#that youre never going to be able to replicate the exact same experience again. limited edition interaction.

[valtsv]

i don't miss dnd itself that much but i do miss my player character in the context of the campaign i was in 😔 like i miss the parts of it that i couldn't get back even if i started playing again and used the same character with the same backstory in another scenario. but i guess that's always how it is with rp characters.

[semischarmed]

Danny

Always have to keep you guys guessing ;) so this one is veeeeery different from my normal content, but I figured I’d put something tamer to balance out the upcoming Pt. 2 to that Thread story. It’s a bit long, but I didn’t feel like keeping two concurrent multi-parters. Let me know what you think!

=============

“So, it’s the necklace?” I asked the professor at the university. It was a wonder I was able to keep up with even half of the lecture that had just transpired. 

“Something like that.” The professor replied back to our small group. “We’re all just a sea of electrical impulses. With this computer model, we can accurately track and mimic the exact electrical shocks needed to replicate a mind. Of course, the mind is so much data, the transfer-the upload needs to be instantaneous with an equivalent download- the university doesn’t give us enough grant money for computers that can store that much data, much less secure it. So, we needed biological means of storage. That’s why there’s an even number of participants”.

The room was utterly confused. For one, there was definitely an odd number of participants. Dr. Cohn was never known for dumbing down complex concepts, but even the smartest kids in class seemed stumped the past few hours. Maybe he didn’t have to go in that level of depth for his experiment.

Our group was a mix. It seemed like a sampling of the very best of the class, and a few average performers. I did find it weird they offered extra credit to students that probably didn’t need it. Sticking out like a sore thumb was Chad. He was the school quarterback, though no one was sure for much longer, as he was on academic probation. I couldn’t help but speculate with Kat, a top performer, on his placement. Combining our limited knowledge on the students in our class, and the school’s football team, we landed on this being some sort of extra credit that the university probably forced on poor Dr. Cohn. Ever the nosy one, Mackenzie piped in. “Of course they’d try to save their star quarterback. I heard 3 professors already quit trying to bring up his GPA. This is basically his last shot“.  

And then there was Danny. Part of that “very best” group. Unlike the other students in the room, he seemed to take in the professor’s whole lecture and was deep in thought. His face lay still, serene. But I could see the intelligence behind his eyes spinning to life. I always liked when he did that, like he was chewing on an idea before spitting out the most brilliant insights. Or maybe I just like how the corner of his mouth would turn up into a small smile when he finished thinking things through. I caught myself staring again, thanking my luck that no one had seen. Mackenzie laughed a little behind me. I sighed, laughing a small defeat. Almost no one had seen. 

“So it basically swaps our brains?” Danny inquired. He looked around the room, gauging our comprehension. That was when it clicked for me. He took note and let out a small smile. I smiled back. That was the other thing I liked about the guy. He always seemed to want everyone to succeed. This wasn’t the first time he’d thoroughly condense a difficult topic into a quick word or phrase the class could understand. His eyes smiled whenever he could recognize concepts “clicking” for people and I saw it do the same as my other classmates- even Chad- figured it out. I recoiled a little, from a nudge from Mackenzie. I sighed again, airing a “thank you” her way. I had been staring again.

“No, nothing like that! Could you imagine how difficult an operation like that would be? All this does is swap your mind.” Aaaand just like that, we were back to confusion. Danny smiled though.

“Got it. So your brain’s the hardware, your mind’s the software. The necklaces do a switcheroo and then new hardware, same software- or, vice versa, I suppose.” Back on track.

“Wait, how much of ‘me’ is in the hardware? Like my memories?” I blurted out, immediately growing red. That seemed to have garnered an approving smile from Danny. I grew redder.

The professor’s eyes lit up. “Now you’re thinking like a scientist.” He laughed before shrugging. “Who’s to say… we are running an experiment after all”. Dr. Cohn always was a messy one.

“So, uh, how long is it supposed to last?” Mackenzie asked.

“That’s the fun of it, once we’re paired, the switch can go for as little or as long you as want!” We. That threw me off a little. I caught his glance to Chad. “Don’t worry, I’ll be a part of this experiment too.” The professor said, with a smile that felt too wide. “Don’t forget to record your notes and thoughts into this log book. For privacy, they’ve been password protected- we’ll reconvene this little group in a year and just draft up a summary of your experiences from these books.”

There was an obvious question everyone’s mind. Thankfully, Kevin asked it. “So who’s swapping with who?”

The professor’s eyes lit up in excitement. “We’ve all been paired, randomized of course. I’ll leave the pairings to figure out when they’d want to swap. Just put on your necklaces at 6pm tonight and start your log books. After that, whenever either of you squeezes your necklace, the swap will ensue”. From the way the professor’s eyes kept darting to Chad, something told me it hadn’t been entirely random.

I thought through the possible pairings. Kevin was kind of cute, I guess. Though I wasn’t sure if it was just the airport effect with how limited our group size was. Kat or Mackenzie would just be weird. Mackenzie especially- that girl knows a little too much about me and lord knows what she’d do behind my wheel. Running down the list of people, there was Chad. Of course, who wouldn’t want to be in Chad’s shoes- I had to dispel a dirty thought that passed my mind. Everyone’s probably thinking it. The professor’s body wouldn’t be too bad either, I could always just pressure the faculty into giving me better grades, maybe boost the grades of my friends. And then there was Danny. Danny. My heartrate shot up instantly.

Sitting in my dorm room, I looked at the clock with a bit of fear. “5:55 pm,” it read. I took a few deep breaths, trying to calm my nerves. “5:59 pm”. Nope. There was nothing calm about this. I closed my eyes shut, as I felt the necklace whir a little. Looks like someone else already squeezed it. 

Zzzip

=============

“Log book 1: 

<3

It was Danny. Holy fuck, I got to be in Danny.”

I stared at the journal entry. That was all I could manage to write with my shaking hands. I could hardly believe it. A lifetime can change in 5 minutes, apparently. My heart was still beating and my face still flushed when we switched back. He had a soccer game so our first meeting had to be short. 

 My first minute was just looking down at my new Danny-worn hands, breathing through his lungs, inhaling as much as I could of his room. I wanted to commit this man to memory. My logic-or, Danny’s logic perhaps, told me there would inevitably be more swaps to come, but my mind wouldn’t have it. Whatever piece of Danny I could get, however minuscule, I wanted to stretch every moment infinite.

I felt a sense of guilt wash over me, as my new Danny-worn package began to harden when I realized he was in soccer gear. I tried to shake off the feeling- I couldn’t do that to him. Then came the text. I recognized the number of course, it was my old body’s. “Hey man, glad to see we’re partners”. My heart stirred. “It’s Danny, but you probably already knew that”. To see him text me so casually froze me in place. “Anyways, I do have a game coming up, mind if we switch back?” I couldn’t even bring Danny’s hands to answer himself. “I’ll take that as a yes”.

Zzzip

And just like that, I was back. My hand clinging to my chest, breaths ragged. 

Wait, Fuck. Was I still hard in his body when we switched back?

=============

Zzzip

“Log book 7:

Met up today. Joint gym day. 

Gym feels better in Danny’s body. Unsure if exercise has a different effect on people’s bodies, or if it’s tied to our minds. Seems to be a lag in my emotions.”

I’m not really one to be consistent with exercise. I set the book down, and relocked it, panting as I had in our first switch, but this time due to Danny working my body to the brink.

I think he noticed, because he apologized profusely when I slumped in the bench to catch my breath in the locker room.

I can’t believe I had agreed to it. Danny wanted to test the effects of exercise with different bodies. He stated he wanted to see what it was like doing routine exercises in a different body. Does the body retain that physical memory? Or is it the mind? I only agreed because it was Danny. So, there I was, in the school gym staring at the door like a fish out of water. 

I felt a reassuring hand on my back before my ears immediately shot red when I realized whose hand it was. “Do you have your log book on hand? Should probably write down notes immediately after the switchback”. I immediately panicked at thought that he wanted to compare notes, thinking back to my first entry but he seemed to have caught on to my thought process and immediately dismissed the idea. “It wouldn’t make sense to taint the data with outside factors. Danny was probably the only person that fully understood the professor’s entire experiment so I took his word for it.

When we swapped, I had to focus on not instantly growing hard. For someone seemingly so bookish, the guy was surprisingly fit. Walking to the treadmill, I felt every muscle brimming with power. My first run in his body. Euphoric. Danny was a well-oiled machine. Every component moving in tandem. Lungs drawing in and out powerful gusts of air. Eyes staring me in the mirror, furrowed in powerful determination, and legs gliding with a grace that did not diminish the power behind each foot. I lost myself in the exercise, content to just being inside his body, guided by his body. I finished the run with a heavy pant, knowing full well I’d be hard beyond belief at what lay before me. I eyed myself in the mirror, in sweat-laden body of my crush. The scent was indescribable. Like a pleasant musk basking in the damp earth. Was it always this good? Was this how other people felt when they exercised? I twirled the necklace around Danny’s neck, making sure to not squeeze, mentally thanking whatever gods there may be for this experience.

I looked back at Danny, in my body. His running form was a bit clumsy, but there was a confidence in them that I didn’t often see in myself. Maybe a trick of the light, or residual feelings from the run I just had but I was captivated. I honestly looked almost cute like this. 

He finished, panting before immediately pulling out his book and writing a few notes. He beamed back at me, pointing at the necklace. Even in my body, that smile was unmistakably his. I smiled back, ready to swap once more.

Zzzip

Weird. I still felt the infatuation. I looked back at the body I had just inhabited, still feeling the butterflies in my stomach. It was Danny so I was used to those, but not immediately after a swap. The past few times it always took a second or two to readjust. Danny looked at me, a bit uncomfortable. No doubt it had been from the grave face I was making. I shook my head, not wanting to worry him. Or worse, force a premature end to this experience. “It’s nothing, just a hell of an exercise haha”.

This may be a bit of a problem.

=============

“Interesting, and you’re sure it’s residual feeling?” Said a slightly disinterested Chad, eyeing his dreamy biceps.

“Yes, when I.. uh.. felt angry in his body and switched back, my body did too.”  

“Well it is a swap, of course so your mind returning to its body would feel the same things it felt…” The professor in chad’s body spoke in a slightly faraway tone, like there was something he’d rather be doing. “Though, it shouldn’t be this instant. It’s not physically possible unless…”

I winced, worried for the worst and hoping to remain Danny’s partner.

“This might be a bit of an issue if those necklaces are defective…” He then mumbled something about permanent effects on the mind. “If they are, we’d have to stop the entire experiment. It wouldn’t be right-“ The professor caught a glimpse of Chad’s body in the reflection of his door before looking back at me. “Look, maybe just limit the swaps to low pressure situations, and try to avoid high-emotion situations in case your ‘residual’ hypothesis is correct. Cause if that were true, it would mean you leave a little of yourself every time you swap.”

“Got it, professor”.

“Maybe keep this side effect a little secret for now. We wouldn’t want the others worrying and tainting the data,” Chad’s body spoke in an authoritative tone as his hands sauntered below the desk. “Oh, and please close the door on your way out“.

=============

“Log book 50:

Pain.” 

We had been swapping fairly frequently, despite the professor’s warning. Danny was a drug I couldn’t shake. The guy was my kryptonite and he had no idea. Everytime we swapped, every moment we shared, I couldn’t bring myself to tell him about the professor’s words. Every swap back, I could feel my heart beating as wildly as my first time, stomach churning pleasantly. It was like a wave of sweetness whenever I had a chance to be Danny. Then, the guilt came soon after.

