The Archives

Angry Art, Sketchup
Holly’s house
09.13.10 | Permalink | Comment?

Another thing I made and forgot to post was this. It’s my 5 minute attempt at modeling Holly’s house (currently the Cobra command center). It’s not accurate at all (her living room window is not nearly so big, and there is always at least one cat in it) but if you’ve ever seen her house, I’m sure you’ll recognize it.

One thing I need to figure out with Indigo, is how to render out a house with clear windows. So far I haven’t been able to make it work. Everything you build in Sketchup has a front and a back face. Indigo won’t render any back faces, instead they just turn black. It seems no matter what I do to ensure that all the visible faces are fronts, I still get black either in the windows, or reflected in the windows. It’s not a big issue, but I’d like to do some renderings of the project buildings in the book, and I’d like them to look realistic.
Angry Art, Sketchup
Disremembered dismembered undead doodles
09.13.10 | Permalink | Comment?

I was transferring some images off my desktop last night, when I realized I had a bunch of images which I meant to post here, but never got around to. These are some robot zombies I modeled a month or two ago in my spare time. The models look cool, but the light emitting materials made the renderings sort of fuzzy. It might have gotten better if I’d been able to render them until completion, but who knows how many hours days that would have taken.

My plan was to make about 4 or 5 different models which I could then use to make a large horde of brain-eating-bots, then render them out as a sweet new desktop image. Unfortunately I couldn’t figure out how to get the light emitters working right, and then James piled a bunch of work on me, so I had to put it on hold. Then I just completely forgot about them until last night.

If you’re wondering why robots would eat brains or how they digest them, you’re no fun. Just remember, like all zombies, you have to remove the head.

And never forget to save one bullet…
Fuck Microsoft, Gaming, Video
Cobra consoles come back with a vengeance
09.10.10 | Permalink | 1 Comment

That video right there, that’s my original 360 – the one that was given to me personally by Silicon Knights for being the best gamer in all of St Catharines (and for being one of the 4 actual fans of Too Human) which I then had modded by The Shawnz only to have it RROD a short time later and subsequently suffer a failed flash resulting in a bricked disc drive. After sitting on a shelf for nearly five years (wow, seems like it hasn’t been out nearly that long) it has been successfully repaired (minus the disc drive) and with any luck, it will have a Jtag installed before the weekend is over.

Shawn was recently motivated to get his 360 back up and running due to the upcoming release of Dead Rising 2, and he decided while he was in there fiddling he might as well look into installing a Jtag. Luckily for me, he’s super handy and always willing to share his skills with me. He called and asked if I still had my box (which I recently almost tossed – thank god I didn’t) and said he wanted to try fixing it. If it works, the boys will be stoked. They’re constantly going nuts when they get into a hacked game. I’m confident Shawn can get it working (as is he) but that doesn’t mean we’ll be able to modify games. It will mean we can do some other fun things though, and we’ll have a second working xbox.

Tomorrow morning I want to go look for the 2 diodes Shawn needs to finish the install, then I’m off to look at MDF at the Home Depot because someone hates me.
Angry Art, Random, Sketchup
Cobra custom crafts cease completely
09.10.10 | Permalink | 3 Comments

For the last few weeks I’ve been trying to figure out what to do for Holly that would be a great birthday gift. I had a couple ideas already, but they were terrible. I decided to cop out and do something she’s always asking me to, but have never gotten around to – building book shelves for her 177 135 Stephen King novels. I took a break from work this morning and designed something I could easily construct with my lack of money and tools. I’m pretty proud of it. It should, in theory, work perfectly for holding both large and small books (with or without pictures), as long as all the joinery is tight.

I won’t be the one to find out if it works however, as yet another Cobra conceived craft has been kiboshed before construction. Holly doesn’t want this, so instead I’ll make something out of MDF and slap a piece of moulding on it. If YOU would like to find out if it works and is awesome, follow the drawing above. It’s got all the dimensions you need (except the pegs, and tenon offsets) and if you have any questions you can send them to cobrachronic@gmail.com.

Here’s a rendering of what the finished product should look like (depending on what type of wood/finish you choose to use). Although it was designed for Stephen King novels and the Twilight series, I am relatively certain the design is compatible with most other books, but cannot be held responsible if it causes the formation of a gravitational singularity that sucks up your entire house the minute you set The Giving Tree on it.

If you (whoever you are) decide to construct this finely designed Cobra bookcase, please contact me at the email address above and provide photos of your finished product, maybe some of your progress, and definitely any of your house getting swallowed up by a singularity (if that’s even possible to photograph??). I will be sure to post about it here, and you’ll then be famous and get more chicks.

Good luck Cobra carpernters. Remember: Mercy is for the weak!
Photos, Random
Breeze beats ‘brella
09.07.10 | Permalink | Comment?

