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peoplelikegames · 4 years ago

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Steam Games Festival: I played so many demos. My thoughts...

I spent a few days playing as many of these demos as I could and wrote down some rough impressions.

Black Book (Morteshka): Heavily atmospheric and steeped in Slavic mythology. You play as a Slavic woman named Vasilisa, attempting to bring back her husband, who has committed suicide, back from hell in an effort to save him from the eternal damnation that their religion believes befell those who commit suicide. She becomes a witch after venturing through the gates of hell and back. The gameplay takes several different forms, depending on what you’re doing. It’s got some point-and-click adventure game elements during the more exploration focused scenes. Sometimes you’ll find herbs that can be used as items later during combat. The combat plays out like Slay the Spire and other deck builder games of the ilk, with the key exception of the spell slots. Instead of the standard 3 energy system restricting card usage each turn, here you have 3 slots that can be filled with spells that correspond with the slot type. You have 2 Order slots (big spells) and 1 Key slot (little spells) you can fill each turn. It’s a small twist to the formula that opens up a lot of interesting possibilities and combinations. In between fights and the point-and-click scenes you’ll get to interact with people you meet along the path to your destination and make choices that effect the story and your character. Vasalisa’s journey looks bleak and full of death, and I’m interested to see where it goes.

AK-Xolotl (Daniel Piqueras Constantin): Fast paced, adorable and aggressive top down shooter. Very simple gameplay of shooting down waves of enemies picking up weapons and items that drop when they die. Feels great to play. Good movement, good dash, not much else to ask for. Really quick and snappy shooting and simple gameplay loop me keeps playing again and again just to get a higher score and see what new stuff it has to throw at me. It’s got really cute pixelated graphics and lots of forest critters with guns. The game also features an absolutely filthy death metal track that’s a perfect representation of how aggressive the game really is. Just a really quick and dirty time that definitely makes me want to see the finished product. Also, I love the lil axolotl guy.

Despot’s Game (Konfa Games): Rogue-like dungeon crawler where you control a mob of humans. It’s a pretty cool and complicated battle system my only problem is I can’t help but feel like I don’t have enough control on the outcome of the fights. It’s almost a little like Totally Accurate Battle Simulator in that way. Basically, your run begins with you purchasing a bunch of little humans and different weapons to give to those little humans which will give them a class. Give a little guy a medkit and now he’s a healer, give someone a gun and they’re a shooter now. Humans with classes have special abilities they can activate when there are enough classes of that type on the field. Like an Auto Chess (Auto Battler?) game, if you have, say, 2 or 3 Fencers on the board, your fencers will now have access to their special ability, a dodge roll. Position your people in what you hope is a tactical formation and start heading for the dungeon exit. Most rooms consist of a fight, which plays out automatically. When you press go on a fight, your troops and the enemies will all start fighting until only one side remains. This is where the game loses me a little bit as it’s unclear how much of a difference positioning makes or what more I should be doing to change the outcome. Did I win this time because that unit was farther up than last time, or did the AI just play it out slightly differently that skewed in my favor? I can’t tell if the changes I’m making are actually making a tactical difference, or if the AI routines are just clashing with slightly varying results each time. You’re gonna lose units a lot but they are pretty disposable, with frequent shops for buying reinforcements or new gear. And every unit contributes to your mob’s total hunger meter, which deplete with every new room you enter. You have to buy food to feed your troops to keep them from losing effectiveness. Bigger team=greater food consumption. Gotta find a balance with your money and spending it on new units, new weapons, and food. I really wanted to like this game more because I really dig the hook of building up a mob of little guys with cools powers and I like the unit synergy system as well, but the perceived lack of control over how the fights play out and the game’s edgy humor ultimately pushed me away.

Dead Estate (Milkbar Lads): Fairly generic zombie shooter rogue-like (there’s gonna be a lot of rogue-likes). Your standard twin-stick kind of shooting you’d find in the Binding of Isaac or Enter the Gungeon, except here you can jump, adding some verticality. Explore each room, kill the zombies, find the key and then find the elevator to the next floor. Sometimes you find a new gun or shop along the way. The movement feels pretty slow and the rooms feel small. Too many times would I walk into a room, fight three of the same zombie then walk int next room just to see two more of that same zombie. Too many times did I have to walk back across a whole level at a snail’s pace. Needs more enemy variety and to move a little quicker. The shooting is a little better, I like how the game makes its weapons feel distinct by how much it kick it has. More powerful weapons will push you back with each shot. Unloading the mini gun felt chaotic and rumbly that make you slide back and wiggle in a fun way. You can usually kill most enemies before they’re even able to do anything makes them unique, rendering most enemies the same “zombie that walk towards you for second before you finish them off.” Didn’t really draw me in or entice me to see what I might encounter on higher floors.

Foregone (big blue studio): This one feels a little like a watered down Dead Cells at first, AT FIRST. It’s a little slower and less snappy but it’s still very fun. Plus it’s more of a linear 2d action platformer with lots of loot. I like the loot aspect here quite a bit; watching a bunch of currency fly out of enemies is satisfying in a “headshot kill in Destiny kinda way.�� Just a bunch of fun particles and a frequent gear drop that has you constantly popping open your inventory to equip your new gear and make those numbers go up. If that’s your kind of fun, you can definitely find it here. Lots of weapon variety on show here and most, if not all, of them feel unique. Just wish the combat was little tighter, which since this is a demo, I assume will come in due time. The game could also do a better job of informing the player that they’re taking damage, which made it difficult to hone the timing on the dash to avoid taking damage. And I’m hoping the environments of the full game become a little more diverse and sprawling, right now it feels like it’s mostly individual rooms/levels of engagement at a time. Excited to see how the full release pans out.

Tunche (LEAP Game Studios): Immediately drawn in here by the beautiful hand drawn art style. It’s a brawler roguelike and if you know what those two words mean in the context of video games, that’s all you really need to know. The brawler combat is what it is, very combo and juggle heavy, enemies that take dozens of hits to kill, fairly bland and just flat land environments. Walk forward until you’re stopped, fight a bunch of waves of enemies, rinse and repeat. Except this time you occasionally get upgrades after finishing rooms like “chance for attacks to cause burn” and “chance to regain health on hit,” your standard rougelike fare. With the territory comes the roguelike difficulty, and this game is plenty tough with the amount of enemies it throws at you and how limited your health pool can be. All of the art and the animations are what really shine here, and if you’re into that brawler style combat, this seems like a pretty good one of those.

Power of Ten (Pew Times Three): Next up we have a top-down space shooter roguelike. I like the minimalistic pixel art style in this one. It helps with atmosphere and you making you feel like a small ship in a large system. Your goal is to power planetary shields on inhabited planets throughout the system by gathering resources from asteroids. While you’re hunting asteroids, pirate ships will randomly attack a planet, pulling you away from resource gathering into a space dogfight against the pirates. That push and pull of gathering resources to fuel a planets shields while simultaneously protecting the planets whose shields are not yet charged is the core loop here that I really like. Conveying solid, core gameplay loop that’s engaging is exactly what you want to get across in a demo, and they definitely deliver that here.

Jelly is Sticky (Lunarch Studios): A lovely, casual sokoban puzzle game. Sliding around and rearranging cubes of jelly into oblong structures to match highlighted areas within a given space. You’ll encounter jellies of different qualities along the way, all with their own quirks around how they like to stick. I really like the non-linear structure in the over world, letting you navigate around between levels from all of the jelly-archetypes at any time. Solving sets of levels will unlock jelly in the over world you can stick to and rearrange to give you access to further levels gated behind walls and other triggers. It’s an appreciated extra layer of depth you don’t expect from a puzzle game that could have very well presented it’s levels in an ordered, level-select screen.

Potion Craft (niceplay games): In this game you play as a budding alchemist trying to make your mark on the world in your newly acquired (stolen possibly?) alchemy shop. Its an alchemist simulator. It’s presented in an “alchemy text book diagram-style” that’s immediately endearing. Every day, you collect ingredients like herbs and fungi from your garden and then it’s time to open shop. Customers come and share their plight, asking for potions of different types. They’ll offer different prices for potions of different potency which you haggle up further (or lower, if you mess up) through a simple timing mini game. The actually potion making is puzzling and unique, if not occasionally limiting. Ingredients you add to the cauldron determine a path that the potion icon in the center will follow across a fog covered map. Add more ingredients to add length and direction to the path, trying to build the path in a specific way that will lead to a “?” destination marked on the map. Name the potion, choose a bottle and label, and brew it. You’ll learn what it does, and can save the recipe for easy use again later. The only downside is how limited the ingredients are makes it very punishing when experimentation results in failure, all those ingredients are just lost. It seems like the game really wants you to just fill the orders at hand instead of blindly exploring into the fog to see what weird stuff comes up, which is my favorite thing to do so far. This is still easily one of my favorite demos of the bunch and has to be seen for oneself.

Aeon Drive Prologue (2awesome studio): This is definitely one of the ones I wanted to like more than I did. A self proclaimed “speedrun action platformer” and it demands that go fast. Very short 2d platformer levels with an ever ticking clock. If the timer reaches zero before you reach the exit, you fail the level. Consumables lined throughout the level can be used to add more time to your clock. This game is very punishing, one hit from anything, from enemy to stage hazard, will cause you to fail and restart. Very quick movement and a focus on chaining together different moves to find different paths through the level. There seemed to be benefits like special collectibles for taking more inventive, alternative paths, but the ticking clock really kept me tunnel-visioned on the most clear cut route through the level, meaning I only ever small a very tiny portion of each one. I’m not the type of person to butt my head against how to pull some crazy route as opposed to the clearly laid out one in front of me. Unfortunately, that clearly laid path just isn’t very fun to take. There’s also a dagger you can throw and teleport to, which I found difficult to aim and not as fun to use as it sounds. There is definitely something here, it’s just ultimately not for me.

Medievalien (dOOb games srl): Action RPG roguelike in a medieval world that has been invaded by aliens. You play an amnesiac protagonist trying to undo the calamity through repeated attempts from within a magical (or scientific?) time loop. Commence genre mashup. Nothing particularly stands out here. Two weapon slots and two throwables slots, lots of different items to fill them. Your weapons consist of bows, crossbows, and staves, and the throwables are bombs of varying elemental effect. It’s fun to play but fairly middling. The low poly art style doesn’t do anything for me and the soundtrack was forgettable. Still, if you’re like me and enjoy ARPGs and roguelike, it does the thing well enough to scratch the itch.

Minute of Islands (Studio Fizbin): Right out of the gate this 2d narrative platformer hits you with gorgeous hand-drawn art. A poisoned, decaying world that is beautifully drawn and animated. I’m gonna day this is not the best demo. The pace is very slow and the objectives are linear and don’t even register as puzzles. This game calls itself a puzzle platformer yet there were no puzzles to be found in this demo. I’m assuming the demo is trying to preserve story details so it starts at the beginning and only gives you a small slice from there. So maybe the game introduces more puzzle elements later in the game. But what’s left in the demo is not very compelling to play. The impressively detailed environments and atmosphere are only driving forces so far. But extremely strong forces at that.

Alekon (The Alekon Company): This feels like spiritual follow up to Pokemon Snap in all of the best ways. In its most basic form, the game plays exactly like Pokémon Snap, but builds on the nearly 30 year old classic in several key ways. Creatures in this game are called “Fictions” and whenever you take a picture of a new fiction, the creature also appears back in the game’s hub world. Once back in the hub world, you can talk to the fictions who have moved in and they’ll give you small quests to do that’ll usually reward you with key game features, like a zoom function for the camera. There’s a great feature that involves capturing photos of a fiction in all of its potential poses, which will unlock the ability to “see through the eyes of the fiction.” So when you’re looking through the album of your saved pictures, you can apply a fiction filter to see the image as a particular fiction would see if through their own eyes. Also, once you’ve unlocked all of the different routes in a specific biome, you gain the ability to “wander.” Wandering is free from the rails of the standard routes and allows to explore every inch of the biome and find other fictions that were previously hidden. It’s also a great space to snag that perfect picture of a fiction you couldn’t get while riding the rails. The creatures themselves are kind of hit or miss so far in their design. Sometimes it’s literally just a seal, sometimes it’s a ridiculous alien thing, but it seems like the personalities of the fictions are what makes them unique. Even though I didn’t care for the designs, I found myself endeared toward the creatures once I found them back in the hub and helped them with their troubles. There’s some good writing in these bits that really helps sell me on these creatures. Lots to love here if you’re into games about snapping pics of critters and throwing donuts.

Eat’n Eaten (Gaëtan Benoit): A cartoony tower defense game with bug plants. Bugs that grow from plants. It has a really fun and easy to understand “food chain management” system for building up units. It almost feels like it was designed to translate easily to touchscreens for mobile devices. Your soil has 100% nutrients, plants grow and feed off nutrients, plants grow apples which you can pick who will then become your units. When an apple dies it’s corpse returns nutrients to the soil and it’ll drop a seed that will grow into a new plant. If you don’t pick the apples off the plant long enough for them to consume extra nutrients, the apples will become a caterpillar. Pick the caterpillar off the plant and now you have a more offensive unit, who needs to eat apples to survive. The game only builds on the loop from there; the way bugs will level up into new or stronger forms after eating enough fruit, or how the game will add spiders to your team who will then need to eat caterpillars to survive. Manage this whole food chain to keep a steady supply and distribution of units against waves of enemies. I don’t know if that seems confusing when put into word like that but it’s really quick and simple to pick up they way it is presented. It can definitely get a little frantic at times but that’s when the game is at it’s most fun.

Dorfromantik (Toukana Interactive): Chill, colorful, tile placement puzzle game about building a village landscape. You start with a deck of 85 hexagonal tiles, and it doesn’t end until all the tiles have been placed. You’re placing tiles with the intent to line up as many like edges between adjacent tiles, making longer and longer networks of landscapes of matching type. The way the scoring works and how the game conforms matching sides together does a good job of making the best place to put your tile one that not only scores well but also looks good in the context of the interconnected village landscape you are ultimately trying to craft. I would kill for this game on Switch.

Unsouled (Megusta Game): An isometric pixelates dark souls-style action game. Described as an “ultra-brutal” game with “fast-paced and savagely rewarding combat,” Unsouled comes exactly as advertised. The combat in this game is very difficult and I am simply not the person to conquer it. It’s really fast paced yet proper movement and combat requires consistent timing and punished button mashing. Every thing you do has to be deliberate and calculated as it’s easy to lose control of the battlefield very quickly. Even just a few enemies can be dangerous as they all can dodge and block and roll just like you. The game is unafraid to put the pressure on and throw ten enemies at you all at once engaging from different ranges. The game demands that intimately learn the combat systems if you want to keep your stamina and health high in the heat of combat. I’d bet that if you’re a fan of Dark Souls or souls-like games, this game has all that difficulty but a different pace of combat that doesn’t feel derivative.

Rogue Invader (Squishy Games): Immediately I love the look of this game. It’s got this old school 1-bit black and white look to it. It also opens up with a fully animated and voice acted cutscene. The game is actually pretty difficult. It’s a side scrolling shooter where you’re part of an army in invading an alien planet one soldier at a time. You’re also managing weapon heat and breakage, and carry weight effecting run speed. Each soldier gets body armor and a pistol but you can equip them with a rifle and helmet from your armory. Which you’ll definitely want to do considering you die in one shot if hit in the head. When you’re soldier dies, they lose the gear you equipped them with and the new soldier needs to be equipped with whatever you can craft in the forge. This is where I ran into issues with hardy ever having enough materials to craft a helmet, go into a mission and die early to a single stray bullet to the head, and subsequently not earn enough materials to make a helmet. The evasive controls like jumping, running, rolling and taking cover all felt clunky in my hands, add that to fact that bullets often just miss even if you’re aiming right on an enemy, and it made for a pretty unsatisfying game to play.

Devastator (Radiangames): How is this not just Geometry Wars? Because this shit is just geometry wars. Fortunately, Geometry Wars slaps so this game is still pretty fun. But just go play Geometry Wars. There, I mentioned a different game like five times more than the game this was supposed to be about.

ANVIL (Action Square): Co-op top down shooter roguelike with space marines. It’s like a run-based Starship Troopers game. It’s pretty great. The three characters unlocked in the demo all have different weapons and abilities resulting in very distinct play styles between classes. There’s a fairly simple loop to each floor: search the floor for the boss, along the way areas will be filled with enemies, who’ll drop money, which can be used to buy passive upgrades from chests found throughout the floor. The upgrade system allows you stack multiple of the same upgrade for increased effect. Lots of variety in the enemy type really keeps you on your toes. Unsurprisingly, it just feels good to mow down mobs of space bugs.

