Mostly back? · 5:00am Jun 23rd, 2018
I said Saturday morning? Well, how about Friday night?
My week off fimfiction started off great, and it felt like I had a lot of free time even with work and I was able to get stuff done.
Then Wednesday, I started binging through a web comics archives, Thursday, I watched a bunch of youtube, and Friday I just went ahead and logged into everything early.
Part of the trouble was I was kinda putting pressure on myself to do stuff every day, and my normal procrastination and laziness started kicking in. It was a good idea, though, and I might try to just have one day a week or so off fimfiction, youtube, and social media, and maybe try to just spend less time on all the stuff I was avoiding. I'll probably try and spend a little more time away from things this weekend, too, though not totally off fimfiction.
One of the things I did want to do was get some practice with Affinity Designer. It's kinda like Adobe Illustrator, only cheaper. I'd started to try to vector a Scootaloo picture a few weeks ago, then realised part of the way through I'd messed up some stuff due to not knowing what I was doing.
So I pulled out a screenshot of Spike Monday and started vectoring that. I'm not sure I'm totally happy how all of it turned out, but this is what I ended up with:
That was Monday. Tuesday, I decided to try and vector my avatar. I like how that came out. The svg doesn't look as good as the png, becuase the bottom left continues past where it cuts off, but I like this overall.
I didn't include more of a background because my normal background is very unvectored, and I could easily copy and paste it behind this, anyways.
I added another curl for fun, my mane’s altered a bit, and stuffs tweaked from the original. Fuzz was just redrawn from scratch with a vector pencil without even looking much at the original. I didn’t go and add shading this time, but it doesn’t really need it.
It came out better than Spike, I think, because I had a lot better idea of what I’m doing. I like Affinity Designer, I think, though there are quirks that are irritating, like I don’t have as much control over line width as I’d like, though I played some tricks with it anyways. I did deliberately vary it.
I drew for a few minutes today, too, but it looked horrible, so forget that...
On Monday, I also pulled out a really battered, worn copy of Gordon Dickson's "The Dragon and the George", and read, or reread, anyways, it cover to cover. If it had covers, that is. It's seen better days.
It was worth the reread. Taking a character from a mundane life in the world you know to a world of fantasy always has an appeal. Going from college and broken down trailer homes to a world with dragons and knights and magic is great, and it has interesting characters and is witty and a lot of fun.
Very interesting worldbuilding, too, and the transition to waking up in the body of a dragon was done really well! There was a bit at the end that made me want to go back and relook at some earlier scenes, too.
I've found myself wanting to reread the sequel, "The Dragon Knight", now, which I also have. I've gotten a few chapters into that at this point.
I also listened to music a bunch. Let's see:
Monday:
The Supertramp album "Supertramp", which isn't that well known
Alan Parsons Project's "Tales of Mystery and Imagination - Edgar Allan Poe"
Stevie Wonder's "Talking Book"
Talking Heads “Talking Heads 77”
Tuesday:
“Teaser and the Firecat”, by Cat Stevens
“Tig”, by Serious Kitchen
Heather Dale’s "The Trial of Lancelot"
Fleetwood Mac’s “Tusk”.
Wednesday:
Wicked Soundtrack
The Wiz Soundtrack
Wizard of Oz Soundtrack
Moonflower - Moonflower (First song is called “I am the Oz”, if you were wondering. I forgot how much fun this album was. They even covered Mahna Mahna!)
Thursday:
Into the Woods Soundtrack - Broadway, not the movie.
Live Wizardry: The Best of Silly Wizard In Concert
Friday:
Sirius, by Clannad
"Sister Rosetta Tharpe and the Spirit of Gospel" - Sister Rosetta Tharpe (You know Elvis, Chuck Berry and such? This is where they got their inspiration...)
[Edit: "Gaudi" - Alan Parsons Project
"Reconstruction of the Fables" - REM]
It's still Friday!
Anyways, that's me. I feel good about how the vectoring went, anyways. I like Affinity Designer, and I think I'll get some use out of it...
--Sweetie Belle
You have great music taste!
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Thanks!
Not sure why I started writing down what I was listening to each day, but it was fun. You can probably tell that I kinda meander all over the place between genres and listen to whatever I feel like, even if it's totally the opposite of what I was listening to five minutes ago. Sometimes I ends up with themes, though, like Weds....
--Sweetie Belle
4887856
Its nice to see another person that likes the Alan Parsons Project. I love them!!!
You know that Alan Parsons himself helped out with the Dark Side Of The Moon album? I think he also contributed with the Beatles' Abbey Road album and Ambrosia's debut album. Talented guy!
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Didn't know that, but it's not surprising, since most of their albums I've heard are great. (I liked Ammonia Avenue, Eye In the Sky, I Robot, Pyramid, Turn of a Friendly Card, and Tales of Mystery and Imagination. I've heard the others, but tend to totally forget about them...)
Some musicians are like that, too. I mean, Jeff Lynne gets very little name recognition, but he was the heart of Electric Light Orchestra, was in the Travelling Wilburys (which were pretty amazing. George Harrison, Tom Petty, Roy Orbison, Boy Dylan, and Jeff Lynne, all in a band together?), acted as producer for what was left of the Beatles to do "Free As A Bird" and "Real Love", and Tom Petty was actually with Jeff Lynne when he wrote "Free Fallin'", and Jeff was pretty much responsible for the chorus...
--Sweetie Belle
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And I didn't know that! Damn, Jeff Lynne sure gets around.
