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fretened · 4 years ago

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Celeste (2018) - pushing game design to new heights (Developed by Matt Makes Games)

Reviewed on PS4, playable on:

Steam

Itch.io

Epic Games store

Nintendo Switch

PlayStation 4

Xbox One

Introduction

Celeste is a game about a girl called Madeline who decides to climb a mountain to overcome her depression and anxiety, as well as the other characters she meets along the way. Little does she know that Celeste mountain is more than what it seems and, in order to confront the challenges she will face along the way, Madeline will have to come face to face with a part of her that she would have much rather avoided. Celeste uses mostly linear 2D platforming across groundbreakingly designed levels, all with a gorgeous 16-bit art style which, along with a cast of charming characters and wonderfully written dialogue, delivers a truly moving story about self-reflection and overcoming anxieties despite all the odds. Here are my thoughts and feelings on the 2018 critically acclaimed ‘best independent game’ and ‘games for impact’ Game Award winner, Celeste.

Level design

Celeste’s fundamental mechanic is Madeline’s dash ability which propels her in a straight line in a chosen direction for a set distance. The dash can only be interrupted by objects in the environment and it can only be used once in mid air - it recharges as soon as Madeline touches the ground; this is represented intuitively on screen by Madeline’s hair turning blue when her dash is used up and turning back to orange when the dash becomes available. This core mechanic is explored in a different direction in each of Celeste’s 8 chapters. If you explore these levels you can gain access to the far more challenging B and C side versions of the levels which push the exploration further in it’s respective directions, however, you may not even feel inclined to touch these levels as Celeste’s main game alone is likely challenging enough for a lot of players.

Celeste’s side-scrolling levels are broken up into stages/sections that you have to pass to progress through the game. I felt as though each section was designed to push and improve my ability at the game and make me practice and experiment with my approach to each section’s unique challenges.

Each screen/section would have maybe 2-5 challenges you had to pass, one after another, and the game’s instant deaths, fast respawn times and the ability to save anytime meant that there was no repercussion for my trial and error and I could keep trying and trying until I would find faster and faster ways of progressing and, often, hidden shortcuts that I hadn’t seen the first few times round. The gameplay promotes developing a mastery of it’s mechanics. These shortcuts are often found by thinking outside the box and playing around with levels’ systems and mechanics. For players looking for a challenge, as well as cassette tapes with B and C side levels, Celeste’s 8 main chapters are full of collectible strawberries which present a whole load of extra examples of really clever game design. For example, some of these collectible strawberries have wings and will fly straight up and out of the level if you use Madeline’s dash and so you have to think outside of the box and grab the strawberry without using the dash which is usually vital for getting from A to B. It’s this kind of design that stops the game from ever feeling dry or formulaic. Celeste’s levels constantly feel fresh, well paced and engaging.

I’d also like to note that at the start of each level in the loading screen, Madeline receives a different postcard with useful information on it. Two stood out to me: one saying that you should be proud of your death count because it shows that you’re making mistakes and you’re learning; I found this message incredibly uplifting because at times frequent deaths had made me feel a little embarrassed or made me wonder if I was getting something seriously wrong. The other was that the collectible strawberries are entirely optional and only for showing off to your friends if you really want to. I think this was a brilliant move because it gives the player a little more control over the game’s pacing. You get to decide whether you’ll spend some time trying to grab this tricky strawberry or whether you’ll push on with the game and move into the next section.

Accessibility

Celeste is rightfully celebrated for it’s range of accessibility options, from it’s tactful and unobtrusive assist mode - for players who need to fine tune the game to their specific needs in order to get the same enjoyment out of the game, to it’s picture settings that reduce flashing and particle effects for people with photosensitive epilepsy or motion sickness. For more on Celeste’s assist mode, check out Game Maker’s Tool kit’s video on ‘What Makes Celeste’s Assist Mode Special’, you can find the link to that at the end of this post.

Soundtrack

Lena Raine’s soundtrack to Celeste is an audio marvel. Whether it’s daunting, uplifting, mysterious or moving; the soundtrack made me feel tied and invested to every moment. The music was just as much a journey as every second of gameplay. The soundtrack plays to the gameplay perfectly and occasionally leads to some really incredible moments. As well as Lena Raine’s marvellous score, Celeste’s B and C sides have a range of tracks and features by other artists like lo-fi artist ‘In Love With a Ghost’.

Narrative

Celeste deals with heavy subjects like depression and anxiety without ever being tasteless or insensitive but simultaneously the game manages to deal with these subjects in an uplifting way, much in line with the game’s core message. Each level feels rich with meaning and the games narrative is tightly interwound with it’s settings, characters and mechanics in a way that feels seamless and engaging.

Celeste uses profound metaphors to deliver it’s story and discuss mental health in each chapter of the main game. One of my favourite’s was Chapter three - ‘Celestial Resort’ - which had you help skittish spectral maître d’ clean away the clutter in his abandoned hotel. As you tidy away the hotel you find him seeming less anxious than the last time because you’re helping him order the clutter in his mind so he can finally have some peace. This also happens to be what Madeline needs at this point in her story and helping the maître d’ provides her with th clarity she needs to move on. This is one of the ways the game deals with heavier subject matter without dampening the player’s experience of the game and keeping an ‘upward momentum’.

The game’s narrrative, characters, environments and soundtrack all made me feel engrossed in my ascent of Celeste mountain. The mountain has a real sense of place, mystery and history that unveils itself to you as the story unfolds. I felt fully engaged in every setting because it felt like I’d come across something that nobody had seen in a long time. Even with Celeste’s generally fast paced gameplay, it never felt like I was ‘just passing through’ a location because the drive to explore and overcome challenges kept me searching every corner and taking time to explore when I wanted to.

Everything about Celeste contributes to it’s narrative. It’s gameplay pushes you to reflect and overcome challenges. Lena Raine’s soundtrack fits every scene like a glove and fills each moment with emotion in a constantly moving way. Characters will climb out of their Dialogue boxes in some scenes as if they’re really coming to life. Even the ‘chapter complete’ screens, at the end of each level, push the story forward and tell you where Madeline is going next. Celeste is a beautiful and important story,told in an ingenious way, unlike any other game I’ve played.

Is this game for you?

I would suggest Celeste to anyone looking for a new and different gaming experience and an uplifting story. It feels consistently fresh with perpetually ingenious level design and a really wonderful story. I’ve had more fun on Celeste than any triple A game I’ve played in a long time. I’d recommend Celeste to people looking for a hopeful story in what feels like quite a hopeless time because this is a story about never losing sight against all odds, friendship and support, and self-acceptance. It’s clever, inventive, charming and moving and I just love it and I’m pretty damn sure that you will too. Celeste is a permanent fixture of my PS4 library.

Can’t afford it?

I completely understand that lots of people may not have the funds right now or in the foreseeable future to get this game and if you choose to engage in piracy or any kind of swashbuckling then I’ll reserve my judgement but personally I would always rather support the developers so I’ve put togther some links to some ‘let’s-play’ series and videos about the game so you don’t have to pirate the game if you want to get the closest thing to the experience without having to take it illegally and get into legal trouble, damage your computer/console or promote activities typically detrimental to the developers.

Watchlist & sources

Here I’ve put together a semi-curated list of videos, articles and other resources about the game as well as some ‘Let’s Play’s and speed-runs:

GMTK - Mark Brown from Game Makers Tool Kit made two videos about Celeste which were really useful resources for writing this review. It was actually these videos which introduced me to the game in the first place so it’s only fair that I recommend them to you.

Why Does Celeste Feel So Good to Play? https://youtu.be/yorTG9at90g - This video talks about the design of Madeline’s controls and what makes Celeste such a satisfying to play.

What Makes Celeste’s Assist Mode Special https://youtu.be/NInNVEHj_G4 - This video looks at how the developers have confronted a fundamental problem in game design: balancing the design intentions and accessibility as well as player preferences.

More videos - Here are some more videos about this game that I love. The first two are a lot more focussed on the level design and how the game showed you the ropes and guides you to mastery and they’re both really well produced and written and really entertaining. The last one is a short and sweet documentary about Celeste’s development from pre-game to the design and how the story started to fall together.

How Celeste Teaches You It’s Mechanics - Good Game Design (Snoman Gaming) https://youtu.be/lZoQ9a7oPvo

Celeste: Breaking Down Level Design (OK Beast) https://youtu.be/w_aWMxcHrgw

The Story of Celeste’s Development (Noclip) https://youtu.be/c3mbELVqAmo

Let’s plays and speedruns

Celeste: Fruit Brute - PART 1 (Game Grumps) https://youtu.be/iB4KG2wABPA - This series by Game Grumps is really funny but it only covers the earlier parts of the game so if you’re only looking for a bit of gameplay then this is for you!

Celeste Let’s Play [Playlist] (TenMoreMinutes) https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLn5okaoIT7P5KvGs25IWmGPcM5kvowqqh - This series covers pretty much the whole game so if you’re just looking for something to watch then here it is!

Celeste Any% Speedrun in 27:31.4 (TGH) https://youtu.be/g2KqMYWviYk - A really impressive speedrun. This guy’s just trying to finish the game as fast as possible without worrying about the strawberries or the B and C sides.

Celeste All B Sides Speedrun in 26:46 (TGH) https://youtu.be/I76TcmlsRIk - This is another complete marvel by the same guy. This time he’s doing all the B side levels; the B sides really are substantially harder than the main game.

The Celeste Speedrun That Wasn’t Humanly Possible (IGN) https://youtu.be/yEKku8S5-fo - This is a short video about an AI designed to Speedrun games that did a super human run of Celeste.

Links

Celeste game accessibility guide http://gameaccessibilityguidelines.com/celeste-assist-mode/ - This is a great website if you’re interested in accessibility in games, I used it for the accessibility section of this review.

Notes

I may eventually write a piece in more detail about aspects of the game design that I really enjoyed but in the interest of keeping things spoiler free - this is all for my Review of Celeste. This is my first game review and there will be things I’ve done well and, in greater likelihood, things I’ve done not so well and I’d love to do better in future so share your thoughts with me! I’m on Instagram under @Fretened or you can contact me here on Tumblr, I’d love to hear what you think.

If you got this far, thanks for reading Xx

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lyndareno · 5 years ago

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My midcentury modern renovation

After buying myself a duplex in Perth built in 1979, I decided it needed renovation. Little had been done to the house since it was first built so it was looking very tired and starting to collapse in places. Building oversite was obviously not strict at this time as many roof beams were not nailed in place properly and the weight of the concrete tiles was collapsing the roof in the lounge area. This also resulted in the eaves dropping, allowing water to seep into these areas. The glue holding up the ceiling in many of the rooms was also failing and many of the ceilings were collapsing. As such, these were the initial works I had engaged workmen to undertake. After these works were completed the roof was painted a very pale orange colour to reflect the sunlight and reduce the heat entering the roof space and solar panels were added to reduce my power bills.

Then it was time to start renovating the inside. The lounge had a large window that overlooked the front garden which was beginning to leak so the first thing I did was replace it with wooden French doors. These open out onto a newly paved patio area with a patio built from the wood used in an old carport that someone advertised on Gumtree. The kitchen and dining room were dark brown brick walls with four arches. As arches were a feature of the retro era, I decided to keep three of these in the lounge/dining room wall so set about painting them with two coats of undercoat and two of a semi-gloss white paint. The bricks all had to be dusted first as they contained 30 years of dust and the whole job took me at least 2 weeks. But it was worth all the work as they now provide a clean-looking, textured wall for this space.

Next, I had to decide how I was going to renovate my kitchen. This small area was walled off with dark brown bricks on two sides and a small archway to communicate between the kitchen and dining room. This limited my ability to interact with guests while I was cooking. After much deliberation I finally chose to knock down both these brick walls, virtually gutting the whole kitchen area. Next came the exciting task of designing my new kitchen. Two large windows and an air conditioner remained on the far wall so I had to include these in my design. I had purchased green kitchen appliances to match a retro fridge I had bought at a second-hand shop a few years earlier so knew what colours I wanted, which is a big help when doing any renovation. The fridge had also influenced my decision to have a retro design for my house. After hours researching retro kitchens, I also knew the features I wanted including: drawers with cupboards underneath, a row of drawers and open, circular shelves at the end of the cupboards. I also wanted a small cupboard with glass doors on the wall, an island and a floor to ceiling pantry.

I had already collected some Jason green kitchen cannisters for flour, sugar etc so knew I wanted some shelves to display these. Fortunately, my small-sized fridge allowed room for these shelves to be placed above it. I did a lot of research on-line until I found the right shade of green Laminex Laminate for the benchtop. Simon, at the kitchen renovation company I engaged to do the work, was a great help in deciding what was possible and what materials I could use. I wanted a matt finish so used a white Melamine Sheen for my doors and panels and found some retro-looking handles to place on them. I knew I needed as much white as possible with the dark green benchtop and chairs so decided a white stone benchtop would look best on the island. I found a lovely white stone with a greyish-green fleck in it at the kitchen company which was just what I wanted.

After the walls had been demolished my kitchen cabinets arrived and after looking at them, I realised the white was overwhelming and needed breaking up. To do this I asked for a small strip of green Laminex to be placed on the front of the exhaust fan and a larger piece to be placed on the back of the island where the green chairs would sit. This made a big difference to the overall look of the kitchen as it helped to balance the colours and I’m really pleased I did this. After the kitchen had been installed, I then had to decide what tiles would be placed above the benchtop and what I would use for the splashback.

I had visited a small shop in Fremantle that sells hand-made tiles of vintage design so researched their website and found some lovely tiles with a green art-deco design. Having only these tiles would have made the small area look too busy so I decided to scatter a few amongst some white tiles the same size. They were also very expensive so with this design I was able to do the tiling for a more reasonable cost. I tossed up whether to get a lovely picture on the splashback but decided in the end to get a plain colour as I didn’t want it to dominate the kitchen. I decided on a silvery-white look and did a bit of research trying to find something that would give me the look I wanted. In the end I went to a company that designs and sells splashbacks and found one that had a slight silvery sheen to it but it also had a greenish tinge to the glass. When it was installed the green was even more pronounced and it came out looking great with the green benchtop.

Next, I needed to do the floor. I also wanted to replace the carpet in the dining room, lounge and passage and during my research found a company selling natural fibres which I liked the idea of. These are mostly made of jute, coir, sisal, wool sisal mixes and seagrass. I felt these carpets were more environmentally friendly and thought they might be less attractive to dust mites. After much deliberation I finally found one made of sisal I liked and had this installed. Then I needed to find a lino or tiles for the kitchen that would match the colours and retro look I had designed. I wanted green and white tiles but could not find them anywhere. My research led me to commercial linos and I found one in green that I liked. However, when I ordered it, I was told they had stopped making that design and I was provided with some other samples to choose from. The one I chose has actually turned out to be one of the best decisions I have made for the design of the kitchen. It is exactly the right colour and the pattern is also similar to that found in some older houses. Perhaps some things are meant to be….

I had been buying second-hand furniture advertised on my local Gumtree website for years as I didn’t have much furniture when I shifted into the house and I like the retro style of furniture. Someone had sold me her grandmother’s sideboard which was lined with a blonde-wood Formica. A year or two after this I found a lovely dining suite in the same Formica style with 6 turquoise chairs that matched the colours in my lounge. This completed my dining area nicely.

While I was waiting for my kitchen to be installed, I spent lots of time plastering, sanding and painting the walls in the lounge, foyer and kitchen area as these had had a lot of hard wear over the 30-odd years they had been painted. I mixed my own paint so I could get different shades in each room of the house. I wanted very light shades of blue and green which meant a lot of trial and error. (This ended with me having to sell a whole 4L tin of paint for $20 I had tinted but couldn’t use because it was too bright). I then decided to wallpaper the foyer wall. This wall consisted of a few pieces of gib-board that had been placed onto the wall and poorly joined. As a result, I had to do a lot of plastering and sanding. Then I bought lining paper and with the help of a friend, we placed the paper vertically across the wall to help cover the joins. I found that an English website, Spoonflower had by far the best wallpaper designs and after a lot of searching I found a retro, atomic design with the right colours I wanted. I had wallpapered a house before when I lived in New Zealand so had a fair idea what I was doing. I also found the new wallpapers with glue on the back are very easy to slide into place. The design on the wallpaper also helps to match each strip.

I was so happy with the look of the foyer wall that I decided to put wallpaper on one of the walls in the lounge room. I needed a wallpaper for this wall that wasn’t too bold or bright so that it didn’t conflict with the tartan in my lounge suite and that had an atomic look to it. Another extensive search on Spoonflower ended with me finding a new design that really suited the colours in my lounge suite – green, turquoise and blue.

It is interesting how sometimes things just fall into place. Not long after completing the wallpapering of the lounge wall I noticed an advert for a second-hand lounge suite in exactly the right colour – turquoise - that was in the atomic style. I was able to buy this and renovate the wooden parts of it. The upholstery is a little faded in places but it is in reasonable condition for the age of the lounge suite so I didn’t have to spend much on it and it is perfectly suited to the wallpaper on the wall. It was also a plain colour which worked in well with the other tartan lounge suite I had already purchased a few years before.

An art-deco style piano, an old stereogram that works and a retro-style coffee table make up the other furniture in this room.

I have also purchased other collectables on Gumtree or second-hand shops that help to enhance the retro look of the lounge room. Bright teal curtains and a green mat have finished off this room nicely. My last job is to renovate the coffee table top.

The spare bedroom has also been renovated in a retro style. After fixing up the plaster and painting the walls, then varnishing the windowsill, I proceeded to paint a lovely retro dressing table I had acquired off Gumtree. I also found some interesting bedside lights and altered them to hang on the wall above the bed. Lastly, I have bought a brightly coloured new bedspread to brighten up the room. All that’s left to do is to renovate the bedside table.

This renovation has taken nearly 2 years with many hours of research and work. But it has been achieved using a modest budget. It has been a labour of love and I’ve really enjoyed the opportunity to use my creative abilities to create a home that I really enjoy living in. I hope it gives somebody some ideas for how they can create a midcentury modern look to their home on a modest budget.