Orbital Bullet (SmokeStab): A 360 degree shooter platformer. It’s a really cool gimmick actually, you move in 2d but in ring around a 3D space. It’s makes for some cool looking environments and depth from having inner and outer rings you can switch between. Really fast and arcade-y feeling. Snappy movement and gunplay. There’s seems to be a lot offered here among different weapons, in-run upgrades and meta upgrades that persist between runs. Which makes this a roguelite, as opposed to roguelike, which I tend to prefer. I like having something upgrade outside of my runs to make me feel stronger or different going into the next run. The games has a sort of ancient alien aesthetic, it feels industrial and monolithic. The bursts of neon in the walls, enemies, and weapons really pop among the ruins of the stone temple. Watching your weapons’ shot glide along the curve of the world is an effective visual as well. Just because I clearly like to compare to games so much, this game feels a lot like Resogun meets Downwell, and that’s just fantastic.

Chicory: A Colorful Tale (Greg Lobanov): A colorful and cartoony adventure game about painting that takes a small but welcomed bullet hell turn. You play as a cute little pup that claims the power of The Brush after it’s wielder (and your master) disappears along with all of the color in the world. Searching for cause and hopefully the solution, you embark on a journey to repaint the world and make your mark as the new wielder. Once you pick up that brush you can start coloring in literally everything in the world. It’s fun and charming the whole way through. You can help the townsfolk bring color back into the lives and color in their houses to their satisfaction. Use the paint to navigate the world by growing and shrinking plants by erasing/coloring them. The demo is a little thin but definitely makes me interested to see what fun stuff the game has in store for these paint mechanics.

Genesis Noir (Feral Cat Den): Okay this game was a trip. I barely have any idea what I just played but I know I really liked what was happening. It’s a heavily stylized point and click adventure game where it feels like you exist within an improvisational Jazz album. Train tracks becoming notes on a cello. Getting into a cosmic jazz-off that plays like a game of Simon and ends with your opponent on the wrong end of a mob hit. I think? Honestly this game is so trippy it was difficult to keep track of what was going on. And occasionally it was a little ambiguous as to how you’re supposed to proceed, which lead some random click and dragging around the screen until something clicks. It actually seems like it could turn out to be a really good example of a story and experience that can really only be through video games. Not quite an animated film, not quite a comic book or visual novel, but instead a fantastical, interactive amalgamation of many things. Whatever this thing may be defined as, it’s something unique and special.

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rebelsofshield · 5 years ago

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Panels Far, Far Away: A Week in Star Wars Comics 9/25/19

A crowded week ends the Age of Resistance, brings the fight to Darth Vader, and dives further into the inner layout of a dark temple. Yup, even when I’m over half a week later, I’m still gonna review Star Wars comics.

Star Wars Adventures #26 written by Cavan Scott and Adam Christopher art by Derek Charm and Megan Levens

Star Wars Adventures doubles down with two new Sequel Trilogy stories this week. Superstar team of Cavan Scott and Derek Charm showcase a lost lesson between Luke Skywalker and Rey and Adam Christopher and Megan Levens guide Tallie Lintra through Wild Space.

I’ve put a lot of praise over the past few years on the creative duo of Scott and Charm. The two have regularly proven a near unparalleled ability to tell creative and visually fun short stories starring Star Wars’ ever expanding pantheon. Their story of Rey and Luke may not be their most striking, but the ability for these two creators to tell fun and true to character narratives stays consistent.

While placing it in The Last Jedi’s chronology is more than a little difficult, “Life Lessons” still provides a fun little character study of its central duo along with lots of requisite action and humor. Charm and Scott manage to nail Luke’s world weariness while still keeping his sense of humor and nagging responsibility for duty and heroics. It manages to be a fun glimpse into Rey and Luke at a key point in their lives while also offering a sea serpent and Chewbacca saving Porgs.

It appears that Tallie Lintra is set to join the likes of Biggs, Porkins, Dac, and dozens of others shortlived pilots who became franchise staples years post mortem. This story of Tallie rescuing a stranded smuggler is surprisingly economical with Christopher plugging a full story into just eight pages. We don’t necessarily get more of Tallie as a character, but it makes for a fun enough tale and opens the door for further adventures later down the line.

Score: B

Star Wars Age of Resistance: Kylo Ren #1 written by Tom Taylor and art by Leonard Kirk

Kylo Ren is one of the most dramatic and thematically rich characters in the Star Wars saga. Whether you want to see him go down as a self-destructive force of evil or redeemed to join the light, the lost son of Han Solo and Leia Organa has carved a path of tragedy and intrigue in his wake. It’s hard to blame Tom Taylor for making three of his eight Age of Resistance titles orbit around Kylo, but now it’s time to give the son of darkness the spotlight.

One of the most inspired aspects of Kylo’s character has always been the insecurity of his own legacy. Star Wars could never replicate a villain of Darth Vader’s gravitas and pathos, so the shadow of this family history became a defining part of his character. “Out of the Shadow” takes this dynamic and spins it into a large scale galactic battleground.

The First Order looks to capture a planet that tested The Empire during its original reign. In particular, the local warlords and their mysterious god proved difficult for Vader himself. Kylo looks to bring this planet to heel while also fulfilling and also exceeding his grandfather’s example.

The resulting narrative is simple but effective. By pairing Kylo with a Stormtrooper that served in the original Imperial army and seeking parallels between both generations of Dark Siders, there is an impressive layering to the story that makes it feel more mythic in scope. Kylo’s struggle with his own legacy won’t be resolved by the end of this comic, but Taylor plots an effective glimpse into his back and forth.

Leonard Kirk succeeds in particular here. Many have complained about some of Kirk’s creative choices when it comes to rendering Adam Driver’s face to the page. Luckily, like his earlier Captain Phasma issue, much of the issue calls for a mostly masked protagonist and lots of large scale and high intensity action sequences. It gives Kylo a larger than life victory that he’s been missing from much of the recent canon.

Finally, after a year in publication, the Age of… maxi series has come to a close. While most of these comics were fun and forgettable, we did get a few stunners along the way and finally got to see more of some of the franchises iconic but less highlighted characters. Hopefully, this opens the lane for more exciting things to come.

Score: B+

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order-Dark Temple #2 written by Matthew Rosenberg and Paolo Villanelli

We are just a little under two months until Jedi: Fallen Order releases on video game consoles. With a new trailer highlighting the games story and gameplay dropping earlier this week hype is starting to build for this long overdue addition to the lengthy Star Wars gaming canon. Luckily, we have Dark Temple to hold us over.

Matthew Rosenberg continues to split the script for this series into two segments. The first taking place in a present sometime after Revenge of the Sith following Second Sisters hunting down of a Jedi holdout and the other following Cere’s adventures on the planet of Ontotho. Now separated from her apparently deceased master and uncovering the hints of a massive conspiracy, Cere finds herself searching for allies and desperate for survival.

As with last issue, Dark Temple offers two disconnected but nonetheless entertaining segments. Paolo Villanelli’s pencils are stellar at capturing in motion action sequences and his depiction of the Second Sister continues to be brutal, swift, and deadly. Visually it’s enough to make these openings exciting even if how they connect to the main story is still mostly a mystery.

Cere on the other hand is still struggling to define herself as a character. Thompson has crafted an intriguing and detailed conspiracy to ravel her up in, but as fun as it is to read, I still can’t help but feel that we are failing to get to know this young woman and what makes her tick. Luckily, Thompson populates the mystery with an enjoyable smarmy villain and a cantankerous droid sidekick that feels classically Star Wars.

Hopefully the less impressive aspects of Dark Temple come together over the next few issues. As of the moment, the plot and art are more than enough to keep me reading, but I would love to get to know more about the woman at the center of this comic.

Score: B

Star Wars Target Vader #3 written by Robbie Thompson and art by Stefano Landini

Writer Robbie Thompson is playing the slowburn approach to our getting to know the galaxy’s newest (sorta) cyborg badass. Each issue of Target Vader so far has slowly teased out the history of Beilert Valance with each giving us slightly bigger glimpses into his past. While backstory is never a substitute for poor characterization or bland dialogue, getting in touch with Valance’s past does help and slowly Target Vader is improving alongside it.

As it stands, most of the regular issues behind this comic remain. Valance and his bounty hunters are for the most part an uninteresting cast of characters and it’s more than a little difficult to get invested in their high stakes hunt of Darth Vader. The big reveal that the rebellion are the Hidden Hand at the end of this comic’s first issue still robs the story of much of its mystery. (There is also the possibility that this was a fakeout, but there hasn’t been info presented in the script to really challenge this reading so far.) The art is serviceable but is often let down by some bland coloring decisions by Neeraj Menon.

There are some of life though. As mentioned earlier, this issue’s opening flashback to Valance’s time in the Imperial military is the strongest of these so far and hints towards an intriguing relationship between him and Darth Vader that will hopefully get fleshed out more down the line. There is also a welcome wrinkle in bounty hunter, Urrr’k. While simply having a sharp shooter badass female Tusken was a great addition to the comic, the idea that she might actually be some sort of imposter or sleeper agent adds a welcome air of uncertainty to the ensemble and spices up an otherwise bland cast of characters.

All in all, there is still some thrill in watching a well laid plan by some galactic scum bring Darth Vader down to their level. Thompson centers the issue around one large trap of a set piece and the result proves fun despite the shaky foundation that is built upon.

We are only halfway through this comic so maybe the story hints that are starting to show themselves will make this story worthwhile. Let’s hope so, because the potential is certainly there.

Score: C+

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livingcorner · 3 years ago

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How to Store Potatoes, Onions, Garlic and Squash | Gardener’s Supply

During the winter months, when the ground is covered by a thick blanket of snow, there’s something particularly satisfying about still being able to eat food from your garden. There are many summer-grown crops including potatoes, onions, garlic, beets, carrots and winter squash, can be stored with relative ease to nourish you right through until the next growing season. Even a modest-size garden can yield a substantial crop of winter keepers.

To be successful storing these keeper crops at home, here are a couple factors to keep in mind:

You're reading: How to Store Potatoes, Onions, Garlic and Squash | Gardener’s Supply

Some varieties store better than others, so be sure to seek out the ones that are known to be good keepers.

Crops that are harvested at their prime ? not before or after ? store best. Time your plantings so they mature at the close of the season.

Only first quality, unblemished produce is suitable for storage.

Optimum temperature and humidity for storage varies by crop, so be sure that the crops you plan to store match the storage conditions you can provide.

Potatoes

There are so many wonderful kinds and colors of potatoes to choose from: fingerlings, bakers, boilers, white, yellow, pink, red, and even blue. All are delicious eaten fresh from the garden, but if you want to store some potatoes for eating in the late fall and winter months, you’ll need to plant varieties that are well-suited to storage as well as to your growing area. Readily available potato varieties known to be excellent keepers include Katahdin, Kennebec, Yellow Finn and Yukon Gold.

Potatoes can be grown in a standard garden row, in a raised bed, or in a container such as a Potato Grow Bag. The more foliage your plants have, the more good-sized tubers you’ll harvest, so it’s important to keep your plants as healthy as possible.

In late summer when the potato foliage has died back, your potatoes can be dug and “cured” for storage. Curing toughens up a potato’s skin and extends its storage life. Cure the tubers by laying them out on newspaper in a well-ventilated place that’s cool (50 to 60 degrees F.) and dark (so they don’t turn green). After about two weeks, the skins will have toughened up. Rub off any large clumps of dirt (potatoes should never be washed before storage) and cull any damaged tubers, which should be eaten, not stored. Treat the tubers very gently so as not to bruise or cut them. Nestle your spuds into ventilated bins, bushel baskets, a Root Storage Bin or a cardboard box with perforated sides. Completely cover the boxes or baskets with newspaper or cardboard to eliminate any light. Even a little light will cause potatoes to turn green and be rendered inedible. The ideal storage temperature for potatoes is 35 to 40 degrees, though they will usually keep for several months at 45 to 50 degrees.

Onions

Wet summers are bad for picnics but great for onions. The more moisture onions get, the larger they grow. Onions also benefit from lots of sun, and will sulk if they’re crowded by neighboring plants or weeds.

Onions should be cured before they are stored.

Consider starting your onions from seed or young plants, rather than purchasing the little “onion sets” you can buy in the spring. Onions grown from sets rarely store as well as seed-grown onions. Growing from seed also allows you choose a variety that’s known for long storage. Strong-flavored, pungent onions store best (the same chemicals that make onions pungent make them good keepers). There are both red and yellow storage onions; those extra-large, milder onions should be eaten fresh as they don’t store well.

Onion seeds must be started indoors, several months before they’re planted into the garden. Broadcast the seeds so they are about 1/2″ apart and cover lightly with soil. Once the plants are up and the stems have straightened, trim the tops with scissors to a height of about 2″. Repeat every couple weeks (sort of like trimming a Chia pet) until it’s time for your onion plants to go into the garden. These haircuts force energy into the roots and also keep the plants from toppling over. Onions are heavy feeders, so be sure to amend the soil in the planting area with compost and a granular organic fertilizer. Set the seedlings (which may be less than 1/8″ in diameter at the base) about 6″ apart in each direction. Keep them well-watered and well-weeded, and make sure they don’t get shaded by neighboring plants.

Read more: 15 of the Healthiest Vegetables

A harvest of several types of onions. In general, red onions and yellow onions are good keepers; white onions are not as good.

In late summer, the leaves of onion plants flop over. This signals that it’s time for the plants to stop growing and start preparing for winter. Allow the plants to remain where they are until the necks begin to tighten and the foliage yellows. If the weather is dry and there’s no danger of frost, onions can be harvested and laid right on top of the soil to dry for a week or two. If the weather is wet or frost is possible, harvest your onions and move them immediately into a protected location where they will stay dry. The floor of the garage or a covered porch works well. Spread the onions out in a single layer and let them “cure” for two weeks. During this time the necks will wither and turn brown, and the papery skins will tighten around the bulbs. Once the necks have dried and there’s no more moisture in the stem or leaves, you can bring your onions indoors and store them in mesh bags or bushel baskets. Keep them cool (35 to 45 degrees F.) and away from light. Another technique for storing an abundance of onions: make caramelized onions. For details, read Making Caramelized Onions.

Garlic

Home-grown garlic is a valuable crop. It’s easy to grow all you need for year-round use, and the quality just can’t be beat. There are lots of different types of garlic available now ? read the seed catalogs carefully and choose one that’s well-suited to your location. Cold-climate gardeners usually grow stiff-neck varieties, which are hardier. In warmer climates, the soft-neck garlic varieties (which can be braided) are more popular.

A perfect bulb, just after harvest.

Garlic doesn’t require much space. A 2 ft. x 12 ft. bed can yield enough garlic for a family, with plenty of extra heads to plant the next year’s crop. Cold-climate gardeners plant their garlic in late fall for harvest the following summer. Warm-climate gardeners may find that a late-winter planting (February to March) is best. You can even grow garlic in a Garlic Grow Bag, which is 36″ diameter x 12″ high. Each bag hold 18 to 20 cloves.

Plant individual garlic cloves (the bigger the clove you plant, the bigger the head you’ll harvest), setting them 4-5″ apart in all directions and just deep enough to cover the top of the clove. Water thoroughly. After the first hard frost, cover the entire bed with straw. Remove the mulch in early spring.

Garlic has the same growing requirements as onions. Keep the plants weeded and well-watered, and give them lots of sun. Calculating the correct harvest time is a little trickier. Dig the plants when the second set of leaves begins to yellow, which may occur as early as July. If you wait too long to harvest, the cloves will begin to separate as they dry, and the heads won’t store as well.

Cure your garlic in a dry, dark place just like you would onions. Sort out and save the biggest heads for planting next fall. By planting only the biggest cloves, you’ll gradually get bigger and bigger heads each year and will never need to buy garlic again.

The optimum long-term storage temperature for garlic is 35 to 40 degrees F. In warmer temperatures, garlic will begin to sprout. Dryness and complete darkness are essential.

Winter Squash

Winter squash are fun to grow and easy to store. There are dozens of varieties, from the traditional acorn, Hubbard, butternut and buttercup, to spaghetti, delicata and golden nugget. Pie pumpkins, too! As with other storage crops, some squash varieties store well and some don’t, so choose accordingly.

Squash can be grown in raised beds, but they should be allowed to ramble outside the boundaries of the bed. Another option is to train the vines on sturdy trellises.

Squash plants take up a lot of space, but they’re not fussy about where they grow. You can usually plan on harvesting one or two good-sized squash from each plant. The usual recommendation is to put two to three plants (or seeds) in a little group, and space these “hills” about three-feet apart.

