jack No IP rating No Software Android 8.1 Oreo with ColorOS 5.1 Fingerprint scanner No Other features 3D facial recognition Gallery Pricing, availability, and final thoughts The Oppo Find X is coming to multiple markets, including China, Europe, and even the U.S.. We’ve only heard details about the launch in Europe so far, where it will cost 999 euros (~$1,157) and be available in August. Oppo is also launching a special Lamborghini edition of this device, with 512GB of storage and Super VOOC fast charging. This phone will have a smaller 3,400 mAh cell, but will be able to charge from zero to 100 percent in 35 minutes. Overall, I really like the Oppo Find X. It needs some software updates to fix the sub-par palm rejection and laggy camera, but the 3D face unlock and enormous screen impressed me quite a bit. This feels like a second generation product in its first iteration, and I’m happy to see Oppo pushing the boundaries of smartphone design. I’m eager to see what Google and Samsung announce for the rest of 2018, but Oppo and Vivo are making other manufacturers seem pretty outdated. We’ll likely see more traditional flagships adopt the truly bezel-less standard in 2019. If you want one now, the Find X is one of your only options. What are your thoughts on the Oppo Find X? Is this the future of smartphones? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below. , via Android Authority http://bit.ly/2lmvrG0

[chengu99-blog]

Week 09: Final Individual Redesign screens + Style Tile

Once I had done my research and had a look at a range of different designs that I could use for inspiration, I first decided on the colour palette of our app. In the survey results, I noticed that majority of people wanted to see a more minimalistic parking app that was colourful and bright. Based on user feedback and stylistic influences, I went for a cool toned colour scheme that would appear calming and welcoming for the user to view, without having too much of a strain to the eye. The lavender and baby blue gradient combo (inspired by Heimer) was perfect as I wanted the user to feel at ease when navigating the app. Having a muted magenta shade as an accent colour helped with highlighting important information and features in the app such as the Timer Countdown, Extend Parking, Cancel and Map Prices. I know that parking can be quite stressful at times so I wanted to ensure that our parking app looked simple, minimal and not too bold or strong with too much going on within the screens that would make the app confusing or overwhelming for the user. I decided to design 2 different car icons for the logo as I couldn’t decide which one looked better but regardless, it was so that the users would instantly be able to create a connection with the app and know what it was about. I also tried creating a few extra icons with the bubbly shapes to add a playful character to the design. e.g in the Successful pages once users have paid or completed something. I feel like the icons really helped with user navigation because making them recognisable so that users know what it means at a glance is an important aspect. I made sure to have the same line weight and colours that worked well together all throughout for a consistent look. As for the typeface, I wanted to enhance the friendly feel of the parking app and I came across a rounded sans serif font (Somatic Rounded) which had a good weight to it that wasn’t too bold. Although it was perfect for headers, it didn’t come with a Regular or Thin weight style so I had to find an alternative - Antipasto which complimented well with Somatic, having a quite rounded preset but lighter weight which would be suitable as a body copy. Overall, I’m pretty happy with how my design turned out! It was an enjoyable week being able to bring our parking app to life however one thing I did notice while designing this prototype was how time-consuming designing in colour can be. Starting everything from greyscale then to colour was stressful in the beginning as I found myself to continuously rearranging the gradients for each element on the page repeatedly until I was happy with how it looked. Having ocd made it harder for me personally and I feel like making sure each page looks cohesive with the next is a task that definitely shouldn’t be underestimated. 

[mrrolandtfranco]

Not-So-Historic Survey Plan

When I first saw this map of Waterloo, Ontario, by cartographer Warren Davision, I was so impressed with his application of texture and composition. Warren does beautiful work, but this map of his community shows specifically that the cartography of local assets can be fun and welcoming. His techniques would be equally well-suited to maps of parks, zoning, planned projects, and a host of other maps that a GIS team may be asked to produce.

Warren didn’t create this map as a mandate, though, but for fun. It’s a great reminder that we operate in an amazing field with a rich visual history and exciting technical future. This map is a wonderful blending of those perspectives and a welcome encouragement to think creatively about the potential of the maps we make.

I asked Warren to write a How-To, in his own words, to share his techniques and process, and he generously agreed.

The following is a guest post from Warren Davison. . . .

I know it won’t come as a shock, but as a geographer by education and GIS Analyst by occupation there’s a certain fondness that I have for maps. Historic maps specifically, are particularly interesting as they have an allure to them. Maybe it’s because the majority of the maps I make on a daily basis are digital and printed on bright white paper rather than inked on parchment. Maybe it’s because the data is usually at my fingertips, and I never had to survey and illustrate each feature by hand. Whatever the reason, these historic pieces of cartography are captivating, so I decided to try and replicate some of the cartographic techniques using ArcGIS Pro. I was quite pleased with the results overall and I think they managed to achieve the visual effect that I was looking for despite being digital.