#mid century modern

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brigdh · 6 years ago

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What did you just finish? Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan. A shallow, wealth-porn, frothy bauble of a book, but one which is lots of fun. Rachel Chu and Nicholas Young are both new professors at New York University (Nicholas in history, Rachel in economics, which I have to say seems like a weird choice for a character who spends the whole book being shocked by wealth) and have been dating for about two years, when Nicholas invites Rachel to come to Singapore with him for the summer, so he can participate in his best friend's wedding and she can meet his family. Rachel does so, only to discover that Nicholas is not generically middle-class as she'd always assumed, but rich. And not, like, normal rich, you guys: crazy rich. The rest of the book consists of Rachel gawking at the possessions of Nicholas's family and friends: private jets, personal islands, hotel chains, uncounted maids and drivers and servants, clothes from every top-name designer you can image, antiques and art and mansions and skyscrapers and on and on. Not all is absurdly wealthy bliss, however: various unmarried women try to drive Rachel away so that they can claim Nicholas for themselves, and Nicholas's mother is determined to keep her out of the family. She's shocked enough that Nicholas would marry beneath himself when she assumes Rachel is one of the Taiwanese plastics Chus (such trashy new money!); you can imagine how she feels when she realizes Rachel is actually the daughter of a single-mother real estate agent from Palo Alto, California. Meanwhile, the wedding brings to town every cousin, aunt, uncle, old childhood friend, ex-partner, and business connection from around the world back to town (seriously, this book has an oppressively long character list), and Nicholas's cousin Astrid, who also fell in love outside of the Singaporean elite, is dealing with the breakdown of her own marriage. The whole thing is a bit of a forgettable guilty pleasure, the sort where most of the fun comes from watching people who have such a vastly different lifestyle than me or anyone I know, like Gossip Girl or that Downtown Abbey scene where Maggie Smith asks "What is a week-end?" – except for the fact that pretty much every speaking character is Asian. Still, even if it's silly, it's a fun, fast-moving read. I will confess that my favorite part ended up being the footnotes, where Kwan translates the occasional word or phrase in Mandarin, Malaysian, Hokkien, or other languages and explains references to Singaporean places and people. A few of the ones that made me laugh: Malay slang used to express shock or exasperation like “oh dear” or “oh my God.” Alamak and lah are the two most commonly used slang words in Singapore. (Lah is a suffix that can be used at the end of any phrase for emphasis, but there’s no good explanation for why people use it, lah.) Among Singapore’s upper crust, only two boys’ schools matter: Anglo-Chinese School (ACS) and Raffles Institution (RI). Both are consistently ranked among the top schools in the world and have enjoyed a long, heated rivalry. RI, established in 1823, is known to attract the brainy crowd, while ACS, established in 1886, is popular with the more fashionable set and somewhat perceived to be a breeding ground for snobs. Much of this has to do with the 1980 article in the Sunday Nation entitled “The Little Horrors of ACS,” which exposed the rampant snobbery among its pampered students. This led to a shamed principal announcing to stunned students (including this author) the very next morning during assembly that, henceforth, students were no longer allowed to be dropped off at the front entrance by their chauffeurs. (They had to walk up the short driveway all by themselves, unless it was raining.) Expensive watches, eyeglasses, fountain pens, briefcases, satchels, pencil boxes, stationery, combs, electronic gadgets, comic books, and any other luxury items would also be banned from school property. (But within a few months, Lincoln Lee started wearing his Fila socks again and no one seemed to notice.) The exotic Black and White houses of Singapore are a singular architectural style found nowhere else in the world. Combining Anglo-Indian features with the English Arts and Crafts movement, these white-painted bungalows with black trim detailing were ingeniously designed for tropical climes. Originally built to house well-to-do colonial families, they are now extremely coveted and available only to the crazy rich ($40 million for starters, and you might have to wait several decades for a whole family to die). Overall I'd really only recommend the book to someone in need of a mindless beach read. In particular the ending is left unresolved; I know there's a sequel, but even for a book in the midst of a series I'd expect more loose ends to be tied up than what we got here. That said, I haven't seen the movie yet, and I suspect it's the sort of story where good actors can make all the difference, simply by fleshing out these somewhat-cardboard characters. Driving to Geronimo’s Grave by Joe Lansdale. A collection of six short stories by an author mostly known for capturing the spirit of rural east Texas, both in historical and modern fiction. In the title story, a brother and sister run afoul of a bank robber in Oklahoma during the Great Depression. This one had an excellent first-person narrator and a great sense of humor. In the Mad Mountains is a surprisingly straightforward Lovecraft pastiche, with hints of the Titanic's sinking and Amelia Earhart's disappearance mixing with the cosmic horrors. There's no twists or revisionism here; you could almost mistake this one for actual Lovecraft, except that Lansdale is much better at writing well-rounded characters. Though that's a low bar. Robo Rapid is an old-fashioned, surprisingly cozy YA post-apocalyptic story – more Edgar Rice Burroughs than Hunger Games – with a girl heading out on an adventure across a vast and unknown desert. The Projectionist is darker than the other stories; a noir tale of mobsters and unrequited obsession. Everything Sparkles in Hell is probably my favorite of the six. It reminded me a bit of Django Unchained, having a similar sort of violent humor tucked into a revisionist Western. A black bounty hunter and his Native American buddy track down four murderers, at least until a man-killing grizzly bear and a massive snowstorm complicate matters. Wrestling Jesus is the only story of these that I'd before; it was published in the Dangerous Women anthology and I have to say that I really disliked it there. A bullied teen is semi-adopted by an elderly ex-wrestler, who teaches him how to fight in between preparing for his own big match – he and another man have a rivalry going back decades where they compete for the attentions of a beautiful woman. Read as a story explicitly about a 'dangerous woman' it's a disaster, since a) the woman only appears in one scene, where b) she's literally a prize to be fought over by men. Read by itself, it's a fine story about a father-son relationship. Or it would be, if Lansdale hadn't included a long afterword complaining about the bad reviews he got for the anthology. Don't write a story that so blatantly misses the point and then get upset when people say you missed the point, dude! I hate it when authors I like act like dingbats in their nonfictional writings. But with all that said, this is a very nice collection of stories, with a surprising diversity of tones and settings. I've long been a fan of Lansdale's Hap & Leonard series, but this book would make a good introduction for newcomers. I read this as an ARC via NetGalley. What are you currently reading? Jade City by Fonda Lee. This book has been described as "Hong Kong gangster movie, but fantasy". I just started it this morning so I can't say more than that, but really, what more do you need?

#books #book reviews #joe lansdale #kevin kwan #NetGalley

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spablomars · 4 years ago

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Skull Illustration and process

Review:

I believe that my skull Illustration is a really strong outcome because I added quite a few details to it and I followed some of Patrick Seymour’s art to have an art reference. My final outcome of the black and white Illustration had a lot of shadow work and contrast and I really liked it that way because it made it more intricate and somehow looks semi-realistic. Although, I could somehow added the cracks from the skull to the illustration, it would definitely make the Illustration a lot more intricate. I personally loved the last outcome of the colour gradient experiment I did because it was split into 4 separate colours. Patrick Seymour kind of did this concept but he also changed the colour background into a split image, I did not like that concept but I did my own by just separating different colours together.

There some ideas that I could’ve added or some stuff that can be changed, I could explored with different colours more and could possibly animate my skull illustration with different colours and make it into a GIF. I could also add more shapes surrounding the skull but it doesn’t link up with Patrick Seymour’s art style. In addition, I could also possibly make mock up with this illustration as t-shirt designs or a tattoo design for future reference and for showing how we can show our product and be able to make business out of it.

Colour Gradient experiment:

I had some complications went it came to colour gradient because the colour slide in the gradient tool is very temperamental because I have to keep clicking it until I get the colour choices. I kept the same colour scheme from my typography work because I somehow wanted it to be consistent, for the first experiment was a purple and pink combination, it honestly looks simplistic but its still a nice combination together. The second colours are just the purple and blue I used from the same typography work. The third one I really liked because It’s slightly different from others, its a light blue and white colour gradient, it would go really well with the black background like I ‘ve shown down below, I did that by just selecting the rectangle tool in illustrator and I right clicked it and go to arrange and arranged it at the back so we can see the Illustration.

By far my favourite colour combination is the last one because there are several colours that goes really well together, I did this by colour gradient it with pink and purple first and then selected the other half and changed the colour gradient with purple and blue.

Process of creating the Illustration:

I firstly selected my favourite animal skull and I went for a horse skull because it looks interesting to be illustrated. I then placed it in a new document in illustrator, locked the first layer and then created a new layer dedicated to everything else of the process in making my skull illustration. I chose an A3 document that is portrait because it wouldn’t fit with the landscape since the picture is elongated.

I started by the bottom because I wanted to work my way up when I’m drawing, I started where the hole of the nose is, I did the drawing by drawing the outline on a piece of the skull with the pencil tool in Illustrator and I used the blend tool to be able to add the lines created in-between the two lines, you can change the amount of lines created in-between the skull by clicking on blend tool and it should pop up an option of colour changing just make sure to go to specified steps and put the amount you want, the more strokes/lines you add, the darker the part will be. For instance, the hole of the nose is dark because it has some shadows to it, so I added more specified steps to it. To activate to make the lines you just click on the highlighted line to the other line you created, make sure that the two lines doesn’t connect together since it would mess up with the specified steps and would create a weird shape.

I preferred to draw section by section because it created some interesting dimensions which I thought would be a good contrast and shadow works because if I did it by one go It’ll look simple and not intricate enough for me. I also preferred to draw the dark shadows first so that I can visualise the lighter shades with how many specified steps I should do for them.

Sometimes it creates weird shaped lines but it can look sometimes better, if it doesn’t look too great you can simply undo it and select from a different point to another until you’re satisfied with the layout, although I take advantage of it since it looks interesting. I keep continuing to keep sectioning the drawings so that you can see the details of the work.

After finishing one side of the skull, you can simply copy it by selecting the whole thing and go to object - transform - reflect - 90 degrees - copy. This will allow you to copy the exact drawing and it will flip the drawing for you to use for the other side.

I had come across a problem where it left a massive space in-between to make it symmetrical, although I moved the copied version around to see if I can make it work and what I did was rotated the second one slightly and connected it from the top and it leaves it from being slightly crossed over each other but it didn’t look too bad so I decided to go for that, it then left some gaps at the bottom where the teeth are but I just quickly filled it in to make it more symmetrical looking.

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bnha-hcs · 7 years ago

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Hello~~! I hope I’ve made it for the doodle event and that this ref is okay. Sorry that her hero costume is unfinished; I’ve been testing colour combos because I lowkey don’t like all the green, but I think she’s got a good front view of her face for a ref! You don’t have to colour the doodle though!

Here’s my BnHA OC (麗花蒨, Reika Akane). She’s female, with green eyes (her pupils are darker green), and pinkish-brown (rosewood it’s called apparently) long hair that’s semi-thick and straight. She has side bangs swept to her right and wears her hair up in a ponytail with two braided parts on each side of her head that join her ponytail. She has a long scar on the left side of her face that begins at the jaw and goes up to about the middle of her left cheek.

Her Quirk is “Plant Creation” and she’s able to create any kind of plant from her body. She’s kindhearted and cheerful, although a bit introverted and awkward about saying how she feels. Reika is a nurturing, “big sister” type person and supports her family and friends or anyone that needs it. She likes creating flowers and giving them to people and friends as presents or to cheer them up. Reika tries to be confident, even with her anxieties, because she doesn’t want to let people down.

I hope this is enough! ❤

alskjdalsja CAN I JUsT SAY THAT I LOVE YOUR OC LIKE HOLY POOP SHE’S SO CUTE WHY HAVEN’T I KNOWN ABOUT HER SOONER. PLS,,, i would die for her pls tell her how proud i am of her,,, ALSO I REALLY LIKE THE GREEN PERSONALLY. mostly because is she has a plant quirk it makes sense to have her color pallet kind of gear towards the color green?? I LOVE IT TBH mostly because you didn’t choose any sort of obnoxious shade of green, both of them are pretty soft?? I can’t really stand a lot of bright colors bc they give me headaches so I can really get behind this design my guy. She’s so simple yet unique that i’m just??? Smitten with your character design but also,,, Can Bakara and her be friends?? Please they would be such good children AND THIS REMINDS ME THAT i NEED TO COLOR HER HERO OUTFIT AT LEAST even though it’s in the proto stages, I feel like I need to play catch up now that everyone is sending their ocs *SWEATS*

ANYWHO JUST AS PROMISED I DOODLED UP A LITTLE BUST OF HER (sorry I couldn’t do much I need to keep this whole thing consistent so I think a lot of these are going to be colored, uncolored busts so I can get through these in a reasonable time,,,) gODS I wish i had a consistent art style like gomen my guy I’m a little embarrassed I wish I could do More HNNNN (maybe I’ll draw some more fanart of her in the future when my ass can afford to do more)

- Tiki

#oc event #mod talks #mod tiki #submissions to tiki #submission

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arplis · 5 years ago

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Arplis - News: Friday, May 8, 2020 Stu Agler