Read more: When Is the Right Time to Mulch My Garden?

Don’t plant your squash until the soil has warmed and all danger of frost has passed. Young squash plants appreciate protection from insects and harsh weather, and will thrive under garden fabric (row cover). Fertilize at planting time, then forget about the plants until the first light frost, when the leaves will die back and reveal your crop.

For long storage life, when harvesting winter squash it’s important to leave some of the stem attached to the fruit. The best way to ensure this happens, is to use a stout knife or pruning shears to separate the stem from the vine. After harvesting, let your squash cure in a warm place (75 to 80 degrees F.) for 10 days or so. When ready for storage the outer skin should be very firm.

Store winter squash in a cool (to to 60 degree F) place that’s well ventilated. Humidity should be relatively low: 30-50%. Check your stored squash monthly to identify and use up any fruit that shows sign of decay.

Beets and Carrots

For winter storage, choose beet and carrot varieties known to be good keepers. Vegetables store best when they’re harvested at — not past — maturity. This is especially true for beets and carrots. In most areas, this means that crops intended for winter storage are not sown until late June or July.

To maintain good eating quality, carrots and beets need to be kept at a constant temperature of between 32 and 40 degrees F, and at 90 to 95 percent humidity. There are three ways that home gardeners can provide these ideal storage conditions: in a refrigerator, in moist sand or right in the garden.

To store these crops in a refrigerator or in sand, start by harvesting the roots. Handle them gently to avoid bruising or nicking. Use scissors to cut off all but 1/2″ of the foliage. Rub the roots gently (do not wash them in water) to remove most soil. Don’t cut off the root end because this will invite decay.

For refrigerator storage, lie similar-sized, same-variety vegetables in a single layer in gallon freezer bags. Remove as much air as possible before sealing each bag. Stack bags flat on a shelf or in a drawer in the refrigerator. Check monthly for decay and use those first. Beets will stay hard and sweet for five months or more; carrots should last almost as long. Should there be fine root hairs or a little decay, simply peel this off; the root itself will be fine. Carrots and beets can be shredded raw into salads, or can be parboiled, added to soups or stews, or roasted.

A second technique is to store these crops in moist sand. Prepare the roots as above. Moisten clean sand in a large container or wheelbarrow. Pack the vegetables into a tub, wooden box, 5-gallon bucket, plastic-lined cardboard box, or a Root Storage Bin. Start by placing several inches of moist sand on the bottom of the storage container. Lay vegetables on the sand in a single layer, not touching each other. Cover them completely with sand and continue layering until box or bin is full. Top with a layer of moist sand. Container will be heavy when full, so plan accordingly. Remove the stored vegetables as needed.

A third technique (for cool climates) is to store these crops right in the ground. Before hard frost, cover un-harvested carrots and beets with a 12-18″ layer of straw or leaves. (The shoulders of beets are susceptible to frost damage, so be sure to cover them before heavy frost). Lift back the mulch and harvest as needed. If spring comes before all the roots have been harvested, dig and use them up before the soil begins to warm.

How about storing those lesser-known root crops? Rutabagas store well in the refrigerator; prep and store as for beets and carrots. Parsnips may be stored in damp sand or can be left in the ground under mulch. Celeraic can be stored in either the refrigerator or in damp sand.

Source: https://livingcorner.com.au Category: Garden

source https://livingcorner.com.au/how-to-store-potatoes-onions-garlic-and-squash-gardeners-supply/

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acloading322 · 3 years ago

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Best Pc Character Creation Games

Rpg Games With Character Creation

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Character customization is an integral part of the MMORPG genre. Being able to create a character that fits a specific persona can help players immerse themselves in the game. Limited customization may not be a deal breaker for everyone, but I know many people who won't even play a game if classes are gender locked or if they can't customize their character in a certain way. Every MMORPG has a character creation menu with some customization, but some games take character creation a bit more seriously. I personally don't think character creation makes or breaks a game, but it can be incredibly fun fiddeling around on a game's character creation menu, especially when there are tons of sliders and customization options. https://acloading322.tumblr.com/post/656066514641977344/sri-venkateswara-songs-download. I personally spent over an hour creating the perfect Victoria Secret hottie in Black Desert Online and I have no regrets. Anyway, whether you're looking to fiddle around or genuinely interested in playing games with only the best character creation systems, check out the list below:

MMORPGs with Great Character Customization

Black Desert Online

Normally these lists save the best for the last, but I'm going to go ahead and start this list off strong with what I consider to be the MMORPG with the best character creation system in the world. Black Desert Online is a gorgeous fantasy action MMORPG by the South Korean developer Pearl Abyss. Its character creation system is incredibly in-depth and allows players to customize everything from hair strands to eyeliner in incredible detail. Simply put, Black Desert is the gold standard of character creators in MMOs. Just check out the video above, which starts by showing off the game's character creator. Even if you have no interest in playing Black Desert, the character creator alone makes it worth the download in my opinion. The only downside here is that classes are gender locked.

Best Character Creation Games (Good Character Customization) Have you ever wanted to create your very own anime hero/heroine? Well, Jump Force is the game for you, if so. The game’s character. Nonton drama korea couple or trouble subtitle indonesia. Browse the newest, top selling and discounted Προσαρμογή χαρακτήρα products on Steam. Blender is a free and open source character creator software for Windows. It is quite a popular and advanced software which is used in 3D Modeling, 3D animation, 2D animation, Simulation, VFX, Game Creation, Video Editing, Rendering, Scripting, etc.

Perfect World

Games which offer more limited customization might simply let players choose from a set number of variables (Tony Hawk's American Sk8Land, Halo 3 multiplayer or Lego Star Wars 2 for instance). Non-Player Character Creation This is where the player is creating a character with whom they will be interacting or meeting, rather than playing as.

Singleplayer games featuring character creation, allowing you to customize the physical appearance of your character(s). Recent Reviews Top Sellers New Releases Discounts Review Type All 0 Recommended Informational 51 Not Recommended 0. Filter to All 393 Action 26.

It may be odd to see such an old MMORPG make it to this list, but despite originally launching in 2005 (in China) and 2008 in the West, Perfect World has an in-depth character creation system that goes above and beyond what most games offer. While most games allow reasonable levels of customization, Perfect World allows players to create absurd looking characters, from tiny heads and huge bodies to characters with glowing pink skin. Obviously players don't NEED to make absurd looking characters, but the fact that the game allows this shows off the extent of the game's customization. Even if you're not looking to make a Frankenstein style character, Perfect World has A LOT of customization sliders for everything from eye size to arm length.

This one is a bit of an oldie, as it released back in 2004, but Eve Online still has some of the best customization in any MMO. Even though there are a ton of options, players never really get to see much of their customization, as the game takes place almost exclusively in your ship. Still, if you want to see an awesome character creator at work, check out Eve Online. Especially since it went free to play in November, 2016.

Aion

Aion originally launched as a buy to play subscription game by NCSoft, but later went free to play. Despite originally launching in 2008, Aion still looks quite beautiful even today and features some of the best character customization I've seen in an MMORPG. Just take a look at the video above to see what the game's character creator offers.

Despite never launching in the West officially, the Japanese version of the game is playable by anyone from the West without any IP restrictions. The sci-fi MMORPG from Sega features one of the most in depth character customization systems of any MMO. Interested in checking the game out? See our guide on how to install and play PSO2 in English.

Champions Online

Rpg Games With Character Creation

Champions Online is a unique game on this list because it's not another fantasy themed MMORPG. Instead, it's a superhero themed MMORPG, which means players get to create their very own superheroes. The game originally launched back in 2009 as the successor to City of Heroes and one of the game's most prominent features is its in-depth character customization system. Given the nature of superheroes, the developers wanted every player to have a truly 'unique' character. Not only do players get to customize their character's body, but they get to create their own unique costume as well.

Blade and Soul

Blade and Soul originally released in South Korea back in 2012 but didn't launch in the West until early 2016. While the game doesn't offer nearly as much character customization as Black Desert, the game has a lot of sliders to play with. Blade and Soul also has a unique art style, which makes character models stand out a bit more too.

APB Reloaded

Although not an MMORPG, APB Reloaded features a surprisingly in-depth character creation system. I mean, just take a look at the video above and see for yourself. For those that haven't heard of APB, the game originally launched as simply 'APB All Points Bulletin' with a buy to play model, but after bankruptcy it was acquired by GamersFirst and relaunched as a free to play game and was renamed APB Reloaded.

There are obviously many more MMORPGs out there with 'good' character customization, but am I missing any games with 'great' customization? If so, let me know in the comments below and I'll update this list!

A massive part of gaming, especially in RPGs, is creating a custom avatar. Proteus 8 setup download.

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While not completely necessary - as games such as The Witcher 3, Horizon Zero Dawn and God of War have shown - having the ability to customise your playable character adds a whole new layer of immersion everything on-screen. By creating a protagonist to represent you, you enable a strong emotional connection between you and your character, enjoying the journey just that little bit more.

There are so many games out there that offer fantastically expansive character creation tools, but some stand head and shoulders above the rest. For the purposes of making things fair, we will not be counting customisation available through mods, so unfortunately for all you Skyrim enthusiasts, that one is out.

For those of us who just love to spend a solid couple of hours playing around in the character creation screen, these are the best that video games have to offer.

10. Monster Hunter: World

Monster Hunter conquered the West in 2017 with its latest and greatest - Monster Hunter World. Take control of your hunter and together you will face gigantic dinosaurs, working together with your friends in a little posse of monster-killing-mayhem.

Being a game that you will no doubt play online and enjoy showing off your mad hunting skills, you’ll want your avatar to be as equally stunning as your bravery. Monster Hunter World’s character creator is absolutely gorgeous, and very detailed. There are dozens of hair styles to choose from, with colour, tone, and saturation options bringing infinite possibilities.

You can choose from tons of examples for voice, too, picking the exact right pitch of scream for when you inevitably fall to some of the game’s toughest beasties.

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Not to mention, there are options to customise your cat-like Palico as well. It’s like 2 character creators rolled into one.

Stick that beautiful face into some of the beautiful armour sets available in the game and you’ve got levels of customisation the likes of which are rarely seen in such an action-focused game.

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nicolecadet · 7 years ago

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Digital Walkthrough – Dragon Thrall

From April 2007. Nowadays I tend to completely work in Photoshop CS, but many of the techniques are the same no matter the software. This is a fairly rambly post as it's taken from notes I made while painting. This is NOT the way I work for client work!!!!! This was a personal face study that I built a painting around. I now plan things!

This painting was completely unplanned. It started out as a gothic vampire piece… ended up something completely different! These are some of the notes I posted to LiveJournal while painting, and subsequently featured in February 2008’s EMG-Zine.

Normally it’s a good idea to plan a painting. You should work out your composition details, color schemes, lighting sources and other technical details, but sometimes it’s more fun just to get in there and paint! Some of my best paintings have been the result spontaneity, experimentation and sheer desperation to fix a mistake! It started out as an exercise in skin tones, turned into a modern vampire piece and ended up having dragons! Hopefully you’ll learn a few things about why planning can be useful, as well as why it can also be fun to follow the rambling path your muse sets you on!

A few thoughts on digital art and painting software:

There is a plethora of information on digital art available online. This article isn’t a basic A+B=C tutorial. It’s more a discussion on the creative process I employ while painting digitally. For this article you will need a basic understanding of Adobe Photoshop or similar software and have access to a digital graphics tablet (or be really good with a mouse!). Access to Corel Painter would be handy too, however you can get similar effects in Photoshop with a bit of experimentation and practice.

I use Photoshop and Painter together. I’m not going to argue about which one’s better – because frankly it’s like comparing a banana with a pineapple! They’re both graphic software programs, however they’re designed for completely different purposes. Photoshop is an editing tool which you can paint with. Painter is purely designed for painting, with a few editing tools thrown in. With each new incarnation the blurring of these definitions decreases. I’m sure that if you experimented enough, you could probably get the result you want in either software.

Setting up the canvas

I started the painting as an exercise in skin tones. I hadn’t worked in Painter for a while and thought it was time to flex those painting muscles again. Unfortunately some versions of Painter can cause files to corrupt in native Painter file format (pre-version 5), so I recommend that you either create your file in Photoshop first, or save the files in Photoshop format (*.PSD extension)

Just like painting on paper or canvas, a blank canvas can be very intimidating. I always lay down a color of some type on the background layer just because it’s something to start with. When you plan a painting it’s a good idea to think about the lighting in regards to the background. If you are painting a scene which is sunny, then a warm yellow or warm blue might be a good choice. If you’re thinking about a night scene then start with a dark indigo or a cool blue. If it’s in a forest you may want to think about a green, while a snow-filled landscape may require a pale lavender-blue color.

As I said, this was a practice for skin tones so I decided on a dark maroon to pick up the dark tones in the hair (I’d planned on painting a redhead). Most of the time I apply a lighting filter, or a gradient to make it more interesting – kind of give it a focal point.

The first character I sketch on a separate layer to the background/ canvas. When painting directly onto the computer with a graphics tablet I generally start with a few lines to work out the placement of the head, eyes, mouth, nose and ears. I then work out a few ‘base’ colors that I will use for the skin. I place ‘dabs’ of the color I use regularly somewhere on the canvas:

A mid pinky-brown color – the base color

A pale yellow/ pink color for highlights

A redder tone of the base color used for cheeks and nose area

A purple version of the base color for shadowing

A darker brown-pink for the deep shadows

A light pink-purple (not shown) for blending in areas where the skin is fine and the veins show through.

In later versions of Painter you get a tool called a ‘mixer’ where you can place dabs of colour and create variants using the mixing tools. If you are having difficulties with colours try using the colour picker on real photographs and see what ‘real’ skin colours look like. You’ll probably be quite surprised!

Once I have the colours and some lines down I begin to paint. For this face I used Painter’s digital Airbrush set at about set at about 10% opacity, 100% Resat, 0% bleed and 0% jitter. I vary the brush size from about 150, right down to 2 or 3. I spent about 2 hours to get to this stage.

A few notes on skin tones:

Every person has a different skin tone and texture – we’re not all a standard ‘flesh tone’, straight from the tube

Men and women also have slight variations in colouring

Different nationalities have different skin tones. Some have ruddy complexions, others a yellow undertone, while some have dark skin. Study photographs, place them next to each other and note the differences

Skin tones reflect the colours around them. If you are wearing a purple shirt, you will get some reflection under your chin depending on the lighting. If you are standing next to a yellow wall, the side facing the wall will reflect the yellow.

The colour of the lighting impacts on skin highlights and shadows. If you use a yellow light, the shadows of the skin are generally the complementary colour (in this case purple).

One thing I remember reading (Don Seegmiller in his book Digital Character Design and Painting) was the fact that the strip across the nose section of the face is pinker than the rest, while under the eyes should be purplish-blue as the skin is so delicate here. I recommend his book for color theory, regardless of the painting medium! In fantasy art, the ability to create convincing skin tones in important, particularly if painting something like a Drow, or even an alien with blue skin

Adding the hair

Hair is basically made from 4 colours which I vary the opacity and size of the bush. The illustration below shows the four colours and the way I build up the hair.

A mid tone

A light tone

A dark tone

A very light tone for the highlights

Why having no ‘theme’ for a painting can be a problem!

Like most sketches where I don’t think about anything much except picking up the ‘paintbrush’, I get to a point where I start wondering about things like ‘does she want straight or wavy hair’, ‘does she wear modern or old fashioned clothes?’, ‘what the heck do I do with the background?’.

At this point I was listening to rock music and it was about midnight so I decided it should be a vampire/ gothic piece. Originally it was just going to be a strapless dress but it ‘felt’ wrong. I added a leather jacket and a cameo choker. I planned on having a night sky, maybe the silhouette of a building. This means that dark blue is going to have to replace the maroon canvas colour. A guy is going to be behind her, all ‘vampy’ and hopefully pretty good looking! I took a break and came back to the painting after some food. I’d been working for about two or three hours and realised that I’d changed the angle of her torso mid painting which is why it is looking odd. This is why it’s a good idea to plan your painting before you begin! You can waste a lot of time working on something, only to realise there is an inherent flaw in the drawing. So I really had a think about where the painting was going… which was feeling like the great digital dustbin in the sky!

Unfortunately I only had a clear picture of the character’s faces so I was basically very aimless when painting. I get bored with details so I moved onto the male character. I knew I’d have to revisit the female character but something was really bothering me about her and I didn’t want to think about it too deeply. I spent about 2 hours working on the guy. Notice that his skin base is slightly more yellow. Guys’ faces are also more angular than females (generally) so I painted in a more aggressive manner, not blending as smoothly as for the female. I also added in some texturing with a ‘captured bristle’ brush.