Danny seemed to like the spontaneity. Eventually, we settled on free-switching, aside from classes. Some days, I’d randomly switch and my eyes would focus on my homework, completed with a little smiley face drawn on the corner. I tried that little trick with him once, only to get a text back of his graded assignment, scored uncharacteristically low for the top performer, followed by another text “Nice try anyway lol” 

=============

“Log book 190:

I hate you.”

Zzzip

“Danny, is something wrong?” The shock of the situation stopped me from initially processing anything I was seeing. My clumsy hands. I had been fumbling with my collar, when I accidentally initiated a swap. A wave of embarrassment hit, and then anger. Seething, bottomless anger.

I almost dropped the flowers Danny’s body had been handing her. Without explanation, I quickly squeezed the necklace to send me back.

Zzzip

I sat in stunned silence for a second, before the anger drew me back to my thoughts.

Who was I angry at? Of course it was a girl. He had to have been dating around. It was presumptuous to even think we were anything more than partners in a crazed professor’s experiment. And yet, I was still angry. Irrationally angry at Danny for not picking up on the hints, maybe angry at the professor for dragging me into this mess in the first place. But most of all, I was angry at myself. 

I felt the buzz of a text, ears still heated. Danny again. “You ok?”  

I sighed as reasoning took over and anger transformed into sadness. I wrote a quick note in the log book, then pulled my phone up before texting back. “Yeah”.

“Lol Claudia says hi”, came a text back. I gritted my teeth, not wanting to impart any jealousy in my response, but I was soon stopped by another text. 

“If you wanted to meet my sister, you should have just asked lol”.

=============

“Log book 290

I’m stupid. I’m sorry. I’m stupid. I’m sorry.”

I’m so sorry. I said to Danny in my head, as I slumped in my chair. You’re so fucking stupid. I told myself. These past few months swapping back and forth with Danny had been a dream. 

From something as simple swapping before brushing his teeth to even taking a class as him. I savored every single moment. 

But as the experiment had been drawing to a close, and as I felt my time nearing and my guilt intensifying, other, less kind thoughts bubbled in my head. 

What if I did ‘that’ in his body. What if I did it while thinking of my own body. I gulped. Danny didn’t know, and from what I could tell, he hadn’t suspected a thing. “Maybe I could make him like me.” Even just saying it out loud felt like a taboo. I could just imagine Danny’s disapproving face as I pondered corrupting our newfound friendship, and corrupting him at his core.

The devil on my shoulder continued. We’ve been swapping all this time. And he doesn’t notice. My dick stirred. He wouldn’t notice and you could train his body to fall in love with you.

No. No. I couldn’t do that to Danny. I eyed the near approaching date on the calendar- the date the experiment would end- and I gulped again. I pulled up a photo of him.

Darkness gripped at my chest, as I pondered my next step. And then I squeezed.

“Danny, I love you and I’m sorry.”

Zzzip

My heart, or rather Danny’s, began to beat faster and faster. I pulled up a fairly difficult puzzle before I swapped, so I knew I had some time with his flesh before he’d try to swap back.

I gingerly pulled down his shorts, staring at his bulge hungrily. Then I slowly teased out his dick, moaning at the feeling of flesh touching flesh. Being in his body, having this level of access to Danny. I was hard instantly.

It felt almost macabre, seeing his flesh move to my every whim, forced to feel my feelings. I wanted to etch myself into him as much as possible, and with every pump I moaned my original body’s name. It took all of the restraint in Danny’s body, which, apparently was a lot, to not burst. But one can only hold out so long, hearing one’s crush moan their name in delirious ecstasy. I sang my name in his resonant voice one more time, before flashing instantly to my body and back to his.

Zzzip Zzzip

I released his sticky white seed in what felt like the first cum of my life. I suppose, in a sense, it was. I hoped that sealed it. Conditioning Danny to me. The swaps were imperceptibly fast, and I took the lack of delay in emotions as a sign of success.

Zzzip Zzzip

I released a breath in Danny’s body I didn’t know I was holding, basking in the afterglow before immediately realizing what I had just done. 

Guilt came out of me drop by drop. As his tears began to leave their marks on his shirt, I slowly began to clean up. The pleasure of the situation still clung to me, as I mournfully switched back. Then came another gut-wrenching wave of sadness. Danny, I’m so sorry. 

I looked to the incomplete puzzle in front of me, laughing a little at his lack of progress to ease the sadness.

Then came another text from Danny. “Dude, that puzzle’s impossible”. 

=============

“Log book 300:

Food definitely tastes different in a different body.”

“Look, just try them man” Danny said with a smile, holding a fry in his hand. And the necklace in another. 

Only a few short days left before the experiment’s end. I made no mention of that night, nor the professor’s words to Danny. 

Danny had, in fact, been coming by more often. Prompting more hangouts, initiating more switches. I was elated every time he asked. I even caught a few longer glances from his body, marinating in pleasure at seeing this new side of Danny. However happy I had been, underlying it all was the guilt of my deed.

Danny again held the fry out expectantly. I laughed slightly. “Haha, fine”.

Zzzip

I took a bite from his body. Yep, it was definitely a fry. My own body looked up at me, smiling a Danny-flavored smile before grabbing the half-bitten fry. “Now let’s control for this variable. Same fry,” he said, wiggling it in the air.

Zzzip

I stared at the fry covered in a bit of his saliva. Heaven. I looked back at him and nodded. As we parted ways, I couldn’t help my smile from peeking through. 

He was right, it did taste better on my end.

=============

“So, we’re not getting paid”? I asked Danny, as we sat in the table. He had a few wine glasses in front. 

It had been a full year since the experiment first started. Despite the general weirdness from the other groups swapping, everyone had been relatively well adjusted. Except for Chad, or whatever he’d be called now. A swapped Kat couldn’t help but spill the beans. Apparently, the professor had no obligation to offer the guy extra credit. He specifically targeted the quarterback for his experiment. What’s worse, he’d apparently created a newer version of the necklace. One that could overwrite and transmit. Chad’s frat brothers mentioned he was offered another credit for participating in a second experiment for this new necklace. After that, no one had seen either person. The pair had mysteriously disappeared, leaving the school scrambling to cover up everything. All most of us knew was one day we suddenly had perfect grades retroactively added for the past year, along with a very scary letter prompting a signature. 

“The university isn’t going to do anything about this.” He said. I was still skeptical as I slowly eyed one of the wine bottles that once graced former Dr. Cohn’s shelf. “It’s the least they could do for all those, ethics violations”. He pulled the cork with a satisfying pop, a mischievous gleam in his eye as he handed me a glass. “Now c’mon, try this”. 

I suppose alcohol had a way of loosening me up. “So…. we’re not getting paid”? I asked again, sarcastically this time. It had been a year, so talking to Danny felt easy. I thought back to my log book, fully intending on burning the thing. Danny shook his head.

“Hard to put a price on crimes against humanity. Or, something like that” he laughed. “The university just said to dump everything and basically forget that experiment ever happened.”

I couldn’t help but laugh as well. I shrugged, knowing money or even perfect grades for a year held no candle to the experience of a lifetime I just had with Danny. I was afraid of the answer, but it had to be asked. “What should we do with these things?” I asked, looking at the necklace still gracing his beautiful neck. His eyebrows raised as he saw the same necklace gracing mine. 

“I mean, by now, you’re pretty used to it, right?” He asked with an almost pleading look in his eye. There was something bugging him. I watched as he fiddled with his feet. “Maybe…” His ears turned bright red. It was riveting finally seeing this side oh him. More than that, it was downright cute. “M-Maybe” he stammered again. Danny took a deep breath to calm himself, though his scarlet face told all. “Maybe we can keep. Um. Swapping. Sometimes, sometimes I like being you, and sometimes I kind of like when you’re me.” He looked at me and smiled weakly, trying to change the subject. “A-Anyway, you need a place to stay next year, r-right? It kind of feels like we’ve already been roommates these past 12 months, what’s another 12?” His sweet words did nothing the dampen the guilt I felt in my betrayal. In any other circumstance, I’d have died happy just hearing that confession from him. Instead I could only think back to the professors words. I did live, at least partially, in Danny throughout this past year. It felt like a betrayal of myself to not come clean.

“Danny, listen. I think I need to tell you first, in your body…” My breath hastened, and I felt my stomach churn. How do you tell a guy what you’ve done with his body- *in* his body? Danny’s face frowned in concern as my bubbling emotions seemed to knock him out of his quick spell of shyness.

He smiled a little. “Look man, whatever you’ve done in my body, I’ve probably done too.” His smile widened. “Your body is mine, my body is yours. Call it even”. More words that would have swept me off my feet, had I not been confessing. More torture ensued.

“I went to the professor about it a few months ago and never told you” I continued. I was practically holding back tears. “Our necklaces were bugged, I think”.

“The professor said…” I gulped. “It was possible that when we switch, our minds don’t come through all at once.” Now tears did begin to swell. “You know how it’s supposed to take a second for your emotions to catch up. Well, when we switch, I still feel the same emotions…”. I gulped. “Since day 1, I think I’ve overwritten your, um, preferences”. Danny’s poker face felt like a dagger in my heart. It’s a face I often made in his body when I was in deep thought, so I knew he had to have been processing to the same conclusion. I could practically see the gear turning in his head. Click.

Face still an enigma, Danny waited a moment and then asked a simple question. “When did you tell the professor?” Click. 

I sniffled as I laid it bare in front of him. “5 months ago. Danny, I’m sorry! I dunno, I just thought maybe… maybe if we kept switching, if our minds kept being in each other’s bodies. Maybe if a little piece of how I felt kept lagging behind, you might have-“ Now the gear was fully spinning and I saw the realization hit his face. I had no idea what he was going to do. Punch me? Maybe. Run away in disgust? Likely. Instead, Daniel had done something equally surprising. His hand rested on my shoulder in a reassuring fashion. Then that same hand motioned me forward.

My memory of the next moment felt like a million moments in one. It was something so outside my realm of possibilities, my brain simply couldn’t process. The whiplash hit my senses all at once. Sweet but a bit salty. A moment of quietness before the background sounds of the campus slowly drizzled back in. The scent of fresh laundry and damp earth. My eyes took even longer to adjust from black to red to an image slowly refocussing. Last was my brain, which had been stunned into silence. I sat back in shock, repeating the same phrase over and over in my head. Danny just kissed me.

He laughed, eyes twinkling and mouth pulled into a smile, beaming in the way that always made my heart swoon. “That theory’s bogus. Trust me. I haven’t felt any different”. He smiled again, sheepishly this time, before fishing something from his backpack’s large pocket. He looked at the item in front of him, hand slightly shaking in hesitation before making his decision. Slowly, he held up his own log book, flipped to the very first page:

“Log Book 1:

<3 ”

=============

[starsaboveyouadoption]

light years

As you’ll come to know if you haven’t already, like any world of idiosyncrasies, the adoption community has its own jargon to navigate. One term you may not be as familiar with as others is the concept of “cocooning”. This is a widely used word within adoption to refer to a period of time immediately following your child moving home with you, whereby you make your child’s world as small as possible in the early days of forming an attachment, and is a vital process in the timeline of your child coming to feel safe and secure in their new family. This blog will take a look at what cocooning actually is (especially in practical terms), and some helpful tips for how to manage this space of time so that it has its best intended effect. Again, I can only talk of my own experience, and as a parent to a fairly young toddler, I didn’t experience some of the added complications that may arise with older children, but most of what I’ll write should be applicable to most age groups. On this note, even if something sounds geared to babies, chances are you would want to replicate the same principles for an older child, however strange this might seem, and sometimes especially so, given the more complex layers of emotions they (and you) may be going through.

 So, “cocooning”…what am I talking about?