"Brainstorming for New Periodicals" 17. Magazine for masseuses?: ROLF DIGEST. GOLF DIGEST 21. Magazine for nurses?: IV GUIDE. TV GUIDE 26. Magazine for golfers?: PAR AND DRIVER. CAR AND DRIVER 44. Magazine for crossword constructors?: PUNNERS WORLD. RUNNER'S WORLD 38. Magazine for beekeepers?: HONEY. MONEY 51. Magazine for pharmacists?: MEDBOOK. REDBOOK 60. Magazine for farmers?: HEN'S HEALTH. MEN'S HEALTH We have another debut at the LA Times and Crossword Corner. Welcome, Stu Agler ! Rolf Digest was the first themer to fill, but I had never heard of Rolfing. Wikipedia tells me "Rolfing is a form of alternative medicine originally developed by Ida Rolf as Structural Integration. It is typically delivered as a series of ten hands-on physical manipulation sessions sometimes called "the recipe" Who knew ? Consistency in changing only the first letter of the existing magazines may have made this puzzle a bit easier to solve, but it's still funny and punny. Excepting IV / TV, they all also rhyme. Stu probably had more choices and could probably have created a Sunday sized grid with this theme. How about "Magazine for helicopter designers? Rotor Trend. Or, "Magazine for practitioners of animal husbandry ?" Sired. Maybe, "Magazine for Lumberyard professionals ? Wood Housekeeping. I'll stop now and leave it to the professionals. Great job, Stu. We're now going to explore that which remains. And pardon me while I wander and reminisce. Across: 1. Cook Islands language: MAORI. The Cook Islands are in the South Pacific ocean with 15 islands having a combined total land area of about 93 square miles. For perspective, the city of Chicago covers about 234 sq. miles. Los Angeles 469, and Houston 600 sq. miles. The land area of the Cook Islands is about the size of Milwaukee (96), Sacramento (98), Lincoln, NE (89) or Tallahassee (100 sq. mi.). Spanish explorers visited the islands in the late 1500s and named one of the islands St. Bernard. British Navigator James Cook came to the islands in the 1770s, and named one of the islands Hervey Island. The name "Cook Islands" first appeared on a Russian naval chart in the 1820s. 78 % of the people on the island nation are Māori and another 7.8 % are part Māori. The official languages are English and Cook Islands Māori. The capital (and largest city) is Avarua, which might be a good answer in a crossword puzzle. 6. Place for mascara: LASH. 10. Rims: LIPs. 14. Ray __, NBAer with the most regular season 3-point field goals: ALLEN. Retired HOF'er with 18 years in the NBA making 40 % of his attempts from beyond the line for 2973 buckets. Active player Stephen Curry has hit 43.5 % of his 3-pointers during his 11 year NBA career, and is about 500 makes behind. Note the consistency in the non-shooting hand. 15. Northern Oklahoma city: ENID. Known as the "Wheat Capital" of Oklahoma for its immense grain storage capacity. It has the third-largest grain storage capacity in the world. Yes, that is a line of rail cars in the foreground. The place is huge. There were some great shots on The Smithsonian Channel's Aerial America - Oklahoma the other day. If you don't get that channel, watch for it to be shown on The Smithsonian's Aerial America YouTube channel. 16. Legal memo phrase: INRE. 19. Campus area: QUAD. 20. Place with shells: SEASIDE. 23. Informal negative: AIN'T. Isn't wrong. 25. Chopper topper: ROTOR. One of my part time military jobs (ODAA - other duties as assigned)) was working as part of the team at the "Can Point" when I was assigned to Coleman Army Airfield, Coleman Barracks, 70th AVIM (aviation intermediate maintenance) Battalion, 1st Support Brigade (later, 21st Support Command), USAEUR (US Army Europe) at Sandhofen (Mannheim), Germany. My real job was in the computer vans, 3rd shift, feeding stack after stack of 80 column cards into a card reader, and then inserting magnetic ledger stock into the platen feed of an NCR 500 computer system. It was all part of the inventory control system used to keep track of orders and disbursements and stock on hand. Occasionally keypunching new cards to replace mangled cards, and running the 088 card sorter from time to time after dropping a tray full of cards. Tray after tray, night after night, week after week. So monotonous. I digress. Any rotor wing aircraft that went down in USAEUR were transported to the cannibalization point for selected salvage. Rotor wings could not be salvaged for re-use, but were in demand by Air Cavalry battalions and companies around the country. They would be used as art on the hangars or as gate toppers at entrances to Kasernes that housed rotor wing companies. Most impressive and awe inspiring was when the heavy lift helicopters came in for inspection and maintenance. The roar of the engines and sound of the rotors pounding the air was thunderous as the beasts approached and landed on the tarmac. CH-47 "Chinook" on the left and CH-54 "Tarhe" (Skycrane) on the right. The Skycranes were being phased out of military service in Europe in the late '70s when I was there, and many passed through our airfield on their way back to the U.S. 32. Salchow relatives: AXELs. Figure skating. 33. __-deucey: ACEY. A card game or a backgammon game. 34. Hook partner: JAB. Boxing. 37. Gobble (down): WOLF. 40. Coke __: ZERO. Zero calorie, sugar free version of Coca-Cola. Artificially sweetened. I've never had one. 41. __-Caps: SNO. Semi-sweet chocolates topped with nonpareils. White ones, of course. 42. "Be there in __": A SEC. What my wife says 10 minutes before she gets to the door as we are preparing to leave. 43. Wheel alignment: TOE-IN. What You Need to Know About Tire Alignment 47. Weasel cousin: STOAT. Not otter today. A stoat (top) and a weasel (bottom) Stoat or weasel? How to tell the difference 50. "Get lost!": SHOO. 54. Pal of Barbarino in "Welcome Back, Kotter": EPSTEIN. 59. Afterthoughts: ANDs. Oh, and the guy in the lower left is Barbarino and the guy in the top right is Epstein. 62. Leave in: STET. Don't dele. Obelisms. A proofreader knows these symbols. 63. Half of Mork's sign-off: NANU. Mork was the ET from the planet Ork on the sitcom Mork and Mindy. 64. Brew hue: AMBER. 65. __ d'oeuvres: HORS. 66. First column to add, usually: ONEs. Units. The first column of whole numbers to be added in a place-value numbering system. Typically in base-10 (decimal) for most people, and the second column would be tens, the third hundreds and so on. I know you knew that, but I'm building here. Programmers and others in technology use other place-value numbering systems, such as in base-8 (octal) where the columns would be units, eights, sixty-fours and so on, and in base-16 (hexadecimal) they would be units, sixteens, and the third column two hundred fifty-sixes. Quick, what's the first numbering system that comes to mind that is not place-value ? 67. Funny Anne: MEARA. So many roles, but perhaps best known as one half of the Stiller and Meara comedy team. Down: 1. Second-smallest of eight: MARS. Our solar system's planets. The "Red Planet", fourth from the sun. Mercury is the smallest. 2. Ointment ingredient: ALOE. Keep washing your hands and try to find a sanitizer with aloe in it. Does aloe work ? Evaluation of aloe vera gel gloves in the treatment of dry skin associated with occupational exposure. 3. Cantina crock: OLLA. 4. Works the game: REFs. Referees the game or bout. 5. Team with the longest World Series drought (71 years): INDIANS. Should be championship drought. They were in the 2016 World Series, and they were leading it 3 games to 1 in the best of 7 series over the Chicago Cubs. The Cubs won the next two games, evening the series at 3 each. In the seventh and deciding game that many pundits have called one of the greatest game 7s (and series) in MLB history, the teams were tied at 6 runs each after 9 innings. Then the skies opened up with a sudden downpour. After the rain delay play resumed, and the Cubs scored two to take an 8-6 lead in the top of the tenth inning. In the bottom of the tenth, the home field Indians plated one run with two out before the Tribe's loyal fans had their hopes squashed on a weak grounder to third baseman Kris Bryant. It was only the fifth time in World Series history that a Game 7 went to extra innings, and it was the first time the extra inning Game 7 was won by a road team. The series and Game 7 were both dubbed "instant classics". The Cubs won and ended a 108 year championship drought of their own; the longest in professional sports history. 6. Folklore tale: LEGEND. An example of early American literature was Washington Irving's The Legend of Sleep Hollow, but what inspired the work ? 7. Suffix with hex-: ANE. 8. "Absolutely!" in Madrid: SI SI. 9. Best Buy purchase: HDTV. 10. __ license: LIQUOR. 11. Greenland language: INUIT. 12. Madrid museum: PRADO. 13. Where the same questions are asked annually: SEDER. 18. "__ it my way": I DID. 22. Ethically uncertain, in Sussex: GREY. I loved Dash-T's explanation a few weeks ago that, "Gray is a color, while grey is a colour". 24. Spells: TRANCEs. 26. Treat holders: PAWs. 27. Nerve impulse carrier: AXON. 28. HR dept. concern: RELO. United Van Lines packed up my belongings and car when I was relocated from Houston to Chicago in late '87. The company footed the bill for my relocation moving and living expenses. Actually lived for almost two months in a new Holiday Inn that was still in the process of being constructed. Then January came, and I learned fast that my southeast Texas blood and wardrobe was ill-equipped to deal with Chicago's gusting winds and biting cold that would shiver your bones. I ran to the mall and bought thermal underwear and the heaviest lined Burberry style trench coat I could find. I didn't bother to ask HR to foot the bill on those items. I know'd the answer was NO ! 29. Alien from Melmac: ALF. Another extraterrestrial from TV land. Anne Meara played the grandmother in occasional appearances on the sitcom. 30. __ dancing: ICE. Like figure skating, but more freeform and interpretive. 31. "Oy __!": VEY. Oy vey ! This crossword puzzle review has gone on too long. But wait, there's more ! 34. Boo: JEER. Please. Bear with me, it'll be over soon. 35. Seed covering: ARIL. 36. M's favorite agent: BOND. James Bond's boss and head of MI6, portrayed by Dame Judy Dench in eight of the movies. 38. 24 hrs.-per-day retail channel: HSN. Home Shopping Network 39. Wine: Pref.: OEN. From the ancient Greek word oinos. "The translators of the KJV, by uniformly rendering the Greek word oinos as wine, replicated the Greek word’s reference to both fermented and unfermented juice with an English word that, in their day, was similarly general in reference." 40. Wild place: ZOO. The nickname for Gerszewski Barracks in Knielingen (Karlsruhe) Germany, my second station while serving there. The Zoo had an entirely different atmosphere than Coleman. Still the military, but significantly fewer officers and Warrant Officers (mostly helicopter pilots at Coleman) and MPs than Coleman. Definitely more relaxed. Coleman was the home to the USAEUR Confinement Facility, where soldiers in serious trouble awaited trial, were serving sentences up to a year, or for the most serious offenses, were awaiting orders for transportation back to the U.S. to serve extended time at Ft Leavenworth, KA. 42. Jam component: AUTO. Seriously, was I the only one that first thought of pectin ? 43. Type of fastball grip: TWO SEAM. Baseball. Even ardent fans may not be aware of the arsenal that Yu Darvish brings to the mound. 44. Blue Ribbons, e.g.: PABSTs. PBRs, for short. Pabst Blue Ribbon beer. Not my cuppa, but it'll do in a pinch. 45. Monkey used in research: RHESUS. 46. Future junior: SOPH. 47. Big hit: SMASH. As in an exceptionally popular TV, movie or stage show, or for tennis fans such as Sandyanon, the return shot answer to a poorly placed near-net lob shot. 48. :50, another way: TEN TO. Me: "It's ten to five. Are you ready yet ? Are you coming ?" Her: "I'll be there in a sec." 49. Stranger: ODDER. 52. "That's awful!": OH NO. 53. New Jersey university: KEAN. Not familiar. About Yellowrocks, is that near you ? 55. Domesticate: TAME. 56. People Magazine's 2018 Sexiest Man Alive: ELBA. Idris. Hi, Lucina ! 57. Old Roman road: ITER. 58. Dragster's org.: NHRA. The National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) and International Hot Rod Association (IHRA) are the two largest sanctioning bodies for drag racing. The Great Lakes Dragaway in Union Grove, Wisconsin is still going strong. The "Sunday, Sunday, Sunday" radio commercials for drag racing events can still be heard on radio stations across the country. Well, maybe not right now, but they'll be back. 61. Austin-to-Dallas dir.: NNE. For some, I-35 is known as Main Street, Texas. Almost half of the Texas population (and most of my siblings and extended family) lives along this central artery that starts in Laredo, Texas near the Rio Grande, and exits the state just north of Gainseville at the Red River. From there I-35 travels generally NNE all the way to Duluth, Minnesota, comparatively just shy of the border with Canada. The reconstruction and widening of I-35 that started in 2012 is the second largest infrastructure project in the history of the state for TxDOT, the state's Department of Transportation. The first ? Building I-35 in the first place, which started in the '50s as part of Eisenhower's Interstate System. It will be nice, and much safer when it is finally done. Use the Zoom In, Zoom Out buttons on the map to view greater detail or a wider view, and use your mouse to move around. "Ain't Isn't wrong" technology grand ? Finally, here's the grid: #TTP #StuAgler #Friday

Arplis - News source https://arplis.com/blogs/news/friday-may-8-2020-stu-agler

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cutiecrates · 6 years ago

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Cutie Reviews: Kira Kira Crate Oct 18

Oreo’s ready for this review, are you ready?!

This months theme: Soothing the Spirit

Soothe your own spirit and skin during the month when the spirits tend to be a bit restless. October’s crate is all about keeping any “monster” breakouts at bay and making you look and feel rested for any ghoulish gatherings this month!

Acne Bath Salts

If you’ve been a long-time Reader of the blog you might recognize this item. I say that because not only have I gotten this exact one from an older box, but I got another one in the brand from it too. But this one I’ll give a review because of how long its been.

This brand specializes in producing bath salts mean to heal the body and keep skin healthy. Such as this packet, which focuses on keeping acne controlled with a mix of various herbal ingredients that will heal the skin, as well as smooth any dry patches. You can use this in the bath to soak, or pour it into a bowl and just rinse your face and whatever else.

Rating: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

Initially I didn’t think I would care very much about this because the other one I had wasn’t very amazing; it was a plain white powder with a nice scent and some soothing properties for achy muscles. This one on the other hand looks blue in the packet and has a mix of powder and crystals in it, and once in the water it turns a really pretty, vibrant emerald color. I was very impressed. The scent is really nice too, I can’t identify it precisely other than to say it smells like those scented burning sticks.

In terms of how it handles acne, honestly that isn’t actually a big problem for me. Never has been. So I couldn’t really say how it does with that, but it makes the skin feel very smooth and soft and helped soothe my facial dry spots.

Kabuki Sheet Mask

A basic Pure Smile mask that features a colorful Kabuki inspired art design. There was 2 different styles but otherwise were exactly the same as far as I know.

This was one of their “translated“ facial masks, so if you look on the back you can see a whole list of ingredients, like Witch Hazel, purified water, perfume, hydrogenated perfume, etc. It’s main ingredients are Hyaluronic acid, Vitamin E, and Collagen- so typical mask.

Rating: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

In comparison to the one from NMNL box this one has a generic scent of lotion or facial masks, it was really nice. Unfortunately I wasn’t really able entirely use the mask too long because it was really bothering my eyes. My allergies struck a few days ago and they’re mainly affecting my eyes, so it wasn’t a very enjoyable experience...

But keep in mind that isn’t the masks fault, I’ve used several facial masks from Pure Smile and other brands and never had any problems like that.

Konjac Exfoliator

I’m beginning to think Kira Kira crate loves Konjac, because I know I’ve seen it before in these boxes. In fact I got the exact same one last time (available in a heart or circle shape, I adore hearts so I’m not complaining about that). But this time we had the option between the original, green tea, or charcoal. So I’m a little disappointed about getting the original again.... although I don’t like charcoal or green tea, so this is kind of like a gift horse situation.

So as you can see, mine was extremely dry. If I recall, when I got this originally it was spongy and moist- that’s the problem with konjac though. Used or not it’ll dry up. The good news is that because it was still sealed, I was able to re-moisten it and sort of bring it back to life for use.

Rating: ♥ ♥ ♥

I’m not really sure if it would have changed my opinion if I got a different one, but never really noticed the appeal behind konjac when it’s pretty much the same thing as any other sponge- at least to me. I never really think much about them or notice anything I wouldn’t have seen using another product to clean my face. It’s a cute shape and I like the possible variety options behind it, but I can’t say it’s my favorite item in the box. It’s nothing new for me.

Acne Medicated Face Foam

Formulated with Hyaluronic Acid, this facial foam works in tandem with the konjac sponge, and has the same theme as the bath salts in that it fights against nasty acne. It leaves the skin smooth and fresh and won’t strip it of its moisture; but it will remove traces of makeup that might be clogging those stuffy pores. It’s also gentle and has a faint floral/lotion scent so it most-likely won’t trigger any sensitivity issues.

Like other face foams/cleaners it has a semi-thick, gooey texture.

Rating: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

I have several facial washes products due to my boxes, and I tend to rate these very seriously if I find one that I really like and try to compare others to them. This one reminds me a lot of the ones I had back when I started ordering these boxes, the Naive Peach for example. It makes my skin feel relaxed and cools it down, which is great for warm weather like this.

It didn’t even activate my allergies like I thought it might, I assume it’s due to the medicated formula? My eyes feel really good right now and aren’t bothering me at all (although they are a tiny bit heavy, I should be sleeping now~).

Hanamaru Eye Cream

This is our final item, an eye cream meant to de-puff those bags and tired muscles. It sinks into the skin and leaves a cooling after effect to rejuvenate it, and it has a faint rose scent.

I was pretty surprised to see this grey-very slightly green tinted product come out of the tube. The booklet says it has a gel-like consistency and I could agree with that. You only need a really tiny amount when using it, as I discovered after taking this picture.

Rating: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

I really don’t know if it was this, the face wash, or using both of them but my eyes feel great. I really like this cream and it smells wonderful- but again it’s very light so it won’t trigger allergies or anything. It also didn’t bother my eyes to use this, which again really surprised me.

♥ Cutie Ranking ♥

Quality - 2 out of 5. The items were fine, and all of it besides the mask is re-usable so I like that. Two of them also had variety which was nice.

Theme - 1 out of 5. Compared to last years box, which actually did have a Halloween vibe... I didn’t see it at all with this one. But I will give them points for trying; I mean, they did have some cutesy spooky puns and stuff...

Content - 4 out of 5. Although I have my complaints about the items above, I’m not saying in any means were they bad items. What really bothers me is how repetitive it was though- if the items weren’t the exact same as previously for me, they were very close.

Total Rank: 6 out of 10 Cuties. Basically, the items are good quality and I liked them. But I was heavily disappointed by the way they handled the theme- especially in comparison to last year. Knowing what they are capable of made me feel underwhelmed by it ultimately.

♥ Cutie Scale ♥

1. Hanamaru Eye Cream - Kind of simple but I liked the white-ish, light green, and grey/silver details. I also love the scent, and my eyes feel really nice after using it~

2. Acne Face Wash - It’s kind of like below in that the packaging isn’t very unique or fun, but the product is really good. I didn’t think much of it until I actually used it and I really like it now.

3. Acne Bath Salts - You can’t really be all that excited about the plain packaging. But the product itself is amazing!

4. Face Mask - the Kabuki inspired designs were fun, but it wasn’t anything special.

5. Konjac Heart Sponge - As much as I love hearts this isn’t one I was very excited to see...

I know I probably come off as being overly critical sometimes (or maybe not enough??), but that will be it on my thoughts of this box. If you didn’t enjoy the review I at least hope the pictures killed some time ;p Next up I’ll be doing the a Gacha Gacha Crate review because it showed up last week and I am very excited about it- so remember:

Open a box of cuteness each day!

#kirakiracrate #cutie reviews #pure smile

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raggywaltz1954 · 8 years ago

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Live jazz is often the best kind of jazz, and live jazz albums are next best thing to actually experiencing live jazz. Live albums are like time machines, transporting you to the scene of the recording. The older the album is, the better the time travel experience. One place I’d love to travel back to is the Newport Jazz Festival during it’s infancy of the 1950’s, when giants walked the earth. Well, jazz giants like Thelonious Monk.

The Music

Tune: ‘Rhythm-A-Ning’

Recorded live on 3 July, 1959 at Newport Jazz Festival, Newport, Rhode Island

Personnel:

Thelonious Monk- Piano

Charlie Rouse- Tenor Sax

Sam Jones- Bass

Art Taylor- Drums

George Wein’s annual Newport Jazz Festival in the affluent city of Newport, Rhode Island featured the great jazz musicians of the day, as well as thousands of fans that soaked in the music under the sun and stars. It’s still going on today, but man what I would give to travel back in time and catch some of those sets. Then again, I’d want to stay right there on the festival grounds and not venture out into the city. Racism was fierce for people like me back then.

This record captures a set by the Thelonious Monk Quartet, complete with stage announcements from usual the Newport MC Willis Connover. He had the perfect voice for the radio and broadcasting, which he put to use on his radio show called Voice of America, where he played jazz music that was beamed out across the country and internationally, all the way to Europe. After a descriptive introduction, the musicians are off.

Thelonious Monk is one of only a handful of jazz musicians that could play an hour-long set consisting purely of original tunes (Dave Brubeck, Duke Ellington, and Horace Silver immediately come to mind). The whole set is good, and I had a hard time choosing between the above tune and my favorite Thelonious Monk original, ‘Well, You Needn’t’. ‘Rhythm-A-Ning’ won because Monk gets some punchy comping in that perfectly compliments Rouse’s sax, starting off pretty busy behind him, then dropping down to a few chords, then finally laying out until it’s time for his own solo. Plus, it’s always great to hear Monk tackle a standard jazz tune, in this case the changes to ‘I Got Rhythm’. All the better to appreciate Monk’s quirkiness and style. Jazz drummer veteran Art Taylor holds things down, throwing numerous syncopated accents into the mix. The sound is fantastic for an archival recording, and the stage ambiance, complete with loudly stamping foot from Monk, add to the you-are-there feeling of the album. It was surely a power-packed weekend of jazz that July. Also performing that weekend was Ahmad Jamal, Art Blakey and His Jazz Messengers, Dave Brubeck, Oscar Peterson, Horace Silver…

The album was pressed by the online music treasure trove organization called Concert Vault. Started in 2002, going live in 2003 online, Concert Vault and its other business arm Wolfgang’s Vault, is the largest collection of live concert recordings, spanning numeorus genres of music, but mostly rock and jazz. The company acquired hundreds of Newport Jazz Festival tapes from 1955 on up through 2000’s, in addition to other live jazz recordings from places like George Wein’s jazz club, Storyville in Boston. An annual paid membership gives you access to unlimited music performances, and there’s merchandise to be bought as well. This album, as well as a 1967 Newport appearance by Miles Davis, are available for purchase, as well as a free gift for renewing/purchasing an annual membership. The jazz selection is enough to put serious jazz fans in cardiac arrest. Live Horace Silver, Art Blakey, Stan Kenton, Dave Brubeck, and more from the 1950’s, in glorious full stereo? Bring my coffin, boys. The recordings used to be available for purchase and download, but a few years ago they put an end to that. Nowadays, you just get unlimited play.

This particular album is the first record pressed by Concert Vault. At least I assume it is, since the catalog number is ‘001’. I’d like to see them press more Newport Jazz Fest sets to vinyl, but after six years, they’ve only made three jazz albums, including this one, the Miles Davis album, and a Ray Charles set from Newport 1960, in addition to three non-jazz albums, making a grand total of six albums. Next time I see a shooting star, I know what I’m wishing for.

The Cover

College Jazz Collector Rating: A

This is a cool album cover. A collaborative effort by artist Theresa Seelye and a designer by the name of Surlyfella, the spare side profile of Thelonious Monk is powerful and hints at the type of music on the record. The use of blue (Blue Monk?) is aesthetically pleasing, as is the alternate colors used in the title at the bottom. The white trim outlining the artwork is a nice touch, and the hand-written label on the left side of the album add to the retro feel of the cover artwork. That label, written in crayon, is probably what the original master tape had written on the outside. It all makes for evocative art and design. Theresa Seelye and Surlyfella, take several bows.

The Back

Solid if not relevantly brief liner notes, mostly filled with a biography of Monk and dedicating only three paragraphs to the actual music on the record. The printed label at the top left is a neat reminder that this record was pressed from an actual tape. Other than the label, it’s a rather plain back.