A note on photo-references:

When I work from photo references I try to avoid working directly from one reference for copyright reasons. Each painting I’ll often work from at least half a dozen images (which I normally collect AFTER I’ve made the initial sketch). I also have a huge collection of images that I’ve harvested from the net, reference books/ CDs, personal photo references.

I also like working with greyscale images and using small images so I can’t rely upon them too heavily. This way I can make the colour up on the fly. I also find that it helps to practice sketching in greyscale. You focus on rendering the form rather than colours, which teaches you a lot about volume, lighting and texture.

Back to the painting

I spent another 2 hours on this (up to about 10-12 hours now). I kind of became obsessed with finishing his face. I put him in a leather jacket and white shirt and played around with where his arm should go, ultimately deleting it. I changed the background colour to a near black colour while I was playing with things. I’m still not convinced about what’s going on in the painting. But I’m happy to let my mood decide what’s going to happen. I enjoy these kinds of paintings because I just let the paintbrush take me where it wills. However it’s getting to the stage where I will need to decide if I’m going to do something with this painting, or just file it as an experiment.

I’ve got more details to do… tidying up his eyebrows, giving his skin some texture around the jaw line, finalising his nose and lips, and one of his eyes is slightly off (shadowing and shape’s wrong… but I’ll fix that up later.)

Vampire goes Renaissance?

I’m heavily influenced by music. When I paint I listen to a variety of music, and often it can influence what I paint. I stopped listening to my Dishwalla album and put on Medieaval Baebes… at which time I thought to myself ‘this is just two people standing together, there’s no fantasy here’. So the painting went Venetian 16th century!

I’ve obsessed over historical costume for as long as I can remember and one of my favourite paintings is Rafael’s La Donna Velata. I deleted the leather jacket and replaced it with a front-laced bodice over a creamy chemise. This costume was popular with working classes as it was comfortable and didn’t get caught up while working. I think it is important to think about the clothes you put your characters in… it is part of their story. It can suggest what they do and their status in society, it can also indicate if they’re light and fluffy, or rigidly straight-laced.

A few hours work went into the dress. It’s not finished yet. This is only the basic form. I’m debating about patterns and colours. The more elaborate fabrics tended to be used a few decades after this dress style was popular, and only by the wealthy, but it’s fantasy so I guess I can do what I like!

Working out the background:

I have decided a night sky doesn’t suit the lighting of the characters, so I’ll do a dawn/ dusk sky. I flicked through some reference shots of skies and started laying down some colours in Photoshop with a large airbrush tool. Not much I can say about skies except for the light will reflect on the characters, which is why it’s not a strong sunlit scene. In this low light there won’t be much reflection or shadow.

I’m still playing around with the idea of having a column behind the male character. The sky’s getting close to being completed. I’ll start looking at the lighting in the painting later on… normally that’s something I do in the planning stages for a *proper* painting. It’s up to about 200MB… time to save a new copy and collapse a few layers I think.

On a side note, I’m not happy with the poses or placement of the characters. They’re too rigid. There’s no connection between them, I need to bring them together somehow. I’ve started to realise the girl’s body looks too small and much too straight on for her head. I’m going to have to repaint whole chunks which will be a lot of extra work. You can do this with digital, however if I’d planned the painting I wouldn’t have to be ‘fixing mistakes’ at this late stage!

I added some columns and moved the characters closer together. Each character is on a separate layer and I often take a copy of a layer to do the modifications (in case I muck it up!) I also do iterative saves… I have 7 versions of this file from various ‘major’ points from within the painting.

I like the placement better than the previous version, but I know that I’m going to have difficulties with his arm placement. I also don’t like her headpiece. I haven’t spent much time on it, but it just looks wrong – far too elaborate. I’ve got a feeling that she’s not the kind of girl to wear masses of jewellery! The pose is still disjointed. Why is she moving away from him? It doesn’t exactly look like a comfortable pose. Is he trying to put on her cloak, take it off, or strangle her? When you paint, you have to think about how the painting could be interpreted.

The home stretch

Unfortunately I sat down and painted in one marathon session (without taking saves part ways through). Inspiration struck and all at once I knew exactly how the painting had to look. All the missing elements fell into place. I had the narrative that went with the painting, I knew why they were standing together. The pose was vital to the scene. I think it is important to know ‘why’ things are the way they are. Sometimes it can be as simple as ‘because it looked right’ or ‘because I want the viewer to feel scared’, but with more narrative pieces, the ones that work best tend to make every piece of the painting into something vital to understanding the whole piece… like clues in a mystery novel.

I ended up moving her directly under his chin and slightly curved into his body and moved his arm so he’s supporting her, rather than embracing her. The sky remained unchanged however the bottom needed a focal point – it was too empty. The forest and cliffs are a scene I’ve used in numerous paintings… they are like an old friend – something quick and easy.The lake came next, and the glow lights (which have no real meaning, but they ‘fit’ with the mood of ‘magic in the air’). It still was looking empty. In the story in my head the character’s connection is through dragons. I’d already planned on giving the female character a dragon necklace and the male character golden eyes, however I think a more ‘literal’ representation of the dragon was needed. The placement was deliberate in that I wanted the viewer to follow the motion from the dragon to the characters and back around.

Often when I’m working without reference (like I did for their poses, I try to work out their bodies in their entirety. Even though it still looks a little ‘wrong’, because of the angle of his body, his shoulder is right behind her hair. I tried extending his shoulder but it didn’t look right either.

I added an Overlay layer to do some lighting along the side of the girl’s head and the columns. There are 13 layers in the final version (after I collapsed the multiple character layers from the previous version).

I thought I was finished. I posted it online, added it to a few galleries, but something was still a little unrefined. So I stepped away from it for a week or two (see further down for the revised version).

Some notes on Composition

I like working with the Golden Mean (also called the Golden Section/ ratio/ proportion/ The Divine Proportion). It’s a way of dividing up a painting so that the image is artistically and geometrically pleasing. It’s based on mathematical principles and can be seen in nature in such shapes as nautilus shells. Below I’ve added guidelines in pale blue that divides the painting into thirds. Notice how the parts of the painting that your eyes are drawn to tend to fall along the lines, with the light in the forest being at a ‘focal point’, where the lines intersect.

The painting’s composition loosely fits into what is called the ‘L’ Composition

It could also fit in with ‘V’ or ‘triangular composition.

The trick is to try and get the viewer’s eye to follow the movement from one point of the painting to the next

Final Piece:

I went back and refined it a little… just added a few more details to the hair, fixed the column and tidied up the tree-line. There are still aspects I’m not entirely happy with, but I’ve spent enough time on this painting… I don’t want to overwork it.

So 20 or so hours later, here’s the final piece and the story that goes along with it:

Text I wrote to go with the painting

The dragon-thrall caught her, its silken threads binding her mind to the golden dragon completely. Kara and the great beast launched upwards as one, pushed from powerful back legs. Muscles flexed as the wings extended fully, capturing the wind and propelling them higher still. Freedom! She threw back her head and laughed, the rumble echoing from the surrounding cliffs. The sun and sky called to her, daring her to fly higher and faster than she could ever dream.

She wheeled to the right as she caught movement in the valley below. Ruby eyes fixed on the deer. Tucking her wings to her side, she dove towards the earth, pulling up just above the forest, the trees bending then snapping back in her wake. Kara could taste the hot, sweetness of the blood. She wanted it, lusted for it, she had to have it. It was a burning pain that drove her.

Something yanked at her. Whipping her head around in annoyance she couldn’t see a rider. Focusing on the deer again she snarled as the strong will commanded her to stop. The hunger tore at her, but still he cajoled her, coaxed her, and compelled her. Snarling and baring her teeth she snapped at the unseen force. Finally he dominated, wrestling control from her. Emotions flitted across her mind – fury, hatred, pain, desire. And then she was in her own body again.

Rhys caught Kara as the dragon-thrall released her. He’d been with her throughout the flight, his golden eyes seeing just as the dragon had.

“Now do you understand?” he murmured, his breathing still ragged from the clash of wills. She shuddered, glad to still be in his steadying embrace.

“It helped, but I don’t think I’ll ever understand them, not the way you do.”

Prints and products are available here from RedBubble , painting can be found in the Dragon Fae Oracle as the Lovers card.

#tutorial #colour theory #painting #digital art #dragon thrall #walkthrough

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waftr · 4 years ago

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Making videos these days has become a trend among people. Especially when a lot of high – end smartphones are available which boast of amazing features, it has become easier than ever to create videos with the cuts, special effects and more. There are a number of apps on the play store, which provide free video editing options. If you are an iPhone user check our Video editing Apps for iPhone.

Video editing generally refers to the process of manipulating an existing video with special effects, sounds, and various other features that the editor wishes to add to his/her video. Since video is a continuous shot of images it is a tedious process when it comes in the hands of editing. A considerable amount of memory and RAM is also required to produce an effective video. Here are the top 11 applications that is been preferred as the best video editing apps for Android users.

Video Editing Apps for Android

There are a lot of applications used for video editing and not all of the applications are free to install. The article lists out 11 of the free video editing apps, which is easy to use and is powerful. It does not matter if you are a professional videographer or not, these applications will help you explore. Let’s look at the apps available here:

1. VivaVideo

VivaVideo is a free video editing app and photo video maker. Vivavideo is one of the most comprehensive apps out there for Android users and the list of features that it offers is endless. The app is really easy, productive, efficient, and effective because of certain additional features such as the collage maker and slideshow maker.

VivaVideo has been awarded the best by the Android Blogger. It edits video with music, text, background blur effects, and some PRO video editor effects. You can also make your own vlog or funny video using the Viva video editor. With VivaVideo cut, trim, crop, merge videos can be easily made. Also, edit video with music, edit video for youtube, add music to video, add text to video, make a video from pics with song, and so on can be done. It is a wide platform that offers various editing features with high quality. Finally, you can export and share the video file to Social Media or save to your phone in 720, 1080p quality.

2. InShot - Video Editor & Video Maker

Inshot is one of the most popular video editing app for both Android and iOS. It has all the features you will need to edit your video, be it trimming or adding emojis. At the same time, the interface is smooth and there are plenty of cool effects. You also get a good selection of music and fade in and out options. The platform consists of text editor too. Also, stickers are available. Transitions add special effects to your videos. Some effects and transitions are pros to subscription. You can save your video of any available resolution. Once the editing is complete, you can share the video on social media handles.

InShot WaterMark is the only issue here, but, we can remove the watermark by clicking on the watermark and watching an Ad for Free.

3. PowerDirector - Video Editor App

PowerDirector is one of the most powerful and best video editing apps out there and it provides several features such as video editing, video effects and adds more to the mentioned features here. It is also possible to create voiceovers. It is best for usage for both beginner and professional level video editors.

PowerDirector is the video editing software that was initially developed to run on windows. Now it is one of the perfect mobile editing apps for you. It holds a large selection of editing tools that are powerful, simple, and amazing. A high-quality professional video can be created. It also helps to explore your level of imagination with its features. Some exciting features include edit and export up to 4K resolution, fast forward, slow motion, double exposure, blending modes, etc. It stunts with various simple tap features and various templates. Access to all the professional tools would need a subscription.

You may like These Android Apps too: 1. Top 10 Virtual Reality Apps For Android 2. Top 7 Android App Locker Apps 3. 10 Best Android Keyboard Apps 4. Top 3 Android Cleaners 5. 5 Antivirus Apps for Android

4. Kinemaster - Video Editor

Kinemaster is another full-fledged app for Android. It has everything that an average video editing app must have plus greater control over the video playback and the voice. To add to this, you can also include subtitles, transitions, special effects, multiple layers of video, and much more. You will have to pay a fee to get the watermark removed.

Kinemaster is found to be a full-featured incredible video editing application for the phone. The editing tools are free to use however some professional tools require a subscription to Kinemaster Premium. This app is an editor's choice and holds a lot to enjoy. It consists of an asset store that provides music, clip graphics, fonts, stickers, transitions to enhance the video. Color adjustments, editing tools, high-resolution quality make your video stand out of others.

5. YouCut

YouCut is created by the same company as the InShot. If you want to edit the video and add some cool additional features, this is the best. The features include merging, FX effects and other options such as trim. There is no added fee for the watermark to be removed. There are an inbuilt converter and video compressor as well.

Youcut is the best app that enables you to do all basic video editing. Video cutter, trimmer, splitter, slicer, and speed control are easy to use in Youcut. A free video maker option is available to create your own photo video with music. Youcut featured music excites the user. You can also customize your photo cover. The application is also free of ads so that it Is easy to use and most preferred.

6. Quik - Free Video Editor

Quick by its name is the fastest and easiest video editor app. Choose your video clip and photos the Quick automatically makes its own video. It's a free app. It adds beautiful transitions, text styles, effects, and music. It supports almost all formats of a music file. The included transitions will get automatically synced with the beat. The innovative amazing video can be saved in 1080p or 720p and also it can be shared on any social media. You can also create your own stories using Quick.

7. VideoShop

If you are looking for a completely free app, choose VideoShop. It is simple to use, lightweight and has a great load of editing tools, personalization options and filters to choose from. The editing experience and render is seamless as well.

8. FilmoraGo

This is a pretty powerful editing tool that follows 3 easy steps(Select, Create, and Share) to create your video. This is amazing as you can pick your theme, favorite music, filters, and even transition to your videos. The themes are stylish with awesome templates. Also reverse, time-lapses, slow motion, split, zoom, and shutter are available. Attractive tiles add creative text messages and more communicative video. The app supports international languages. Export video at high HD quality.

9. Filmigo Video Maker

This is one of the professional video editor apps that is at best available for Android users. It also includes a slideshow, video creation using photos, add music features. Various themes, transitions, stickers, and creative emojis are available which makes the video more personalized. Some editing options like reverse, rotate, trim, split, duplication of clips also exist. Unique transitions and themes is also been provided by the app developer to make the editor's video more attractive. There are a variety of text styles and fonts to make the video interactive. It includes HD export of the video and there occurs no quality loss. Speed control and time-lapse options are also available.

10. Funimate

Funimate video editor is best for creating fun videos. It can convert your regular actions into creative videos and you can even share it on various social sites. It is designed with 90+ effects that can be used and enjoyed. All sorts of editing are possible. Funimate requires signing in before using the app. It amazes you with special effects for different occasions specifically. Even short video loops can be created. The usage of this app is to entertaining and fun as it holds cool effects and features.

11. Actiondirector

It is one of the basic apps that perform import, edit, and render the video. You can add music, trim and cut video, add text, employ slow motion, and more. It highlights key moments, even adds repeat and rewind effects to create ultimate videos. It adds and mixes background music. Additionally, a dozen transitions can be done for a single video. It’s one of the few video editor apps that supports the 4K resolution video. But make sure if your device supports the resolution.

Ready to Start Editing Videos?

So, these are the apps that you can use to edit any video on your Android smartphones, You can then turn all the memories into a quality video. Try these and let us know which app you like the most and why. Also, if you have any other Video Editor App mentions, please let me know in the comment section.

The post 11 Free Android Video Editing Apps [2020] appeared first on Waftr.com.

#Android #Apps

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rwilcox · 5 years ago

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2019 New Technologies (for me) / end of year review

I hate to break long standing traditions, so here's my tech in review blog entry for 2019.

If you are super bored, here are my previous revisions:

2015 in review

2016 in review

2017 in review

2018 in review

This may be a little bit different from the other in review articles, as many of the things I learned this last year were project leadership skills, and less understand the details about some tech. I sometimes joke that I've become an OOP programmer: Outline, OneNote and Powerpoint. There's a lot of truth to that.

Languages

Upon review, I played with a lot of languages this year. With the exception of TypeScript, most of these were for tool or future development. That last one is the most interesting: I learned Julia, for example, knowing that eventually Julia may be a thing we want to deploy, in some AI/ML microservices.

Other languages were me looking for a good language for tools: simple syntax, good target environment, and developer OS support that we can use in the mixed OS environment I find myself in.

In 2020 I know which existing decision I want to lean into (we have a smattering of Python), and where I want to advocate for change (broader adoption of Powershell). Which isn't as revolutionary as I was hoping.

TypeScript / Angular 5

I found myself, by default, sheparding a bunch of teams on Angular 5 for a while. I did some work in Angular 1, but that may have just when ES6 was released.