Cocooning is a term used to describe a timeframe of usually a few weeks once your child is home, immediately following introductions where you take certain measures to help your child settle with you. It will be something your social workers will discuss with you on preparing to take your child home, and certainly will be a point of conversation during review meetings in introductions. It is essentially about limiting your child’s exposure to, and involvement from, people outside of their immediate parent(s) – you – in the very early days for certain therapeutic reasons related to trauma and attachment associated with their move.

 It serves a few purposes:

·        It allows early bonding and attachment to start taking place between child and parent by providing physical and emotional space for your family unit. This is, in many people’s views, the work of months, years, and perhaps a lifetime, but the cocooning phase acts as a crucial kick starter and sets the template for the beginning of your life together.

·        It allows your child to settle into their new home, to start feeling comfortable, safe and secure in their new environment.

·        It provides crucial space for your child to begin to heal and recover from the trauma of separations from their birth and/or foster family, and for all parties, the intense emotional toll of transitions that came with introductions.

·        It enables your child to understand their relationship to you and attach to you as their parents, as opposed to other adults who have been caregivers to them, but not fulfilling the parental role. For some older children, this may be particularly confusing given that they may have lived through several foster moves, and have conscious memory of time with their birth parents, not to mention all of their involvement with a whole team of social workers and outside professionals, without ever having parents of their own. This period of time helps to transmit the message that you are permanent, safe, and in a special relationship with them.

·        It allows adequate time to put your foot on the brakes and allow your child to gradually, and appropriately attach to members of your wider family and friends network, without some of the pressure that may come with traditional expectations associated with the arrival of a birth child.

·        It helps you as a family to find your routine and to put into practice everything you have learnt about your child to date, to care for them, and provide them with a sense of security.

·        It helps highlight any potential issues that you may need support for as a family, and gives you the space you might need to work through some initial surmountable, but stressful challenges with professional help before you add the additional pressure of enmeshing wider family into your new life.

·        For many children, young and older, it can help fill in the blanks of some of the care and stability they have missed

 The cocooning period is also part of the period of time between your child moving home and being able to apply for their legal order. This period stretching beyond cocooning, will involve lots of review/settling in meetings with your social workers to provide a space to discuss how things are going. For us, this meant weekly meetings for the first 6 weeks, followed by fortnightly meetings and 2 formal reviews thereafter before our legal order came through (which happened comparatively quickly to most adopters for whom this period would stretch out further).

 On a practical note, “cocooning” with your child will look something like this (of course with some exceptions depending on the advice you receive about your child):

·        All main care done by the parents only – so personal care, washing, feeding, toileting, dressing, sleep etc

·        Physical contact and affection limited to parents only – this will mean asking others not to pick up, hug, kiss, hold your child for the first few weeks

·        Providing a solid, very consistent routine, emulating their foster routine as much as possible for the meantime, with no major changes in the first few weeks. As pedantic as this may sound (though I promise it makes sense when you’re living it), this might mean anything from keeping their toiletries, clothes, and smells the same (there’s an awful lot of washing powder chat on the adoption forums!!), through to ensuring their routine, clothes, comforts such as blankets and dummies etc, and toys/activities remain familiar to them for the first few weeks while adjusting.

·        No or very limited introductions to wider friends and family, and no visitors to the home until they are settled. Typically, the recommended period for an under-2 may be about 2 weeks, whereas for older children, this could mean more. Thereafter, ensuring introductions are very gradual in line with your child’s needs and comfort level.

·        Cocooning doesn’t have to mean staying inside the house like you’re on lockdown (ha!), but might mean local trips to low-key places such as parks, playgrounds, and local shops so they start to get used to the area. We were conscious that our hometown was geographically a long distance and a change from a rural to an urban environment for our Little Star, so had to be mindful of how busy/overwhelming it could potentially be.

·        For older children, it is likely to mean a delayed start to their new school. For younger children, a limit on clubs or playgroups for now.

·        By virtue of the above, this will necessarily mean your child not being babysat with friends and family in these early weeks. After cocooning, as part of our process, we had to nominate a few close family (grandparents) to be DBS checked during Stage 1, to be able to provide care other than us during the period before the legal order and were unable to leave Little Star with anyone else, including registered childcare providers. Remembering at this stage, that you will not have full parental responsibility (you share this with the state until the legal order and will be given papers outlining what you are/aren’t able to do during this period, which usually includes needing to seek permission for stays outside of the home for longer than a couple of days. It also includes other elements such as your level of permission to authorise medical treatment)

 I’m sure it’s needless to say that as you’re reading this, you’re imagining cocooning as an intense time, and it certainly is! It’s a weird limbo between bringing your child home and really being able to ingratiate them into your daily lives, because of the added ingredient of separation trauma that you will be trying to mitigate with cocooning. This does mean that at your most emotionally vulnerable time, you can find yourself feeling a little isolated and unable to access some of the usual things that would help such as seeing family and friends, getting away, etc at a time of stress. I had a bit of a struggle in my first I’d say 4 weeks at home with Little Star and found myself getting very depressed and anxious. I’m grateful that this was relatively short-lived and passed, but hindsight is a wonderful thing, and there is so much I wish I’d remembered to do to take care of myself at such an important juncture of my life. For what it’s worth, here are some tips based on my reflections of that time (which by the way I feel the need to say is in equal measures beautiful at the same time as all the stress – I intend this blog to be a real view of adoption but I equally don’t wish it to scare people off!):

 Cocooning Survival Tips

·        Treat this time as if you have had a new-born. What’s a little strange in adoption is that both your own, and others’ reaction to you bringing a child home, is not always the same as if you had just come out of hospital having had a new-born baby. There is a sense of excitement but also sometimes inadvertently a sense of carrying on as “before”. Here you are with this enormous life change overnight and a child you are having to get to know on the spot, and sometimes because they are not a tiny little 6lb bundle, you can set yourself completely unrealistic expectations which are just not warranted. I’m the first person to say that I never wanted to be one of those parents who centres my entire life on one aspect of my identity as a parent, but it would be ridiculous not to acknowledge that my whole world (at that time) had been shaken upside down, and I can’t return to the exact “same” person I was pre-child. My perspective and priorities have necessarily had to change. I would encourage any new adopter to “think new-born” within cocooning. Would you expect yourself to socialise, be available for a barrage of visits, be putting on a full face of makeup every day, replying to messages and emails, if you’d walked out of the hospital a week ago and were recovering from a caesarean? I think not. We may not have the scars of child birth but we do have the scars of our child’s traumas and we are becoming new parents too, but you will likely learn that as adopters we don’t always get the same grace and validation that birth parents do in terms of what we are taking on. Certainly, give yourself permission to be selfish, recognise this huge adjustment for what it is, and if you need to go off the radar for a short time, go off the radar! The right people will understand and this all links back to the work you will have done during Stage 2 on really testing your support network.

·        Allow yourself full permission to be as slobby as you need to be to focus on the most important things! Obviously a lot of it was just the sheer anxiety of having a baby in the house and largely being on my own in the house looking after them, and with time this got easier, but I can tell you, I didn’t take a lot of showers in those early days! I struggled to find time to eat, message people back, to keep people updated with the latest “news”, and I wasn’t always enjoying it. I wasn’t basking in some heavenly earth mother glow. I was stressed, down, anxious, and my memory seemed to dissolve overnight. I thankfully can tell you it all came back in a few weeks! But during that time, I was just headless chicken mode. I didn’t know Little Star well enough to know what they liked, didn’t like etc and it meant every day felt like a guessing game, so I just didn’t have any head space. If I ever did this again, I would now fully prepare for those first few weeks to be that way and plan accordingly!

·        Some small little things really help with self-care. Having some alone time with your partner when you can (nap times, evenings etc) can help you reset and recharge and check in with each other about how you feel it’s going. For single adopters, your social worker is likely to encourage you to make especially strong use of your support network, even if it has to be remotely. Someone to lean on and talk to about how you’re honestly feeling (not what others expect you to feel) is so important. I thank the stars for my Mum who listened to me over so many texts about how I was feeling, sent flowers when I was bursting into tears in front of the highchair, and who heard me out when I wasn’t sleeping and was at my wit’s end trying to be perfect (but of course failing miserably!). These things will pull you through. Early nights will help you get as much sleep as possible, and some outside time will work wonders for clearing your head. PJ days are more than fine, and for me, I am an early bird admittedly, but getting up half hour before baby meant I could at least get a cup of tea into my system before starting the day.

·        Structure really helps. You’ll of course want space for spontaneity but that’s probably not so much the order of the day at this point. I found the empty days really hard especially when my partner returned to work and thinking of the day as 4 blocks (AM/PM before/after naps) meant each chunk felt more achievable. Sometimes all I did was sit in Costa having what I called my little “pity-latte”(!) but it got me out, got me to feel I was having a treat, and it provided a focus for the morning. Now I look back and I truly don’t have to even think about how to pass my day – it’s gone in a blur, I enjoy it 9 times out of 10, and we get on fine, but time can slow when you’re in a bit of an enforced bubble. You’ll hopefully notice that feeling dissipate when you’re back out of the bubble and able to see family  and friends (just being able to see my Mum and my brother in person made an enormous difference) but for now, do what you need to do to feel sane!

·        If you are the person taking the main leave, and you have a partner, as long as they are able to take off to help with cocooning and transitions the better. People advised us of this at the beginning and I can really see how relevant it was in practice. The thing is, it is arguably a bit of a middle-class advantage to be able to take extended periods of time off work, and it won’t be possible for everyone financially and that’s okay – it’s just an ideal. My partner had frustratingly just started a new job, so whilst we had originally planned a 50/50 split with shared parental leave, we ended up with me taking the main leave and him having a fairly standard 2 weeks off, which included a week of introductions and I can say this felt nowhere near enough time. In an ideal world, I think we would have had about a month together, but it really is down to your circumstances. Do consider shared parental leave – in practice, I think with adoption having a more steady presence of both parents can make a huge difference (bizarrely we have come to benefit from us all being together during lockdown, though in sad circumstances).  If this isn’t on the table, think about how a combination of parental leave, annual leave, and if an option for you, unpaid leave might work to give you that little bit longer.

·        I felt so much pressure to be “on” all the time when Little Star first came home. I felt I had to be actively playing with them all day and attentive to them every single second otherwise I’d feel a huge wave of guilt and/or imposter syndrome, and that’s part of why I struggled to look after myself well enough in the early days. Every parenting blog I read seemed to suggest that all stay at home parents were literally doing nothing but sitting adoringly playing with their baby for hours on end, and I just couldn’t understand how anyone was up to that. It got exhausting. It didn’t take that long for me to work out that in reality, parents are people. We zone out, we get bored sometimes, and God forbid, sometimes we are just watching the clock for bedtime! But that doesn’t take away our wanting for our child, it just means we’re human. I’d have put much less pressure on myself in this regard. Don’t beat yourself up if you have lazy days, PJ days, days where you give them less than ideal food or they are subjected to a bit of TV – it may conversely be the thing that saves everyone’s sanity!

·        Showing affection to your little one is a weird one. I know I certainly felt a bit strange about kissing/hugging them at the start. Being honest, it felt forced and a bit surreal. Now I think nothing of picking up my Little Star and squishing their face, and harassing them for cuddles, but back then, I felt odd about it. In any other circumstance being intimate with a child I’d just met would feel inappropriate. Somehow through it all, I managed to strike a bit of a balance. I put absolutely no pressure on myself to instantly feel love for them (more of that in other blogs), but I did try to make a conscious effort to find opportunities for touch that felt as natural as possible. A bit of rough and tumble, some light hearted chasing games and peekaboo, kisses and cuddles at times that felt natural such as bedtime, and as Little Star was used to a very particular soothing method, I had opportunities for lots of close proximity. I can’t liken it to skin-to-skin for new-borns as I don’t know enough about that, but I guess the principle is similar. Finding opportunities for touch and eye contact really helped us bond.