The Vinyl

Pressed on heavy, thick 180g virgin vinyl, this is an original pressing from…2013. Most modern-day records don’t sound that great, mostly due to the source of the music and the mastering of said music. Historically, records were made from music recorded to tape. Now, music is made digitally, but you can’t just slap digitally-produced music onto vinyl and think the job is done. Doing so just produces terrible-sounding vinyl. Playing some of these modern releases, like the new Bruno Mars album (don’t judge. He’s catchy like a rash), on vinyl, it sounds like the record is worn, despite being brand new. The culprit? Music that was digitally made and incorrectly mastered for vinyl and the playback machines it’s created for.

Luckily, that’s not an issue with this release. Concert Vault used the original tape as their source for the record, like they did in the 1950’s, and the result is a beautiful-sounding record. The music was miraculously recorded in stereo, and the sound engineers mastered it so that Charlie Rouse’s saxophone is in the center of the mix, with Monk’s piano and Jones’ bass on the left, Taylor’s drums on the right, and the audience ambiance throughout the mix. Considering this was recorded non-commercially, most-likely for rebroadcast on Willis Connover’s radio program, the sound is amazingly clear, spacious and life-like. The audio quality is on par with the best Columbia 6-eye studio albums. Or have I gone too far? Like I said, Concert Vault needs to press more of those beautiful-sounding stereo tapes of live performances to vinyl! There’s a ready market, and many of these performances are already out in terrible quality on numerous bootleg and semi-official CDs.

The Place of Acquisition

I bought the album online at Concert Vault’s merchandise website, Wolfgang’s Vault. Well, bought isn’t the right word. The website used to award you points each time you renewed your membership, and after two years I had enough points to ‘buy’ the album from their online store. I’ve seen a few copies for sale on eBay and on Discogs, as well. For a college student, scoring a ‘free’ record in perfect condition is major victory, especially when it’s an album of mostly unreleased stuff.

Thelonious Monk Newport ’59 // Thelonious Monk (Concert Vault CVLP-001) Live jazz is often the best kind of jazz, and live jazz albums are next best thing to actually experiencing live jazz.

#Concert Vault #Live Jazz #Thelonious Monk

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bmichael · 8 years ago

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January stuff: activities, books, and such

I’ve never been, and never will be, a diarist. I realized today was Feb 1 and that I’d closed a few threads (or semi-closed) that I wanted to think about and process.

I attempted one of those “Dry January” things people do. On paper it actually seems to be quite good. I once had a roommate that fasted once a week. It wasn’t a big impact on his life, really, and it meant his body ended up processing 1/7 the food he’d ‘normally’ eat. Which, actually, is quite healthy. I have no idea if he’s still doing this, but it struck me as intelligent. Not drinking for a month (a 31 day one, at that) seems similarly healthy. That’s a whole 1/12th of the year you’re not drinking alcohol, which, if you drink a lot (...?!) then that’s good. I was mostly successful, drinking only about three of the 31 days. So not really successful at all, strictly speaking. It just goes to show how hard it is to get rid of vicious habits.

In a lot of ways. it was actually much easier to do an 80 day running challenge, which I completed on Jan 6.

The challenge for me was to run at least a mile every day for 80 consecutive days. I think I averaged about 3 miles per run, which ended up being less than my usual weekly/monthly mileage. The experience taught me a lot about sticking with a habit and pushing through mental resistance. I almost never run after work, but during the 80 day run streak, I ran after work about half the time. I bought a headlamp as this all occurred in the fall and winter. I ended up going for a very drunk run after the Ohio State - Michigan game, and I fell down on the sidewalk and really scraped myself up. I realized an easy one mile run can turn into a really fun, energizing three or five mile run. I think I’ll probably go for another run streak, although by the end I was constantly tired and sore.

January was a disappointing month from a health and fitness perspective. I ended my 80 day run challenge, and immediately picked up a new one: to run ten miles more than the previous month’s mileage, for at least six months. The problem was, I had run about 90 miles in December, so I had a goal of 100 in January and an eventual goal of 150 in May, which would be about my maximum monthly mileage. As I mentioned above, I was really worn out from the run streak (how do people stack up years-long streaks?) and turning my mileage up to a very high level was a bad idea. It didn’t end up mattering anyway, as I got to be very sick for the last two weeks of the month (just feeling better now) and I haven’t run since Jan 20.

I picked up another challenge, but one without a time component. Spurred by a friend’s push-up streak and an oblique reference to it from a Learned League question, I decided to train to do the “Sally Up” challenge:

youtube

If you don’t watch the video above, the gist is to do push-ups, planks, and whatever you call holding yourself off the ground, but with your elbows bent to 90 degrees - all to the tune of Moby’s “Flower”. The song samples a blues song with the lyrics, “Bring Sally up / and bring Sally down / lift and squat gotta tear the ground”. On “bring Sally up” you push up and hold until “bring Sally down”, at which point you bend your elbows to 90 degrees but don’t rest your body on the ground. It’s quite hard. I’d come across it maybe a year ago and only made it about a minute in. My only training for it was to do it after running, and I went from about 1:20 to 1:45. But I haven’t done it since the 20th. I also haven’t researched ‘strats’ for it, but I presume that by just doing the activity I’ll improve at it. Of course, I do pull-ups as a counter motion to this, but I end up feeling some tendonitis or something in my right elbow from doing a lot of push activities, so who knows if I’ll ever be able to do this.

Another reason why I know for a fact I’m no diarist is that I had attempted to chronicle each of the 80 or so runs I did during my run streak. I made it to run three, and then penciled in maybe number 80. Like, utter failure. I don’t know why I can take up physical challenges pretty easily, but forcing myself to do ‘work’ is infinitely harder. I have a form of discipline, but it’s not that one I guess.

I have a few other self-improvement projects, like learning Spencerian penmanship. As I also have a more than vague interest in pens and things, I thought it was stupid to have bad handwriting. Similar-wise to drawing. I’ve wasted so much of my life being fixated on things. I’ve always loved pens and art supplies -- notebooks, pencils, rulers, markers, paints -- but I’ve never taken any kind of instruction or tried to learn anything artistic. So I had and have been working on that. It’s relatively easy to be able to draw forms and figures if you practice, but being creative can’t be taught.

Over what I like to call the ‘Winter Break’, I received for Christmas and read Masha Gessen’s book about Putin. It’s quite good. I don’t know anything about Russian history, so I have to remind myself constantly to temper my reactions to her stories, but it seems... hella fucked up? It’s improbable and frightening how quickly Putin gained, consolidated, and abused his power. Obviously, there are many, many parallels to Trump. It almost seems by design, which I wouldn’t discount. I’ve constantly found many leftists chiding this new-found Russo-phobia to be consternating or outright puzzling. I know Glenn Greenwald is aware of Russia’s policies in re: freedom, press, minority and gay rights. But he seems pretty non-plussed about it all. Like liberals in the US are just continuing the cold war or something. Which, I think is probably sort of true. But also, the motivations here seem totally different? The political apparatus opposing Russian interference in American political life doesn’t seem like it will gain much materially from its actions. And the opposite faction actually has everything to gain. I don’t understand.

One book that’s helped me to understand somewhat is The Devil’s Chessboard, a long history of Allen Dulles and the CIA, written by David Talbot, who founded Slate. Again, I know very little about anything, so I’m constantly having to remind myself that there are countervailing interpretations and views about all of this. But if even half of what Talbot writes about is true, Allen Dulles and his brother John Foster Dulles are two of the most powerful and little-discussed (in the mainstream, popular press or history curriculum) men in American history. The Dulles brothers ran the CIA and State Department throughout from WW2 through the Kennedy administration. So: they ran the official and unofficial foreign policies of the most powerful country in the world during the period in which it gained the majority of its power. With little public accountability. And their only guiding principles being to topple Communism and make money for their former clients and friends in the insanely affluent world of international business. Take away about 80 points of IQ and trade Islam with Communism, and you have today’s state of affairs.

My thinking has been dominated by trying to contextualize all of what’s happening with whatever accounts of the past I can find. This book on Dulles has been an amazing resource for that, and if you’re unfamiliar with the political context of the cold war, then I’d recommend it. It’s very relevant. The whole of American foreign policy, official and secret, can be traced directly to Allen Dulles. From collaborating with Nazis to creating pan-national corporate states to destabilizing foreign regimes to promote or protect the interests of those states to utterly ignoring the rule and spirit of the law to accomplish all of the above. It’s headspinning, breathtaking, whatever. It’s literally incredible, and I’m looking forward to reading something more ‘basic’, like Halberstam’s book about the 50s, to get some more perspective. But it’s beyond a doubt in my mind that America right now is just where it deserves to be.

I haven’t been listening to as much new music and such this month. I came very late to the Kevin Gates album. He’s been consistently one of my favorite rappers, even though he has a plethora of corny songs (”Hard For” is a major cringer). But his flow is ferocious and his voice is just about singular. Whereas it seems like all the other young rappers have moved to welp-like squeaks and squawks for their vocal style, there’s something strangely transgressive about his deep throated gravelly sound.

I’ve rediscovered my love of Phish. It’s just happy, great, energetic music. I just found out Phish is playing a 13 day stand at MSG, and I hope to go to one of those shows. But, TBH, I could live in the summer 1993 tour and be happy forever.

Up until the election, I listened to so many political podcasts, and then after the election I stopped finding entertaining political ‘news’ and journalism. Especially Jon Favreau. What a smarmy fuck. I hope his new podcast “saves america” or whatever, but I highly doubt it will, unless he can find a way to weaponize the uniquely grating sound of condescension and overconfidence masking his one good attribute in life: having a great boss, once.

I’ve recently discovered an older podcast (though still ongoing!) called Tincture. It’s a post-apocalyptic one, like listening to an alternate universe version of Fallout. Like, if Fallout 3 were actually amazing and somehow influenced by Stephen King’s The Dark Tower series (but only the good parts). It’s awesome, so far. Highly recommended, along with Doughboys, my favorite comedy podcast of the last year. It’s started off a little ‘ehhh’, but the last episode with Jon Gabrus (who also has a pretty good podcast, High and Mighty) was an achievement. Maybe a little too up its own ass for new listeners, but that’s sort of the whole MO of the Doughboys. Maybe you have to get frog-boiled accustomed to it, though.

There are lots of other things going on in my life, and January has marked an inflection point in one of them. I’m hoping that things somehow the general situation improves. Going to the women’s march in New York was inspirational for the size of the crowd and the diversity of the voices, but it was just one day. I know people are protesting and resisting throughout the country (and world), but I fear that unless the resistance can become commoditized into some form of media or consumption (basically, subsumed into capitalism) a la Fox News and MAGA hats, then it’s doomed to fail. It’s not fun to stand outside in the cold all day yelling. It’s fun to have well groomed people on TV telling you things you agree with. That’s something you’ll do every day and spend money on, perpetuating the messaging and power it has. I just don’t see a way out until people on the left can start to coexist and consolidate their world views into something sustainable in some form that’s empowering and most of all easy to do. I know that’s not very revolutionary, and making a liberal Fox News sounds like simultaneously an unambitious and meager, sham-like goal. But just being practical, everyone tearing everyone else apart on twitter all day is the opposite of productive. There has to be something else.

(I know it’s ironic that I’m calling for some sort of agreeable mass media to give leftist views a mainstream platform for consolidating and propagating their views just a few lines after slamming the Favreau podcast. Maybe I’m just not the target audience for it, so I walk my condemnation back a little and say, more power to you and good luck.)

January is over. Tomorrow is James Joyce’s birthday. I might go for a run today, but I probably won’t. Twenty-eight days later, this post will almost certainly not see a sequel.

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essenceoffilm · 8 years ago

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Kiarostami’s Close-Up and the Facticity of Being

One of the greatest humanists of the cinema in company with Jean Renoir and Satyajit Ray, the Iranian master filmmaker, Abbas Kiarostami passed away last summer. There is no need to blame the world of film for not seeing Kiarostami’s significance before his passing because Kiarostami was not only a genius but he was also widely recognized as such. Reasons are plentiful. As Ehsan Khoshbakht observes in his obituary in Sight & Sound, Kiarostami “found a balance between pure cynicism and deep humanism in his work, as it continually questioned life and cinema.” Khoshbakht’s understated observation in the subordinate clause is vital, I believe, for the thesis made in the main clause. There is never a clarity between opposites in Kiarostami’s cinema precisely because it is always already questioning itself. It cannot articulate without structuring nor can it affirm without questioning. One could pick many moments from Kiarostami’s work to illustrate this, think of the iconic ending of Taste of Cherry (1997, Ta’m e guilass), for example, but it seems most obvious in the case of Close-Up (1990, Nema-ye Nazdik), a good candidate for Kiarostami’s best film, a meta-film about cinema, longing, and, above all, itself.

Made in between of Kiarostami’s breakthrough “Koker trilogy”, consisting of the films Where Is The Friend’s Home? (1987, Khane-ye doust kodjast?), Life and Nothing More... (1992, Zendegi va digar hich), and Through the Olive Trees (1994, Zire darakhatan zeyton), Close-Up situates itself on familiar ground in the Kiarostami canon as it almost seems to foreshadow the meta-cinematic themes of the two subsequent films of the trilogy after the more “intellectually innocent” (think what you may) Where Is the Friend’s Home?. Based on true events, Close-Up tells the peculiar story about a poor Iranian man, Hossain Sabzian (played by himself, as is the case with all the performers in the film) who pretended to be the famous Iranian director Mohsen Makhmalbaf for the Ahankas, an upper-class Iranian family to whom Sabzian told that he wanted to use them and their house for his next film. When Sabzian’s hoax was revealed, the Ahankha family sued him only to drop charges after his intentions proved out to be more complex than those of a traditional impostor.

Kiarostami’s third person narrative not only combines different perspectives but also fact and fiction since it uses documentary footage as well as staged material. The film begins with a journalist and two policemen taking a taxi to see and arrest Sabzian. During the taxi journey, narrative establishes the premise of the story as the journalist tells it to the indifferent taxi driver. Once they arrive at the Ahankha residence, the camera is left to film the taxi with only the driver and the two policemen in it while the journalist enters to pick up Sabzian. This set-up is followed by apparently “factual” scenes where Kiarostami interviews the Ahankha family as well as Sabzian himself and “staged” scenes where the original meeting between Sabzian and the mother of the Ahankha family is retold, the entire trial reenacted. preceded by a staged interview with the judge to acquire the approval to film the trial, and a finale where Kiarostami’s camera follows Sabzian being picked up by Makhmalbaf on a motorcycle to the Ahankha residence to make amends with the family in a semi-cathartic moment where life seems to imitate art and vice versa.

A quasi-documentary in the truest sense of the word, Close-Up challenges the spectator to join the game of roles played by Kiarostami and Sabzian. In a sense, Kiarostami does what Sabzian does: he takes matters in his control and drives the people into playing themselves. The twist here is that the role played is not stranger than anything else as which one might exist. Typically for Kiarostami, the free narrative of this quasi-documentary, free in the sense of free indirect discourse, that is, provides the spectator with diegetic information (information about the fictive world) slowly as the story unfolds -- first the journalist sets up the premise, then the people involved are interviewed about the events, towards the end the arrest of Sabzian is seen from his perspective, and finally narrative embraces an ambiguously focalized perspective as it stages the encounter between Sabzian and Makhmalbaf, providing the spectator with diegetic or extra-diegetic information -- but eventually one comes to understand that more important than what is narrated is narrative itself. Analogously, Kiarostami seems to imply, knowing is more important than knowledge, act is more important than object, and experience of truth is more important than truth itself.

In the objective sense of this narrative, Kiarostami creates a vividly realist aesthetics. Kiarostami uses the telephoto lens in many shots to create flat impressions of space, like in the shot of the rolling empty spray can on the street, for example. Kiarostami’s shots are also mainly long in duration. The camera moves by following characters or remains static as they talk, do nothing, or move beyond the screen space. Most of the shots are also small in scale which enhances the impression of duration and longitude (since usually the longer the take in duration, the larger it is in scale). Though not all the shots in Close-Up are, well, close-ups (there are many full shots, for example), Kiarostami’s cinematographic aesthetics gives out an impressive impression of intimacy because the shots are precisely framed, uncovering only a small portion of the whole space (the front of the gate of the Ahankha residence, the narrow street before it, the hallway in the prison, the court, the living room at the Ahankha residence), and, what is more, Kiarostami does not use a lot of establishing shots. He rarely cuts to movement and uses shot-reverse-shot sequences selectively.

Overall, Kiarostami’s style and narrative in Close-Up give one a veritably neo-realist impression. The story is based on a news item (which was André Bazin’s well-known characterization of the narrative simplicity of De Sica’s Bicycle Thieves, 1948 -- that it could well be a short news item), the characters are authentic in the truest sense of the word, the scenes have been shot on-location quite literally, Kiarostami’s mise-en-scène is naturalistic with a strong presence of natural light and the lack of set design, there is a total absence of non-diegetic music with the exception of the very end, the tone has a sense of “tonelessness” which the alleged objectivity of neorealism was always reaching for, narrative seems to constantly de-dramatize situations, chance plays an integral role in narrative, the long take is used relentlessly, and the events take place in real time. Cesare Zavattini would be proud of the first scene in Close-Up: the camera records the journalist’s entrance to the taxi, the taxi voyage to the Ahanka residence, the taxi driver waiting outside while the journalist enters the Ahanka residence after arriving at the destination, and the journalist’s attempts to find a recorder during which he kicks the empty spray can down the street.

An obvious philosophical theme going on in Close-Up is, of course, the question of the relation between the real and the unreal. This relation seems to appear to Kiarostami as dialectical in the Hegelian sense that the polar opposites entail one another. There is no reality without unreality and vice versa. Sabzian acts the role of Makhmalbaf to the point that he is no longer acting: he merely is. The same seems to stand for the film itself. It imitates life to the point that it no longer imitates: it simply is. There is a constant tension between the real and the staged to the point where the former seems to turn into the latter and the latter into the former.

The reason why the essence of Kiarostami’s cinema lies in his meta-cinematic efforts, which are never mere intellectual show-off, is that they connect quintessentially to the more “human” themes in his films, which is why Khoshbakht’s subordinate clause was emphasized above. It is really the philosophical questioning characterizing Kiarostami’s cinema, which constantly questions itself, that makes his cinema so humanely profound. In Close-Up, the interrelation between the real and the unreal, the entanglement between fact and fiction, engages with existentialist themes of identity, loneliness, and yearning for otherness. The spectator is, for sure, free to interpret Sabzian’s desire to be appreciated and recognized as a director with power in terms of psychoanalysis, but one can also see it in terms of Heidegger’s early existential philosophy as a human attempt to rise from the “inauthentic” mundane everyday living of das Man into the “authentic” being of Dasein. If the being of das Man, the everyday being where one engages with the practical world without questioning it, without acknowledging death and so on, is inauthentic, as Heidegger claims it to be, and the being of Dasein, the being towards death with a deep awareness of existence, is authentic, then Close-Up comes across as a peculiar case where inauthenticity (Sabzian acting) leads to authenticity (Sabzian being). Is this not “real” in the case of the film, too? Film is an artificial artifact which precisely as such -- if we are to believe Felix A. Morlioni’s famous characterization of Italian neorealism -- “reaches out to the real.”