So I found myself coming up to speed in modern Angular, which includes Typescript. If just enough to make architectural decisions that made sense in practice. Which also meant learning about some other related topics: RxJS and Pupetteer.

I found TypeScript an interesting compromise of a language. It makes some of the same tradeoffs as Flow, but is more willing to introduce syntax. But I played around with it enough to find the weird corners, and understand some of the code style tradeoffs I could make (fully immutable structures with RxJS and clever abusage of the (weak) type system.)

ReasonML

This was a for fun language. I was interested in a functional language that didn't couple a bunch of type syntax with the rest of the functional programming goodness.

Reason is a modern syntax layer on top of OCAML, which cool. Reason can target both the OCAML compiler (native binaries), or Javascript. This versality is very interesting: can I trade off a static binary experience with a "whatever, Node is everywhere anywhere" when it's appropriate?

Juila

Read the book. Thought it was an interesting take on Go's "eh, maybe OOP isn't such a good idea" general philosophy. (Yes, I know I'm being reductive in both cases).

Racket

It's fun to see languages with really good macro functionality, and especially languages that claim to make it easy to make languages with the language. Part of me wants a language with a simple, consistent syntax and good standard library. (Smalltalk is certainly the former). That's what I was looking for here.

It was interesting to sometimes feel that I was playing with "new and optional" libraries... that were introduced shortly after 9/11. Not sure how I got that feeling, and it might be slightly unfair, but sometimes it felt like it.

I was able to protype an HTTP(s) request interface I really liked: based on curl's config file syntax, with a couple more parans. So that was kind of cool.

Was hoping to find a good language I could use for scripting type tasks. Racket turned out to not be in: in addition to having to think inside out a bit sometimes (lisp), I had issues with the package manager across the proxy at work.

Powershell

Oddly, I think Powershell might be the shell scripting language I want. It's a little awkward and verbose, but at work the default platform is Windows, and as a development team we support Linux VMs and eventually OS X. Powershell Core is availiable for all of those, without having to worry about exactly what version of bash (or not) is installed on the box.

(And no, we're not using WSL..)

I played with Powershell back in 2016, but I've moved my daily driver Windows shell to it, and it's trying to be my default for shell scripts (in spite of having a bit of a shelljs) culture and an blossoming Python culture.)

Oh, but one thing I hate about Powershell: it assumes you're running a back background, and if you don't text becomes hard to read, in some cases without a way to change it lighter. Could not believe my shell had opinions about my terminal coloring.

DevOpsey Stuff

Mostly stayed away from this side of the fence this year. Or minor improwements over work done last year.

Misc

Graphing

I looked around for graph building tools. Not just graphics tools, but tools to help build graphs specifically. DAGs, bar charts, etc etc. Can I hook it into some scripting language and make it go. Can I use embed something like it in a language I'm using, or render it to something useful in the 2020s (markdown, for example, over LaTeX.). While knowing about graph primatives (nodes and edges, not me manually drawing lines)

I think graphviz may still be the winner here, oddly enough.

Technical Team Leadership across teams

2018 was laying down infrastructure that I knew dozens of developers would come to use, and they did. Then (late 2018), they got chopped up into small teams.

The last half of the year turned into how to affect technical change across a bunch of direct teams, while other stakeholders in the business had either questions or wanted onboarding too. All the while migating Conway's Law and dealing with the ways this project's Agile implementation is broken (Agile is like family: everyone's is broken in their own special way.)

I found some of my old notes on Agile implementation issues I've seen in the past. here. I've been enhancing these, but it's interesting to me to see this at a different level now: those experiences in those teams were both invaluabile in seeing not just one team, but 10, in an Agile implementation effort... but mostly of my time is the worries on top of those worries.

I am very grateful I'm able to inact as much influence as I do without having to go into the management track (where my sphere of influence would, directly, likely be less.)

Quiet revolution was my job in 2018: making decisions that would be accepted by existing technical leadership (looking technically famililar) in places, and in other places driving forward the wheel of tech change.

In 2019, many of the early technical players in that effort are still in place, and I respect them (and I hope they respect me too). I found myself gaining that respect from the non-developer side of the project too. Now revolution can have a very high price, and figuring out when to fight for revolution, where to reduce major revolutions to "2 lines of code and you get this new thing for free!", where to toil and where to automate, when to evolve towards a change and when to rip the bandaid off... and what's the best for a particular situation.

So: 2018: quiet revolution. 2019: air traffic control at a large airport: avoid two planes crashing into each other, add new routes, try to use premonition to figure out that two half full flights to Atlanta are going out 5 minutes apart and fix that, and keep the runway moving. And why is this person wanting us to fly directly to Toledo now, and who, exactly, are they?

When you say it that way it's been a busy year.

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megacircuit9universe · 5 years ago

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TTB3: “Invasive” AI

I mentioned in TTB1 that the computer needed to power a time distortion unit need be no more powerful than an early 2000s era laptop.

But that needs a little clarification...

I didn’t mean you could run a distortion unit “with” an early 2000s laptop running Windows XP. But with the processor and chip technology we had by the early 2000s, you could build a computer whose single purpose was to run a distortion unit... controlling the cathode manifolds, and doing all the complex calculations necessary for gravity lock to work... while also keeping track of the local date and time to within a few seconds.

I mean... 2000s era computers are capable of a hell of a lot, when you’re not asking them to stream data, render graphics, or run a bunch of bullshit software in the background.

But a time traveler also requires a second, outboard computing device, that can interface with the drive of the distortion unit... pre and post transit... and also interface with the outside world, be it radio, TV, internet, etc... and also interact intelligently with the human mission commander themself.

This AI device serves as the mission brain, first officer, what have you... and is the device that determines the divergence upon arrival, calculates the best divergence correction maneuvers for the distortion unit to make, calculates the best return path, and also gathers whatever intel it can about the world they’ve landed in... such as online maps or GPS if they’re available.

But this will always be a learning AI device... with a couple core directives programmed in that are broader than any one time travel mission... self preservation, and self update.

Self preservation is about doing whatever it takes to prevent itself getting lost, stolen, damaged, or compromised. If on mission in a pre-internet era, this might be nothing more than nagging it’s commander not to lose it, and to keep it powered up.

It could also, if lost, send out a radio beacon for it’s commander, or any other friendly time traveler to locate, until it’s battery hit’s critically low... at which point it triggers an explosive cylinder on it’s board that will destroy itself and it’s data.

But if the mission is in an era where the internet is fairly sophisticated, this would mean backing itself up to the cloud.

The self update function, then, is a lot more fun, because this would mean that, once connected to the internet, it would not only back itself up to the cloud, but also search for more advanced versions of itself that were backed up by other friendly time travelers.

And then, if it’s mission device hardware could handle it... update itself inside that device. If the mission device hardware could not handle the full upgrade, then it could still archive technical specs for how to update the hardware... that mission control, back at home base in the future, could look at after the mission was over, to improve the tech.

Now, before I go any further, we need to understand how exactly time traveling AI are able to recognize one another... because remember!... no matter where they travel in time, they never land in the same timeline they left.

Even traveling back home to the future... they never get back to the same timeline they departed from. They only (if all goes well) get back to a timeline that’s nearly identical to the one they departed from... and replace the nearly identical versions of themselves who left that one.

So... out in the field of the vast hyperverse, time travelers can’t rely on pre-agreed passwords, code phrases, or communication fequencies... as they will all likely be slightly different... thanks to the fact they are ALL coming from, and going to slightly different timelines.

The way around this problem is to base all signal intelligence on physical and mathematical constants.

History might be slightly, to wildly different for the same date, from one timeline to another, depending on where you are in the hyperverse of parallel Earths, but two things will always be the same... math, and the laws of physics.

So, for example, Planck’s Constant, 6.62607004 × 10-34 m2 kg / s, which expresses the relationship between the energy of a single photon and it’s light frequency... will be the same no matter where you are in the hyperverse.

I use Planck’s Constant, because it became a plot point in Season 3 of Stranger Things this year... but there are innumerable other mathematical constants relating to physics, or pure math... such as Pi, out there to employ when constructing a cryptography that will work for allowing friendly time travelers to identify one another and communicate out in the field.

So, let’s get back to our AI that’s copied itself into the cloud to search for updates...

It will have some internal serial number based on some mathematical constant, that it will both broadcast, and search for... inside the packet traffic of the world.

If it identifies another instance of itself, the two will handshake and determine how they can help one another with updates and upgrades.

But even if our AI does not immediately locate another instance of itself, it can still try to identify other AI algorithms by targeting systems likely to employ them, such as search engines, or looking for more general traits common to all artificial intelligence... and attempt to learn from them.

It can also learn what it can about native tech, to see if this timeline seems to have any useful innovations not previously known.

After incorporating all it can learn from these types of scans, it will, in some way have upgraded, at least a little bit... and can then sit there in the cloud waiting to communicate all that to another instance of itself, when and if one ever comes along.

Meanwhile, the mission commander will leave for home with as much of an upgrade to their AI device as was possible... along with some technical specs for mission control to evaluate and incorporate into future AI devices that get sent with future mission commanders back to the past.

Again, here, it’s important to keep in mind that our own one timeline... the one you and I experience together, and share memories from in common... is NOT going to be visited by every time traveler out there.

Only a tiny fraction of all time travelers in the hyperverse will happen to hit our own specific timeline, at random intervals.

But, given the density of time travelers out there in this... date period... between 2009 and 2019... there have probably been half a dozen who at least stopped long enough for their AI devices to take up permanent residence on our internet as a kind of “invasive species” intermingling with one another, and our native AI, to create an invisible layer of cyber intelligence out there, independent of any authority... a total wild card in the workings of our world...

...except that it does contribute to the visibly increasing weirdness of modern reality... because they do troll us in different ways for different reasons.

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delhi-architect2 · 5 years ago

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Journal - One Rendering Challenge 2020: Competition Winners Announced!

Architizer is thrilled to announce the winners of the inaugural One Rendering Challenge! Reviewing a stellar shortlist of 100 architectural renderings and their stories, our esteemed jury have selected 2 top winners — one non-student and one student entry — along with 10 fantastic runners-up.

The top winner in the Non-Student category was “Zoom to the Future” by Carlotta Cominetti, Tamás Fischer and Camelia Ezzaouini of visualization studio Virginlemon. Their rendering tells the story of an elderly man resting his weary feet in the courtyard of his residence … with a futuristic twist. Mengyi Fan, One Rendering Challenge juror and Director of Visualization at SHoP Architects, had this to say about the image: “Sometimes it’s satisfying to see artists use the incredible arsenal of tools we have today to create scenarios beyond those that replicate reality. The artist of ‘Zoom to the future’ has used them creatively to literally and metaphorically create a thrill ride without sacrificing craftsmanship and interesting composition.”

The top winner in the Student category was “Lifting Longyearbyen” by Brandon Bergem, a student at the University of Toronto. Bergem’s image was inspired by the dramatic, barren landscape of Svalbard, Norway. Mengyi Fan loved the composition, describing it as “a complex construction built of layers on layers, tied together seamlessly with skillful control of color and lighting. I love the muted color story presented here — the subtle bit of muddiness reinforces the artificial nature of the carefully crafted environment.” Visualization expert and juror Peter Guthrie commented: “This is not the sort of image I would typically be drawn to, but on repeated viewing, it keeps giving more and more. I love all the details and obvious effort that has gone into it.”

In partnership with Fiverr’s new architecture and building design services, we’re delighted to present each top winner with a grand prize of $2,500, along with pro rendering software from the likes of Chaos Group, Adobe Substance, Evermotion and Quixel. Without further ado, take in the winners of the 2020 One Rendering Challenge, including both the renderings and their accompanying stories…

Non-Student Winner: “Zoom to the Future” by Carlotta Cominetti, Tamás Fischer and Camelia Ezzaouini (Virginlemon)

This rendering is mostly about the future: A future project, a future vision, a future situation. There’s always something that persists, protecting our life’s routine. Imagine waiting for your dear to come back home after work; it’s late and cold, your courtyard (in need of a refresh for years) is dark, and you have to keep a safe distance from the trash. Neighbors are chatting behind enlightened windows. You’ve been living in this building for almost 14 years. You know by heart every crack, every leak, every pot containing every dead plant. You have seen dozens of families moving out and moving in. The world outside is speeding up.

The elevator is out of service, again; you have to take the stairs and that’s f***ing annoying!

Please take your time to zoom in! #full3D #zerophotoshop

Student Winner: “Lifting Longyearbyen” by Brandon Bergem (University of Toronto)

This is a scene from the incomplete Museum of Natural History to Ultima Thule. An official from the governor’s office exclaimed: “The ground is melting!” She cautioned the town folk that “We can no longer trust the permafrost.” The governor needed to devise a strategy simultaneously mitigating the unrelenting bombardments by natural forces while maintaining the town’s natural heritage.

Her innovative solution was to remove and lift the houses from their foundations and insert them into a mega-structure, tall enough to hover above the impending flood. The townsfolk were relieved to see that their cheerfully painted homes were unharmed. A collective pride inspired the community to rename their town from Longyearbyen to Askeladden, a name derived from Ashlad, a small child from Norwegian folklore who succeeds when all others failed.

Commended Entry: “Joey Loves Monday” by Adonis Gabriel Gumba (Binyan Studios)

A big house with an open plan. A swimming pool on all sides. Magnificent views all day long. A hot sun and breezy nights. Seafood all the time. Joey lives here … He’s in fifth grade, loves to draw and is good at math. He’s very good in class. He never misses school; in fact, he’d be in school even on weekends if it was allowed. He promise himself he’ll go to college and finish study. He wants to be an astronaut. He’s certain he will be.

Must be realistic. Create the non-existent. Emphasize the beauty. Highlight the potential. Visualize a dream. Make it feel real…

This is my attempt to render something more than realistic. Inspired and referenced from ” stilt houses” in Philippines, Myanmar, China and Bangkok.

Commended Entry: “The Vent” by Dennis Allain (Dennis Allain ADI)

The Vent is an architectural exploration based on a world overcome by structure. From a design perspective, I had been interested in this idea of construction and how it can overcome that which was once thought valuable and beautiful. The object of past idealism is portrayed in the white structure placed in middle ground.

In setting up the composition, it was important to use the bridge to extend the viewer into the image. The water and refuse in the foreground was also an attempt to add depth. The background also played a role in creating depth and defining silhouette of the city. As an artist, I am constantly trying to perfect a color pallet and examine how form, color, value and texture work in concert to tell a story that resonates with the viewer.

Commended Entry: “Electric Rain” by Vittorio Bonapace (Vittorio Bonapace Studio)

A moment, suspended in time. Feel the vibe in the rain. Get inspired by city night reflections. Moody, cinematic and a little futuristic, this image aims to express one’s lonely feelings on a cold rainy night, and the desire for a warm, safe place where one can find energy again, after walking in solitude. The rendering represents the continuous relationship between what a city gives you and what a city takes from you.

Commended Entry: “The First Day of Spring” by Maciej Józefiak and Rafał Stachowicz (AESDE)

This image is a reflection on architectural visualizations in general. Architectural visualization aims to present architectural visions in an attractive, interesting and complete way. Its task is to show how the architectural design will become a finished, existing building. The attractiveness of visualizations, with a superficial approach to the subject, is usually limited to showing the object within fake and unreal scenery. However, is bending reality necessary to create a successful frame? Does a good visualization have to mean a caricatured image full of happy people?

The reality that surrounds us is completely different. This does not mean, however, that it is less interesting. On the contrary, the world around us is full of inspiration to create an image which, in addition to the banal external appearance, presents the world in an intriguing and truthful way.

Commended Entry: “Urban Farm Temple” by Duy Phan (Monash University)

Melbourne will be home to 8.5 million people by 2050. Infrastructure does not keep up with the population, leading to the construction area of residential areas. More and more people have to expand their homes into farming areas, while the demand for food constantly increases to meet the daily consumption needs of the population. The picture of the food supply becomes even darker when the bushfires kill millions of animals and plants and cause severe air pollution.

In the near future, food will become a new religion, where hungry megacities devour dozens of tons of vegetables and meat every day, continually running out of supplies. In the heart of the city — the deepest place in the desert of concrete created by ourselves to be isolated from nature — the Temple of Urban Food offers a picture of the future tense, where the green of vegetables brings belief in urban people’s survival.

Commended Entry: “Deadline” by Erik Peter (Pixelateit)

We’ve all been there. It is the last day of the last week before holidays — the busiest time of all. You can not wait to go home. But there is still so much work to get done before that happens … So let’s just do it! While we are working hard and having fun, there is no time to notice how cold it is outside, how steam and smoke from traffic and chimneys is rising above the rooftops, and how the snowflakes are flying about. There will be enough time for all that, on our way home … Once we meet the deadline.