·        I cannot state this one enough – utilise your social worker! Cocooning is in many ways an extension of introductions and your social worker will fully expect you to be struggling at times. Don’t be a martyr or feel you have to keep up a perfect image – it’s okay to call and say you’ve been having a rough time. Our social worker was brilliant and never made me feel judged or less than for how I felt. Oftentimes they will be able to make visits to you if you need some human contact outside of your bubble and a space for a vent – they should also be able to provide practical hints and tips as I guarantee you they will have heard it all before.

·        Staring at the walls all day can really take its toll during cocooning. We spent a LOT of time in outdoors spaces like woodlands, parks, and farms just having long walks and enjoying some quiet family time with Little Star. It served the purpose of bonding, practice being out and about with a little one, and a chance for us to clear our heads. I’d highly recommend it.

·        Accept help – if like me you’re useless at asking for and accepting help this can be a real challenge but do try to think about ways your support network can be there for you. People are happy to help and there may be small things that help make your life easier. They may not be able to see you physically but it could be things like video calls, dropping off meals/shopping, running errands for you, or if you already have other children, doing the odd school pick up to help out. Now’s the time to draw on that network you spoke about in your assessment.

·        Finally, all of this comes at a huge caveat – nothing is more important in those early days than your mental health. So if that means that you need to “break the rules” and meet up with family a little earlier than planned, or take some time out while your partner picks up the slack one day, the benefits of that for your wellbeing entirely outweigh anything else. The emotion I most closely associate with becoming an adoptive parent in the first weeks is “shock” – you are trying to adapt at immense pace to this huge life-changing event. Don’t be afraid to reach out and put your head above water to breathe if you need to.

So that’s cocooning, and let’s say that you’ve survived the experience intact, and are starting to introduce your child to friends and family. Knowing when the right time is will be a combination of your own instincts, your child’s comfort level, and your social worker’s views on appropriateness. I have a large family and because social workers knew this, I felt quite “monitored” in this regard, but it was all with good intent and after 2-3 weeks, it felt okay for us to start branching out. Here are some considerations to help this stage go smoothly…

 ·        Understandably, most people in your network won’t be fully familiar with adoption processes, and the concept of cocooning is likely to be alien. It can help to provide friends and family with a heads up about what to expect which may seem out of the norm ahead of time. First4Adoption do a fantastic crib sheet for loved ones on how best to support a new adoptive child into the family: 

https://www.first4adoption.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/how-family-and-friends-can-help.pdf

·        Think about the best physical space to meet in. Usually it is best to opt for a neutral space like a park or a café – somewhere your loved ones can spend some time with your new arrival without too much pressure and where your child will not feel their space is being invaded, nor be confused about going to too many new houses, especially after having just gone through a transition between two houses in quick succession. For us, it actually felt best for Little Star to meet people at our home where they were comfortable, but you will know your child best. If you do have visitors at home, think about making visits short and not too intense with too many people at a time – we tended to introduce people in pairs so as not to overwhelm Little Star.

·        If you are adopting an older child, it may be worth explaining to your family that this child may have some behaviours or understandings that are out of sync with how your family do things. It takes time for any child to know what the established “rules of the house” are in new settings, and many older children in the system will have experienced differing rules at their foster homes, or may have been removed at an older age from a birth family home where their home environment was far different. It is not uncommon for older adopted children who have experience of their birth homes to struggle with following “expected” social rules about noise, politeness, silly things like how to use cutlery, sharing etc, because this may not have been their experience in the harsher world they lived in. Setting everyone’s expectations at the start will avoid unnecessary awkwardness and embarrassment, and ensure your child is put at ease. Some babies/children will demonstrate behaviours younger than their developmental stage, due to the level of disruption they’ve had. Not least this may make you feel a little “odd one out” as a parent – hopefully you will have as supportive a family as I am so lucky to have but if you do feel there could be some misunderstandings, better to discuss them in advance.

·        On the same vein, it’s worth giving people a heads up about affection. We had a few situations where people innocently went to pick Little Star up and give them a cuddle, and at the time I didn’t deal with it very well as I felt awkward about it and didn’t want to come across weirdly. If you have the conversation before meeting up, that way people know where they stand. The same goes for things like taking photos, sharing information or news about your child with other people and social media.

·        Advice which worked really well for us was to start with people who you expect will have close relationships with your child, working outwards to wider family at a later date. You’ll want to pay special attention to meetings with key people such as Grandparents, Aunts and Uncles etc which all helps your child to differentiate that these are special people and not just another adult they are meeting. We had to expediate some things a little earlier than ideal as Little Star moved in with 6 weeks until Christmas, but somehow we found a way to make it work by thinking about the best order to do things in.

·        For introductions, especially for babies, you will likely have made use of photo books for close family members for your child to familiarise with faces and names. These come in handy to reinforce key people again and again on the build up to real life meetings – we found this particularly helpful for Grandparents.

·        If your child has a comforter like a blankie or a dummy, make sure they’re on hand when meeting new people. It may seem a small thing, but them having a little piece of familiarity with them can be very soothing

·        If your circumstances mean that family helping with childcare will be a necessity in the near future, find small ways to build up to this. I ended up having a couple of times I had no choice but to ask Grandparents to babysit Little Star in the early days for short periods of time but ideally I would have waited longer. Ideally, it would take some months before you ask family to babysit, and certainly if this involves any over night stays, but of course it isn’t possible for everyone to wait this long, especially single adopters. We found good ways to build up were small things like watching them for half an hour while you grab a coffee or pop to the shop for a small chunk of me-time, or perhaps watching them while you attend an appointment. Unfortunately this is an area we’ve not been able to work on well as Lockdown was a spanner in the works so at present Little Star isn’t particularly used to being in others’ care almost a year in but we hope to resume working up to this as soon as we’re able.

·        This may seem overly rigid, but try not to compromise too much on your little one’s routine to work round others in the early days. In the first few months, a sense of familiarity and predictability will be important for your child and even seemingly innocuous changes can be quite destabilising. Others will understand and it needn’t be forever, but this will pay in dividends later when you’ve created a solid foundation to start from.

·        And finally, try to avoid overwhelm when you do branch out to doing meet ups. For me, meetups actually felt like a lifeline when I was feeling low and desperate for some familiar faces, but for many there may be a lot of pressure involved. People will naturally be excited to meet your child and this may result in slight pushiness or unannounced visits which are less than ideal. Keep the diary for the weeks following your arrival home clear as possible, limit visitors to what feels the right balance for you, and put expectations of “hosting” aside.

 And we come to the end of another rambly blog! As always, I hope this was useful, and I’m looking forward now to opening up the blog to more general adoption topics now we have followed a broad timeline of the process from Stage One. We will talk about the legal order in other blogs, but for now, our next stop will be reflections on our first 100 days as adopters – some thoughts I put together some while back when I was thinking about what we’d learned so far at that stage of the journey.

 Until then, take care and keep safe.

[trentteti]

Everything You Need to Know About the Digital LSAT

We’ve talked about the digital LSAT a lot … it’s a big change for this test! But I, for one, still get a ton of questions about the new test format. So let’s address these questions, one at a time, one more time. Here are all the answers to the questions you may have about the digital LSAT.

Wait, the LSAT’s going digital?

Yeah! Under which boulder-sized rock have you been living? For the July 15, 2019 exam, the LSAT will start to administer the test on tablets, with proprietary testing software, to some test takers. For September 21, 2019 exam, and all exams thereafter, in perpetuity (lawyer-speak for “forever”), the exam will be given in its digital format, to all test takers.

What the digital test gonna look like?

Check it out for yourself! LSAC provided a digital familiarization page for prospective test takers to get some first-hand experience with the digital format. There were some issues with the initial roll out of this page, but now it’s a solid resource to learn about the new software and to try out some actual practice exams.

Wait, aren’t you supposed to write stuff down on the LSAT? How am I gonna do that on this digital exam?

They will give you scratch paper! For the first time ever! They’ll also give you pens. Or you can bring your own pencil, if you have a lucky pencil that you cannot do without, or something. We don’t know how much scratch paper will be handed out, but we’re pretty confident they’ll give you enough to make notes for Logical Reasoning or Reading Comp, and to make your set-ups and scenarios and all else for Logic Games.

I’m an Amish/Luddite/tech-fearing person and I really don’t want to take the test on the tablet. What are my options?

You don’t have many, I’m afraid. The July 15, 2019 test will be given in its digital format to only some of the test takers. About half of all test centers will be administering the test in its digital format; half will be administering its test in its traditional paper-and-pencil test. The deadline to register for that test has already passed, but if you already signed up for it, the LSAT gods may give you the traditional paper-and-pencil test.

Other than that, you can request testing accommodations from LSAC.

LSAC is switching to the digital LSAT permanently, so if you’re taking any LSAT from now on, you should be prepared to take the digital test. And really, the digital LSAT is nothing to be feared. It’s the same test as it’s ever been. And most of the new features made possible by the digital software should make the testing experience a little bit easier.

How so?

Well, there are a few major advantages of the digital format. One, you don’t have to bubble in an answer sheet. You just use the LSAC-provided stylus to click the answer choice you think is correct. You don’t have to take the (admittedly small amount of) time to thoroughly color in a little bubble. You don’t have to worry if your coloring was thorough enough to be read, or so sloppy as to be maybe read incorrectly. That saves (again, a little) time. And time is the most precious resource on the LSAT.

Two, the digital testing software will display, prominently and clearly, the amount of time remaining in your section. On the trad test, you had to keep track of your own time, using a (not digital) analog wristwatch … like a freakin’ old person. That was harder to do, and you never knew the exact amount of time remaining. That’s not the case any more, which is a pretty big boon to test takers.

There are a few more marginal benefits, too. The scratch paper they’ll provide you will give more room to make notes than the test booklets of the trad test did. You can also flag questions on the digital test, and quickly return to that question at the press of a button, without flipping through a bunch of pages of your test booklet. The lack of page-flipping could make test centers quieter. Embrace the digital!

OK, but how am I going to study to take the digital LSAT?

Good question! LSAC is offering a limited amount of practice exams on its digital familiarization page, but that’s not enough. Our advice: to prepare for the digital LSAT you should … I don’t know … practice LSAT questions in a digital format? Shocking, I know.

Any test prep service worth its salt will have some digital component that will give you some experience answering LSAT question in a digital format. For Blueprint specifically, our students have been doing their homework through a digital interface for years. And recently, we just switched up the format of the practice exams students can take with us. Our students can now take any practice exam online, in a format that looks exactly like the testing software the real test will use. So our students will be able to get a lot of experience with the digital LSAT. You can check this out, gratis, with our free LSAT prep bundle.

If you want to go all-in in your LSAT studies, considering acquiring a tablet. The digital LSAT will be administered on a Microsoft Surface Go, so if you want to really replicate grab that one. But, really, all tablets on the market are fairly similar, so any tablet will get close enough to the real test experience.

Sounds good, but I have a few more hyper-specific questions!

OK! But let’s make this quick. We’re running out of space for this blog. Let’s do this lightning round-style.

It’s a digital test, so will the tablet’s computer-brain spit my score out as soon as I finish the test?

Nope! It’ll still take about three weeks to get your score back. For the July 2019 test specifically, it’ll take even longer — those test takers won’t get their scores back until August 28, a full six weeks after the test.

Will the exam be adaptive like the GMAT or GRE, in that the difficulty of the questions will change based on your performance?

Nope! In fact we could save a lot of time if I could just say …

Will I still have the same kinds of Logical Reasoning questions?

… that …

And logic games?

