[–] [S] 2 points 1 month ago

Aha, funny you should mention that. I did an (unfinished) thing way back before this stuff that was basically one big svg which I still have up at amonac. I was going to try return to it by radically changing it into a simplified disco-like game using tiddlywiki (idea germinated from a post I made a while ago (a year ago? that can't be right...). I got a fair bit into setting this up but was getting stuck in the details of making every aspect so inter-connected and over-thought with the idea of navigating a graph (I intend any interactions to be moving from graph to graph and things were meta-fractalling from there) as the prototype main graph would be in the video below:

Maybe if I get the tiddlywiki set-up just right it would be ripe for collaboratively building up with others and it would be very git-able. I have a fair few svgs I've been delicately preparing for css animatable things which I could probably chuck in a repo and share here too. I was also getting into svg animations (another source of frustration though)

Anyway the css/tiddlywiki stuff got me angry, so I am temporarily retreating back to fixing up these little creature drawings! Maybe somehow getting some collaborators on the svg stuff is what I need to get over the frustration.

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  • [–] [S] 2 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    I'm finding the style I use makes a big difference. The more refined I want it to look the more it is image first, story/words later.

    For the simplistic method I was always more focused on the idea of a fun little character first and imagining its relation to other things and events in the world, then I do a drawing then I finalize the words.

    When I did abosa I was always finishing several drawings ahead of writing words.

    Fun fact, I version controlled my writing of these so you could check the commit history to see more precisely how they developed. Diad repo, abosa repo Could even file an issue or pull request, if one wanted.

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    I keep thinking about the my aye-dunno world/story and so am starting a second part to add on to it, but also want to go back and redo all the pictures to a new style - maybe this one. I did the first part when trying out digital stuff and just wanted something quick to draw. This style I find more pleasant but I fumble on clarity of composition when I try to do it as fast as I did the more simplistic thing as below.

    If unclear the main image is a christmas beetle using a ghostgum club to attempt to clobber an octopus hiding in the eucalyptus flowers. not sure how easily it reads as that, I could probably have posed the beetle better (still trying to not sacrifice too much time)

    a christmas beetle using a ghostgum club to attempt to clobber an octopus hiding in the eucalyptus flowers
    [–] 2 points 8 months ago

    Always cool to see you manage the limited colour range of markers.

    This one has me think that either a spaceship, camouflaged as a tree, crash into the ground or someone built a massive data centre into a tree trunk.

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  • [–] [S] 2 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

    I like to call them gegeckers but i also feel i should give them a proper latin scientific name i haven't figured out yet. I made another post with them in this community earlier here and hoping to post a little animation of one soon!

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  • [–] [S] 2 points 10 months ago (2 children)

    Yes, in an effort to make them more real, my next project idea is stuck between trying to make a dog-sized paper mache of one or making them into a virtual desktop pet of some sort.

    I'm not sure whether sculpting or animating will be more challenging for me, i don't really do either.

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    The thing is here: Dialogues in Aye-Dunno

    It is about an octopus and a dragonfly taking a pleasant walk together, any creeping dread or sense of hidden secrets as you read is totally in your imagination.

    Should take less than an hour to read. You can also just skim the pics if you like.

    This was an exercise in learning some digital drawing basics so the illustrations are a bit amateurish. Also experimentally copying some writing styles of authors I like, hopefully it lands right.

    Though I did became a bit smitten with the underlying physics and history of the world in the story. I'd like to make something proper of it in the future.

     

    I don't do much creature design. Still trying to iron out various tweaks in their design that I keep changing. Are you immediately wanting to pet any, or what would need to change for that to happen? My main goal is mushroom-cuttlefish vibes in a friendshape.

    I also want to define their biology a bit more, but I don't have much technical knowledge about that stuff. Generally, I imagine their heads are mostly lungs and they tweet like a bird and parrot some sounds. They can hold a note for a painfully long time. They can fit their head and arms into really small spaces as there is little bone in there. And they can temporarily make their heads textured/coloured to look like other things to a degree. They have 5 face tendrils, the centre is the strongest for grappling/holding, the off-centre two are a bit weaker and thinner, used for manipulating, and there are two sensitive ones almost always tucked back and away, used for feeling/sensing details of things they pick up. They often sit/stand on their hind legs like meerkats and prairie dogs because their arms are super weak and their centre of mass is weirdly distributed.

    [–] [S] 2 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Nail clippers is a good one! And I often say the thought of sorting socks instantly puts me in a state of dread, whenever people comment on my wearing odd ones.

    Explaining my stuff is probably less interesting than finding out what has you interested in the batteries, what's going on there?

    If you'd settle for some rando thoughts instead of explanation: My parents had a junk drawer for all the dead ones. I'm not so careful, mine are strewn about bags and drawers. I like to have distance between them, not sure why, I doubt it makes it less likely for accidental mishaps. I keep thinking I should take them for recycling when I see one, but then I should find all the others too, but I don't keep track of what is where. I work in electronics and embedded systems, batteries can make my job harder, I avoid using them when I can. But I also did a unit on battery management systems and cell design in university, pretty cool things. I remember opening up some childhood devices, with those old alkalines that weren't designed well for undervoltage conditions maybe, or perhaps the battery cells themselves weren't insulated well enough? The casing was eventually partially eaten by the internal reaction that is always going on in there. The leak was kind of unnerving, it looked like a lichen but for some metal contraption. Parasitic things that grow off other things freak me out in biology, this reaction was pretty simple chemistry in comparison to the horrors of biological things, why is my stupid primate brain unnerved by it?

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    The full thing is here: https://inivekin.github.io/abosa/

    About 1.5-2 hours of reading if you like that kind of thing - or just skim the pics if you like.

    I read Beowulf and thought I could do better. I guess I probably didn't but I gave it a shot and I'm pretty proud of a few things in there. I'd like to record it in a sing-songy way someday...

    a futuristic astronaut laying on the rocks in front of distant mountains with a parachute attached to him.
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