Despite reaching out to the real by venturing into the spheres of inauthenticity, Close-Up has little to nothing inauthentic about it in the traditional sense of the word. Kiarostami’s images are truly of the real in the sense that they seem to be never inhabited by anything supernatural or external to the spatio-temporal reality they capture (in terms of both the on-screen and the off-screen space, of course). Like in the images of Ozu’s films, I see nothing holy or sacred in Kiarostami’s. The material density of the texture of reality drains from them. The empty spray can rolling down the street is not necessarily a symbol for the emptiness of human life, or the void behind the roles we play -- though the kick to it by the journalist would be juicy to interpret as an articulation of metaphysical chance --, but more likely a mere abandoned tool. It is what Heidegger would call Vorhanden, a being-present-at-hand whose factual existence is obvious to us after it has lost its functional purpose, its primordial being as Zuhanden, a being-ready-to-hand that one surrounds oneself with in the everyday reality of practical life. If it is a postmodern alternative to Sisyphus’ rock, it would be more a metonymy than a metaphor; it is a desolate, cast-off tool whose lonely mundane being paradoxically charms us in its banality. It is, what we might call in the spirit of anticipation, the taste of cherry.

Though at first glance the empty spray can might seem nothing more than what film scholar Kristin Thompson calls excess, it really is not or is -- which way one prefers to say it. It is not excess in the sense of being surplus material because nothing in Close-Up is surplus material; or, alternatively, everything in Close-Up is surplus material. I prefer the former option due to its intuitive grasp of the film actually being about something. The empty spray can is not excess precisely because it is an essential element of the material reality or the facticity of its being which Kiarostami’s camera senses. It is this quality of lingering on the phenomenal surface which is one of the greatest merits of the cinema.

Given that Kiarostami’s cinema is always characterized by a profound interplay between the seen and the unseen in terms of a dynamic relation between the on-screen and the off-screen space, it is hardly surprising that his ascetic sound design also embodies this materialism. In the final sequence of Close-Up, Kiarostami’s camera with a telephoto lens follows Sabzian and Makhmalbaf on the motorcycle to the Ahanka residence. The sound keeps cutting off and the window of the car, which Kiarostami is purportedly driving, is broken. Catching the spectator totally off-guard, the constantly cutting sound is suddenly replaced by non-diegetic classical music. Against all apparent logic of narrative and consistency, this is a true stroke of genius. Some might sense an ascent from the mundane everyday to the divine infinity in Kiarostami’s choice of cinematic device, which is fine, but to me it is first about narrative alienation -- the sudden emergence of non-diegetic music coerces the spectator into acknowledging that they are watching a film, focusing on the film itself, its artificiality and structure -- and second about material sublimity. The sublimity is precisely material because the sublimity embodied in the non-diegetic music is smeared by the surface of the material reality which Kiarostami’s camera lingers on as it records Sabzian’s emerging emotions at the trial or follows the rolling of the empty spray can down the street.

To Chaplin, life in close-up is tragic and life in long shot is comic. Kiarostami’s Close-Up might at first seem comic due to its crazy story, but as the spectator resides limp and ravished before the final close-up of Sabzian holding a bouquet at the gate of the Ahanka residence, the attained intimacy (by Kiarostami’s camera, on the one hand, and by his narrative, on the other) can make one shed a tear or two by the ruins of a structured identity, nodding assent to the film’s proposition about the inseparability of the real from the unreal both of which manifest themselves on the surface of the facticity of being. Close-up, either the film or the device, is tragic because it does not try to comfort us by means of contextualization but rather throws a detail, a factual detail, in this case, at us in its strange disclosure. It reminds one of death but also of life, standing as a testimonial to Kiarostami’s genius, a tribute to his cinema which it itself represents.

References:

Khoshbakht, Ehsan. 2016. “Abbas Kiarostami, 1940-2016″. Sight & Sound, web exclusive.

#Nema-ye nazdik #Close-Up #Abbas Kiarostami #1990's #Iranian

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fionabrennanartist · 8 years ago

Photo

Image 1; opening night, from the HALFTONE website

Image 2; Tumblr screenshot

Image 3; Buzzfeed screenshot

Image 4; Connemara Series, William McKeown @ Hugh Lane Gallery, Dublin (photo by Fiona)

HALFTONE Print Fair Analysis; The Salon-Style Exhibition

The HALFTONE print fair opened in the Library Project, Temple Bar, Dublin on Thursday the 24th of November, 2016. The Library Project is an exhibition space consisting of a large, street-facing area with a window-display and a small exhibition space adjoined at the back of the main area. These tight spaces are always at full capacity on opening night of an exhibition in the busy Templebar street, and HALFTONE’s opening night was no exception. HALFTONE employed the “salon-style hang” to display the printed artworks (image 1 above). The salon-style hang originated hundreds of years ago in French museums to exhibit various artists of the establishment. At the turn of the 20th century however, anti-establishment artists organised their own “Salons” and invited the public to critique their works. This was the first time ordinary citizens were allowed to view, and then publicly review art, which until then had been reserved for royalty and the rich upper-class. The term “salon” refers to a collection of disparate artists and their works, but it also denotes the democratisation of art. The employment of the salon-style to display the HALFTONE print fair thus raises some questions; is the chosen method of display a direct response to the particular space that is the Library Project? Is it the presentation choice that will allow for the most sales of the art works? Or is it a philosophical statement?

While practicality obviously was a factor, one cannot ignore any philosophical concerns which arise from an art exhibition. I will investigate the difficulties associated with engaging with art in the exhibition setting (especially salon-hung shows in the context of opening night) and the parallels that can be drawn between this exhibition style and our media-saturated contemporary culture. At the risk of turning HALFTONE into a scapegoat for these difficulties in the art world, I must state that the print fair was open for four days, giving visitors ample time and space to view all the works displayed. Furthermore, we cannot deny that it is the nature of exhibition opening nights to be overcrowded social affairs where the art is not the sole focus of the audience. I would simply like to discuss my observations with reference to a successful recent show that many people will be familiar with. That said, let’s look at the salon-hang with reference to the HALFTONE print fair, and see what it means for contemporary art exhibitions in general.

In my experience, exhibitions in the Library Project are democratic, as the space has a welcoming, attractive atmosphere. I will refer to the HALFTONE print fair (specifically opening night 24th November 2016) and the GUM collective’s exhibition Traces (which opened on 6th November 2014) to demonstrate this. The Library Project itself is not a museum; it is a gallery/workshop/shop which specialises in publishing and exhibiting artist’s books and photographs, and which comes under the influence of the Black Church fine art print studio next-door. Already we see a duality between the more hands-on, crafty Library Project and other, older establishments (examples of which could be the Hugh Lane Gallery or the National Gallery of Ireland) where visitors can look, but can’t touch. HALFTONE’s opening night reminded me of the GUM collective’s exhibition opening from two years ago; both employed upbeat music which could be heard from the street, and both offered refreshments (bottles of beer for HALFTONE and whiskey & cokes for GUM). These factors created a celebratory, relaxed atmosphere almost like a party which drew pedestrians in their throngs off the Templebar streets. These masses of viewers in turn necessitated the salon-style hang so that the majority of works were visible. Everyone is encouraged by these attractive atmospheres and displays to walk in off the street and have an opinion. Just as the Salon de Refusés made art available to ordinary people in France over 100 years ago, the vibrant events and accessible displays often seen at the Library Project democratise art for the assorted pedestrians of Templebar. Even though many art museums in Dublin are free for anyone to visit, none entice the average passer-by to peruse art better than the Library Project on opening night.

The democratising effect of the salon-style exhibition introduces visual and thematic playfulness in the assorted artworks. There is not a strong statement from the artists or installers regarding how the collection should be read or interacted with. This contrasts with the linear “white cube” gallery layout, which places works at eye-level around the space in a deliberately way, and often persuades the viewer to discover each piece in a particular order. This linear display can portray the intentions of the artist and causes the works to interact explicitly with each other. The salon-style exhibition on the other hand only implies visual or thematic connections between separate artists and their works. Sometimes the factor that places artworks side-by-side in the salon hang is the fact that their size and shape allows them to fit on the wall pleasingly. This semi-randomness allows for the generation of meaning in the viewer, as they could be interested in two works from opposite sides of the room and decide to correlate them. The role of curator is thus confidently given to the viewer, making the salon hang a playful, democratic experience for the audience.

Criticism of the Salon Exhibition

However, we cannot deny that how an individual work has been grouped will alter our reading of it. The downside of the salon hang is that creating thematic logic in the group of works will be almost impossible, unless they were to be juxtaposed based on vague categories (such as style, medium or size). At worst, the salon-style is an arbitrary installation which avoids any definite, purposeful statement and so each individual piece’s meaning is obscured by the whole. The indiscriminate nature of the salon-style hang could be a reflection of our contemporary media-saturated culture. Internet-users often browse websites in search of short-term distraction. We scroll through vast amounts of content and only feel satisfied once we have found something that mildly entertains us, even if only for a minute. The visual format of websites such as Tumblr, Buzzfeed, and Pintrest trains our brain to skim through images and articles mindlessly, until we find something interesting and novel (images 2 and 3). These internet sites visually mimic a salon-hung art exhibition. The cognitive process that occurs as we aimlessly scroll through these sites also occurs when we enter their real-world manifestation; the salon-style exhibition. This diverting atmosphere is realised fully on exhibition opening nights. The diversionary nature of these sites is physically realised in exhibition opening nights. As previously mentioned, the HALFTONE Print Fair had a party atmosphere that was so crowded that some of the works were not visible. The combination of distractions present at the Library Project reinforces the parallels between the salon-style exhibition and the over-saturated, “click-bait” websites which entertain us. If these sensational sites are designed to prevent us from analysing the content shown to us, can the same be said for openings of salon-hung shows like the ones in the Library Project.

In contrast to the salon-hang is a linear exhibition display which would be associated with the idea of the “White Cube” gallery. An example of this is the Hugh Lane Gallery (image 4), which mostly conserves and houses permanent collections of historical artists.

If the internet is a metaphorical parallel for the salon exhibition, we could likewise compare a linear white cube exhibition (which is edited and authoritative) to a book. A book would usually be considered a reliable source of knowledge, often written by an expert in much the same way that white cube exhibitions have been edited and presented by a professional of the art industry. If I am to be suspicious of the purveyors of mass, undifferentiated content (exhibitions hung floor-to-ceiling with works and “click-bait” websites) I am also obliged to suspect those who would publish selected content while claiming to be an authority. For example, believing something only because it was in a book is an automatic response and requires no effort on the part of the reader. Similarly, highly-curated exhibitions which have been laid out linearly state explicitly that this is how you’re supposed to read this work, removing the responsibility of analysis from the viewer. In the same way that one should endeavour to form one’s own opinion of an exhibition regardless of the pedagogical input of the curator, one must strive in a salon-type exhibition not to focus only on the most entertaining or novel works to the detriment of other, more subdued pieces.

Why is the salon-style hang so popular? An Artist that partook in HALFTONE suggested that in a salon-style show, “there is something for everyone”. Again, this shows the democratic nature of the salon exhibition. In Grayson Perry’s experimental documentary In the Best Possible Taste (2012), he states that the middle class are obsessed with individuality and choice. The middle class (which the majority of the population is) would thus prefer the salon style exhibition, as it is likely that at least one or more pieces will interest the viewer. To enter an austere, sparse exhibit lowers the odds of seeing a work that you “like”, which is a disheartening experience. White cube exhibitions are discerning and exclusive, which is all well until you are the one who feels excluded, or like you just don’t get it.

The salon-style display seems to be successful because it satisfies our desire for choice. This exhibition style is therefore associated with consumerism and reinforces its connection to the middle class, who can now choose and purchase art to display in their own homes. The negative aspects of the salon exhibition stem from a certain apathy which prevents the viewer from engaging with quieter works of art. This apathy is of course not isolated to salon-hung exhibitions. Effort is required when viewing both “white cube” and salon-style exhibitions; in the former, one must acknowledge the input of the curator and perhaps make more of an effort to form a personal opinion without relying on that of the “expert”. In a salon exhibition, we should work to engage with the subtler artworks from which we may be distracted by large, loud or novel pieces. My initial assumption that the salon-style exhibition is so prevalent in contemporary art as it mimics our mindless internet-browsing culture was, perhaps, misplaced; the salon hang obviously pre-dates the internet by a century. The salon-style display simply evidences the human desire for choice and self-expression through commodities, which is not unique to our contemporary world. Of course the salon style is the most appropriate for the HALFTONE fair. But if you want to really appreciate the art, perhaps visit the day after opening night.

The Artist interviewed for this article is Ria Czerniak-Lebov, who was featured in the HALFTONE print fair. Ria is a Print Maker and Editioner in The Graphic Studio and is an advocate of the Salon-style hang. http://riaczerniak.com/

#print #art #review #critique #salon exhibition #white cube gallery #print fair #Black church print studio #Hugh Lane Gallery #contemporary #culture #class #consumerism

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samuelmmarcus · 4 years ago

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Beautiful Homes of Instagram: New-construction Home

As most of you know I have been blogging for many years and I can tell when a home is well-built by a mile away and I can tell this builder is one who doesn’t cut corners. The attention to detail in this home built by Biltmore Co. is truly exceptional. Here, the designer and owner, Liz Amar, shares more details about this new-construction home:

“Honored to showcase our 2020 Boise Parade of Home “The Coronado” with the Home Bunch crowd. The Coronado’s footprint is the same footprint as our 2019 Parade of Home “The Adalaise” that swept all 1st place awards. We had such an amazing response to this style of home that bridges a calm California vibe with Idaho’s desire for a sprawling one story floor plan and we wanted to create that same easy feeling with a totally different layout that checks all the boxes for all sizes of families. This home is great for a growing family or a retired couple who loves to entertain. We were asked several times this year for a multi-generational floor plan that could easily be made smaller where clients needed it to shrink and equally easy to expand for larger lots. The result was “The Coronado” which again won Best Kitchen, Best Master, Best Interior Design, Best Decorating and Best Overall.

Our floor plan goals were to design an overly impressive entrance suitable for both modern & traditional tastes and have a separate entrance to the guest suite. Our three main design goals were: #1: Light. Light. Light.- Let the light in and place lighting fixtures where they’d make the most visual impact. #2: Create a home for our 4-legged friends- We wanted to introduce a dog feeding station at the end of the island as well as a dog wash area in the laundry room. #3: Create many spaces for entertaining and family centered around the kitchen. It’s difficult to pack a punch on a standard size lot when designing a one story floor plan to make it memorable, functional and crowd pleasing and this home does all that. And as you can see from just the kitchen island standpoint, there are 6 different conversational areas to move around to: the island, the kitchen table, the conversation area off the island near the wine fridge, the great room, the back patio off the great room in front of the exterior fireplace, and the outdoor patio off of the kitchen table. Now that’s a lot of entertaining space! We wanted these important spaces to feel extra roomy so we gave them 12′ ceilings. The entry drops down to 10 feet and continues with 10 feet through the rest of the home.”

Make sure to share this house tour with your friends and pin your favorite interior design photos!

Beautiful Homes of Instagram: New-construction Home

Exterior Color: Classic Gray OC-23 by Benjamin Moore on all garage doors, body & trim.

“We used two exterior stones from the same family – Coronado Sawtooth Ledge in Silver Ash and Coronado Sawtooth Ledge in White. Drystacked for a modern look.” – Liz Amar for Biltmore Co.

Garage Doors are Amarr Carriage Court Pinetop with a closed arch. Handles are Amarr Canterbury 10.5″ handles.

“The Coronado” by Biltmore Co. Home Details: Bedrooms: 4, Bathrooms: 3.5, Garage Size: 3, Square Feet: 4,421, Year Built: 2020, Lot Size: .451

Inspiration

“A home built by Killowen Construction was our source of inspiration for our entrance wall.” – Liz Amar for Biltmore Co.

Front Door

Front Door Details: “We used Knotty Alder solids, stained in our own custom stain and lacquered in Minwax Helmsman Spar Urethane in Clear Semi-Gloss.” – Liz Amar for Biltmore Co.

Planters are from Frontgate.

Exterior Lights: Visual Comfort.

Foyer

“We wanted a large entry to show off art and set the style for the rest of the home. We wanted to use this large rug by McGee & Co so there was no use wasting precious installation dollars on setting flooring in a herringbone pattern or something special when we wanted the rug to be the focus against the soft playful painted brick wall. The sconces were an immediate YES to our plan – We love this line for Hudson Valley and placing such a tall vertical mirror drew your eye up to the Currey and Co Chandelier. The wood tone of this chandelier was the basis for the hardwood and stains throughout the home.” – Liz Amar for Biltmore Co.

Painted Brick Wall: Creative Mines Paint Grade Loft Brick painted in Benjamin Moore Classic Gray Semi-Gloss.

Sconces: Becki Owens for Hudson Valley Lighting.

Console Table: here – Other Beautiful Options: here, here, here, here, here, here & here.

Mirror: Pottery Barn Brinkley.

Chandelier: Currey & Co.

Poufs: Home Depot – Also available here – Other Options: here, here & here.

Rug: Estonia Wool Rug – similar here – Other More Options: here, here, here & here.

Picture Light: Mitzi for Hudson Valley.

Hardwood Flooring

Hardwood through the house: Kentwood Brushed Oak Gravelle – Other Beautiful Flooring: here, here & here.

Ceiling Fan: Monte Carlo.

Great Room

“Symmetry. Symmetry. Can you ever get enough? Visually we knew this room would have so much going on with the surrounding seating and 36 linear feet of sliding glass doors that we wanted to keep the eye focused right in the middle of the room, but keep it simple. There’s so many different ways to trim out a fireplace and looks you can create with mantle, hearth and stone looks but we went with a clean stucco finish and tapered the top in framing for a fresh open look. The last thing we wanted was a heavy focal point. We used a fiberglass mesh to reinforce it from cracking. We don’t miss the mantle one bit because the eye goes directly to the open stained shelving backed by vertical shiplap.” – Liz Amar for Biltmore Co.

Sofas

Sofas: RC Willey Furniture Contemporary Natural White Sofa – Pia – Other Sofas: here, here, here, here, here, here & here.

Beautiful Sofa/Console Tables: here, here, here, here & here.