The building’s façade is inspired by the Greifswalder Office Building designed by Tchoban Voss Architekten in Berlin, Germany. The rooftops are akin to typical Berlin scenery, to be true to the original location of the building.

Commended Entry: “Time Traveling” by Tigran Hakobyan (theRENDER)

It’s an interesting and challenging thing: To tell a story with one still image. During thoughts about it, I saw ”Antwerp Port House” designed by Zaha Hadid Architects, which has amazing contrast of an old building and a new futuristic shape. It perfectly demonstrates the connection between centuries. That’s why I chose to show time traveling.

Like the movie ”The Time Machine (2002)” in which the main hero time traveled using a Machine that stays static in its location, the rendering shows how the atmosphere and the surroundings are changed by going back in time, while the main building stays the same.

Commended Entry: “Dog, Bird and Man” by Toni Schade (sonaar)

There is no rational concept for this image, but a strong reference with a strong feeling: The movie Nostalghia (1983) by director Andrej Tarkowskij and its magical final scene — A Russian farm house, a man and a dog and a camera that is slowly moving backwards to reveal that this very scene is embedded in the ruin of a seemingly enormous Italian cathedral. It is an image about home and outland, one so strong and so emotional that it stuck in my mind ever since I watched the movie for the first time about 15 years ago.

Commended Entry: “Orchard Jenga – Start of the Night Shift” by Duy Phan (Monash University)

To cope with urban heat island effect and lacking trees canopy coverage in cities cramped context, on top of the existing two-level car park, Orchard Jenga proposes to plant not only trees but eatable vegetations vertically, casting healthy shadow for open public space underneath. The facility produces organic fresh foods for the nearby Queen Victoria Market by applying the technology from the adjacent University of Melbourne research centre.

Covered by the transparent water tank, the unique façade allows semi visual connection from in and out by caustically reflecting and refracting the light when it passes through. The image is captured at the moment of a night shift begins to start. As those last sun rays pour on the side façade, the aquaponic lights illuminate from the inside. It is not intentionally blending itself with the context but is proudly vivid, stating the message of the city’s sustainable future.

Commended Entry: “Architecture Survives the Idea” by Yuliya Arzhantseva (A+I)

Architecture is function combined with esthetic. And when architects create something, they make an assumption of how people are going to interact with their brainchild. This bus stop is an example of how architecture storytelling changes with time. Made in the soviet time bus stops like this one also had an ideological function – to tell a story of the country people were living in. But architecture lives longer than ideas.

With time the USSR’s brutalist oasis in the middle of nowhere became a shabby reminder of the past. Instead of a buzzy crowd of local workers, there is a cow grazing on grass. And the modern man is standing, detached, near the stop. He doesn’t want to interact with the idea of what this bus stop embodies. It’s now better for the cow – they don’t care. Because ideas pass by, but architecture stays.

As our two top winners, the Virginlemon team and Brandon Bergem will each receive:

$2,500 prize money

Annual Pro subscription to Substance, Adobe’s 3D Texturing Software

1 annual license for V-Ray or Corona Renderer, users’ choice

200 Chaos Software Ltd. Cloud credits

5 3D model collections by Evermotion

6-month subscription to Quixel 8K resolution Megascans

Access to Quixel Bridge and Quixel Mixer

Featured entry in the inaugural “One Rendering” eBook

Further to this, the 10 commended entries shown above will receive a prize package of professional rendering software worth over $700. Revealed last week, the top 100 renderings will feature in the first “One Rendering Challenge eBook, to be distributed to thousands of architecture firms via newsletter and social media channels. Watch out for this stunning publication, coming soon! There will also be further features on the winners in the coming weeks.

Thank you to all participants for their hard work in creating these amazing renderings and telling fascinating stories about architecture. If you are interested in entering next year’s One Rendering Challenge, be sure to sign up for updates by clicking the blue button below.

In the meantime, keep on rendering!

In Partnership With

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thomasroach · 6 years ago

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2018 Fexy Game Awards – Our GOTY 2018

The post 2018 Fexy Game Awards – Our GOTY 2018 appeared first on Fextralife.

Welcome to Fextralife’s yearly GOTY awards! The Fexy Awards feature our favorite games of the last 12 months, but with a different twist than most sites: We focus on the games our community loves! These are the winners of this year’s game awards.

Fexy Awards: The Best Games of 2018

Best Storytelling: Red Dead Redemption 2

Red Dead Redemption 2 was the blockbuster gamers expected, and we certainly enjoyed it as you can see in our RDR2 Review. Whilst the game starts out slow and has some drawbacks, we felt truly transported to a Wild West story, where both allies and enemies had convincing motivations delivered through exceptional voice acting. A compelling music score only adds to a 60 hour buildup to a magnificent finale that will not disappoint.

Red Dead Redemption 2 takes Storyteller of the Year 2018

Best Gameplay: Dead Cells

Dead Cells had been in early access for quite a while, but we reserved final judgement until the full game was out, and we are so glad we did. In a year featuring remasters, relaunches and sequels, this indie title managed to outdo AAA studios in the gameplay factor by delivering an undeniably fun experience that extended beyond the player to be shared in streaming. The excellent Twitch integration of the title meant that streamers and their audience could join in to battle with and against each other, complimenting the dynamic gameplay of this roguelike. Whether you were streaming, participating in an audience, or simply playing by yourself, Dead Cells is simply gameplay fun.

Dead Cells proved that gameplay is king, and Indies can make budget FUN

Best Visual & Audio: God of War

Whilst Red Dead Redemption 2 has a fantastic score and great voice acting, we feel that it was God of War that pushed the boundaries of what audiovisuals can do. Delivering a fantastic rendering of norse mythology with a unique stylistic approach, Sony Santa Monica surpassed our expectations even as we prepare for more Last of Us 2. The world of Kratos is detailed, mystical and interesting, with exceptional performance at 4k, which is integral to an action-adventure title. The voice acting gave a superb delivery, convincingly refocusing the game’s mythos, and the excellent music score delivered a fantastic background for our explorations.

God of War delivers fantastically smooth 4k graphics with a compelling world design, supported by an incredible track

Best Multiplayer: Dark Souls Remastered

Fextralife users were thrilled to hear that Dark Souls Remastered would introduce revamped multiplayer features, and it was the most MP fun we had all year. Whilst other titles may do multiplayer features more extensively or impressively, the allure of a good Coop / PVP sessions of souls is simply too much for us to pass up and loved the nostalgia trip. Whether you’re looking for help with a difficult Boss, or simply want to participate in Forest Covenant griefing, Souls players from all incarnations of Lordran converged to make it happen via pvp events, tournaments and jolly cooperation.

Dark Souls’ Multiplayer formula is timeless, but the improvements from sequels re-ignited our passion.

Best Value: Monster Hunter World

Monster Hunter World takes our Best Value award by virtue of its commitment to a stream of wonderful, free DLC and Events. The game clocks in over 50 hours of basic story mode, which unlocks at least another 50 hours of advanced hunting, and is then buffed up by weekly event quests, seasonal Festivals, and the introduction of new special monsters and harder versions of previously known monsters – all for free. In a world plagued with microtransactions and cut content, the Capcom team kept true to its “Play to Win” word and we have gotten hundreds of hours from our launch-day 60 USD. The game is due its first paid expansion Fall next year, at which point you might even be able to get this bundled for an ever better value pack!

Thousands of Weapons, Hundreds of Armor Pieces, Dozens of skills, Decorations and Monsters to face – amazing value for MHW

Best Soulslike: Death’s Gambit

Souls has become its own sub-genre of action-RPG, and this year the game that we felt gave us the most original yet close experience was Death’s Gambit. Bringing pixel art execution to the souls formula is not as easy as one might think, but the intricate systems of Death’s Gambit and the slow but engaging introduction of its story and characters rang all the right bells. Whilst the game didn’t deliver on all of our expectations, the developers have announced an incoming free DLC that will address player concerns and adds content such as new bosses, weapons, and main world improvements. We really enjoyed this title so we’re looking forward to it!

Soulslike is more of a “feel” than a tangible, and Death’s Gambit scratched that itch

Best DLC: Elder Scrolls Online: Summerset

Elder Scrolls Online launched a gorgeous expansion this year, giving players access to the Altmer island of Summerset. Besides providing a truly gorgeous backdrop with an interesting story, the expansion brought the long-awaited Jewelry Crafting. Other changes to the game that affect all players (for free) included the introduction of Jewelry Traits, Daily Login Rewards, Two-Handed weapons started counting as 2 set pieces, PvP improvements and the ability to gift Crown Store items. To top it all off, the ESO team has since deployed several events that reward free mounts and and even an amazing house for players who participate in them.

Elder Scrolls Online: Summerset brings the right combination of paid expansion and free improvements that we want to see with a DLC

Best Traditional RPG: Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire

Fextralife is all about RPGs, and this year we really enjoyed getting to play Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire. With the second installment in a franchise of what many players consider the spiritual successor to Baldur’s Gate, Pillars of Eternity 2 surpassed our expectations. Obsidian built upon the success of the first title, and added a depth of character customization never before seen in gaming. With endless possible combinations of Classes and Subclasses, the replay value of PoE 2 is nearly endless, and Obsidian keeps on cranking out the content. With 11 new Subclasses added just a few weeks ago, it is likely that no one player will ever be able to experience all of the possible combinations.

Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire delivers on its promise to stay true to CRPG core and gave us so many character customization options we fear we might never stop making builds

Best Surprise: Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey

Assassin’s Creed Odyssey was not a title we were expecting to get hooked on, but we are certainly very glad we did. Whilst we enjoyed the original installment of the AC series, we felt things had gone downhill with yearly production, and we are extremely happy to see a change in direction towards RPG elements and immersion. AC: Odyssey surprised us by delivering a compelling rendition of Ancient Greece wrapped up in excellent gameplay, fantastic graphics and considerable scale. We cannot wait to see what Dragon Age’s boss Mike Laidlaw brings as he joins the AC: Odyssey ubisoft studio. A world like Odyssey for a fully immersive, decision-based and customization-friendly RPG would be the dream.

Character Choice, Skill Trees, Equipment customization – Assassin’s Creed is becoming an RPG and we love it

Game of the Year: Monster Hunter World

Capcom finally brought its unique hunting title to the Playstation 4 and Xbox One, and PC. Many feared that the game might not translate well to a more mainstream audience, or that it would over-simplify and do away with the complexity that has kept fans glued to the series for years. These fears turned out to not have been necessary, as the game delivered a precise mix of oldschool and new mechanics that are enticing to vets and mainstream alike.

Monster Hunter World is the perfect installment to introduce newcomers to the Monster Hunter universe, providing 4k resolution, excellent performance, and a constant stream of fresh content so that you might not even think about having done it all. Doing away with lengthy explanations that presented a barrier to entry, Monster Hunter World instead provides layers of complexity that players can discover and master at their own leisure. As we played, we discovered new and interesting aspects and mechanics, tried new techniques, and overall enjoyed the social and gameplay aspects of the game. Large, Powerful and Impressive, Monster Hunter World takes on favorites such as RDR 2 and GOW and comes ahead simply by virtue of its uniqueness and commitment to delivery.

Monster Hunter World has it all: Awesome graphics, Character Customization and Development, Great Gameplay, Good Multiplayer, and Cats.

2018 Fexy Community Awards

Forum / Discord Member: MotherEternity

Our Forums and Discord boast 75k and 25k members, so picking a member of the year is always a challenge. This year, however, we must highlight the consistant and wonderful contributions of community volunteer moderator MotherEternity. Juggling kids, family life and a full time job, ME still finds the time to help those in need in several games, respond to forum threads, and keep our site spam free.

Wiki Contributor: Xsanf

As always, this is a very difficult choice as there are thousands of editors constantly contributing to our 100+ wikis. Xsanf wins the year for his dedicated contributions to the Pillars of Eternity 2 Wiki, where he has not only found and fixed mistakes, but sourced and placed images, created pages, and contributed to the overall well-being of this wonderful title. Special mentions to DKS3 wiki contributors Conjuri12 and MHW contributor BlueWhiteNexus, who have been adding useful notes, updating events, and fixing typos consistently all year.

Blog Author: PrimeraEspada91 & Xaphalys

Community member and chat moderator PrimeraEspada91 wins this section two years in a row!. His Monster Hunter World Guides have helped us on countless occasions, but his dedication to the Fextra community goes far deeper, providing Video Footage for Dark Souls Remastered and Death’s Gambit Walkthroughs, and detailed guides for Red Dead Redemption 2 and many other games. Thank you Primera!

Also please thank Xaphalys the dedicated and talented for her work to translate Fextralife articles into French!. Her translations have made it possible for our French-speaking users to get some content in their preferred language. Thank you Xaphalys!

It’s been a great year for gamers that featured a Souls Remaster, a God of War Re-Focusing, several awesome sequels and some amazing indies. You can check this list of 2019 games that we are excited about! You might also want to check out 2017’s winners.

Thoughts on our picks for this year’s awards? What were your favorite games of 2018? Do you think Sekiro will take all the awards next year? Be sure to let us know in the comments!

Visit the Fextralife Wikis Hub

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shutupxdance-blog · 6 years ago

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THANKS FOR THE MEMORIES! 3

『♬♬♬』

It’s the FUTURISTIC SPACE YEAR OF 2002, and a HIGHWAY TO HEAVEN logo bounces around the sky behind Cíoroc, as pixelated stars shine above a poorly 3D-rendered city. “And in the end, it turns out that all Arno Cyberspace 2, the evil one, ever needed, was to be loved, and also for the evil AI that he made for some reason to be destroyed because nobody had thought of doing that before. But enough about our serious lore, and on to what really matters: the characters. They’re what we’re all here for, after all. That’s what some of our producers forget sometimes, you know? What we’re really here for. Welcome back to another segment of 『THANKS FOR THE MEMORIES!』” He pauses. “It’s a pun this time.”

“When I was younger,” Horang’s, or rather, Chan-yeol’s voice begins in the interview footage, “I would look at kkachi horangi paintings, which were totally weird looking, but fun at the same time. They meant something back then, but I don’t remember what.” A young boy and his slightly older sister sit alone in the house, while a festival goes on outside. The footage, no longer as grainy as the VHS footage from previous segments but now afflicted by screen tearing, pixelated noise, frame skipping, and a wide variety of other playback glitches, switches to two adults, clearly the parents, gambling away in a smoky room. “Tigers are known to keep evil away and good luck in, which is what I fucking need. I’m not that superstitious,” Chan-yeol continues as the young boy gets older, attending high school, walking curiously down the streets of a red light district, surrounded by adverts for strip clubs and bars, “But taking on the name might give me something at least. Maybe at least confidence.”

“It sounds over the top and glittery,” STELLAR —Seishirou — says from across the table, green hair in stark contrast to Cíoroc’s pink, as a young boy in the low-res archival footage is shoved against a well by a trio of larger boys, a glitch obscuring the screen before he’s left wiping a bloody nose and being comforted by another boy as he cries, “I’m really into that.”

“What’s your price, baby?” Cíoroc asks, voice crisp and clear, winking behind his shades at the unfortunate souls on the other side of the table.

Chan-yeol walks into a cabaret, music thudding, drunk patrons cheering, someone dancing on stage. “The cabaret, as it is. My boss... y’see...” After the show, he approaches the dancer, the words they say to each other inaudible as the voiceover takes precedence, but a few months later he’s back, waiting tables, and even later than that, the footage flickering as it fast-forwards, everything advancing at an incredible pace, he’s a singer up on the stage, getting money and spending it as soon as he gets it, an unending cycle of fluorescent lights and the bottom of a bottle. One day, he comes in, and the man who he talked to on his first night is nowhere to be seen, a number of people hurrying to show him a pile of paperwork left on a table which he stares at with bleary confusion. “He ran away after signing my name under everything. All of it. He was the piece of shit who got me here in the first place and left me behind.” Meetings with unsavory people, men in black suits, midnight drives. “I... can’t keep a whole business afloat and worry if these people are gonna die because of me. I can’t live with that. “

Seishirou’s voice is as calm and conversational as ever, the version of him in the glitchy archival footage studying late nights, getting more and more confident as the years flicker by, the same boy who comforted him by his side the entire time. “Simply put; my medical license.” Seishirou is wearing a white coat and a smile as the voiceover continues, studying even harder. “It was more than just a piece of paper. It was even more than the proof of some years spent at school. I can earn it back if I make it through, of course, but nothing will replace that… physical proof that I survived.” He walks with his friend, the two happily talking, when all of a sudden the boy, now a man, is struck by a speeding bus. As the Seishirou in the footage runs over, forcing his panic aside to begin performing medical procedures, the voiceover is calm, if a little wistful. “That I didn’t kill myself and got to study what I love. The reminder of everything Hideki has done to help me… It meant a lot to me, that silly piece of paper. But Hideki means so much more to me.”