… all aspects of the test …

And those godforsaken Reading Comp passages?

… other than the fact that it’s on a tablet …

Will there still be an experimental section?

… will remain the same. You’ll still get two scored LR sections, one scored Logic Games section, one scored Reading Comp section, and one unscored “experimental” section. The test will be scored in the same way. The strategies and concepts that worked for the old test will continue to work for the digital test.

OK, those are all my questions!

Great! This blog is over.

Everything You Need to Know About the Digital LSAT was originally published on LSAT Blog

[michaelchapmanba3b]

Portfolio - Puppet Construction

Since announcing a few weeks ago that I was going to start the construction of a puppet based off me, I started to fabricating the puppet whilst taking pictures however it slipped my mind that I forgot to document my process of how I made the puppet and why I made the creative choices I did. So in this blog post I will be detailing how I made the puppet of myself over the course of a week.

I started the fabrication on the puppet many people do, starting with an armature. What was different about this armature however is that as I started the fabrication process of this puppet I didn’t include any arms and merely left slots in there. What I have learnt from the previous last two projects is that when creating a puppet that you want to have silicone hands, it saves time and resources to not even include the wire in your designs. Since the last uni when I made a puppet for my personal showcase, I cast a few set of hands out of silicone which I wanted to use here. my concern at the time was that the puppet for the personal showcase unit naturally was a bigger size and at the time of making this while I was at home and not in Norwich I was worried if the size of the hands would be an issue as I didn’t have time to cast a new pair upon my arrival back. If I couldn’t use the spare silicone spare hands then the second option was to craft foam arms and simply stick the hands on a wire. 

Whilst making this there was another issue. As I am not body shaming myself, the main body was missing some mass. I trimmed the body obviously much to slim and needed some more foam to stick back on. So the next process I had to either re-design the body or stick foam on to pad my puppet version of myself out. However I will still at home and away from foam or the spare silicone hand so I had to wait upon returning back to Norwich before I did any more work. At this point I wasn’t sure if I was going to like the final outcome as at this stage it was quite hard to visualise however I persevered and decided to keep working on it and if it really didn’t match me to then make a random character.

Finally as I was back in Norwich I was able to continue work. The first step I did one coming home was to bulk my body up to resemble my shape. Whilst I could of stuck foam pieces onto this pre-existing body shape, I decided to craft a new body. I destroyed the body from the wait upwards and crafted a new body piece much more suited to my body structure. This attempt was much better then the first. Trying to make a puppet of myself proved harder then imagined. As I’ve only ever really made puppets from either fictional character or my own imagination, trying to make myself I had to try and decide how harsh I want to be on myself IE, how overweight do I make myself look. Whilst an odd experience I believe I got to a happy medium where I wasn’t insulting myself to much by making myself appear fat nor was I thin as the first attempt. 

The second change is the trousers. I wanted to try and aim as a loose match to my wardrobe as I could to which I often wear a pair or tartans that closely resemble that so naturally they seemed to be the best fit. I didn’t have time to sew trousers so when conducting tests as to if the material showed glue proved successful, I applied glue to the tartan material which worked rather well. Next step is to trim up the loose threads where I’ve glued them. Whilst gluing them perhaps isn’t industry standard. It did save time to which you can’t quite tell they’re glued.

Finally the hands I was able to recover and insert them into the top part of the body successfully. I believe they are quite a good match which I don’t think they are to big for the puppet at all. Obviously being a spare set of hands from the last project means the hands are not perfect. The hands still feature the same issues that plagued the hands last unit with holes seemingly in the silicone and wire perturbing out of the silicone. Obviously if I was to cast these again I would make a smelled mould to before and to wrap cotton wool in between the wires so that the wire doesn’t pierce the silicone. After deadline I want to try and re-mould the hands with this method in mind to try and create a working cast I can use.

In this time I started making the head. The head for a puppet like myself posed some interesting problems. Apart from my hair I wouldn’t say I have any distinguishing features. With this in mind I tried creating a generic base head out of flymo with milliput nose and ears. The hair was added once the flymo had dried using alpaca fur and impact glue, the beard was achieved the same way. Whilst I think this is a good idea it seems that using glue one material like this does make the hair look flat. Typically with my hair it has volume and strength to it with the quiff being in the middle of my head sticking up and out. Here the hair seems to be just sticking out lacking any volume. I wasn’t quite sure of a work around with this. I did try to give the alpca fur a little bit of strength by adding on more fur as well as treating the hair but those tests proved negative. The only option was to potentially glue more hair on however that could make issues worse. This is an issue that may need revisiting. So far the head looks ok. I plan to paint the eyes and mouth on once painting the nose and ears flesh coloured

Also I found a blue material in my materials bag that represented my normal and plain blue t shirts I like to wear. Once again like with the trousers I decided to glue this portion on by only gluing the front side of the the body leaving the back exposed foam. The reason why I have done this is I had planned to make a hoodie with green material much like I wear hoodies. The blue material works and represents what its meant to be. So far I can see the project coming together and starting to resemble myself. 

The hoodie was a particularly difficult one to make. I wanted to attempt a something I’ve seen replicated by companies such as Hot Toys who are known for their detailed pose able figures. I wanted to attempt to stick a wire in the hoodie to resemble a jacket that could be zipped up. Resembling a seem line this makes the jacket fully pose able and easy to position. The only difficult that came from this was putting the wire in t resemble a hood. This proved to be extremely difficult. In the end one the wire was stuck it wasn’t quite behaving as I planned with the wire bunching up and not resembling a hood. I had to fold it the best way I could so that it could even resemble a hood. I like the idea in theory and as a test being the first time I’ve attempted something like this it’s not a bad first attempt however I do believe I could make a much jacket with a wire running through the coat. It appears quite obvious that the wire is inside the coat and unfortunately due to the hood the wire is partially visible. Also because the wire is seemingly folded in on itself to resemble a hood it makes posing the jacket quite difficult as the wire are the top of the head constantly moves and shifts out of position. I would really like to make another trial version of this in the future. So when I try to do this again I want to try and disguise the wire better but to also make sure the wire is firmly stuck within the material and that not loose bit of metal can be seen. Good idea, just ok in the exaction. 

Unfortunately due to gluing his hoodie down it meant I got some glue stains on the blue top itself. I have managed to pick of most of it using a tool however this serves as a reminder to sew thew clothes on and not glue them. I will try to disguise the mark as best as I can for animations and turn arrounds with the wire in the jacks as seen here posed with the coat open. 

Here is the final outcome with a updated picture from shooting my business card as I never managed to shot a wide body shot. 

The head had last few remaining updates, the eyes, ears and nose and mouth were painted with the eyebrows being stuck on by cardboard and alpaca fur. The head was the hardest thing to capture in my personal opinion as whilst I was able to replicate the hair it was quite difficult getting all the lines of my face as well as the cheek bones and the freckles. I believe in this instant I just had to create a generic male face. Was this the right decision? I don’t know. Unfortunately I was limited with time of what I could and couldn’t do so for now it will have to be the case and whether that was the right decision or not is debatable.

in conclusion. I am very happy with this puppet of myself. I can say that whilst it isn’t a dead ringer of me in puppet form, what I can say is I spent 2 weeks trying to replicate my body and my appearance in puppet form complete with awful dress seance. I’m quite proud that this was my first attempt in making a puppet of a real life person and it’s encouraged me to try some more in the future. However for now  this puppet will be used in a couple of animations in my showreel and website. 

[aurelliocheek]

A Year of Rain: Network Optimisation

Creating an online real-time strategy game without lockstep in Unreal Engine 4.

With A Year Of Rain, we’re using Unreal Engine to bring an entirely new team real-time strategy experience to desktop PCs. Traditionally, these games have been using the popular lockstep approach for exchanging data between all game clients. However, Unreal Engine relies on a client-server network architecture to create multiplayer games. In this article, we are going to take a closer look at the challenges we’ve been facing creating an online real-time strategy game with Unreal Engine and what we’ve done to overcome them.

Lockstep Networking Lockstep assumes that clients initially know about the same game state. Then, once each (networking) frame, it will collect input from all clients and distribute them among all clients. Finally, all clients will apply all inputs to generate the same new game state. Usually, this requires your game logic to be deterministic across all connected clients: Same calculations need to yield the exact same result, pseudo-random numbers have to be generated in the same order, and the execution order of all game systems has to be the same.

In general, all of this leads to the following implications: If any client fails to send its input in time, e.g. due to latency or packet loss, all other clients have to wait for them. This is a quite common sight in traditional real-time strategy games. Because all data is available to all clients, lockstep usually also means that it’s technically impossible to fully hide details about the game state from the local player. This opens up for a lot of local hacks, like map hacks that disable fog of war and reveal the whole map. On the other hand, the amount of data that is sent between all machines is limited by the size of player inputs, not the size of the game state. As the amount of game state data of real-time strategy games can become quite large, especially when there are hundreds or even thousands of units involved, lockstep became so popular for these games.

Client-Server Networking In Unreal Engine Networking in Unreal Engine 4 is based on a traditional client-server model. There’s a single machine called server that is authoritative about the game state: The server is the only one allowed to actually change the game state. All other connected machines are called clients: They will send their input to the server, and receive the most recent game state from the server whenever possible, approximating any changes in the meantime to provide a smooth gameplay experience for all players. If their approximation of the game state is slightly different than the actual one received from the server, clients usually smooth out these differences over multiple frames to get back to the correct state. If the difference is too big, e.g. because of unexpected changes or spikes, they have to update their local state abruptly in order to present the correct version of the world to the player, which usually causes visual artefacts.

In Unreal Engine, each game world is made up of actors. Basically, everything in Unreal is an actor: Stones, trees, projectiles, and characters. These actors exist on both server and client side, and Unreal uses a process for synchronising their data and remote procedure calls (RPCs) called replication. Properties are replicated automatically any time they change, while procedure calls are only replicated when executed.

Not all actors are required to be replicated: While characters usually are, static meshes are not, for instance. Also, even if a property isn’t changing (and thus, isn’t consuming any bandwidth), there is still server CPU overhead in determining whether or not this value has changed.

Skipping initial replication showed a much smoother network profile. At this stage, we could finally take a deeper dive into optimising bandwidth.

Bandwidth Optimisation Techniques There are multiple ways of reducing the overall bandwidth an actor consumes in Unreal Engine. First of all, every actor has a specific network update frequency. Reducing this frequency will cause the actor to be replicated less often.

Next, Unreal uses the concept of network relevancy to determine whether an actor should be replicated for a specific connection. It will automatically deem actors irrelevant for a player if they’re not visible, not audible and have no significant effect on that player. The engine offers distance-based culling for replication as well and finally allows game code to override relevancy with custom rules altogether.

Furthermore, each type of actor in Unreal has got a network priority value. The higher the number, the more bandwidth an actor receives relative to others. This load balancing technique prioritises all actors and gives each one a fair share of the bandwidth based on how important it is to gameplay. Finally, actors in Unreal can go dormant, initially or temporarily, preventing them from replicating. This is helpful for preventing actors from replicating in case you know there’s no need to do so for quite some time. Epic Games has been using dormancy to optimise network  performance for buildings in Fortnite, for example.

Optimising A Year Of Rain When we started optimising the network performance of A Year Of Rain, we set up a (mostly) deterministic testing scenario first. We created a small arena map with a representative amount of trees. Trees have been causing performance issues in various areas of the game before, and we were suspecting them to do so in networking as well. Then, we set up the game to initially spawn 20 units per player, and had them attack-move towards a central beacon location on the map, causing them to move there and attack any hostile units on their way. We were taking a network profile of exactly 30 seconds from the beginning of each session and compared the results. This is done using a standalone Unreal Engine tool called the network profiler, which allows you to open a file containing recorded data and shows the bandwidth contribution of all actors for both properties and RPCs. As only the server is able to record everything, and clients just record their own RPCs, we were taking the network profiles on server side.