Fireplace

Fireplace: Stucco in Classic Gray OC-23 by Benjamin Moore.

Quartz Hearth: Pental Blue Savoie Honed 3cm.

Bookcase Accessories: Woven Grass Box, Shagreen & Brass Box, Wrapped Leather Tray, White Terracotta Jar, Rectangle Brass Boxes, Backroads Artwork, Fields of Green Artwork & Rolling Hills Artwork.

Vase: here – similar.

Eucalyptus Steams: here – similar.

Bookcases

“Classically styled, we used so many different looks to get a curated feeling. Books, vases, baskets, wicker, greenery, decorative wood objects, ceramic pottery, brass bins and the Visual Comfort sconces just add the right brite look we wanted.” – Liz Amar for Biltmore Co.

Interior Paint Color

“We wanted to keep it consistent through the home so we played off of two colors keeping it calm and airy.” – Liz Amar for Biltmore Co.

Interior Paint Color Walls & Ceiling- The entire house is Benjamin Moore Classic Gray OC-23. Walls are eggshell and trim/shiplap/base moulding is semi-gloss.

Floor Lamp: McGee & Co.

Rug

Rug: Zaragoza Rug 9×12.

Ottoman: Gatehouse Orem Utah – similar here – Other Options: here, here, here, here, here, here, here & here.

Chairs: Available through the designer – Others: here, here, here, here, here, here & here.

Conversation Area

“Right off the entry centered in the room is an 18″ Sub Zero Wine fridge and right in front of that is the best conversational seating area. Perfectly placed to keep your host involved in every conversation as you sit and chill before dinner time.” – Liz Amar for Biltmore Co.

Furniture: Local store.

Custom Cabinetry

The custom cabinetry with classic hardware is flanked by professional panel-ready appliances.

Chairs: Bay Isle Home – similar here – Other Beautiful Options: here, here, here & here.

Backplash

Backsplash: Tile Shop Stow Bianco 4×4.

Cabinet Hardware

Kitchen Cabinet Hardware: Jeffrey Alexander Rhodes Pulls & Knobs. Kitchen pulls has backplates.

Cake Stand: ETU Home Cake Stand – Others: here & here.

Artwork: Backroads Artwork.

Planter: here – similar

Faux Fern: here – similar.

Appliances

Refrigerators: Sub-Zero.

Speed Oven/Microwave: Wolf.

Convection Steam Oven: Wolf.

View

View of Conversation Area, Kitchen and Dining Room.

Kitchen

“A 14 foot island is nothing to mess around with. That’s a long run to design a kitchen around so the eye doesn’t get bored. We opted for a simple straight run even though there’s an invisible seam behind the sink because our perimeter is nothing but plain.” – Liz Amar for Biltmore Co.

Appliances: “We went with Wolf/Sub Zero appliances and love the coffee maker’s convenience.”

Coffee Maker: Wolf 24″ Built-In Automatic Coffee Machine with Integrated Water Tank.

Custom cabinetry is by @greylochcabinetry.

Lighting

Pendants: Hudson Valley Lighting, Large.

Barstools: Lee Industries Custom Stools – Available through the designer – Other Options: here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here & here.

Kitchen Cabinet Paint Color

Cabinet Color: “The painted white is Pure White by Sherwin Williams SW7005 and the stained is a custom stain we mixed called Ever Classic.”

Kitchen Runner: Available through the designer – Other Options: here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here & here.

Pull Out Drawers

Cooktop: 48″ Sealed Burner Rangetop – 6 Burners and Infrared Griddle – Stainless knobs.

Appliances: Wolf/Sub Zero through the whole house.

Pull-out Spice Organizer: Rev-A Shelf.

Pull-out Base Cabinet Organizer: Rev-A Shelf.

Vase: Dipped Flower Pot.

Wooden Easel: McGee.

Backsplash Tile

Backsplash: Tile Shop Stow Bianco 4×4 NRSWBO/44 – similar here, here, here & here.

Pot Filler: Delta.

Countertop

Countertops are Daltile Carrara Capezio 3cm.

Pantry Door: Jeld-Wen 6 Light.

Sink

Kitchen Sink: Kohler.

The kitchen island also features a custom paper towel holder. I told you… this builder does not cut corners!

Faucet

“Baking up your favorite desert and need the exact amount of water in a flash? Ask Alexa! It’s not only a touch faucet, it’s voice activated. Just say “Alexa, tell Delta 2 cups of water” and out comes 2 cups of water. Your alexa needs to be close in proximity but makes measuring so fast and convenient!” – Liz Amar for Biltmore Co.

Kitchen Faucet: Delta Cassidy Touch with Voice IQ Module IQ91977-CZ-DST.

Designed with Everyone in Mind

“This kitchen has not one, but two pot fillers. Can you see where the 2nd one is? Yep for our 4-legged friends. Normally a pot filler fills pots quickly with a lot of output but we added a flow regulator so the only splashes this dog feeding station makes is from happy lapping up of water in their bowl!” – Liz Amar for Biltmore Co.

Kitchen Island Pet Feeding Station

“This dog feeding station has been a huge huge hit nationally and went viral on Josh Altman’s Million Dollar Listing, Bravo TV, and OddityMall.” – Liz Amar for Biltmore Co.

Dog Feeding Station Tile: Bedrosians Magnifica Porcelain Tile.

Pot Fillers: Delta 1177LF-CZ.

Dining Room

The Dining Room features plenty of natural light and gorgeous decor. Sliding doors lead to a large deck.

Chandelier: Hudson Valley.

Furniture

Dining Table: Bernhardt Santa Barbara Extendable Dining Table.

Side Chairs: Hooker Furniture – similar here – Other Beautiful Choices: here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here & here.

Host Dining Chairs: Local store – Others: here, here, here, here, here, here & here.

Butler’s Kitchen

“Who says the Butler’s Kitchen has to be smaller than the real kitchen? We say it should be larger! Make all your messes in here! This is the mixing room, the rolling out of cinnamon rolls room and the room to rummage for healthy snacks! My family would have quarantined here teaching all my kids how to make our favorite family recipes. All this room needs is Grandpa’s Heirloom Butcher Block Island he made Grandma 60 years ago here in the middle. This is the prettiest room, trimmed from wall to wall, ceiling to floor in vertical 8” shiplap. Still keeping that Modern Classic vibe in check, we chose a floor tile traditional in style with its traditional parquet look and neutral color. It’s 24×24 size is so affordable for the look and was absolutely beautiful with every color of painted cabinetry we paired with it. In the end we kept the cabinets cohesive with the interior doors and paired a quartz that blended right into the cabinetry. And let’s chat about the full swing butler’s door from the main Kitchen into the Butler’s Kitchen. I mean, don’t we all want one? They let you go in and out so easily while holding your precious baked goods. We know that a real chef needs lots and lots of refrigerator space. Most people have a 2nd freezer in their garage so we deliberately made our interior freezer space footprint smaller to make a larger refrigerator impact. The butler’s kitchen has a full glass refrigerator to show off your cakes and organic fruits and vegetables– you know, all the pretty refrigerator items.” – Liz Amar for Biltmore Co.

Refrigerator: Sub-Zero 36″ Classic Refrigerator with Glass Door.

Flooring & Cabinetry

Cabinet color: Gray 2121-10 by Benjamin Moore (same as interior doors).

Tile floor: DalTile Cinematic CM44.

Sink: Signature Hardware 30″ Curington Farmhouse Fireclay Sink with flutes.

Large Basket: Verona Vintage Basket.

Pie Cabinet

The pie cabinet with mesh metal door fronts is a great place to store your vegetables and breads. They deserve a cute cabinet too, right?

Countertop

Countertops: Pental Coastal Gray.

Floating Shelves: Custom – Other Options: here & here.

Bottles: McGee & co.

Faucet

Faucet: Brizo Rook Articulating Bridge Faucet with finished hose in Luxe Steel.

Pantry

Pantry Storage Bins: The Container Store, White Nordic Storage Baskets with Handles & Cases of Water Hyacinth Storage Bins.

Beautiful Cutting/Charcuterie Boards: here, here & here.

Powder Room

“We searched for a floor tile and a pattern on the walls that wouldn’t compete for attention in this beautiful powder bathroom. The Bedrosians Blomma was the answer with her soft lines that didn’t fight with the lines in the trimwork. We loved the vertical lines in these Hudson Valley Brookville Pendants that played off the vertical lines in the trimwork.” – Liz Amar for Biltmore Co.

Floor: Bedrosians Blomma in Bianco – Others: here, here, here, here, here, here & here.

Grout: Mapei 101 Rain.

Countertop

Countertop: Pental Quartz Avenza.

Splash: Pental Quartz Avenza with Scoop Edges.

Pendants: (2) Hudson Valley Brookville HUD2384-AGB/WH.

Faucet

“The Delta Dorval wide spread faucet is so playful and classy with their white porcelain handles that played off the white ceramic of the pendants.”

Paint Color

Paint color is Classic Gray by Benjamin Moore in semi-gloss.

Baseboards

Baseboards- We used a taller 7 1/4″. Taller ceilings need taller baseboards from Home Depot.

Family Room

The Family Room is perfect to curl-up with a good book or have the entire family for a movie night.

Rug: Odesa Woven Rug 8×10.

Black & White Artwork: Sketched Seascape & Melancholy Sea.

Get Comfy

Poufs: 24″ Wool Pouf.

Sectional: Available through the designer – Others: here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here & here.

Beautiful Artwork: here, here, here, here, here, here, here & here.

Similar Pillows: here, here & here.

Paint Color

Paint color is BM Classic Gray.

Beautiful Media Consoles/Cabinets: here, here, here, here & here.

Console Table

Console Table: here.

Mirror: Uttermost.

Master Hall

A hallway accentuated with vertical Shiplap leads to the Mater Bedroom.

Master Bedroom

“We knew that a standard vaulted ceiling wasn’t going to be enough of a visual impact in this stunning master bedroom ceiling so we framed for a 24” high coffered ceiling then vaulted it. The trimwork is art, keeping behind the bed and the ceiling classic and visual. The furniture is a blend of Alice Lane and McGee & Co with accessories from Feather and Twine Home in Boise, Idaho. Keeping the color palette neutral and soft with black accents on the nightstands, chandelier and barn door was just the right movement for the eye. Oh, that barn door! Love!!! Yes, it’s pretty much the most beautiful master in the world.” – Liz Amar for Biltmore Co.

Rug: McGee & Co Zaragoza 8×10.

Paint Color

Paint color is Benjamin Moore Classic Gray.

Master Bed: Alice Lane Home Francis King Bed – Other Beautiful Beds: here, here, here, here, here, here & here.

Chandelier: Hudson Valley.

Decor

Baskets: Ilia Baskets Large & Small – similar here.

Artwork: Grayscale 4.

Mirror: Anthropologie.

Settee

Master Settee: Alice Lane Home Abigail Settee – Other Options: here, here, here, here, here & here.

Coffee Table: Sold Out – Other choices: here, here, here & here.

Barn Door

Barn Door: Rustica Barn Door – similar here, here & here.

Nightstand

Nightstands: Marshall Nightstand – Other Popular Options: here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here & here.

Alabaster Table Lamp: here.

Mirror

Wall Mirror: Dawson Floor Mirror.

Master Bathroom

“Affordable luxury was the name of this bathroom, with a Sub Zero warming drawer, stand alone tub, polished nickel plumbing and a shower large enough to dance in. We were in love the minute we saw Tile Shop’s Garzinnin Marquinia tile line and knew that was how we were going to carry the black into the bathroom.” – Liz Amar for Biltmore Co.

Vanities

The custom bathroom vanities and mirror frames are stained is a custom stain the builder calls “Ever Classic“.

Countertops: Pental Quartz Venoso 3cm.

Large Wood Dough Bowl: here – similar.

Warming Drawer

Appliances: Sub-Zero/Wolf Warming Drawer.

Faucets: Brizo Rook in Polished Nickel.

Tub

Tub: Signature Hardware Sheba 72″ Acrylic Double Slipper Tub.

Tub Filler

Tub Filler: Brizo Rook.

Rug

Rug is one-of-a-king vintage rug from Feather and Twine Home – Other Beautiful Rugs: here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here & here.

Layout

The Master Bathroom leads into a large walk-in closet.

Master Closet Storage Boxes: The Container Store.

Pendant: Becki Owens for Hudson Valley.

Floor Tile

Tile Floor: Tile Shop Garzinni Marquinia Porcelain Tile 12×24 (similar here) set in Herringbone Pattern.

Interior Doors

Interior Paint Color Doors: Gray Benjamin Moore 2121-10.

Interior Door Style: Jeld-Wen Monroe.

Interior Door Hardware: Kwikset Milan Round in Iron Black.

Shower Pan Tile

Shower Floor: Tile Shop Garzinni Marquinia Porcelain Tile 4″ Hex (similar here) on a zero threshold shower entrance for ease of entrance.

Wall Tile

Tile Shower Walls: GBI Statuary Polished 12×24 – Others: here, here & here.

Plumbing: Brizo Rook in Polished Nickel.

Guest Bedroom

This Guest Bathroom features vertical shiplap paneling in Benjamin Moore Gray.

Stay Home

Stay home, stay healthy.

Bathroom

Backsplash Tile: Bedrosians Chloe in Green 2.5×8 Vertically Straight Set.

Vanity Lights: Hudson Valley Fleming.

Mirrors: Anthropologie – similar here & here.

Faucets: Delta.

Cabinet Paint Color

Vanity Paint Color: Benjamin Moore Gray.

Countertop and splash: Pental Carrara.

Hardware: Pulls & Knobs.

Floor: Tile Shop White Elongated Hex – Other Geo Tiles: here, here, here, here & here.

Shower Tile

Shower Accent Tile: Bedrosians Decorative Glazed Porcelain Penny, Matte.

Pumbing: Delta.

Muted Hues Bedroom

I absolutely love this bedroom. Isn’t it inviting? Notice the Board and Batten wall paneling and the soothing color scheme.

Bed: Custom – similar here & here.

Artwork: McGee & Co.

Stool: here & here – similar.

Corvelette: here – similar.

Duvet Cover: here & here – similar.

Create a Comfy Bedroom:

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Pretty Details

Nightstand: Gabby Home Marilyn 4 Drawer Accent Chest – also available here – Other Classic Nightstands: here, here, here & here.

Beautiful & Affordable Table Lamps: here, here, here, here & here.

Mom’s Office

This space is very functional and tucked away. Cabinets are in Sherwin Williams Pure White.

Ceiling

Ceiling Wallpaper: Fornasetti Senza Tempo Nuvolette.

Lighting: Mitzi Ashleigh.

Guest Suite

“Our Guest Suite can be shut off from the rest of the home to give your guests the privacy they want. Having their own exterior door allows them to come and go as they wish without being a burden. The Guest Corridor has it’s own bathroom, living room, storage closet and bedroom. Making your guests feel comfortable is all about giving them the opportunity to feel like they’re on vacation so the palette was calm blues, creams and light grey woods.”

Cabinetry

Cabinet: Ever Classic Custom Stain.

Countertops: Pental Quartz Blue Savoie Honed.

Floor Baskets: Rattan Trunk Basket.

Artwork: 2x Woven Patchwork 2.

Wall Paint Color

Paint Color: Benjamin Moore OC-23 Classic Gray.

Wall Mirror: here – similar.

Built-in Bookcase

This built-in bookcase niche features shiplap and custom shelves in BM Classic Gray.

Woven Basket: Woven Cane Tuscan Box.

Guest Suite Bedroom

This Bedroom feels bright and welcoming. Shiplap adds interest and texture to the space.

Lighting: Hudson Valley.

Bed: here & here – similar.

Beautiful Nightstands: here, here, here, here, here & here.

Duvet Cover: here – similar.

Dresser Styling Ideas

Artwork: Watercolor on Paper 4.

Beautiful Dressers: here, here, here, here, here, here & here.

Tray: Rattan Tray.

Neutral Bathroom

Cabinets: Sherwin Williams Pure White.

Countertops: Pental Carrara.

Floor Tile: Bedrosians Pulpis in Bianco.

Shower Walls: Bedrosians Cloe in Cream 5×5.

Mirror: here – similar

Laundry Room

“Our laundry room is a mixture of functionality from storage, to laundry to washing the dog. An adorable dutch door allows you to keep the bottom closed while keeping an eye on your fur baby. The tile floor from Tile Shop has such a beautiful pattern and pairs perfectly with the Dorian Gray cabinets.” – Liz Amar for Biltmore Co.

Lights: Hudson Valley.

Cabinet Paint Color

Cabinet Color: Dorian Gray by Sherwin Williams.

Floor Tile

Tile Floor: Tile Shop Vintage Decora 7 – Other Beautiful Patterned Tiles: here, here, here & here.

Countertop & Backsplash

Countertop & Splash: Pental Quartz Carrara.

First Aid Box: McGee & Co.

Dog Wash

Dog Wash Walls: Concaved Hexagon tile.

Dog Wash Floor: Bedrosians Gray Gloss penny rounds.

Dog Wash Shower: Brizo H20Kinetic Single Function.

Laundry Cart: Steele Canvas.

“Paws & Enjoy the Good Life” Dog Bed: Mud Pie – Others: here & here.

Backyard

This home is gorgeous inside and out! Notice the vegetable garden beds on the right. How perfect is that?!

Patio Furniture

Deck Patio Furniture: Pottery Barn Sofas, Grand Ottoman/Coffee Table .

Fans: Minka Aire Xtreme H2O 84 Coal.

Chairs

Accent Chairs: Cosette Chair.

Many thanks to the builder for sharing the details above.

Builder & Interiors: Biltmore Co. (Instagram)

Interior Design: Liz Amar, owner Biltmore Co.

Decorated by: Liz Amar & The Biltmore Design Team.

Photography: Doug Petersen Photography & Sunnyskies Media.

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“Dear God,

If I am wrong, right me. If I am lost, guide me. If I start to give-up, keep me going.

Lead me in Light and Love”.

Have a wonderful day, my friends and we’ll talk again tomorrow.”

with Love,

Luciane from HomeBunch.com

from Home https://www.homebunch.com/beautiful-homes-of-instagram-new-construction-home/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

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terryblount · 5 years ago

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Toki Review

Once upon a time during the arcade golden era, numerous games were releasing at a constant pace, each one aiming to captivate young players with pockets full of coins. With so many games to choose from, companies had to distinguish themselves through the latest technologies, custom arcade cabinets, colorful creativity, and other innovative methods.

During this time of wonders, arcade and home console companies like Namco, Nintendo, and Sega fiercely fought to stay on the cutting edge of glory. It was during this time that a small company called TAD Corporation created a surprise hit platformer; a game called Toki.