4887883
Yep!
I know a bunch of that 'cause I once listened to a radio special about him that was playing songs he was involved in and talking about him, but I also like ELO and the Travelling Wilburys.
The way the Travelling Wilburys happened was that George had two of 'em over to help him out on a song for Cloud 9, and I think one of the others had forgotten a guitar there or something, and they all decided it'd be fun to do a session together.
They did have a song come out of it, but it was too good for Cloud 9. So they did a whole album together the same way, named themselves the Travelling Wilburys, and put totally fake names on it, to see how it would do without their names on it. Word got out anyways eventually, of course, and they did only end up with two albums. (Because of Roy Orbison's death, I believe.)
They did some silly things in that band, too. In the song "Tweeter and the Monkeyman", they were kinda throwing in as many Bruce Springsteen references as they could, for some reason. (I read a bunch about the Travelling Wilbury's at one point, out of curiosity. It's fun knowing these things!)
--Sweetie Belle
4887900
I never really gave a listen to the Traveling Wilibury's, I will give them a listen at some point. Also I see you like Talking Heads, my friend loves that album, specifically the Remain in Light album from them. He tells me its one of the best albums to mix different genres of music.
4887910
Yep! The Talking Heads are fun! I've heard "Remain in Light". That had "Once In a Lifetime" and "Crosseyed and Painless" on it, and other songs I'd probably recognise if I was listening to them. They are one of these bands that I got into by repeatedly listening to the two disc collection "Sand In the Vaseline", which has more than 30 Talking Heads songs between discs, and also watching "Stop Making Sense".
"Stop Making Sense" was a concert video combining footage they filmed of several concerts together seamlessly. It was pretty neat. It starts out with David Byrne just walking out and saying he has a song to play for you. He dropped a tape player down, and it started playing a background beat, and he started singing "Psycho Killer" to it.
And as he's playing, musical instruments are being brought in behind him, people are coming in, and over the first couple songs, it goes from this bare stage to lots and lots of instruments and musicians and a crowded stage. It was a great performance.
The rest of the band was apparently irritated he included the interlude in the video, though, where David Byrne went backstage, and they turned into the band "The Tom Tom Club" and played "Genius of Love". Which is a shame, because that was a great song and performance of it...
I actually just listened to Alan Parsons Project's "Gaudi", and I can see why I don't remember it. I still don't remember any of the songs, and I just heard them! It's not bad, but a lot of Alan Parson Project's music has these very memorable songs, with bits that you just have to stop what you are doing. Even their instrumentals, like "In the Lap of the Gods", are likely to get your full attention a lot of the time...
--Sweetie Belle
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That sounds so epic!!! My friend would love that. He's into lots of older music and has collections of Vinyl Records, Cassette Tapes, of many different artists. He is a classic hipster!
He specifically seems to love electronic and new wave groups like The Cure, Depeche Mode, Nine Inch Nails, Ministry, and all that jazz. Then again he will listen to anything that sounds good(which is anything that isn't mainstream).
4887948
It was! I remember Paul Simon's Graceland concert video was pretty memorable too, of course.
I used to have records. I got rid of 'em years ago when I moved. I still have some cassette tapes, tho'. In fact, I originally heard Supertramp's "Supertramp" album on one of those tapes, and eventually managed to track down an electronic copy. It's an odd album in that it only has two musicians in common with their classic lineup, though it was the big two. I like their big albums, but I always really liked that one, too for some reason.
The most non-mainstream thing I played this week was that "Moonflower" album, though. I got it off of cdbaby's web site quite a while back and it isn't there any more. I'm assuming it's some indie group that just never made it anywhere. I enjoy the whole album, though! Let's see, songs on it are:
"I am the Oz", "Space Babe", "Wander Through Me", "Galactic Java Girl", "Mahna Mahna", "The Pelican 'n' Cap'n Bill", "Whatever She Says", "Groove Shoes", "Angel Eyes", "Soul Patch Boom Boom", "Orbiting Annabelle", and "Groove the Kink".
The Pelican 'n' Captain Bill is a bit of a favorite, and Groove Shoes is very silly, as is Soul Patch Boom Boom. And, of course, the cover of "Mahna Mahna" is great. The original song they are covering is this one, of course.
I listen to any genre, though. I'm not very fond of rap, and I'm more likely to go with folk music then country, but generally speaking, if it's good, I'll listen to it. And I do like, for example, John Denver's Country Roads. though if you want to hear my favorite version of it, watch the anime "Whisper of the Heart" in Japanese, and it's the version in the movie, not the end credits version. Every time that clip turns up on youtube, it gets deleted.
--Sweetie Belle
Spike is cute! I should learn to vector one of these days. I've tried before but I just don't seem to have any instinct for beziers.
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Thanks! I picked the screenshot I did because I thought it was cute.
I'm not that great with beziers myself. I had to go back and clean up the curves on the Spike picture a fair amount, because I'd done way too many anchor points. They seem a bit easier with Affinity Designer, at least. I drag the curve where I want it to be, then fiddle with the handles if I need to.
It also has nice things like a bunch of regular shapes and the ability to add two shapes together, subtract them, etc. So I can put down an oval and then draw ears on the side with curves, and tell it to add the ears to the oval and make it all curves, that sort of thing...
I tried Inkscape first, which is free, but I was having trouble getting the hang of it. Affinity Designer is $50, but I think I like it.
--Sweetie Belle