The replication graph of A Year Of Rain prevents replication of units which are stealthed, covered by fog of war, or hidden to players for other reasons.

Replicating Gameplay Tags The first profile we took highlighted trees as consuming more than 80% of our bandwidth – as expected. The offending property was their associated gameplay tags. In Unreal, gameplay tags are user-defined hierarchical tags that allow gameplay logic to query along their hierarchy or even for containers with multiple tags. In A Year Of Rain, we are using gameplay tags to determine whether a unit is stealthed, for example, or to calculate damage bonuses based on attack and armor types.

A short analysis of the feature revealed that these gameplay tags are replicated as full strings by default. Luckily, they feature a technique called fast replication that will assign indices to all available tags, and replicate them by index instead. Clearly, this requires the same tags to be defined on client and server.

Replicating Movement Using fast replication for gameplay tags reduced the overall amount of bandwidth consumed by trees by two thirds. How-ever, they were still the actor type that was shown at the very top of the network profile. Now, it was their movement that was adding up to the most bytes sent over the network. Trees should never move, and we didn’t care how and why Unreal thought they should do. Thus, we disabled replicating movement for trees altogether, which can be done ticking a single checkbox in the Unreal Editor. This reduced the bytes spent on replicating trees by another third. However, trees were still on top of the list.

Skipping Initial Replication After disabling movement replication for trees, their most replicated property was their abilities. That was odd, and it didn’t take us long to find out what was happen-ing: In our testing scenario, not a single unit (and clearly, not a single tree) was using any ability. In conclusion, there wasn’t any state of any ability that should be replicated. Taking a closer look at the profile, we noticed a huge spike at the very beginning, which was caused by the initial replication of all actors to all clients. We changed our testing scenario to skip the first few seconds before starting to record the profile, and got a result that made much more sense to us.

Applying all of the above improvements again showed that trees didn’t require a single byte to be replicated any more, just as expected. Now, it was the 20 units per player involved in our testing scenario that showed up at the top of the profiler, with their movement data as property with the most bytes sent over the network.

Our testing scenario was a small map with 20 units per player attack-moving towards a central location, as well as a representative amount of trees.

Replication Graphs and Fog Of War Still, we wondered whether we could do better. Epic Games had added a new engine feature called replication graph shortly before. Their idea was to create a system for improved scaling in network replication, with the goal of replicating 50,000 actors to 100 connections in Fortnite: Battle Royale. This was exactly what we were looking for to improve the performance of our real-time strategy game.

Traditionally, Unreal Engine relied on a virtual function call to determine whether an actor was relevant to replicate to a connection. This introduced a CPU bottleneck in Fortnite, as virtual function calls are impossible to optimise – the result of the call could change every time, and the function was called often to determine actor relevancy. Thus, Epic Games created replication graphs containing nodes with lists of actors to replicate to each client. Building these lists once and updating them only when necessary, eliminates the need for actors to check for replication every frame.

Replication graphs were designed to improve the CPU performance of servers of games with many actors. However, as we hadn’t tempered with overriding relevancy ourselves yet, implementing our own replication graph with a custom relevancy node improved bandwidth as well for us: We used the server-side vision calculation performed for each player to store information about which actors are visible for which player, with respect to vision and fog of war. Then, we updated the replication graph, moving actors between nodes depending on whether they were visible or not. This approach reduced our bandwidth consumption in our testing scenario by another third, resulting from the time it took before the units encountered each other.

Future Work At this point, we were pretty happy with the results. Still, we are aware that our testing scenario doesn’t perfectly reflect an actual situation in our game. We want to try introducing dormancy for our trees soon, in order to check whether this further improves the performance in stages of the game where many worker units are chopping trees to gather lumber for building the base. Also, we’re looking into optimising the animation workload on server side to reduce the CPU load, which translates into actually saved money in a scenario with many game servers involved, potentially scaling out into the cloud.

7 : 9 Hochformat

Nick Prühs Technical Director of Daedalic Entertainment

In 2009, he graduated as ��Best Bachelor” in ­Computer Science at Kiel University. Two years later, he finished his master’s degree in Sound, Vision, Games at Hamburg ­University of Applied Sciences, founding Slash Games with Christian Oeing shortly after.

The post A Year of Rain: Network Optimisation appeared first on Making Games.

A Year of Rain: Network Optimisation published first on https://leolarsonblog.tumblr.com/

[dorothydelgadillo]

Why You Need to Know What Problem You're Solving for Every Single Design Project

Designers. We are all elusive, creative geniuses right?

Well of course we are, but I’ll let you in on a little secret, we weren’t born this way.

Design is a skill. Sure, it comes with plenty of gut feelings and innate talent, but the best designers aren’t strictly artists, they’re also great critical thinkers.

The best designers understand how to identify a problem and use their skills to solve it in the best way possible for the user.

Problems Are The Secret to Good Design

No matter what the project, identifying the goal or problem is a must.

If there is no problem to solve, you’ve set your designer off on a directionless path that may produce visually beautiful results, but lacks intention.

Here at IMPACT, we see this time and time again with brands who come to us for website redesigns.

Their sites look amazing! Some serious attention to detail has been put into each pixel that completely delivers aesthetically.  

But while it may deliver visually, it completely lacks in user-oriented solutions.

These websites usually have some similar traits:

They use a lot of “we” as opposed to “you” phrasing

The order of on-page elements serves to highlight the brand (awards, press-releases, products), as opposed to helping the user alleviate their pain points as quickly as possible

They aren’t converting leads, and why would they since they are focused on what a brand offers versus how they can help

Because there was no specific problem identified at the beginning of the design phase, the designer simply created a beautiful online brochure that never had any intention of helping the user solve a problem or in turn, helping the brand achieve a goal.

The intention of any website should be the same every time: solve for the user.

Without the user, there would be no need for design at all. You need to make sure your website or project’s aim is to deliver answers and value to the user.

But, solving for the user is trickier than it sounds. To do it effectively, you must understand your user, their wants, needs, and most importantly the desires they don’t know they have.

So, how do you even begin going about solving for the users unknown intentions?

Well, I’m glad you asked...

Tackling Design Problems

What is a design problem exactly?

Design problems aren’t your average dilemmas In fact, they usually have a single component that sets them apart from all others: the need to solve for unconscious desires.

One of the most famous examples of this is Henry Ford upon building the Model T. He said, “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”

Ford understood that horses were too slow, but that wasn’t the problem to be solved. There was a much deeper need that his customers couldn’t articulate because they couldn’t fathom the solution.

Design problems focus on the user’s purpose, not just the unwelcome pain or situation.

Ford ultimately understood that his customers needed to get from one place to another faster.

This unique distinction helped him create something that didn’t exist rather than improve what already was.

Framing the Problem

Once the problem is identified, you need to give it context in order to fully understand it.

Framing a problem with a statement narrow enough will bring focus to a designer, but it also needs to be broad enough for creativity.

When a problem is properly framed and deeply seeded in your user’s purpose, you can easily see the types of barriers that are in the way of reaching your ultimate goal.

Better yet, it acts as a very necessary filter. It rules out the superfluous and irrelevant ideas (you know, the “make it pop” ones?) and only allows room for ideas that meet the user’s needs.

Framing problems also brings a shared perspective. When everyone is working towards the same goal, the process becomes more efficient.

So, how do you get started framing a problem effectively?

You gather your stakeholders and you ask four simple questions:

Who is affected? Who is experiencing the problem and how specific can we describe them?

What is the problem? What are the struggles and what ultimately needs to be accomplished? Are there pain points that need to be relieved?

Where does it happen? What context does the user experience this problem?

Why does it matter? Why is this a problem worth solving and what value does this bring to the user?

All of these questions will lead you to the goal of creating a problem statement.

Problem Statements

Problem statements are kind of like MadLibs, structured sentences with blank spaces to fill with your specific insights.

This “template” helps to create a statement that is concise, but also fully rooted in your own research.

Remember, you want to be specific enough to share a vision of the solution, but be broad enough to allow for creativity.

Here are two examples:

From the point of view of the user:

“I am (persona) trying to (verb), but (pain point or barrier) because (a specific cause) which makes me feel (emotional response).

From user research:

“(Persona) needs a way to (user’s need) because (insight from research).”

Every single problem statement should always be human-entered. Every problem is about the people you are trying to help, first and foremost.

Technology and revenue are byproducts of great problem statements that have led to the most innovative of solutions.

So, how do we ensure that we are approaching every design project with a problem to solve?

We utilize the Design Thinking methodology.

I know, breaking design down to a methodology feels weird; it lacks all that creative edge, but hear me out.

What Is Design Thinking?

Stay with me, I’m going to break down the “why” and the “what” of this process, so you can go back and determine the “how” for your organization.

Design Thinking is a methodology that can be applied to more than just design.

It  is a methodology used for both practical and creative problem solving that is user-centric, existing to focus on humans.

It seeks to understand a user’s needs and determine the most effective solutions to meet those needs.

You can think of it as a solution-based approach to problem solving.

What Is the Design Thinking Process?

As you can likely conclude, the Design Thinking process is meant to be both iterative and highly user-centric.

It consists of four principles and five phases.

The Four Principles of Design Thinking

These four principles were laid out by Chistophy Meinel and Harry Leifer of the Hasso-Plattner-Institute of Design at Stanford University, California. You can access their full research here.

  1. The Human Rule

Design is a response to the user’s social circumstance; a decision made based on usually negative consequences endured by someone. Any innovation to this will still require action from someone trying to solve for the user first.

  2. The Ambiguity Rule

Ambiguity is inevitable and this cannot be removed or oversimplified. Experimenting at the limits of your knowledge and ability is crucial in being able to see things differently when faced with it.

  3. The Redesign Rule

All design is redesign. While technology and social circumstances may change and evolve, basic human needs remain unchanged. We only redesign the means of fulfilling these needs.

  4. The Tangibility Rule

Making ideas tangible in the form of prototypes enables designers to communicate them more effectively. (Think of this as the “I’ll know it when I see it” rule!)

Now, if you really think about and embrace them, these principles are quite liberating.

With them, as the problem solver, you’re free from the pressures of having to have the exact right answer every single time you approach a problem.

This set of principles is specific, but doesn’t tell you how to go about solving the problem.

They establish guidelines that need to be met, but allow the problem solver to experiment, embrace naysayers, stay humble, and most importantly, stay focused on solving for the user.

The principle set is specific without

The Five Phases of Design Thinking

Based on the four principles above, the process of Design Thinking can be equated to five steps or “phases” as per the aforementioned Hasso-Plattner-Institute of Design at Stanford.

  Phase 1: Empathize

Empathy is the critical starting point for Design Thinking. As a problem solver, you have to understand the needs of your users.

What do they want? What do they need? What are they trying to solve for themselves?

Set your own personal assumptions aside and collect data about your users on an emotional level. Suspend your own view of the world around you and see it through your user’s eyes.

Trying to replicate their emotional journey, do you understand where their frustrations lie?

The ultimate goal is to better understand your user’s motivations and that isn’t always obvious. It requires an extreme effort to observe your users with a blank mindset and a genuine curiosity to understand “why.”

  Phase 2: Define the Problem

What you may have had in mind as “the problem” could have changed entirely after the Empathize phase.

In the Emphasize phase, we analyzed everything we observed and discovered into smaller components: what, why, and how.

In the define stage, we bring those smaller components back together to synthesize our findings to create a highly detailed overall picture.

This overall picture is your ultimate design challenge and the first step to creating a well-defined problem statement.

