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Angry Art

Angry Art, Book stuff, Gaming, Life, Sketchup
Cobras, computers, contradictions
10.15.10 | Permalink | 1 Comment

Once again it’s been a while since I’ve updated my blog. This time the main reason is my growing hatred of all things computer, mixed with my recent acquisition of Dead Rising 2 (contradiction?). Since my last post I have been paid in full and this morning I sent off a freshly revised edition of the entire first book (two versions actually – one has photo spreads that will go in the middle, but in an effort to save money in printing costs of student copies for editing the other has no photos). I actually sent a copy off last night, but literally 5 minutes later James called to tell me he found a mistake he missed until now. I told him to disregard the email I had just sent, and that I’d revise and resend it in the morning.

I really hope this is the last time I have to make major changes to any part of that project. I still have to wait on James to sort out the ISBN number (is that like saying ATM machine?) and UPC code (again, redundant??) for the back cover. I did a fake back cover for now. It has a listing of all the books that are intended to be in the “Master’s Guide Collection”, and then I hid this little logo at the bottom.

I should probably register that name. Maybe I’ll end up doing lots of this type of work if I can’t find a job building, and then it will come in handy. I should also just make a website where I can post all my stuff. If someone stumbles upon it and wants to offer me work, then I’m game.

If all goes well with the next two projects, I should be looking for a new job soon. Maybe by this time next year, I’ll be teaching at the ISBA. I still have to finish the lessons I had begun before my whole laptop data dump debacle. There was almost 200 pages of step-by-step images for building a basic post and beam structure within Sketchup. Maybe this weekend I will spend some time writing that stuff since I can do it on the copies Holly printed for me and avoid the computer for a little longer.

I’d like to have the title of instructor, but I also want to make lots of money and build Holly and I a sweet house. Maybe I’d be better off spending my time resume writing. I’m just so bad at it.
Angry Art, Sketchup
J dub Marsh models
10.03.10 | Permalink | 1 Comment

I’m a little behind on the blog these days, so I’ll take advantage of this shitty Sunday morning to catch up.

Last Saturday was Jon’s birthday. He invited us up for a barbecue with some friends, at his and Laura’s house. We had a terrible drive there, hitting every possible construction / collision hiccup we could. Almost four hours after we left the falls, we finally arrived in Toronto. When we arrived there was Jon, Laura, and two of Jon’s friends I had never met before. Then a third friend I’d never met showed up, and a short time later a fourth. Everyone was really nice, and we sat around talking about fun stuff and eating delicious dips that Jon made.

Later in the evening the party got moved indoors as it was getting quite cold on the back patio. We watched Machete and all but one of us enjoyed it. Then Jon and I walked his fourth friend over to the bus stop (I’ll refrain from filling everyone in on just how much I ended up hating this girl by the end of the night, or why… let’s just chock it up to being drunk, but definitely not on boxed wine) partially against her will.

My birthday present was kind of lame (several packs of blunt wraps), and only hours before we left did I realize that Jon has told me in the past how much he likes my robot doodles, so I decided to make a JonWayne-a-chron (get it?). I didn’t have enough time to finish the model before we got there, so I just showed it to him and gave him an I.O.U.

So here’s the grand unveilling of Jon’s birthday present (phase zero) to the world. Hopefully he likes it. It was finished days ago, but I decided to spend a few days rendering some stuff in indigo.

There are more pictures of Jon’s robot here and here
Angry Art, Sketchup
Marvel at my martians you jive muthas
09.13.10 | Permalink | Comment?