Holly and I went out this afternoon to do a few errands and get some groceries. When we got back Holly noticed the umbrella that sits in the patio table was in the middle of the backyard. Two seconds later I noticed that the entire table top was shattered and lying in pieces all over the back patio. Luckilly Holly has a spare tabletop in the shed, but now we have to find a place to dispose of fifty pounds of broken glass.
Angry Art, Book stuff, Fuck Microsoft, Life, Music, Sketchup
The chances of anything coming from Mars…
09.07.10 | Permalink | 1 Comment

…Are about as good as the chances of one of my peripherals lasting more than six months. My previously unexplained remedy to an unknown problem decided to completely fail on Sunday morning, leaving me with no choice but to make a trip to Future Shop and buy another new mouse. I picked up a Logitech LX8 which fires red lasers with deadly accuracy. It, mixed with the fact that I’ve been repeatedly listening to The War of the Worlds on my mp3 player (it would appear that I have yet to mention how much I love this album on here… weird, it’s one of my all time favourites) while working on the book, lead to me needing to model some tripodal Martians with deadly heat rays. I also needed a new desktop background since mine got deleted recently.

I also decided to mess with some animation things, and see if I could create one where the lasers appeared to be firing. I only spent a few minutes, but I have figured out how I could make some cool animations fairly easy. Currently I’m rendering a version of the above image in Indigo, but it probably won’t be ready until tomorrow.

I have finished rebuilding all the tools I lost last week, and now I just have to redo all the structural engineering crap for the last part of the appendix. James has started sending me photos he wants to appear in a spread somewhere in the middle of the text, but so far none of them seem appropriate. I’m going to get Naomi to send me all his photos, then I’ll have to go through them all and find some that will work. I may even just end up using my own photos from when I took P&B at the ISBA. I wonder if I do, if I get credited as photographer as well?

I also sent James an email yesterday with links to sites where he can secure an ISBN number (or series of numbers since we’re creating multiple volumes now) and UPC codes. Hopefully he gets that sorted out soon, because once the appendix layout is complete it’s just a matter of correcting some text and redoing the Table of Contents (booooo!).

*click either image for a larger/cooler version, unless the small ones already have you crapping your pants (in which case, you better go change your pants).
Photos, Random
Sure, you can kidnap and rape her, just have her back in time to make dinner
09.04.10 | Permalink | Comment?

A while back Holly did some modeling for her brother and his wife, who are developing their own photography business. They specialize horror, and in my opinion they do a great job. I think the reason I like their stuff so much, is that they give you a minimal amount of visuals, but what they show you is highly effective in getting the message across and evoking that feeling of terror.

The above photo is featured in their first calendar, along with some others Holly appears in (or at least parts of her!). If you’re interested in seeing more, head over to their site and their Facebook page. Everything they have posted looks amazing.
Book stuff, Life, Sketchup, Timber framing
Cobra appendix take two (get it?)
09.04.10 | Permalink | Comment?

Today I finished correcting all the text in the Post and Beam book (remember, we’re back to 3) and making it all uniform size. I finished two full days ahead of schedule, which might be the first time I’ve ever been in that position on this project. I sent James a draft to look over this afternoon, and checked to see how he was coming along with the edits to the manuscript. Since flip-flopping back to the original 3 book idea, the main thing that needs to be changed is the introduction. Other than that, the text stays fairly close to the same (or at least that’s what I’ve been told…).

I then moved on to laying out the first part of the appendix. I spent most of the evening fixing models of tools and remaking a calculator that got eaten by cyberspace singularities last week. I was going to stop there, but I kept going until I had the first page of the appendix roughed out (above). Then I emailed it to James and called him to get his opinion on the layout.

He had a brief moment of terror when he turned his computer on and saw that his email inbox had 4o11 new messages from someone named Facebook. A minute or two, and a bunch of confusion later he figured out he was signed into his teenage son’s account and he managed to calm down a bit. A minute or two after that he figured out how to sign in, and we were in business. He said the layout looked great, and to carry on with what I was doing. I told him I was packing it in for the night, but that I would be back at it first thing tomorrow.

An hour after that I finally walked away from the computer (no, not this one) having completed the rest of the text layout for the entire first section of the appendix. Tomorrow I have to model a new electric hoist, and block and tackle (fuck you cyberspace!) before I can finish the next part of the appendix. Hopefully they are both easier the second time, because I just realized I also have to redo these. Fuck.
Photos, Random, Sketchup
Coincedence or Cobra clairvoyance?
09.01.10 | Permalink | Comment?

A little over a year ago, I made a card for the man above and his bride to be (now wife) for their wedding. I had modeled some items that were within my capabilities, which I felt somewhat represented the things they are passionate about. Ryan loves cycling, but I couldn’t at that time wrap my head around making something as complex as his super expensive bikes (too many round/cylindrical parts for my skills at that time). I chose to instead model a penny-farthing. Just a week or so back, Ryan’s wife Amber, posted a few images of Ryan rolling around their ‘hood on a real boneshaker!
Animals, Food, Photos
Cobra cats cause cobra confusion
09.01.10 | Permalink | Comment?

The other morning I woke up and found the cats had opened the cupboard and dragged their bag of food out. This has happened a couple times before, but this time I was amazed. They literally got the bag out and dragged it at least six feet away, then chewed a hole big enough to fit their heads through, all without tipping it over. The other thing I couldn’t understand was why they didn’t eat the kibbles that spilled out during the dragging process. There was a sparse trail showing the path they took, but none of them touched any of those.

I’m thinking Tabbouleh was the mastermind. Although we all know Kanika is the queen of cupboard cat burgling.