Problem statements (we’ll focus more on these later in the article, they are extremely important!) Frame the problem or need in a way that is actionable for designers.

  Phase 3: Ideate

This is where all that elusive, creative genius happens.

In a strict, judgement-free zone, problem solvers will identify as many new angles and ideas for a solution as they can muster.

Sometimes the right call might be brainstorming, or mind mapping, or sketching, the possibilities are limitless. Ideating is different for every designer and every organization.

But what’s the same is that at the end of this session, you should have your ideas narrowed down to a handful you can move forward with.

  Phase 4: Prototype

This phase is all about tangibility.

You’ll want to experiment with how to best implement the solutions found in the previous stages and actually create a tangible product that you can test.

We call this a prototype. It allows designers to showcase their work through an interactive and engaging product resulting in a much better understanding of the solution for everyone involved.

How far you take your prototype is up to you, but to get the most value out of these phases, it may be best to have the prototype be usable and not just conceptual.

Here is an example from proto.io. As a potential user, you can click around inside of the mobile device to see how the site would potentially function on mobile.

This step can actually be comprised of many steps. Just because you’ve prototyped an idea doesn’t mean it stands as is. Continue to experiment and challenge your solution.

You may quickly find that some ideas are best left in this stage, while others merit enough of a refined solution to move on to Phase 5.

  Phase 5: Test

After finally landing on a few prototypes that you feel are indicative of the best solution possible, send it out into the wild!

You’ll want to test your prototypes to see if they hold up to all of your assumptions.

Testing can be a tricky phase. yYou’ll want to make sure your test is planned, your participants have been properly vetted as the best subjects for testing, and then you’ll want to have a plan in place for how to analyze your data and inform next steps.

Often you’ll find that this phase takes you back to one of the previous phases. That isn’t a defeat! It’s simply narrowing down the problem and potential solutions.

If your tests are successful, congratulations! You’ve solved for the user in the most effective way possible. You’ll likely move on to finalizing the product and launching it in the “real world.”

Even if you make it to a successful launch, however, keep your head in this phase. Design can always be improved upon, and don’t forget you’ll need to change your solution based on social circumstances.

Always be testing and always be trying to find the next solution.

  It’s a Non-Linear Process

While there may appear to be a very linear sequence to these phases, you can often find yourself looping back and around these phases. With every new discovery, you may need to challenge phases you already thought were set in stone.

The only rule is to keep a user-first mentality.

Why Does This Matter?

I know, we’ve listed a lot of fancy terms and methodologies, and all of that is great and maybe some of it is even clicking. But honestly, why does this matter so much?

Your website exists solely for your users. Let that sink in.

Your website isn’t your crowning glory. It’s not there for your sales team, it’s not there for your CEO, and it certainly isn’t there for your marketing team.

Your website must solve your users’ problems.

When a user lands on your website, they are there to help alleviate a very specific pain point. Is your content, design, and overall UX focused on helping your users?

If it isn’t, take a step back.

Think about all of the principles and phases we’ve discussed in this article.

You can’t start trying to solve for you user until you have a complete understanding of your user’s behavior, their desires, and their needs. You have to define this as the problem you are trying to solve.

Otherwise, you are never going to design a solution that alleviates their pain points.

If you approach your next website redesign as simply a task, telling your designer, “you’re the expert, go make it fabulous” you aren’t only doing your business a disservice by ignoring your users specific pain points, but you’ve taken the stance that your potential customers aren’t worth a tailored solution.

We designers are visual problem solvers. Not just task takers who will make things look and work the way you want them to.

If you don’t allow your designer to help identify and solve a problem for your user’s, you’re wasting their potential as critical thinkers. More importantly you’re wasting your design spend on a product that will not achieve your goals.

Would you do that for a marketing plan? For PPC activity? For a social campaign?

Absolutely not.

Stop talking to your designer as “one of those creatives” who just knows Photoshop well. Start involving them in discussions about your users.

Ask them to explain how they arrived at certain solutions and work together to creative problem statements moving into creative redesigns.

Take these principles back to your co-workers and brainstorm ways to implement them into new or existing processes.

Caring deeply for and about your users will always create the best possible product.

Don’t design without understanding your problem statement. Seriously, don’t.

from Web Developers World https://www.impactbnd.com/blog/why-you-need-to-know-what-problem-youre-solving-for-every-single-design-project

[pauldeckerus]

How to Bring Something New to Film Photography

A very common piece of advice for photographers looking to take their work to the “next level” is that they must invest time in themselves in the process of developing a “style.” A photographic style can mean many things; a theme within the subject matter, a specific color palette, a certain compositional approach, and anything else that leaves the artist’s work with a distinct “fingerprint.”

I think it’s fantastic that there are simply so many ways for a photographer to take the tools, both in gear and approach, and create something truly distinct. However, I think that many newcomers to photography may overlook film as a viable medium on which to develop their aesthetic.

Of course, there are very few things inherent to film that cannot be replicated on a digital camera, but when looking at digital gear it can be difficult to get over the idea that some great breakthrough is just around the corner. One of the wonderful things I find in analog photography is that the best film camera for you already exists.

There is very little in the way of new film cameras being manufactured or innovated, so we are left with almost a “complete” range to choose from. There will be nothing new to look forward to, so the concentration moves from gear to simply producing the best work with that gear as you can.

When looking at film cameras, you have the choice of everything from the simplest of light-tight boxes to the most complex electronic SLRs, with specs that rival even today’s flagship digital options. This caters to the needs of the majority of photographers, but especially for hobbyists, enthusiasts, and fine art artists who don’t need to worry about the possible shortcomings of film photography.

Film is known as having its own “look,” which is why different emulsions are good for different applications and different stocks preferred for different genres. However this is not the entire truth: as with analog film, many of the factors involved in exposing, developing, and printing are subjective when compared to certain digital manipulation techniques, including most Photoshop uses.

I think that many film photographers have started to embrace the sheer diversity of what a particular film can offer depending on the way it is shot, developed, and printed — it’s far beyond the recommended ISO or development chemicals. This is opening the possibilities for visual styles that are truly unique for an individual photographer, as no one else will process their film (at every stage) in the same way. One emulsion offers not just one look but as many as the photographer has patience and time to work on.

For example, Portra 400 is known as being an incredibly flexible film with a very distinctive and “trendy” look when shot overexposed by a couple of stops and developed at normal. However, very rarely is this look shared with the exact look of that negative — rather, it will have been edited digitally to some extent as well.

I think that analog purists would prefer to keep their experimentation in the darkroom rather than doing much digitally, but as always, it’s the results that matter. For myself, I find that creativity in analog photography comes from its limitations. When I first learned that ISO in film represented only the opinion of the manufacturer as to what it offers its “best” results at, I felt almost liberated.

I’ve never liked the idea of “correct exposure,” especially for black and white photography, and this leaves open the possibility to tailor a specific type of exposure for my look. This means I can deliberately blow out the highlights in a street portrait for minimal context, or expose only for the highlights and leave the rest as deep blacks.

Using the fantastic latitude of films like Tri-X means being able to push-develop these films to ISOs of up to 10000 while still obtaining aesthetically beautiful results. This gives you an incredible range of “looks” that can be achieved by any one film stock. Any combination of over/under-exposure, paired with any available mainstream or experimental development chemical, and the capacity to develop at any time that suits you, using any amount of agitation, means an almost infinite amount of options to work with sheerly on the chemical side of things.

One of the most famous “looks” in film belongs to Kodachrome, which is known for its wonderful rendition of color and now ultimate nostalgic aesthetic. One of the most famous photographers who incorporated Kodachrome in their workflow is Steve McCurry, who made it his own simply by often underexposing his shots by one stop in order to obtain “richer, more saturated colors” that add a “somber feel” to his photos.

I really enjoy learning about how different photographers make film work for them because it informs the way I can apply those techniques, or adapt them, to my own workflow. Some techniques are subtle and fairly simple, like the way that Benjamin Gordon will expose for a portrait to really bring out the soul in the eyes.

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Let this be your fighting spirit.

A post shared by benjamin gordon (@benjamingordon__) on Jul 11, 2018 at 11:40pm PDT

Other photographers are more comfortable with really decimating their film, pushing it both literally and figuratively to its limits, and shooting in a very carefree manner. Josh White is one of my favorite examples of this, and his ethereal results never cease to captivate me.

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The weekends go so fast. In #Iksan #익산, South #Korea. . . . #andthelastwaves #jtinseoul #ourstreets #deathb4digital #filmisnotdead #leica_camera #ilfordfilm

A post shared by JT White (@jtinseoul) on Aug 5, 2018 at 8:21pm PDT

He goes into detail discussing the way he handles his Ilford films over on his blog.

Winston Duke is a photographer I like to compare to Josh, not in style or content as they are very different, but as he also blitzes his film while shooting, and again when developing, but he prefers to use Kodak stock.

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⚪⚫

A post shared by Winston Duke (@waltzinthedark) on Nov 13, 2018 at 5:25am PST

Winston also plays around with his film after shooting, although I’m unsure of his exact process. I know he’s experimented with double exposures while printing and applying different textures to the film to really give them a depth I haven’t encountered anywhere else.

In my own efforts, I have been working with Delta 400 to make bright exposures with detail in all areas. To do this I have been overexposing by three stops and shooting in as bright conditions as I have access to, normally against the sun. Delta 400 is a T grain film, which means my results are normally very sharp and easy to work with once scanned. Once I am comfortable with my exposure methods, I will hopefully start to play around with my images in print and see what kind of effect I’m able to bring out — probably best used for portraiture.

I’ve also enjoyed using films that have something of their own aesthetic, which I can manipulate and incorporate into my images. There are some lovely special effect films with pre-exposed aspects and shapes, and I also love films with a bit of “volatility” and unpredictability like Cinestill 800, which is one of the best “film-looking” films available today.

I think that black-and-white and experimental films have been the most rewarding to me when it comes to playing around with light, chemistry, and the physicality of the medium. I think that this kind of experimental quality is one of the reasons film and the film community has managed to remain so resilient; the fact that there are so many possibilities when it comes to shooting and manipulating film, whether you emphasize its strengths through dynamic range and treatment of highlights, or play into a darker, grainier aesthetic.

I’ve been really enjoying the results from my recent film experiments and really look forward to sharing more of my work as it unfolds. Despite being a progenitor of photography, film still has so much to offer for as long as there are photographers willing to work within its rules to produce unique results.

I really hope that anyone who has started to shoot film and perhaps found it underwhelming gives it a second chance, this time doing a little more than shooting it “safely.” New cameras rarely offer anything truly new, but film has constantly given, and will hopefully continue to give, me and many other artists unexpected, organic, and exceptional results.

About the author: Simon King is a London based photographer and photojournalist, currently working on a number of long-term documentary and street photography projects. The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author. You can follow his work on Instagram and you can read more of his thoughts on photography day-to-day over on his personal blog. Simon also teaches a short course in Street Photography at UAL, which can be read about here.

from Photography News https://petapixel.com/2019/04/22/how-to-bring-something-new-to-film-photography/

[sailorrrvenus]

How to Bring Something New to Film Photography

A very common piece of advice for photographers looking to take their work to the “next level” is that they must invest time in themselves in the process of developing a “style.” A photographic style can mean many things; a theme within the subject matter, a specific color palette, a certain compositional approach, and anything else that leaves the artist’s work with a distinct “fingerprint.”

I think it’s fantastic that there are simply so many ways for a photographer to take the tools, both in gear and approach, and create something truly distinct. However, I think that many newcomers to photography may overlook film as a viable medium on which to develop their aesthetic.