The glorious Toki title screen, coming at you from 1989 to 2019!

Here’s a little history of the company. TAD Corporation started making games in 1988 and had immediate success with its arcade hit Cabal. This success allowed the next year’s release of Toki; a curious game and a bit different from the competition.

Toki was another sudden success thanks to smart design choices and over-the-top humor. It kept some of the clichés from that era (such as a damsel in distress and an evil wizard), but Toki subverted the concept of the hero. Usually you’d play as the super-muscular and attractive main character, but in Toki you played as Toki, the somewhat ugly protagonist.

The story goes that he was an unlucky Tarzan-like fellow that, while saving his beloved Wanda, was transformed into a hairy primate. He became a sort of antihero, and his new powers (shooting magical spheres from his mouth, obviously!) allowed him to go on a quest to save his love and do battle with the forces of evil, ultimately confronting the wily wizard.

Here we see Tarz…ehm, Toki being transformed by the big baddie!

Given the story context, the game was set in the winning choice of a colorful jungle rather than the common industrial or fantasy settings of the era. Hence, the characters contrasted wonderfully with the nicely detailed backgrounds of each stage, attracting the eyes of wandering arcade-goers.

The nicely drawn world map. A whole jungle world to explore, stage by stage.

The gameplay itself consists of basic platforming by today’s standards. Various jumping patterns and enemy movements can be learned as you go. There’s power-ups to improve Toki’s abilities, including new skills like fire shots and gear like an American football suit to protect him (quite humorous looking).

Even with all this creative and colorful design, the arcade version of Toki unfortunately didn’t become a household name. It was successful, meaning lots of players loved the game, but the Toki brand and mascot never hit the mainstream.

On a personal note living in Italy, the game was quite well known because it was available at so many beaches and camping sites, where all the old arcade games were sent (probably because they were cheaper to rent or buy than the fancy new cabinets).

The first level’s always easy. Notice the use of one of the ‘old school’ video filters.

Thankfully, though, Toki did find more notoriety upon entering people’s homes. Over the next few years after release, the game became available on numerous home systems and computers. Some compromises did have to be made on certain versions in order to make the game run on less powerful systems, creating various levels of quality.

For those who are old enough to remember, one of the biggest publishers and porting houses was a company called Ocean Software which, thanks to its French division, created the best ports of Toki for the two most powerful gaming consoles of that time: the Amiga and Atari ST. With these excellent versions, finally eager players could enjoy the game at home without the hassle of the coin-eating arcade life.

Despite the success of their first two games, in just 1993 TAD Corporation closed its doors, and Toki was relegated to the distant memories of many players, only occasionally being remembered through old cassettes, discs, and random beach bars and arcades.

Under the sea, Under the sea! Nice goggles, Toki!

Then, in 2009, something happened: for its 20th anniversary a team from France–including some of the original Ocean Software people who created the Amiga port–decided to remake the game for modern platforms, thanks to their in-depth knowledge gathered at the time of the original port. Unfortunately, for various budget or publishing reasons, the game never came out and, apart from a few discussions here and there and sparse news, the game seemed to be vaporware.

This finally brings us to the present, with another French company, Microids, announcing a full remake of the game would come out close to the game’s 30th anniversary. First released on the Nintendo Switch in 2018, finally Toki has made its glorious return in 2019 to various modern platforms, to the joy (and surprise) of many.

The remake process has been handled very faithfully by reconstructing from scratch all assets, including redrawing all characters with high-resolution cartoon imagery, while painting the backgrounds in a semi-watercolor style. There’s also a fully re-orchestrated soundtrack that works well to enhance the charming and zany humor of the game.

The first boss! Remain calm and don’t get stomped!

On the technical side, the game plays at a high framerate and is so much smoother than its old school roots. Apart from a few moments of lag (probably my PC’s fault), the game runs great. Other nice features include various video filters to recreate the old-fashioned monitors of our childhoods, a speedrun mode, and a jukebox option to listen to the tunes both old and new.

Being originally quite hard, this modern Toki also allows players to change the difficulty. If you’re like me–platformers aren’t my strong suit–you may have some problems finishing the game even on the lowest difficulty because of tricky platforming and placement of many enemies in some stages.

The second level begins to make you struggle if you’re not a platforming expert.

In conclusion, even if it is a simple game–easy to describe and hard to master–thirty years on Toki remains a work of art thanks to the loving of remake treatment it has received, giving new life to this great old game. We’ve seen this done in recent years with other games like Wonder Boy, and hopefully the trend of quality modernizations of classic games at a budget price will continue.

As a reviewer, it’s hard to review Toki simply because it feels out of time, coming from another age. However, I really hope you’ll love Toki as much as I have loved it. If you’re looking for a fun lower-priced game to play with old school platforming and timeless charm, this new Toki is likely for you.

Beautiful recreated art

Lots of neat new features

Runs well on old PCs

Faithful to original

Budget price

Developed by some of the original porting team

Platforming isn’t for everyone

Simplistic gameplay but sometimes very hard

No option for the original pixel graphics

Playtime: 10 hours total (and counting). Mathieu has not completed the game, but he’s still playing it (and dying lots of times!).

Computer Specs: Windows 10 64-bit laptop computer, with 16GB of Ram, Nvidia 1050Ti.

The post Toki Review appeared first on DSOGaming.

Toki Review published first on https://touchgen.tumblr.com/

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ciathyzareposts · 6 years ago

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Star Control II

In this vaguely disturbing picture of Toys for Bob from 1994, Paul Reiche is at center and Fred Ford to the right. Ken Ford, who joined shortly after Star Control II was completed, is to the left.

There must have been something in the games industry’s water circa 1992 when it came to the subject of sequels. Instead of adhering to the traditional guidelines — more of the same, perhaps a little bigger — the sequels of that year had a habit of departing radically from their predecessors in form and spirit. For example, we’ve recently seen how Virgin Games released a Dune II from Westwood Studios that had absolutely nothing to do with the same year’s Dune I, from Cryo Interactive. But just as pronounced is the case of Accolade’s Star Control II, a sequel which came from the same creative team as Star Control I, yet which was so much more involved and ambitious as to relegate most of what its predecessor had to offer to the status of a mere minigame within its larger whole. In doing so, it made gaming history. While Star Control I is remembered today as little more than a footnote to its more illustrious successor, Star Control II remains as passionately loved as any game from its decade, a game which still turns up regularly on lists of the very best games ever made.

Like those of many other people, Paul Reiche III’s life was irrevocably altered by his first encounter with Dungeons & Dragons in the 1970s. “I was in high school,” he remembers, “and went into chemistry class, and there was this dude with glasses who had these strange fantasy illustrations in front of him in these booklets. It was sort of a Napoleon Dynamite moment. Am I repulsed or attracted to this? I went with attracted to it.”

In those days, when the entire published corpus of Dungeons & Dragons consisted of three slim, sketchy booklets, being a player all but demanded that one become a creator — a sort of co-designer, if you will — as well. Reiche and his friends around Berkeley, California, went yet one step further, becoming one of a considerable number of such folks who decided to self-publish their creative efforts. Their most popular product, typed out by Reiche’s mother on a Selectric typewriter and copied at Kinko’s, was a book of new spells called The Necromican.

That venture eventually crashed and burned when it ran afoul of that bane of all semi-amateur businesses, the Internal Revenue Service. It did, however, help to secure for Reiche what seemed the ultimate dream job to a young nerd like him: working for TSR itself, the creator of Dungeons & Dragons, in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. He contributed to various products there, but soon grew disillusioned by the way that his own miserable pay contrasted with the rampant waste and mismanagement around him, which even a starry-eyed teenage RPG fanatic like him couldn’t fail to notice. The end came when he spoke up in a meeting to question the purchase of a Porsche as an executive’s company car. That got him “unemployed pretty dang fast,” he says.

So, he wound up back home, attending the University of California, Berkeley, as a geology major. But by now, it was the 1980s, and home computers — and computer games — were making their presence felt among the same sorts of people who tended to play Dungeons & Dragons. In fact, Reiche had been friends for some time already with one of the most prominent designers in the new field: Jon Freeman of Automated Simulations, designer of Temple of Apshai, the most sophisticated of the very early proto-CRPGs. Reiche got his first digital-game credit by designing The Keys of Acheron, an “expansion pack” for Temple of Apshai‘s sequel Hellfire Warrior, for Freeman and Automated. Not long after, Freeman had a falling-out with his partner and left Automated to form Free Fall Associates with his wife, programmer Anne Westfall. He soon asked Reiche to join them. It wasn’t a hard decision to make: compared to the tabletop industry, Reiche remembers, “there was about ten times the money in computer games and one-tenth the number of people.”

Freeman, Westfall, and Reiche made a big splash very quickly, when they were signed as one of the first group of “electronic artists” to join a new publisher known as Electronic Arts. Free Fall could count not one but two titles among EA’s debut portfolio in 1983: Archon, a chess-like game where the pieces fought it out with one another, arcade-style, under the players’ control; and Murder on the Zinderneuf, an innovative if not entirely satisfying procedurally-generated murder-mystery game. While the latter proved to be a slight commercial disappointment, the former more than made up for it by becoming a big hit, prompting the trio to make a somewhat less successful sequel in 1984.

After that, Reiche parted ways with Free Fall to become a sort of cleanup hitter of a designer for EA, working on whatever projects they felt needed some additional design input. With Evan and Nicky Robinson, he put together Mail Order Monsters, an evolution of an old Automated Simulations game of monster-movie mayhem, and World Tour Golf, an allegedly straight golf simulation to which the ever-whimsical Reiche couldn’t resist adding a real live dinosaur as the mother of all hazards on one of the courses. Betwixt and between these big projects, he also lent a helping hand to other games: helping to shape the editor in Adventure Construction Set, making some additional levels for Ultimate Wizard.

Another of these short-term consulting gigs took him to a little outfit called Binary Systems, whose Starflight, an insanely expansive game of interstellar adventure, had been in production for a couple of years already and showed no sign of being finished anytime soon. This meeting would, almost as much as his first encounter with Dungeons & Dragons, shape the future course of Reiche’s career, but its full import wouldn’t become clear until years later. For now, he spent two weeks immersed in the problems and promise of arguably the most ambitious computer game yet proposed, a unique game in EA’s portfolio in that it was being developed exclusively for the usually business-oriented MS-DOS platform rather than a more typical — and in many ways more limited — gaming computer. He bonded particularly with Starflight‘s scenario designer, an endlessly clever writer and artist named Greg Johnson, who was happily filling his galaxy with memorable and often hilarious aliens to meet, greet, and sometimes beat in battle.

Reiche’s assigned task was to help the Starflight team develop a workable conversation model for interacting with all these aliens. Still, he was thoroughly intrigued with all aspects of the project, so much so that he had to be fairly dragged away kicking and screaming by EA’s management when his allotted tenure with Binary Systems had expired. Even then, he kept tabs on the game right up until its release in 1986, and was as pleased as anyone when it became an industry landmark, a proof of what could be accomplished when designers and programmers had a bigger, more powerful computer at their disposal — and a proof that owners of said computers would actually buy games for them if they were compelling enough. In these respects, Starflight served as nothing less than a harbinger of computer gaming’s future. At the same, though, it was so far out in front of said future that it would stand virtually alone for some years to come. Even its sequel, released in 1989, somehow failed to recapture the grandeur of its predecessor, despite running in the same engine and having been created by largely the same team (including Greg Johnson, and with Paul Reiche once again helping out as a special advisor).

Well before Starflight II‘s release, Reiche left EA. He was tired of working on other people’s ideas, ready to take full control of his own creative output for the first time since his independent tabletop work as a teenager a decade before. With a friend named Fred Ford, who was the excellent programmer Reiche most definitely wasn’t, he formed a tiny studio — more of a partnership, really — called Toys for Bob. The unusual name came courtesy of Reiche’s wife, a poet who knew the value of words. She said, correctly, that it couldn’t help but raise the sort of interesting questions that would make people want to look closer — like, for instance, the question of just who Bob was. When it was posed to him, Reiche liked to say that everyone who worked on a Toys for Bob game should have his own Bob in mind, serving as an ideal audience of one to be surprised and delighted.

Reiche and Ford planned to keep their company deliberately tiny, signing only short-term contracts with outsiders to do the work that they couldn’t manage on their own. “We’re just people getting a job done,” Reiche said. “There are no politics between [us]. Once you start having art departments and music departments and this department and that department, the organization gets a life of its own.” They would manage to maintain this approach for a long time to come, in defiance of all the winds of change blowing through the industry; as late as 1994, Toys for Bob would permanently employ only three people.

Yet Reiche and Ford balanced this small-is-beautiful philosophy with a determination to avoid the insularity that could all too easily result. They made it a policy to show Toys for Bob’s designs-in-progress to many others throughout their evolution, and to allow the contracters they hired to work on them the chance to make their own substantive creative inputs. For the first few years, Toys for Bob actually shared their offices with another little collective who called themselves Johnson-Voorsanger Productions. They included in their ranks Greg Johnson of Starflight fame and one Robert Leyland, whom Reiche had first met when he did the programming for Murder on the Zinderneuf — Anne Westfall had had her hands full with Archon — back in the Free Fall days. Toys for Bob and Johnson-Voorsanger, these two supposedly separate entities, cross-pollinated one another to such an extent that they might almost be better viewed as one. When the latter’s first game, the cult-classic Sega Genesis action-adventure ToeJam & Earl, was released in 1991, Reiche and Ford made the credits for “Invaluable Aid.” And the influence which Leyland and particularly Johnson would have on Toys for Bob’s games would be if anything even more pronounced.

Toys for Bob’s first game, which they developed for the publisher Accolade, was called Star Control. With it, Reiche looked all the way back to the very dawn of digital gaming — to the original Spacewar!, the canonical first full-fledged videogame ever, developed on a DEC PDP-1 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology circa 1962. In Star Control as in Spacewar!, two players — ideally, two humans, but potentially one human and one computer player, or even two computer players if the “Cyborg Mode” is turned on — fight it out in an environment that simulates proper Newtonian physics, meaning objects in motion stay in motion until a counter-thrust is applied. Players also have to contend with the gravity wells of the planets around them — these in place of the single star which affects the players’ ships in Spacewar! — as they try to blow one another up. But Star Control adds to this formula a wide variety of ships with markedly differing weaponry, defensive systems, sizes, and maneuvering characteristics. In best rock-paper-scissors fashion, certain units have massive advantages over others and vice versa, meaning that a big part of the challenge is that of maneuvering the right units into battle against the enemy’s. As in real wars, most of the battles are won or lost before the shooting ever begins, being decided by the asymmetries of the forces the players manage to bring to bear against one another. Reiche:

It was important to us that each alien ship was highly differentiated. What it means is, unlike, say, Street Fighter, where your characters are supposedly balanced with one another, our ships weren’t balanced at all, one on one. One could be very weak, and one could be very strong, but the idea was, your fleet of ships, your selection of ships in total, was as strong as someone else’s, and then it came down to which match-up did you find. One game reviewer called it, “Rock, Scissors, Vapor,” which I thought was a great expression.

Of course, even the worst match-ups leave a sliver of hope that a brilliant, valorous performance on the field of battle can yet save the day.

You can play Star Control in “Melee” mode as a straight-up free-for-all. Each player gets seven unique ships from the fourteen in the game, from which she gets to choose one for each battle. First player to destroy all of her opponent’s ships wins. But real strategy — that is to say, strategy beyond the logic of rock-paper-scissors match-ups — comes into play only with the full game, which takes the form of a collection of scenarios where each player must deploy her fleet over a galactic map. In the more complex scenarios, controlling more star systems means more resources at one’s disposal, which can be used to build more and better ships at a player’s home starbase; this part of the game draws heavily from the beloved old Atari 8-bit classic Star Raiders. A scenario editor is also included for players who get bored with the nine scenarios that come with the game.

Star Control strains nobly to accommodate many different play styles and preferences. Just as it’s possible to turn on Cyborg Mode in the strategy game and let the computer do the fighting, it’s also possible to turn on “Psytron Mode” and let the computer do the strategy while you concentrate on blowing stuff up.

Star Control in action. The red ship is the infamous Syreen Penetrator.

Yet the aspect of Star Control that most players seem to remember best has nothing to do with any of these efforts to be all things to all players. At some point in the development process, Reiche and Ford realized they needed a context for all this interstellar violence. They came up with an “Alliance of Free Stars” — which included Earthlings among its numbers — fighting a war against the evil “Ur-Quan Heirarchy.” Each group of allies/thralls conveniently consists of seven species, each with their own unique model of spaceship. Not being inclined to take any of this too seriously, Toys for Bob let their whimsy run wild in creating all these aliens, enlisting Greg Johnson — the creator of the similarly winsome and hilarious aliens who inhabit the galaxy of Starflight — to add his input as well. The rogue’s gallery of misfits, reprobates, and genetic oddities that resulted can’t help but make you smile, even if they are more fleshed-out in the manual rather than on the screen.

Reiche on the origins of the Illwrath, a race of arachnid fundamentalists who “receive spiritual endorsement in the accomplishment of vicious surprise attacks”:

The name “Illwrath” comes from an envelope I saw at the post office, which was being sent to a Ms. McIlwrath in Glasgow, Scotland. I didn’t see the “Mc” at first, and I swear, my first thought was that they must be sending that envelope to an alien. I am sure that somewhere there is a nice little Scottish lady laughing and saying, “Oh, those crazy Americans! Here’s one now calling me an evil, giant, religiously-intolerant space spider — ha, ha, ha, how cute!” Hmm… on second thought, if I am ever found beaten with bagpipes or poisoned with haggis, please contact the authorities.

Around the office, Fred Ford liked to say that the Illwrath had become so darn evil by first becoming too darn righteous, wrapping right around the righteousness scale and yielding results akin to all those old computer games which suddenly started showing negative statistics if you built up your numbers too far. (Personally, I favor this idea greatly, and, indeed, even believe it might serve as an explanation for certain forces in contemporary American politics.)

Reiche on the Mmrnmhrm, an “almost interesting robot race” who “fear vowels almost as much as they do a Dreadnought closing in at full bore”:

When I first named the Mmrnmhrm, they actually had a pronounceable name, with vowels and everything. Then, in a sketch for the captain’s window illustration, I forgot to give them a mouth. Later, someone saw the sketch and asked me how they talked, so I clamped my lips shut and said something like, “Mrrk nsss,” thereby instituting a taboo on vowels in anything related to the race. Though the Mmrnmhrm ended up looking more like Daleks than Humans, the name stuck.