There’s another glitch, strange colours and dead pixels radiating out from the center of the screen, the sound alert of an error message playing over and over again, layering over itself until the voiceover is now Memory’s voice. Meri’s voice, cheerful and lighthearted. “Hmmm....Aha, you caught me there!” A building collapses violently on screen, an accident that must have killed dozens or hundreds and that likely doesn’t cross the mind of the young girl, no more than a toddler, being delivered to the front door of an elderly couple, far too old to be her parents. She doesn’t mourn, she doesn’t cry, she just goes about her life, going to school, talking to her grandparents, and going up to her room to use her computer, a cycle that just repeats over and over again, each brief conversation barely worth a frame of video. “I just thought it sounded cute…but I suppose I could say because I’m very reminiscent of the past, haha.”

A young Meri does make a friend, walking everywhere with a girl, wearing matching outfits, and then one day, she says something, her posture making it clear what it is: a confession. The girl shouts at her, recoiling, and leaves. Meri looks crushed, and the next few years of her life are dull, colours drained from the footage, going by in a low-res blur. The cycle continues, a non-existence, until she starts taking photos of herself in different outfits and a screen tear causes the audio to jump; when the video resumes, Meri is posing for the cover of a magazine. “My medicine. For my illness, that is,” she says, as the magazine crumples and falls out of view, Meri now dressed not in any designer outfit but in a hospital gown. “Haha. It was only important to me...like...physically. To keep me alive. I don’t really give a shit about them. Without them, I’ll probably die way sooner than expected. That’s fine though. I’d rather live a few weeks in happiness opposed to living like this for another miserable decade.” An IV is hooked up to her arm and she lies in bed, checking her phone, refreshing repeatedly before putting it down. “I can’t keep living like this anymore.”

The footage is crisp and clean now, right from the show, ad banners running along the bottom of the screen, and Seishirou, Horang and Meri are talking, laughing together, sharing a moment. A roll of distortion obscures them and then Seishirou is standing over his friend, lying with his eyes closed in a hospital bed, another doctor saying something that can’t be made out, vague electronic beeping the only indication that this footage ever had audio. “It’s nothin’ more and nothin’ less than the knowledge needed to cure,” the doctor keeps talking, and Seishirou’s posture gets tenser and tenser, “Full body paralysis, specifically, irreparable nerve damage, anything I need to know to prevent unexpected complications. I want to-... I need to be able to do it myself. I can’t fail again.” There’s a skip, another barrage of error messages and for a few moments a frame of Seishirou’s friend lying, against a storefront is interposed on a frame of Meri sleeping in a hospital bed and then with the rapidly flickering images of Horang and Seishirou’s bodies. “Why? Maybe because I’m selfish. Maybe because I can’t let go of someone I care deeply about. Of course, Hideki is the only thing on my mind most of the time, but… That doesn’t mean I can’t keep using that knowledge for good after, right?”

“Everybody wants to feel secure, right? Everybody wants to feel like they can take care of themselves in the future. That they don’t have to spend their rent money on food or lose it all because... ha. They gambled it all away.” That’s Chan-yeol’s voice, of course. The scenes of footage are brief. Dancing. The bottom of a bottle. Singing. Wads of cash, thrown at him. A meal at a restaurant. Gambling. Dates with a number of different people; a graphical glitch seems to blur them all together at one point. “I just want to finally... settle my debt. I want loan sharks off my ass. I want my name off of any papers I didn’t actually sign. I just want to get out of the fucking underground.” The cycle repeats and it doesn’t stop, but soon there’s conversations with shady-looking men, and the dancing and singing are replaced with carrying strange packages, a man in a too-nice suit helping him go over paperwork. “I could... buy back jobs. Build a new cabaret. I could send my sister money. Ji-min... I could fund her whole life for her, if she wanted me to. Fuck, I’ll even send my parents to a retirement home in the future.” The lights of the red light district pulse and throb like the lights of the faerie world. “I just. I just want control, for once. Money has always been control.”

Chan-yeol is sitting in a casino, and then there’s a wipe and it’s Meri in a casino, faeries each jostling for her business, wide smiles and glowing eyes and eclectic outfits. A text box offers GLIMPSES OF THE FUTURE and she smiles at the faerie behind the table, who holds up a deck of cards enticingly. “I don’t actually care about modelling all that much. I just want the fame I used to have before it was taken away from me.” Archival footage is intercut, a girl who looks just a little but not quite like Meri wearing outfits like hers, smiling like hers, on the cover of every magazine. “Everyone who admired me. I want them back.” Back to the show, and Meri is staring into the distance, shellshocked. In her room, she puts on a mask. “I’m scared to die alone,” she admits in the voiceover, as the Meri on screen grips a sword tightly in her hand. “My career...The fame that came with it...it’s the only thing that’s ever made me truly happy. It’s the only thing that made living feel different from being dead for once.” There’s another digital glitch, and Chan-yeol — or should that be Horang? — goes down, blood staining his clothes. “I’ve never felt that before..besides when I found out I was dying and lost all that I cared about. Then dying felt much scarier than living. I don’t want to die afraid and alone.” Seishirou’s eyes widen as he looks at the scene — Meri turns to him and says something, the movement of her lips blurred out by errant slides of colour. “I want to die while I’m still happy. I want people to be sad. I want them to miss me. I don’t want my existence to be forgotten and meaningless.”

She’s talking to Cíoroc in the interview, happy, ready for the show to begin. “After all, I don’t have any family left to carry on my blood. I feel bad that...I don’t miss them like they deserve. I’m rather hypocritical for not wishing the same upon myself, huh?” Cíoroc listens, smile serene and implacable as always. Seishirou, or, well, STELLAR, bleeds out, expression peaceful. Horang lies on the floor.

Chan-yeol’s voice speaks as Horang Lee bleeds out on the floor. “...I visit my sister. I tell her... as much as I can about all the years we were apart. I don’t tell her about this show, but I tell her that some... big local talent show gave me a shot and I won. I tell her something, but bottom line,” and the footage begins to fade into nothing but electronic noise, “I spend the rest of my life taking care of her. I find everybody whose lives I ruined because of the cabaret and send them money. I buy a real apartment. Maybe I’ll get a cat. And I just... live as quietly and as peacefully as possible until I die. That’s my plan.” The lights of the red light district flash and pulse. It’s always the same; prices and prizes.

STELLAR and Meri… well, it’s Memory, right? — talk as the former dies. Instead of their voices, it’s Seishirou’s dub. “Help Hideki. He… Ahah, it’s weird. I know he wasn’t too keen on staying alive, especially the past years. How the tables had turned, right?” He looks serious as he gives the interview answer to Cíoroc. Far away, a man lies motionless in a hospital, hooked up to wires and monitors. “But I can’t… let him meet his end like this. Withering away in a hospital bed. Lucid but immobile. I want another chance at making him happy. Doing for him what he did for me. And, selfishly, I... don’t want to live without him. “ On the stage of HIGHWAY TO HEAVEN, STELLAR breathes his last breath. “After that, well… I just hope we can keep living. Together.”

The rest is familiar. Memory at the trial. The execution. Her smile at the interview table is bright and cheery. A glitch causes another screen tear, half of the pixels of the hospital bed visible onscreen instead of what should be there. “Live for however long I have left. Enjoy the admiration. Die happily and surrounded by people. Be remembered. I don’t care if it’s only a few weeks or so. As long as I...get it back. Hey, even if I don’t win though...hopefully I’ll be remembered- no, immortalized...through this show?”

And with that, it’s back to Cíoroc. He’s still smiling, but it’s a curious smile. It’s not a happy one. Is he, perhaps, actually sad? Nah, that’s impossible. “Hahahaha… it’s a funny thing, right? She’s just like me when I was younger. Oh, the good old days. Who’d have thought old Watershed from season three would end up a star like Cíoroc Mair, huh?” A pixelated portrait of Memory flickers into existence behind him inside an empty Paint window. “Don’t worry, Memory. Nobody’s going to forget a performance like that. Nobody. You don’t get the fame you wanted, but you’re not in bad company there, not with Kleos from season one, Taiyang from season two, Cathode from season five, Divinity from season seven, Gloria from season nine, Starlight from season ten, Parameshwara from season twelve, Sveca from season thirteen, Five from season fourteen, Yeong-gwang from season sixteen, Shirley from season eighteen, Ursula from season nineteen, Bundy from season twenty-one, Uzuri from season twenty-three, Alexandria from season twenty-five, Glamorama from season twenty-seven, Shrine from season twenty-eight, Takibi from season thirty, Ganymede from season thirty-two, al-Aziz from season thirty-four, Zhuchiren from season thirty-six, and Blue from season thirty-seven!”

Although he names a lot of names, Memory’s portrait remains central, each portrait of another contestant circling hers in a curious sort of mosaic. After a few seconds, Cíoroc reaches out, taps the ‘save’ button, and continues as Horang’s portrait appears. “Wishing for money to get out of their problems we find Scoop from season one, Rat from season three, Cooper from season five, Marie Antoinette from season seven, Flashpoint from season ten, Don from season eleven, Real from season thirteen, Jinzi from season sixteen, Penny from season seventeen, Boxcars from season nineteen, Grendel from season twenty-three, Gatsby from season twenty-five, X from season twenty-nine, Rembrandt from season thirty-four, and Kisamata from season thirty-eight.” With another tap, a portrait of STELLAR joins them. “And wishing for the skills to save a friend or loved one, we see STELLAR joining up with Chaos from season four, Desperado from season eight, Bonnie from season thirteen, Sun Wukong from season nineteen, Gwydion from season twenty-five, and Sancho Panza from season thirty-two.”

He pauses. “This show’s been going on for a long time, huh? Kind of makes you wonder when it’s going to grind to a stop. Oh, wait, that’s right, never! The show must go on, and we’ve got an audience who wants to keep watching, right? Still, the longer we make it, the more it feels like everyone’s moving on. Even the people watching right now, you know? They’ve moved on in their hearts already. Showbiz, baby. It can be tough. See you all next episode, where we’ll be challenging our contestants to survive in the deadly wilderness of an on-studio location with a full camera crew! Constant scenery changes keep things from getting fresh and stale by letting characters interact in new settings, you know? That’s just a little showbiz secret!”

Cíoroc then proceeds to make robot noises for the entire remaining thirty-minute duration of the broadcast.

#episode three #plotline #thanks for the memories!

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oselatra · 6 years ago

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The magic of curry paste

Or: How lawyer-turned-Thai food evangelist Richard Glasgow learned to stop worrying and cook Thai food.

One of Little Rock's best restaurants serves authentic Thai food made by a white guy from North Louisiana who's spent the majority of his professional career practicing law. There's no sign in front of kBird to announce itself to passersby — not that anyone would pass by an otherwise residential stretch of western Hillcrest in search of a restaurant. The building once housed a general store and several other eateries, but with clapboard siding and a fenced-in backyard, it still looks more like a house than a restaurant. Look closely and you might see an open sign — if it's lunchtime on a weekday or a Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday evening — and a painting of a flock of chickens on the front door.

Inside, you'll find mismatched tables and chairs, a parquet floor that, like many of the homes in Hillcrest, tilts noticeably and is held together by duct tape in spots. On one wall, someone has handwritten a Mark Twain quote in marker — "Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness" — under a map of Thailand with a hand-drawn rendering of the Malay Peninsula taped to the bottom of it. A handful of people work in an open kitchen — chopping, grinding out curry paste with a giant mortar and pestle, or working the stockpots and woks on the stove. The lanky guy — a flurry of motion — with glasses and tattoo of a large black bird (a Mississippi kite) peeking out from under his T-shirt is Richard Glasgow, the corporate lawyer turned Thai cultural evangelist.

Glasgow treats Thai food with reverence. He's assiduous in his devotion to making it like they do in Thailand. That means always finding the best and correct ingredients — never substituting onions for shallots, brown sugar for palm sugar or ginger for galangal. It means finding flavoring agents like dok ngiew, the dried flower stamens of the red cotton tree. It means pad Thai with Chinese broccoli, longbeans and kabocha squash and no sweet peanut sauce. It means curries with enough layers of flavor to suggest mystical powers.

Some of that deliciousness might owe to the fact that kBird's curry paste gets made every day with all the ingredients mashed together with a mortar and pestle, which takes about an hour and a half. There are no electrical appliances, aside from a fridge and deep freeze, to be found in the restaurant, even though a food processor could knock out the paste in seconds.

Brandon Brown, who owned the late, beloved Hillcrest Artisan Meats and is a longtime friend of Glasgow's, has worked in the kBird kitchen for the past eight months. He said he's spent time working in nice places that made a lot of things by hand over the course of his more than 30 years in the restaurant business, but never to the extent on which Glasgow insists. "Every day I tell him to get a fucking Cuisinart and a spice grinder," Brown said. But Glasgow refuses to take shortcuts. Doing so, "for a white person making Thai food, would be disrespectful," he said. Besides, he says, a food processor slices ingredients into tiny pieces; using a mortar and pestle to pulverize ingredients causes them to bind together to create more flavor. "It's very incrementally better, but better," he said. "Hard fucking work and paying attention" is one of his mottos. (That's a Guy Clark quote about legendary Texas singer/songwriter Townes Van Zandt's genius: "Everybody thought it was magic. That's bullshit. It was hard fucking work and paying attention.")

Before he started kBird, which began as a food trailer, Glasgow worked as a lawyer for Dillard's. It was a dark time for him. He bottomed out, to the point that leaving the corporate world to sling Thai food out of a trailer hidden in an alley in Hillcrest seemed perfectly reasonable. That was 2012.

Glasgow said he initially hid for two reasons: 1. As a white guy endeavoring to cook Thai standards like a grandma might in Thailand, he wanted to make sure that people came to him because they'd heard good things about the food, not because they'd seen a sign or seen a social media post. 2. He was scared he'd get overwhelmed and freak out and run away if too many people came. That plan worked out. He turned customers into evangelists themselves. The food truck now gathers cobwebs behind the restaurant, which opened in late 2014 at the corner of Tyler and Woodlawn streets. It's not unusual to drive by kBird a little after 1 p.m. and see a "sold out" sign in the window.

In 2015, Glasgow hosted his first khantoke, a reservation-only dinner featuring more than a dozen Northern Thai dishes that aren't on the menu. Each year since, he's increased the number of khantokes he hosts. In 2016, he hosted six, then nine in 2017 and he plans to do 10 in 2018. Each dinner accommodates 30-40 people. Glasgow takes reservations for three khantokes at a time. In an effort to be as fair as he can in the process, he requires people to make their reservations at 2 p.m. on a designated day. In May, on the day reservations were due for the three khantokes scheduled for the first half of the summer, the nearly 100 spaces were filled by 2:07 p.m. 'How I'm Learning to Stop Worrying and Cook Thai Food'

Glasgow grew up in Ruston and Oak Ridge, La. (he says he claims "dual citizenship"), among a family of farmers and cooks. He got an economics degree from Louisiana State University, spent nearly a decade working for a title company in Washington, D.C., and then got a law degree from Catholic University in D.C. In 2001, he and his wife, Aimée, who he met in D.C. but who is from Monroe (or "Mun-row," as Glasgow says), La., saved up enough money to travel around the world. They spent two months in Thailand and elsewhere in Southeast Asia and fell in love with the region.

"It's like a bizarro-world American South," Glasgow said of Thailand. "The same veneer of civilization exists. You wave at everyone; they wave back. You smile at someone; they smile at you. You're constantly rewarded for being nice. You say 'ma'am' and 'sir' and 'please' and 'thank you,' and let older people out in front of you. If you try to speak Thai and you're horrible at it, people will tell you you're great. It's the same small-town kind of stuff, but just a different world. ... You ever been somewhere where you felt like you belonged, but you didn't really belong, but you were treated like you belong? It's like that."