Of course, there are very few things inherent to film that cannot be replicated on a digital camera, but when looking at digital gear it can be difficult to get over the idea that some great breakthrough is just around the corner. One of the wonderful things I find in analog photography is that the best film camera for you already exists.

There is very little in the way of new film cameras being manufactured or innovated, so we are left with almost a “complete” range to choose from. There will be nothing new to look forward to, so the concentration moves from gear to simply producing the best work with that gear as you can.

When looking at film cameras, you have the choice of everything from the simplest of light-tight boxes to the most complex electronic SLRs, with specs that rival even today’s flagship digital options. This caters to the needs of the majority of photographers, but especially for hobbyists, enthusiasts, and fine art artists who don’t need to worry about the possible shortcomings of film photography.

Film is known as having its own “look,” which is why different emulsions are good for different applications and different stocks preferred for different genres. However this is not the entire truth: as with analog film, many of the factors involved in exposing, developing, and printing are subjective when compared to certain digital manipulation techniques, including most Photoshop uses.

I think that many film photographers have started to embrace the sheer diversity of what a particular film can offer depending on the way it is shot, developed, and printed — it’s far beyond the recommended ISO or development chemicals. This is opening the possibilities for visual styles that are truly unique for an individual photographer, as no one else will process their film (at every stage) in the same way. One emulsion offers not just one look but as many as the photographer has patience and time to work on.

For example, Portra 400 is known as being an incredibly flexible film with a very distinctive and “trendy” look when shot overexposed by a couple of stops and developed at normal. However, very rarely is this look shared with the exact look of that negative — rather, it will have been edited digitally to some extent as well.

I think that analog purists would prefer to keep their experimentation in the darkroom rather than doing much digitally, but as always, it’s the results that matter. For myself, I find that creativity in analog photography comes from its limitations. When I first learned that ISO in film represented only the opinion of the manufacturer as to what it offers its “best” results at, I felt almost liberated.

I’ve never liked the idea of “correct exposure,” especially for black and white photography, and this leaves open the possibility to tailor a specific type of exposure for my look. This means I can deliberately blow out the highlights in a street portrait for minimal context, or expose only for the highlights and leave the rest as deep blacks.

Using the fantastic latitude of films like Tri-X means being able to push-develop these films to ISOs of up to 10000 while still obtaining aesthetically beautiful results. This gives you an incredible range of “looks” that can be achieved by any one film stock. Any combination of over/under-exposure, paired with any available mainstream or experimental development chemical, and the capacity to develop at any time that suits you, using any amount of agitation, means an almost infinite amount of options to work with sheerly on the chemical side of things.

One of the most famous “looks” in film belongs to Kodachrome, which is known for its wonderful rendition of color and now ultimate nostalgic aesthetic. One of the most famous photographers who incorporated Kodachrome in their workflow is Steve McCurry, who made it his own simply by often underexposing his shots by one stop in order to obtain “richer, more saturated colors” that add a “somber feel” to his photos.

I really enjoy learning about how different photographers make film work for them because it informs the way I can apply those techniques, or adapt them, to my own workflow. Some techniques are subtle and fairly simple, like the way that Benjamin Gordon will expose for a portrait to really bring out the soul in the eyes.

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Let this be your fighting spirit.

A post shared by benjamin gordon (@benjamingordon__) on Jul 11, 2018 at 11:40pm PDT

Other photographers are more comfortable with really decimating their film, pushing it both literally and figuratively to its limits, and shooting in a very carefree manner. Josh White is one of my favorite examples of this, and his ethereal results never cease to captivate me.

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The weekends go so fast. In #Iksan #익산, South #Korea. . . . #andthelastwaves #jtinseoul #ourstreets #deathb4digital #filmisnotdead #leica_camera #ilfordfilm

A post shared by JT White (@jtinseoul) on Aug 5, 2018 at 8:21pm PDT

He goes into detail discussing the way he handles his Ilford films over on his blog.

Winston Duke is a photographer I like to compare to Josh, not in style or content as they are very different, but as he also blitzes his film while shooting, and again when developing, but he prefers to use Kodak stock.

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⚪⚫

A post shared by Winston Duke (@waltzinthedark) on Nov 13, 2018 at 5:25am PST

Winston also plays around with his film after shooting, although I’m unsure of his exact process. I know he’s experimented with double exposures while printing and applying different textures to the film to really give them a depth I haven’t encountered anywhere else.

In my own efforts, I have been working with Delta 400 to make bright exposures with detail in all areas. To do this I have been overexposing by three stops and shooting in as bright conditions as I have access to, normally against the sun. Delta 400 is a T grain film, which means my results are normally very sharp and easy to work with once scanned. Once I am comfortable with my exposure methods, I will hopefully start to play around with my images in print and see what kind of effect I’m able to bring out — probably best used for portraiture.

I’ve also enjoyed using films that have something of their own aesthetic, which I can manipulate and incorporate into my images. There are some lovely special effect films with pre-exposed aspects and shapes, and I also love films with a bit of “volatility” and unpredictability like Cinestill 800, which is one of the best “film-looking” films available today.

I think that black-and-white and experimental films have been the most rewarding to me when it comes to playing around with light, chemistry, and the physicality of the medium. I think that this kind of experimental quality is one of the reasons film and the film community has managed to remain so resilient; the fact that there are so many possibilities when it comes to shooting and manipulating film, whether you emphasize its strengths through dynamic range and treatment of highlights, or play into a darker, grainier aesthetic.

I’ve been really enjoying the results from my recent film experiments and really look forward to sharing more of my work as it unfolds. Despite being a progenitor of photography, film still has so much to offer for as long as there are photographers willing to work within its rules to produce unique results.

I really hope that anyone who has started to shoot film and perhaps found it underwhelming gives it a second chance, this time doing a little more than shooting it “safely.” New cameras rarely offer anything truly new, but film has constantly given, and will hopefully continue to give, me and many other artists unexpected, organic, and exceptional results.

About the author: Simon King is a London based photographer and photojournalist, currently working on a number of long-term documentary and street photography projects. The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author. You can follow his work on Instagram and you can read more of his thoughts on photography day-to-day over on his personal blog. Simon also teaches a short course in Street Photography at UAL, which can be read about here.

source https://petapixel.com/2019/04/22/how-to-bring-something-new-to-film-photography/

[shaylalipscomb5-blog]

Ways to Mention A Mistake To Your Manager.

When organizing to create an adjustment in one's lifestyle, typically that's not the modification itself which is the best challenging trait with which to handle. Labeling yourself as an individual who's consistently creating errors accidents mayhem on an individual's confidence. Through knowing just what these mistakes are actually, you may promptly place all of them behind you and also get on track to seeing better outcomes. Little ones that are actually sincere and think okay regarding repairing a mistake hardly ever blame others. The particular mistakes our experts will look at in this particular article are: They do not correctly established their Job, They claim they'll blog about anything, They over assurance and also under supply, They do not compose the greatest they can, and also They only believe they are actually earning $4. Acknowledge that everybody which properly travels a satisfying occupation pathway creates mistakes at one time or another. When I declined this, I after that assumed regarding exactly how I would compose that post and also made a few recommendations I could make use of those suggestions to write a short article on my own, in order that short repetitive short article created a concept for me however that won't be replicating. Mistake # 1) Performing Needy: One of the greatest tricks of attraction and seduction is actually a man that looks like he performs NOT need a woman. If you beloved this article therefore you would like to acquire more info with regards to yellow pages online advertising; www.ars-italia.it, generously visit our own site. The crucial factor in my perspective is actually certainly not to pin the blame for a mistake on a person, yet rather to learn just what resulted in the mistake. When you slip up you can make use of the Sedona Technique to help you release the adverse mental charge that accompanies making a mistake. They try to participate in the sufferer job, desire to show up perfect, as well as completely deny any sort of participation in creating the blunder. The ones that never ever found or recognized their fake pas never created it in to business arena as well as certainly never created a variation in their personal life, or the world. A significant blunder first time shoppers create is concentrating on the regular monthly house remittance amount when making a decision if they could afford a particular building. Seek the feeble places in your lifestyle including limiting views that trigger you to make oversights and after that attempt to change these limiting behaviors, actions, as well as views. Bear in mind that mistakes are actually not signs of weakness or ineptitude; recouping off all of them confirms durability and willpower. That is actually fascinating that any type of tendency to court or condemn people originates from our personal desire to be mistake-free, our very own concern from errors. You could likewise listen to reports that will verify merely how clever these identity thieves have become that they also use modern technology to easily collect individual particulars without a hitch. Typically, if the unlawful offender can easily show that the error sensibly voided an element from the criminal offense, the defense will commonly be actually upheld administer and also absolve the defendant from responsibility. It is actually not concerning our oversights in lifestyle that determines who our experts are actually, this's about the character that is actually created due to them, the wisdom that our experts obtain off them and the understanding that when our team do create mistakes our team are going to get beyond them and still live a terrific life. On a normal files are actually produced in regular formats like Microsoft PowerPoint and Microsoft Phrase after which they are transformeded into the PDF format for additional processing. Due to the fact that from the differing emotional makeup of men and also females some are actually more regular to one than the various other, many of the exact same blunders are actually created by both partner and partner yet. Mistakes massage therapy counselors frequently make are actually to either fall into a routine where they offer the very same massage therapy over and over again, or even to overlook the client's requests for stress/ emphasis as well as as an alternative just concentrate on just what the specialist experiences is crucial. The best trait to perform is acknowledge this and try out to help make up for it; certainly not apologizing for an error is one more mistake when you produce an error. Each time you think of a mistake you have actually made, this's as if you're making that blunder around again. Okay, alright, that was uncalled for, but very seriously, the more oversights you make, the much more you discover. The greatest forerunners out there are the ones who produced the best oversights however profited from all of them. You are able to keep removaling, not allowing the oversights to bind you to your past times, neither making it possible for concern to keep you coming from making an effort. MISTAKE 6: Feeble outside web link technique- This is an additional mistake which frequently happens in the course of site development. Baby-sitter McPhee is actually an outstanding film along with a remarkable message for all little ones to comprehend and realize. Money blunders are notoriously surviving in people's minds, and usually they discover that hard to eliminate on their own or even others for blunders long past. For handling over a million deals, cartons, bags, envelopes as well as various other points a year, these primary shipping business miscalculate lower than one percent from the moment. This just commemorated its l lth anniversary and made this through the current slump with few hiccoughs. When looking at unilateral mistake, one should first set apart between technical computations as well as business mistake. See - or select the adhering to connect to obtain residents insurance policy quotes from top-rated companies and also view just how much you can save. Still, this is actually not where very most identifications are stolen and also that is a substantial blunder to believe that only safeguarding your own things can produce a significant distinction in your identity burglary threat. By that time this was essentially inconceivable for me to track down the identity and also place of the pet owner so I had to decrease the case (which I strongly believed possessed a negotiation worth of at least $50,000 to $75,000). An additional typical blunder made by those that are aiming to enhance their appeal is actually feeling that they must own the most basic. Be actually pleasant and caring when you communicate this along with her, but don't produce the oversight of disregarding this. You'll simply construct animosity with time, and that's mosting likely to injure your marital relationship. Katie right away contacted her manager, detailed the oversight as well as used suggestions regarding just how they could protect brand new backing sources to maintain the institution afloat. When determining if they may, a big mistake very first time purchasers create is actually centering on the month-to-month home repayment volume manage a specific building. Search for the poor regions in your life such as confining views that induce you to create oversights then attempt to change these confining routines, opinions, and also actions. Bear in mind that oversights are actually not signs from weak point or ineptitude; recovering from them confirms durability as well as determination. This is actually fascinating that any sort of inclination to court or even punish other people derives from our very own desire to become mistake-free, our personal concern of oversights.