Reiche on the Syreen, a group of “humanoid females” who embody — knowingly, one likes to believe — every cliché about troglodyte gamers and the fairer sex, right down to their bulbous breasts that look like they’re filled with sand (their origin story also involves the San Francisco earthquake of 1989):

It was an afternoon late last October in San Francisco when Fred Ford, Greg Johnson, and I sat around a monitor trying to name the latest ship design for our new game. The space vessel on the computer screen looked like a copper-plated cross between Tin Tin’s Destination Moon rocketship and a ribbed condom. Needless to say, we felt compelled to christen this ship carefully, with due consideration for our customers’ sensibilities as well as our artistic integrity. “How about the Syreen Penetrator?” Fred suggested without hesitation. Instantly, the ground did truly rise up and smite us! WHAM-rumble-rumble-WHAM! We were thrown around our office like the bridge crew of the starship Enterprise when under fire by the Klingons. I dimly remember standing in a doorframe, watching the room flex like a cheap cardboard box and shouting, “Maybe that’s not such a great name!” and “Gee, do you think San Francisco’s still standing?” Of course, once the earth stopped moving, we blithely ignored the dire portent, and the Syreen’s ship name, “The Penetrator,” was graven in code.

Since then, we haven’t had a single problem. I mean, everyone has a disk crash two nights before a program is final, right? And hey, accidents happen. Brake pads just don’t last forever! My limp is really not that bad, and Greg is almost speaking normally these days.

Star Control was released in 1990 to cautiously positive reviews and reasonable sales. For all its good humor, it proved a rather polarizing experience. The crazily fast-paced action game at its heart was something that about one-third of players seemed to take to and love, while the rest found it totally baffling, being left blinking and wondering what had just happened as the pieces of their exploded ship drifted off the screen about five seconds after a fight had begun. For these people, Star Control was a hard sell: the strategic game just wasn’t deep enough to stand on its own for long, and, while the aliens described in the manual were certainly entertaining, this was a computer game, not a Douglas Adams book.

Still, the game did sufficiently well that Accolade was willing to fund a sequel. And it was at this juncture that, as I noted at the beginning of this article, Reiche and Ford and their associates went kind of nuts. They threw out the less-than-entrancing strategy part of the first game, kept the action part and all those wonderful aliens, and stuck it all into a grand adventure in interstellar space that owed an awful lot to Starflight — more, one might even say, than it owed to Star Control I.

As in Starflight, you roam the galaxy in Star Control II: The Ur-Quan Masters to avert an apocalyptic threat, collecting precious resources and even more precious clues from the planets you land on, negotiating with the many aliens you meet and sometimes, when negotiations break down, blowing them away. The only substantial aspect of the older game that’s missing from its spiritual successor is the need to manage a bridge crew who come complete with CRPG-style statistics. Otherwise, Star Control II does everything Starflight does and more. The minigame of resource collection on planets’ surfaces, dodging earthquakes and lightning strikes and hostile lifeforms, is back, but now it’s faster paced, with a whole range of upgrades you can add to your landing craft in order to visit more dangerous planets. Ditto space combat, which is now of the arcade style from Star Control I — if, that is, you don’t have Cyborg Mode turned on, which is truly a godsend, the only thing that makes the game playable for many of us. You still need to upgrade your ship as you go along to fight bigger and badder enemies and range faster and farther across space, but now you also can collect a whole fleet of support ships to accompany you on your travels (thus preserving the rock-paper-scissors aspect of Star Control I). I’m not sure that any of these elements could quite carry a game alone, but together they’re dynamite. Much as I hate to employ a tired reviewer’s cliché like “more than the sum of its parts,” this game makes it all but unavoidable.

And yet the single most memorable part of the experience for many or most of us remains all those wonderful aliens, who have been imported from Star Control I and, even better, moved from the pages of the manual into the game proper. Arguably the most indelible of them all, the one group of aliens that absolutely no one ever seems to forget, are the Spathi, a race of “panicked mollusks” who have elevated self-preservation into a religious creed. Like most of their peers, they were present in the first Star Control but really come into their own here, being oddly lovable despite starting the game on the side of the evil Ur-Quan. The Spathi owe more than a little something to the Spemin, Starflight‘s requisite species of cowardly aliens, but are based at least as much, Reiche admits a little sheepishly, on his own aversion to physical danger. Their idea of the perfect life was taken almost verbatim from a conversation about same that Reiche and Ford once had over Chinese food at the office. Here, then, is Reiche and the Spathi’s version of the American Dream:

I knew that someday I would be vastly rich, wealthy enough to afford a large, well-fortified mansion. Surrounding my mansion would be vast tracts of land, through which I could slide at any time I wished! Of course, one can never be too sure that there aren’t monsters hiding just behind the next bush, so I would plant trees to climb at regular, easy-to-reach intervals. And being a Spathi of the world, I would know that some monsters climb trees, though often not well, so I would have my servants place in each tree a basket of perfect stones. Not too heavy, not too light — just the right size for throwing at monsters.

“Running and away and throwing rocks,” explains Reiche, “extrapolated in all ways, has been one of my life strategies.”

The Yehat, who breed like rabbits. Put the one remaining female in the galaxy together with the one remaining male, wait a couple of years… and poof, you have an army of fuzzy little warmongers on your side. They fight with the same enthusiasm they have for… no, we won’t go there.

My personal favorite aliens, however, are the bird-like Pkunk, a peaceful, benevolent, deeply philosophical race whose ships are nevertheless fueled by the insults they spew at their enemies during battle. They are, of course, merely endeavoring to make sure that their morality doesn’t wrap back around to zero and turn them evil like the Illwrath. “Never be too good,” says Reiche. “Insults, pinching people when they aren’t looking… that’ll keep you safe.”

In light of the aliens Greg Johnson had already created for Starflight, not to mention the similarities between Starflight‘s Spemin and Star Control‘s Spathi, there’s been an occasional tendency to perhaps over-credit his contribution — valuable though it certainly was — to Toy’s for Bob’s own space epic. Yet one listen to Reiche and Ford in interviews should immediately disabuse anyone of the notion that the brilliantly original and funny aliens in Star Control II are there entirely thanks to Johnson. After listening to Reiche in particular for a few minutes, it really is blindingly obvious that this is the sense of humor behind the Spathi and so many others. Indeed, anyone who has played the game can get a sense of this just from reading some of his quotes in this very article.

There’s a rich vein of story and humor running through even the most practical aspects of Star Control II, as in this report from a planet’s surface. The two complement one another rather than clashing, perhaps because Toys for Bob is clever enough to understand that less is sometimes more. Who are the Lieberman triplets? Who knows? But the line makes you laugh, and that’s the important thing. When a different development team took the reins to make a Star Control III, Reiche’s first piece of advice to them was, “For God’s sake, don’t try to explain everything.” Many a lore-obsessed modern game could afford to take the same advice to heart.

Long after every other aspect of the game has faded from memory, its great good humor, embodied in all those crazy aliens, will remain. It may be about averting a deadly serious intergalactic apocalypse, but, for all that, Star Control II is as warm and fuzzy a space opera as you’ll ever see.

Which isn’t to say that it doesn’t go in for plot. In fact, the sequel’s plot is as elaborate as its predecessor’s was thin; the backstory alone takes up some twenty pages in the manual. The war which was depicted in Star Control I, it turns out, didn’t go so well for the good guys; the sequel begins with you entering our solar system in command of the last combat-worthy craft among a shattered and defeated Alliance of Free Stars. The Ur-Quan soon get wind of your ship’s existence and the last spark of defiance against their rule that it represents, and send a battlefleet toward Earth to snuff it out. And so the race is on to rebuild the Alliance and assemble a fleet of your own before the Ur-Quan arrive. How you do so is entirely up to you. Suffice to say that Earth’s old allies are out there. It’s up to you to find the aliens and convince them to join you in whatever sequence seems best, while finding the resources you need to fuel and upgrade your spaceship and juggling a whole lot of other problems at the same time. This game is as nonlinear as they come.

Star Control II takes itself seriously in the places where it’s important to do so, but never too seriously. Anyone bored with the self-consciously “dark” fictions that so often dominate in our current era of media will find much to appreciate here.

When asked to define what makes a good game, Paul Reiche once said that it “has to have a fun core, which is a one-sentence description of why it’s fun.” Ironically, Star Control II is an abject failure by this standard, pulling in so many directions as to defy any such holistic description. It’s a strategy game of ship and resource management; it’s an action game of ship-versus-ship combat; it’s an adventure game of puzzle-solving and clue-tracking. Few cross-genre games have ever been quite so cross-genre as this one. It really shouldn’t work, but, for the most part anyway, it does. If you’re a person whose ideal game lets you do many completely different things at every session, this might just be your dream game. It really is an experience of enormous richness and variety, truly a game like no other. Small wonder that it’s attracted a cult of players who will happily declare it to be nothing less than the best game ever made.

For my part, I have a few too many reservations to go quite that far. Before I get to them, though, I’d like to let Reiche speak one more time. Close to the time of Star Control II‘s release, he outlined his four guiding principles of game design. Star Control II conforms much better to these metrics than it does to that of the “one-sentence description.”

First, [games should be] fun, with no excuses about how the game simulates the agony and dreariness of the real world (as though this was somehow good for you). Second, they [should] be challenging over a long period of time, preferably with a few ability “plateaus” that let me feel in control for a period of time, then blow me out of the water. Third, they [should] be attractive. I am a sucker for a nice illustration or a funky riff. Finally, I want my games to be conceptually interesting and thought-provoking, so one can discuss the game with an adult and not feel silly.

It’s in the intersection between Reiche’s first and second principles that I have my quibbles with Star Control II. It’s a rather complicated, difficult game by design, which is fair enough as long as it’s complex and difficult in a fun way. Some of its difficulty, however, really doesn’t strike me as being all that much fun at all. Those of you who’ve been reading this blog for a while know that I place enormous weight on fairness and solubility when it comes to the games I review, and don’t tend to cut much slack to those that can only be enjoyed and/or solved with a walkthrough or FAQ to hand. On this front, Star Control II is a bit problematic, due largely to one questionable design choice.

Star Control II, you see, has a deadline. You have about five years before Earth is wiped out by the Ur-Quan (more precisely, by the eviller of the two factions of the Ur-Quan, but we won’t get into that here). Fans will tell you, by no means entirely without justification, that this is an essential part of the game. One of the great attractions of Star Control II is its dynamic universe which just keeps evolving, with or without your intervention: alien spaceships travel around the galaxy just like yours is doing, alien races conquer others and are themselves conquered, etc.

All of this is undoubtedly impressive from a game of any vintage, let alone one as old and technologically limited as this one. And the feeling of inhabiting such a dynamic universe is undoubtedly bracing for anyone used to the more static norm, where things only happen when you push them to happen. Yet it also has its drawbacks, the most unfortunate of which is the crushing sense of futility that comes after putting dozens of hours into the game only to lose it irrevocably. The try-and-try-again approach can work in small, focused games that don’t take long to play and replay, such as the early mysteries of Infocom. In a sprawling epic like this, however… well, does anyone really want to put those dozens of hours in all over again, clicking through page after page of the same text?

Star Control II‘s interface felt like something of a throwback even in its own time. By 1992, computer games had almost universally moved to the mouse-driven point-and-click model. Yet this game relies entirely on multiple-choice menus, activated by the cursor keys and/or a joystick. Toys for Bob was clearly designing with possible console ports in mind. (Star Control was ported to the Sega Genesis, but, as it happened, Star Control II would never get the same honor, perhaps because its sales didn’t quite justify the expense and/or because its complexity was judged unsuited to the console market.) Still, for all that it’s a little odd, the interface is well thought-through, and you get used to it quickly.

There’s an undeniable tension between this rich galaxy, full of unusual sights and entertaining aliens to discover, and the need to stay relentlessly on-mission if you hope to win in the end. I submit that the failure to address this tension is, at bottom, a failure of game design. There’s much that could have been done. One solution might have been to tie the evolving galaxy to the player’s progress through the plot rather than the wall clock, a technique pioneered in Infocom’s Ballyhoo back in 1986 and used in countless narrative-oriented games since. It can convey the impression of rising danger and a skin-of-the-teeth victory every time without ever having to send the player back to square one. In the end, the player doesn’t care whether the exhilarating experience she’s just had is the result of a meticulous simulation coincidentally falling into place just so, or of a carefully manipulated sleight of hand. She just remembers the subjective experience.

But if such a step is judged too radical — too counter to the design ethos of the game — other remedies could have been employed. To name the most obvious, the time limit could have been made more generous; Starflight as well has a theoretical time limit, but few ever come close to reaching it. Or the question of time could have been left to the player — seldom a bad strategy in game design — by letting her choose from a generous, moderate, and challenging time limit before starting the game. (This approach was used to good effect by the CRPG The Magic Candle among plenty of other titles over the years.)

Instead of remedying the situation, however, Reiche and his associates seemed actively determined to make it worse with some of their other choices. To have any hope of finishing the game in time, you need to gain access to a new method of getting around the galaxy, known as “quad-space,” as quickly as possible. Yet the method of learning about quad-space is one of the more obscure puzzles in the game, mentioned only in passing by a couple of the aliens you meet, all too easy to overlook entirely. Without access to quad-space, Star Control II soon starts to feel like a fundamentally broken, unbalanced game. You trundle around the galaxy in your truck of a spaceship, taking months to reach your destinations and months more to return to Earth, burning up all of the minerals you can mine just to feed your engines. And then your time runs out and you lose, never having figured out what you did wrong. This is not, needless to say, a very friendly way to design a game. Had a few clues early on shouted, “You need to get into quad-space and you may be able to do so here!” just a little more loudly, I may not have felt the need to write any of the last several paragraphs.

I won’t belabor the point any more, lest the mob of Star Control II zealots I can sense lurking in the background, sharpening their pitchforks, should pounce. I’ll say only that this game is, for all its multifaceted brilliance, also a product of its time — a time when games were often hard in time-extending but not terribly satisfying ways, when serious discussions about what constituted fair and unfair treatment of the player were only just beginning to be had in some quarters of the industry.

Searching a planet’s surface for minerals, lifeforms, and clues. Anyone who has played Starflight will feel right at home with this part of the game in particular.

Certainly, whatever our opinion of the time limit and the game’s overall fairness, we have to recognize what a labor of love Star Control II was for Paul Reiche, Fred Ford, and everyone who helped bring it to fruition, from Greg Johnson and Robert Leyland to all of the other writers and artists and testers who lent it their talents. Unsurprisingly given its ambition, the project went way beyond the year or so Accolade had budgeted for it. When their publisher put their foot down and said no more money would be forthcoming, Reiche and Ford reached deep into their own pockets to carry it through the final six months.

As the project was being wrapped up, Reiche realized he still had no music, and only about $1500 left for acquiring some. His solution was classic Toys for Bob: he ran an online contest for catchy tunes, with prizes of $25, $50, and $100 — in addition to the opportunity to hear one’s music in (hopefully) a hit game, of course. The so-called “tracker” scene in Europe stepped up with music created on Commodore Amigas, a platform for which the game itself would never be released. “These guys in Europe [had] just built all these ricky-tink programs to play samples out,” says Reiche. “They just kept feeding samples, really amazing soundtracks, out into the net just for kicks. I can’t imagine any of these people were any older than twenty. It makes me feel like I’m part of a bigger place.”

Upon its release on November 30, 1992 — coincidentally, the very same day as Dune II, its companion in mislabeled sequels — Star Control II was greeted with excellent reviews, whose enthusiasm was blunted only by the game’s sheer unclassifiability. Questbusters called it “as funny a parody of science-fiction role-playing as it is a well-designed and fun-to-play RPG,” and named it “Best RPG of the Year” despite it not really being a CRPG at all by most people’s definitions. Computer Gaming World placed it on “this reviewer’s top-ten list of all time” as “one of the most enjoyable games to review all year,” and awarded it “Adventure Game of the Year” alongside Legend Entertainment’s far more traditional adventure Eric the Unready.

Sales too were solid, if not so enormous as Star Control II‘s staying power in gamers’ collective memory might suggest. Like Dune II, it was probably hurt by being billed as a sequel to a game likely to appeal most to an entirely different type of player, as it was by the seeming indifference of Accolade. In the eyes of Toys for Bob, the developer/publisher relationship was summed up by the sticker the latter started putting on the box after Star Control II had collected its awards: “Best Sports Game of 1992.” Accolade was putting almost all of their energy into sports games during this period, didn’t have stickers handy for anything else, and just couldn’t be bothered to print up some new ones.

Still, the game did well enough that Toys for Bob, after having been acquired by a new CD-ROM specialist of a publisher called Crystal Dynamics, ported it to the 3DO console in 1994. This version added some eight hours of spoken dialog, but cut a considerable amount of content that the voice-acting budget wouldn’t cover. Later, a third Star Control would get made — albeit not by Toys for Bob but by Legend Entertainment, through a series of intellectual-property convolutions we won’t go into in this article.

Toys for Bob themselves have continued to exist right up to the present day, a long run indeed in games-industry terms, albeit without ever managing to return to the Star Control universe. They’re no longer a two-man operation, but do still have Paul Reiche III and Fred Ford in control.

To this day, Star Control II remains as unique an experience as it was in 1992. You’ve never played a game quite like this one, no matter how many other games you’ve played in your time. Don’t even try to categorize it. Just play it, and see what’s possible when a talented design team throws out all the rules. But before you do, let me share just one piece of advice: when an alien mentions something about a strange stellar formation near the Chandrasekhar constellation, pay attention! Trust me, it will save you from a world of pain…

(Sources: Compute!’s Gazette of November 1984; Compute! of January 1992 and January 1993; Computer Gaming World of November 1990, December 1990, March 1993, and August 1993; InterActivity of November/December 1994; Questbusters of January 1993; Electronic Gaming Monthly of May 1991; Sega Visions of June 1992; Retro Gamer 14 and 15. Online sources include Ars Technica‘s video interview with Paul Reiche III and Fred Ford; Matt Barton’s interviews with the same pair in Matt Chat 95, 96, and 97; Grognardia‘s interview with Reiche; The Escapist‘s interview with Reiche; GameSpot‘s interview with Reiche.

There’s a rather depressing pitched legal dispute swirling around the Star Control intellectual property at the moment, which has apparently led to Star Control I and II being pulled from digital-download stores. Your best option to experience Star Control II is thus probably The Ur-Quan Masters, a loving open-source re-creation based on Toys for Bob’s 3DO source code. Or go hunt down the original on some shadowy corner of the interwebs. I won’t say anything if you don’t.)

source http://reposts.ciathyza.com/star-control-ii/

#retro games #dos games #retro #crpg #adventure #amiga #oldcomputers #8bit #16bit #blog #repost

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