Now for how to make it! This map, like all maps, is a series of layers on layers and this is especially true for the symbology I used to create much of the effects for this map. So for simplicity I’m going to break things down by the most notable features and how I achieved the cartographic effect.

Parks and Forests

I found through a number of web searches for ‘old maps’ that many of the results had some very prominent tints and textures (like hand drawn mountains, fields, and forests) that set them apart from your standard modern map. So I set about looking for ways to include these symbols in my map.

I settled on a few samples of trees, shrubs, and grass tufts and created separate images of these features and set about filling in my map with my mouse rather than a quill or fountain pen (right, or control, click these images to save and use as textures in your own maps).

I started by adding a Marker Layer symbol to my parks layer and set it as a Picture Marker, choosing my grass tufts as the picture.

  I then played around with the Marker Placement Properties, which I found have been significantly improved over ArcMap. Specifically, the ability to ensure that your image is never clipped by the boundary of the polygon it is supposed to fill, since this would distract from the feel of the map (c’mon no self-respecting old timey cartographer would illustrate a tree clipped by the boundary of the forest).

From there it was a matter of repeating the process. I added another marker layer with a slightly different picture of grass tuft, used a random fill with the ‘Do not touch boundary’ clipping option. This time I tweaked the X and Y step of the symbol to create a slightly different pattern offset from the original.

I repeated a very similar process with tree pictures to fill a polygon representing forests until I got something I was happy with. I ended up using 4 layers of trees and 1 layer for shrubs, all picture marker symbols filling a polygon with slightly different offsets and X/Y steps layered on top of each other. I completed the polygons with a mottled watercolour tint from Johns Hand to Digital project.

Water

The water line symbology came from John’s adventures with waterlines with the addition of a REALLY faint (I’m pretty picky, it was 90% transparent) gradient fill used to help tint the edges of features. I also completed these polygons with a tinted watercolour texture. Two, in fact, because I was again a little picky.

Structures

The last piece of the puzzle was to represent the building footprints. Again referring to my reference maps, many buildings were illustrated with a diagonal hatch pattern fill. I achieved this effect by using the squiggly pen line from the Hand to Digital post to illustrate the footprint itself as well as the hatch pattern within to get a very hand drawn visual effect.

I then applied a drop shadow to bring the structures off the page slightly using the a solid fill layer with a Move Effect applied to it, this is the same thing I did to the road cover polygon in order to visually ‘drop’ it into the map.

The last step was to highlight the structures within the area of interest. I created a layer of those features within the Uptown boundary and symbolized them with yet another watercolour tint to darken the focal area of the map (the top most buildings have a slightly transparent fill to permit this highlight layer to show through).

Overall

Throughout the map I tried to use as as many picture symbols as possible, to soften the crisp lines of the digital data and make things appear hand drawn.

To finish off the layout of the map I added a vignette that I stole. Here’s the vignette without the background, to highlight the visual effect of covering the layout with a perimeter image of the same background texture, to soften the edges.

As a final note I’d just like to point out that despite lots of back-and-forth with layer arrangement, transparency, and marker placement this map was fairly straightforward to create. The root of this map is really just a bunch of neat little tricks that were iteratively applied. Through layering symbols, tweaking, and adding more or shifting them it was possible to create something really cool from something that was fairly simple.

-Warren

from ArcGIS Blog http://ift.tt/2BSCMTC

[eurekakinginc]