I almost forgot that I made this rather large (in file size, not pixels) animated png of my army of tripods. It may not run on your machine, depending on what you’re using and how good your internet connection is, but trust me it’s marvelous. I’m done messing with these guys now. I’m still trying to get a copy of the live War of the Worlds DVD, and after I watch that I’m hoping my WOW obsession subsides so I can go back to enjoying other music and thinking about other monsters (not just tripods with heat rays).
Angry Art, Food, Fuck Microsoft, Gaming, Life, Sketchup
Cobra custom crafts continue!
09.13.10 | Permalink | 1 Comment

Holly and I went to St Catharines on Saturday (turns out she doesn’t hate me) to find some of those diodes Shawn needed to jtag my xbox. Then we went to the market and got some local fruit for us and eccle cakes for my dad. We had to kill some time before we could drop off the diodes to Shawn, so we had lunch at Strega before heading to Welland. We gave Shawn the diodes, then hung out for a bit. We smoked a joint and played with his new dog, until a giant spider caught my attention and we started throwing huge mosquitos at it’s web, watching it race over and wrap them up before they got away. I left my camera in Holly’s purse, which she left in her car, so I didn’t get any photos or video. Shawn’s mom brought her camera out, but I couldn’t get it to focus very well. If he uploads them to youtube I’ll post a link to them. It was pretty neat.

We left Shawn’s and headed over to my parent’s place to drop off the eccles and pick up the saw. I decided to show my dad the renderings I did of the first shelf, and he seemed pretty impressed with both the design and the renderings. I showed him a few other things I’ve posted here, but didn’t show him the blog (he still doesn’t know about this site, or my bad habits and it’s probably better that way). He really liked my little robot I call Goggles, and even asked me to send him links to it so he could show it off to someone else. I’ve decided I should get another domain where I can host a portfolio of all my work.

I also mentioned to my dad the possibility of me designing more furniture similar to these shelves, and compiling my own $5.00 ebook for D.I.Y. crafters to download. I’ve already got two different (although highly similar) shelf designs, complete with dimensioned shop drawings. I can easily think of a few other small projects I could include to make it worth someone paying $5.00 for. Although I’ll be holding off until I prove that this design works by building it for real.

My dad was a bit worried that I had posted the shop drawings online in case someone uses them for free, but I would be flattered if someone thought my design was worth stealing. I also did give the go ahead in a previous post. So I’m going to share this redesigned version too and if someone decides to also make it, I’m fine with that. I just ask that you send photos.

Click on the shop drawing for a bigger version that is easier to read.
Angry Art, Love, Sketchup
Birthday bookshelves now allow for possible picture frames
09.13.10 | Permalink | Comment?

Looks like I spoke too soon on my previous post. After sleeping on it, and a little salesmanship on my behalf, Holly changed her mind on the birthday bookshelf. On Saturday morning I had to model a mock up of what built-in bookshelves would look like so Holly could see the difference.

After agreeing to change the design so it can accommodate a third shelf, and eliminating the 10° slope so the shelves are not limited to books but can also be used to rest picture frames on when needed, she agreed to go with my original design.

I spent a few minutes yesterday afternoon making the changes to the model, and dimensioning some new shop drawings. Overall, the design hasn’t changed that much. It’s now 8″ taller, and there are three sets of plumb/level shelves which are perfect for picture frames, and books. I also decided to make the wedges a little bigger on the vertical supports. The original design had them smaller on one tenon than on the other, but I decided to make life easier by using the same size for all.

I plan to go later today and see what wood I can get that would be suitable for this design. My dad lent me his circular saw, since I have yet to replace the one I left in someone’s car, but I’d rather use a table saw so I’m hoping Holly’s dad will let me use his and possibly his surface planer (if needed). With any luck I will have at least one (hopefully 3) completed before Saturday.

It’s very important we get these vampire novels, and bombshell bio’s off the carpet A.S.A.P.
Angry Art, Sketchup
Man melting Martian models
09.13.10 | Permalink | Comment?

Remember those tripodal martians I modeled last week? here is a rendering I did of a bunch of them zapping nothing with their heat rays. Some of them are broken, lying on their back. Some are still massive, murderous monsters from Mars set on destroying humanity and erasing any trace of our existence.

I only let it render overnight, but I think it looks good enough. I wish I could render at larger sizes, but I’m still only using the trial version of Indigo. I also really want to be able to get models I make printed on a rapid-prototyper. I would love to have any one of the things I’ve made sitting on my desk reminding me of how awesome I am.
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…
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!
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).

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