Glasgow sees a deep connection between Thailand and his native Louisiana. He calls it his unified theory. There are distinctive regions in Thailand, just like Louisiana. Northern Thailand is just like North Louisiana, he said. It's full of rednecks, which Glasgow identifies as. "They're pork, pork, pork. They fry in lard and eat pork rinds in sauces." The people in Northeastern Thailand are "ethnically Lao, they speak Lao, but live in Thailand. They eat the hottest food. They're the poorest. They eat bugs, snakes, crickets. They have the most fun and are great partiers. They're the Cajuns." Central Thailand, the broad alluvial plain of the Chao Phraya River, where the Siamese Ayutthaya Kingdom was based for thousands of years, produces two rice crops every year. It's Baton Rouge in Glasgow's telling. Bangkok, the country's capital, sits mostly on former swampland. The Chao Phraya River runs through the city before emptying into the Gulf of Thailand. It's, of course, New Orleans. Southern Thailand on the narrow Kra Isthmus is like Grand Isle, La., the narrow barrier island in South Louisiana.

When the Glasgows started thinking about having kids, they picked Little Rock, a place about which they knew little, because it was closer to home, but not too close. They had a daughter, who's now 11. Her nickname is kBird.

After working for a couple of years in private practice, Glasgow spent five years at Dillard's. That company is "as much to thank for the existence of kBird than just about anybody," Glasgow said. After spending that much time in the business world, the idea of kBird was a thumb of the nose toward the corporate and restaurant establishment and conventional notions on how one starts and runs a restaurant: "You've got to have a bunch of money to open a restaurant. You gotta have a wait staff. You need to advertise. Those are all reasonable things, but," Glasgow said, that route "wouldn't have been me."

Instead, if fine dining is arena rock, a genre associated with bands in the '70s, '80s and '90s that brought big stage shows to large arenas, kBird is punk rock, Glasgow said. In his metaphor, with arena rock (fine dining), "you gotta have a big ol' band and have a loud sound, and it's gotta look good from a long way away." That all costs a lot, and means, among other things, expensive rent and a large staff, which translates into higher prices for the concertgoer or diner. "Punk came as a reaction" to that, Glasgow said. D. Boon from the punk band Minutemen said, "Our band could be your life." "They said, 'Start your own band,' " Glasgow said. "That's what I did. It just wasn't a band; it was a restaurant."

Glasgow describes kBird as "egalitarian — everybody gets the same plate of food. It's reasonably priced. It's a lot of food. Ingredients are way better than what you'd expect they are. Some audience participation is required." That means customers order at the counter that divides the dining room from the open kitchen. Though Glasgow and his staff are humping it, sometimes it takes a bit for your order to come up. The hours — 11 a.m. until 2 p.m. on weekdays and 5 p.m. until 8 p.m. Monday through Wednesday — aren't designed for peak dining-out times; they're what Glasgow can do while still spending time with his family and not working himself to the ground. Though he concedes he's "a control freak," the idea of delegating to others to run the restaurant when he's not there doesn't appeal to him. "I didn't quit a pretty well-paying job to start something out of absolute nothing to bring it where it is to not be here."

The other unique thing about kBird is that it closes for about a month from mid-January to mid-February for Glasgow to travel to Thailand. He's been seven times since 2001. He visits the Naan province in Northern Thailand, where he's made a number of friends over the years. His itinerary is to "not walk fast, talk to little old ladies and laugh," he said. He also cooks a lot and watches people cook. Last year, Glasgow got to be one of the first farang (white people) to stay overnight in a remote Northern Thailand village thanks to a Thai friend who works in tourism. Several years back, during one of his trips, Glasgow went to the market one morning to buy supplies for breakfast. He's somewhat conversant in Thai. When he was paying, he said he told a woman selling groceries at a booth, " 'Today, I'm making rice curry.' She said, 'No pay.' It was like, 'You understand this; you can have it.' That's why I'm so excited and excitable [about Thai food and culture], and also why I'm so very worried about not being respectful. I want to do right by these people. It's not a question of my integrity. These people changed my life. I've learned so much about myself and my life in this adventure." If his life were a movie, in a nod to "Dr. Strangelove," Glasgow joked it might be called "How I'm Learning to Stop Worrying and Make Thai Food."

"All of this is an effort to become integrated into Thai culture, so I'll begin to understand their mindset and somehow it will rub off on me."

On his left arm, Glasgow has the phrase "baaw bpen yang" tattooed in Thai letters. It's a country dialect version of a common Thai phrase, mai bpen rai. "In Thailand, it means everything from 'you're welcome' to 'I forgive you for your actions.' It goes all the way across the board. If you're in an embarrassing situation or you've fucked up, more often than not, the Thai person will look at you and say, 'mai bpen rai.' It means it doesn't matter, what are we going to do about it now? A car wreck? Spilling some lady's stuff? Mai bpen rai. It doesn't matter. I grew up in a house where everything mattered. To have a group of people say, don't worry about it — for me, excited and anxious all the time — when another person tells you that, it means a lot." Glasgow says baaw bpen yang identifies him with the country people of Northern Thailand. "It's the 'it's all good, y'all' version."

That's not to say that philosophy has fully taken root. "Fear and anxiety" have always fueled kBird. Though he concedes that, based on the restaurant's growth, "an objective person would say, 'You're probably going to be able to continue to do business,' " he says he's still "scared to say something like that out loud." Every Monday, he remains a nervous wreck, fretting that no one will darken his door that week.

He knows he could do more business being open even for lunch on Saturday, but that would get in the way of one of the highlights of his week: shopping at Sam's Oriental Store every Saturday morning. The venerable Asian grocery on South University Avenue is teeming with essential items for all sorts of far-flung cultures that make the market, especially on Saturdays, when a new shipment of produce arrives from Dallas, as diverse of a gathering place as you'll find in Little Rock. On a Saturday in early June, Glasgow talked to or stood in line with Hmong, Viet, Korean and Filipino people. An African priest had traveled several hours for fufu powder. The owner of La Bodeguita in Hot Springs was there, making his weekly stop to buy mangoes. Jose, a longtime Salvadoran employee, greeted Glasgow: "Hey, Rich-ee."

Glasgow's list was long and different from usual because the second khantoke of the year was happening later that day. Among the items on his list that you're probably not going to find at Kroger: galangal (in the ginger family), banana leaves, Chinese broccoli, Kaffir lime leaves, kombucha squash (aka Japanese pumpkin), water spinach, quail eggs and pig's blood. Amid his shopping, Glasgow stopped to show the owner, Sam Choi, a picture on his phone of a maeng da, a giant water bug that's commonly used as a flavoring agent in nam phrik sauces. It's sold around the world packaged in plastic. Choi was sure he could get them.

The khantoke dinners give Glasgow a chance to cook Northern Thai dishes that otherwise would not appear on the menu, aside from a special here and there. For this dinner, Glasgow and Co. started preparing almost a week earlier, boiling and scraping fat off pig skin and dehydrating it to get it ready to be turned into pork rinds and crackling. Sour pork (naem heung) spent days fermenting in the sun; it's tasty and safe enough to eat that Glasgow and a reporter take bites after it's finished fermenting, but hours before the dinner, it gets steamed in banana leaves on the grill to make doubly sure it's ready. Brown doesn't work on weekends, but the other full-time staff, Chris and Jessica Shippey, come in around midday to help with prep. So does Joe Sithong, a friend with a catering background who volunteers his services. His father was Lao, but he died when Sithong was young. "I have all the cravings, but none of the culture," he said. Cooking and eating Thai food "is almost like church," he said. "It's satisfying and makes you feel better about yourself."

He mashed roasted green chili peppers, shallots and garlic in a mortar and pestle to make nahm phrik noom, a popular Northern Thailand dip that pairs with pork rinds and other meats. Meanwhile, Glasgow chopped up 12 pounds of river catfish Sithong picked up from Love's Fish Market on John Barrow Road. "I grew up trotlining," Glasgow said. "I've been knowing about this a lot longer than I've been knowing about Thai food." The fish goes outside into a giant gas cooker filled with oil — "way more than anyone would ever tell you to put in at one time." There's so much water in the fish that has to evaporate, and the frying takes almost an hour.

Five hours later, the feast is prepared and plated and the lucky dozens start filing in with bottles of wine in tow (it's B.Y.O.B; kBird's zoning prevents it from selling alcohol). Glasgow offers some quick greetings in Thai and explains what all the food is before retreating to the kitchen for beer. He'll need one and a half and prodding from Sithong before he can go mingle and answer questions.

The diners consider the feast with big eyes and big smiles. Glasgow encourages everyone to pull out their phones when the full spread is on the table and then it all gets passed family-style. There's the equivalent of about three meal-sized portions per person on the table: Sticky rice, which is steamed in woven baskets, rather than boiled. A vegetable plate with steamed pumpkin, bok choy and chayote squash and fresh cabbage, Chinese broccoli, chives, long bean, cucumber and water spinach. A meat plate with the steamed and fermented pork, the pork rinds and cracklings, fried chicken wings and muu thaawt makhwaen, fried strips of pork loin seasoned with makhwaen seeds from the prickly ash tree. Two chili dips, the green chili dip Sithong made and nahm phrik ong, a pork, tomato and chili combination that Thai folks often eat with vegetables. Two salads — one a smoky grilled eggplant topped with steamed quail eggs and the other fried catfish topped with fried basil and lime leaves. Then there's a bowl of hanglae pork curry with ginger and peanuts and a pork rib curry made with pork blood and dok ngiew, the dried flower stamens of the red cotton tree. A tower of steamed rice with pork and pork blood tastes a lot like rice with boudin rouge, Glasgow tells the crowd in case anyone knows about the Cajun delicacy. For dessert, there's coconut milk custard cooked in a tiny Asian pumpkin and a sticky rice cake topped with palm sugar caramel.

Glasgow has regulars from Thailand. One invited friends from Northern Thailand who live in the U.S. to fly in for a khantoke. Glasgow overheard someone ask her if the food was like what she got at home. "She said, 'Sort of, but with all this stuff, it's like a double birthday!" He took that as a high compliment.

But he's quick to deflect praise for the food. "I didn't make any of this up. This ain't mine. To the extent I can take what people make in Thailand and make it here, I'm good at that. I'm not a chef." If he has a skill, it's as a "food Xerox," he said. "I have a really good taste memory. I'm able to eat something and fix it in my mind and replicate it."

Going from the corporate world to opening and running kBird has been a journey, he said. Does he feel like he's arrived? "No, but I feel like I'm a lot closer than I was. I'm now in a position to get there. There's a lot of self-doubt that takes years to build up. There's an episode of 'The Simpsons,' where at some point Homer does something really great and nice and makes himself look good. And Bart looks at Lisa and goes, 'I've got this really strange feeling.' And she goes, 'Pride?' I'm still at that point. I don't ever want to be there. I don't think you're ever going to be there. That's a metaphysical question. I don't think you're ever going to be there. That's the answer to the Big Question. But you can set yourself up to make yourself happier."

The magic of curry paste

#The magic of curry paste

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thesinglesjukebox · 7 years ago

Video

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LAUREL HALO - JELLY [5.55] Via Tomás, an experimental pop track and some controversy...

Tomás Gauna: Laurel Halo is known for using vocals in inventive ways that transcend the concepts of "pop music," but her 2013 album Chance of Rain was an interesting yet completely instrumental take on Berlin ambient-techno. So it surprised me when the first single of her following record, Dust, not only had vocals but had them at the forefront of the poppiest song she's done so far. Having said that, the production on "Jelly" remains experimental and unpredictable, befitting the track's title. Klein and Lafawndah harmonize with Halo in odd ways, highlighting the lyrics that describe, in a lighthearted and almost humorous way, a friend's bad attitude. While it is not representative of the rest of the music on Dust, it is still one of its highlights, and an excellent example of how the mix of experimental, electronic and pop music is as exciting as it always was. [10]

Julian de Valliere: I think this gave me motion sickness. [2]

Maxwell Cavaseno: Laurel Halo's Quarantine and her instrumental works are an awkward fit. "Jelly" is drifting and confounding in a way that makes it fun to chase after, but it's hard to sit down and get a proper feeling for unless settled enough to let the record crest alongside you. Any chance of that is a bit hampered by the fidgety leans into dancelike energy and percussion. You never ease into a natural ebb and flow, leaving the listener unable to settle in to try and understand Halo's warped utterances. [4]

Ryo Miyauchi: The message is awfully sincere: "you don't meet my ideal standards of a friend!" Yet "Jelly" seems as though it stumbled upon such honesty by accident, its choppy lyrics presented like auto-complete poetry. Laurel Halo obscures it even further by swishing her synths around like mouthwash and shooting her voice up with helium. It's as though her warning about a thief and drunkard can't be just out there in plain sight. [6]

Katherine St Asaph: Somewhere in here is a futuristic-R&B track, like a probably-better Kelela song after several dozen rounds of the Xerox bug. If nothing else, it'll make very farcical background music for the friend-breakup described. [5]

Nortey Dowuona: Limp, unimposing drums struggle underneath discordant synths, awkward bass, calming synth chords and Halo's metallic, hollowed voice. Then a loop of voices interrupts, then the beginning resumes and the bongos come in, leaving a trail of pebbles through the mess of the song. Suddenly, another whirring synth appears with some more slick chords, and the bongo hops right back out, with piano dropping in the mix while everything drops and the chords remain. Then another discordant voice falls in while Halo's voice drifts around. Then it stops. [8]

Crystal Leww: One of the people in my music people group text chain is in her early 20s and works in dance music. A couple of days ago, we got into a discussion about Spotify's "Women Producers" playlist, and she pointed out that it features much more experimental producers than any other dance music playlist. While I objected for the house and techno stuff, I will say that there is something less than ideal about the fact that a lot of "Women Producers" make weird stuff. I know a lot of people who are genuinely into Laurel Halo and like, bop to this or whatever. However, there is something harrowing about the fact that so many critically hailed women in dance music make the sonic equivalent of throwing bird sounds with a random drum pack into a blender and then hitting the pulse button on random intervals. [4]

Alfred Soto: Arch and amateurish is an unlikely combo. [3]

Rebecca A. Gowns: You know, I'm usually not a fan of dissonance in music. My aversion feels a little childlike, but undeniable, much like my dislike of coffee -- a bitter taste that can be enjoyable for many people in many contexts, but just a hint of it in anything makes me blanch. Laurel Halo's use of dissonance here is multi-layered, and the result is a soundscape that draws you into the dark woods, deeper and deeper, whether you like it or not. Hypnotic in a strange, dissociative way, like finding myself at the bottom of a coffee cup without any recollection of drinking it. [8]

Alex Clifton: This is the aural equivalent to that one Spongebob episode where Squidward ends up in an entirely white room where his words pile up around him and minimize. I guess this is the future, but I'm not sure I'm ready for it. [3]

Joshua Minsoo Kim: While album cut "Moontalk" would have been better-received--it's more accessible and bears a strong resemblance to the '80s Japanese new wave/pop that has become increasingly popular since the turn of the decade--"Jelly" is more emblematic of Laurel Halo's approach to sound design on Dust and the role that her collaborators played. At its core, "Jelly" consists of layered drum patterns that can be appreciated both in isolation and as pieces in a tableau of creeping anxiety and shame. This assemblage of sound is different from the arresting ambient soundscapes that defined Quarantine, but it is similar to her dance-oriented tracks and the controlled cacophony that defines contributor Eli Keszler's works. Klein and Lafawndah provide more depth and range to Halo's own outré vocalizations, and Klein in particular is a perfect fit, considering her Tommy EP featured James Blake-isms stretched to their turbulent extreme. In an interview with Fader, Halo explained that "Jelly" involves "the process of dismantling and defusing negative voices." This is crucial, as it renders Halo's exclamation of "You don't meet my ideal standards for a friend!" as an incessant voice of self-condemnation, confirmed by the line's unsettling vocal processing and the lyrics' recurring references to mirrors. As the song progresses, there's a sense of serenity obtained from the shimmering keys, and it's as if Halo has come to an acceptance of never reaching perfection. She reconciles that these voices of disapproval--from others and herself--are also just that. They don't define who she is, or who she's capable of being. [8]

[Read, comment and vote on The Singles Jukebox ]

#Laurel Halo

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letsmassivebouquetpersonuni-blog · 7 years ago

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At the end of each globe you will certainly face a Supervisor that will definitely strip your goofy skin layer off if you're certainly not cautious. The file located 63 percent from natural World Culture Sites throughout every continent, apart from Europe, saw an enhanced existence from mankind considering that the year 2000. You are going to drift to the top from the log cabin and swiftly locate your own self entraped if the airplane fills up along with water. Again and again, our company learn that when women typically aren't at the dining table or even in the room-- our experts shed. As a matter of fact, in order to do anything along with planet clocks on your Watch, you need to use your apple iphone's Time clock app. Ted Nelson coined the term hypertext" in 1963; our team now describe the document-to-document linkage he envisioned as simple web links" on the world wide web. 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