"[D] Eat Your VGGtables, or, Why Does Neural Style Transfer Work Best With Old VGG CNNs' Features?"- Detail: Previous: Twitter discussion.An acquaintance a year or two ago was messing around with neural style transfer (Gatys et al 2016), experimenting with some different approaches, like a tile-based GPU implementation for making large poster-size transfers, or optimizing images to look different using a two-part loss: one to encourage being like the style of the style image, and a negative one to penalize having content like the source image; this is unstable and can diverge, but when it works, looks cool. (Example: "The Great Wave" + Golden Gate Bridge. I tried further Klimt-ising it but at that point too much has been lost.)VGG worked best for style transferOne thing they noticed was that using features from a pretrained ImageNet VGG-16/19 CNN from 2014 (4 years ago), like the original Gatys paper did, worked much better than anything else; indeed, almost any set of 4-5 layers in VGG would provide great features for the style transfer optimization to target (as long as they were spread out and weren't exclusively bottom or top layers), while using more modern resnets (resnet-50) or GoogLeNet Inception v1 didn't work - it was hard to find sets of layers that would work at all and when they did, the quality of the style transfer was not as good. Interestingly, this appeared to be true of VGG CNNs trained on the MIT Places scene recognition database too, suggesting there's something architectural going on which is not database specific or peculiar to those two trained models. And their attempt at an upscaling CNN modeled on Johnson et al 2016's VGG-16 for CIFAR-100 worked well too.Everyone uses VGGIndeed, VGG is used pervasively through style transfer implementations & research beyond what one would expect from cargo-culting or copy-paste, even in applications as exotic as inferring images from human fMRI scans (Shen et al 2017). This surprising because 4 years in DL is a long time, and the newer CNNs outperform VGG at everything else like image classification or object localization (Tapa Ghosh disagrees on object localization) rendering VGG obsolete due to its large model size (much of which comes from the 3 large fully-connected layers at the top) & slowness & poor accuracy, and style transfer itself has made major advances in, among other things, going from days on a desktop to generate a new image to being capable of realtime on smartphones. For example, SqueezeNet outperforms VGG in every way, but its style transfer results are distinctly worse (but extremely fast!). Although this VGG-specificity appears to be folklore among practitioners, this is not something I have seen noticed in neural style transfer papers; indeed, the review Jing et al 2017 explicitly says that other models work fine, but their reference is to Johnson's list of models where almost every single model is (still) VGG-based and the ones which are not come with warnings (NIN-Imagenet: "May need heavy tweaking to achieve reasonable results"; Illustration2vec: "Best used with anime content...Be warned that it can sometimes be difficult to avoid the burn marks that the model sometimes creates"; PASCAL VOC FCN-32s: "Uses more resources than VGG-19, but can produce better results depending on your style and/or content image." etc).HypothesesSome possible explanations:VGG is so big that it is incidentally capturing a lot of information that the other models discard and accidentally generalizing better despite worse task-specific performance. (Do resnets in general do transfer-learning worse, compared to earlier CNNs, than would be expected based on their superior task-specific performance?)but while VGG is giant compared to other ImageNet models, 500M vs <50MB (Keras table), most of this appears to be coming from the FC layers rather than the convolutions being sampled (leaving 58/80MB for the rest), so where is the supposed knowledge being stored? Nor does VGG appear to have tame internal dynamics lacking in other models - the layer average norms differ greatly, and rescaling appears to be unnecessary (neither they nor Johnson needed to do that like the Bethge lab did).on the gripping hand, could the FC layers in some way be forcing the lower convolutions to be different in terms of abstractions than equivalent convolutions in later less-FC-heavy models?resnets are unrolled iteration/shallow ensembles: the features do exist but they are too spread out to be pulled out easily and the levels of abstraction are all mixed up - instead of getting a nice balance of features from the bottom and top, they're spread out wildly between layer #3 and #33 and #333 etc. While VGGs, being relatively shallow and modular and having no residual connections or other special tricks to smuggle raw information up the layers, are forced to create more of a clearcut hierarchical pyramid of abstractions.Here there may be some straightforward way to better capture resnet knowledge; Pierre Richemond suggestionsProbably ResNets feature maps need to be summed depthwise before taking the Gram matrix. By that logic, one'd think DenseNets should work better than Resnets but worse than VGG (due to gradient flows from earlier layers).Residual connections themselves somehow mess up the optimization procedure by affecting properties like independence of features, with "blurring" from layers so easily passing around activations, suggests Kyle Kastner (this might be the same thing as "resnets have too many layers & split up features")VGG's better performance is due to not downsampling aggressively, doing so only after two convolutions and then max poolingIn this interpretation, GoogLeNet fails because it downsamples in the first layer.Testing hypothesesWhat tests could be done?train much bigger resnet/DenseNets to see if expanding model capacity helps; alternately, retrain much smaller VGGs to create models which are comparable in parameters to see if the gap goes away. If a small VGG can't do better style transfer than an equal-sized resnet, that suggests there is no special mystery.Add/remove FC layers from retrained VGG and resnet models. Does that lead to large gains/losses in quality?experiment with different ways of picking or summing layers to generate features; possibly brute force, trying out a large number of subsets until one works.Another approach would be to try to remove layers entirely: resnets are resistant to deleting random layers, or one could try model distillation to train a shallow but wide resnet from a SOTA deep resnet. With similar parameters, it should perform just as well, but the layer features should be more compressed and easier to find a good set.Model distillation again but for an equivalent resnet minus all residual connections? I don't know if that's trainable at all.train competing models but with VGG-style initial layers.Fixing this limitation to VGG, or showing that current resnets actually do work well and this folklore is false, could speed up style transfer training by replacing VGG with a smaller faster model, or a better one, and might give some interesting insights into what CNNs are learning & how that's affected by their architecture.. Caption by gwern. Posted By: www.eurekaking.com