Art Reference Storage

And after getting over my initial (rather emotional) response, I wanted to reply properly, and explain just why that hit me so hard.

So back around twenty years ago, the internet cosplay and costuming scene was very different from today. The older generation of sci-fi convention costumers was made up of experienced, dedicated individuals who had been honing their craft for years.  These were people who took masquerade competitions seriously, and earning your journeyman or master costuming badge was an important thing.  They had a lot of knowledge, but – here’s the important bit – a lot of them didn’t share it.  It’s not just that they weren’t internet-savvy enough to share it, or didn’t have the time to write up tutorials – no, literally if you asked how they did something or what material they used, they would refuse to tell you. Some of them came from professional backgrounds where this knowledge literally was a trade secret, others just wanted to decrease the chances of their rivals in competitions, but for whatever reason it was like getting a door slammed in your face.  Now, that’s a generalization – there were definitely some lovely and kind and helpful old-school costumers – but they tended to advise more one-on-one, and the idea of just putting detailed knowledge out there for random strangers to use wasn’t much of a thing.  And then what information did get out there was coming from people with the freedom and budget to do things like invest in all the tools and materials to create authentic leather hauberks, or build a vac-form setup to make stormtrooper armor, etc.  NOT beginner friendly, is what I’m saying.

Then, around 2000 or so, two particular things happened: anime and manga began to be widely accessible in resulting in a boom in anime conventions and cosplay culture, and a new wave of costume-filled franchises (notably the Star Wars prequels and the Lord of the Rings movies) hit the theatres.  What those brought into the convention and costuming arena was a new wave of enthusiastic fans who wanted to make costumes, and though a lot of the anime fans were much younger, some of them, and a lot of the movie franchise fans, were in their 20s and 30s, young enough to use the internet to its (then) full potential, old enough to have autonomy and a little money, and above all, overwhelmingly female.  I think that latter is particularly important because that meant they had a lifetime of dealing with gatekeepers under our belts, and we weren’t inclined to deal with yet another one.  They looked at the old dragons carefully hoarding their knowledge, keeping out anyone who might be unworthy, or (even worse) competition, and they said NO.  If secrets were going to be kept, they were going to figure things out for ourselves, and then they were going to share it with everyone.  Those old-school costumers may have done us a favor in the long run, because not knowing those old secrets meant that we had to find new methods, and we were trying – and succeeding with – materials that “serious” costumers would never have considered.   I was one of those costumers, but there were many more – I was more on the movie side of things, so JediElfQueen and PadawansGuide immediately spring to mind, but there were so many others, on YahooGroups and Livejournal and our own hand-coded webpages, analyzing and testing and experimenting and swapping ideas and sharing, sharing, sharing.  

I’m not saying that to make it sound like we were the noble knights of cosplay, riding in heroically with tutorials for all.  I’m saying that a group of people, individually and as a collective, made the conscious decision that sharing was a Good Things that would improve the community as a whole.  That wasn’t necessarily an easy decision to make, either. I know I thought long and hard before I posted that tutorial; the reaction I had gotten when I wore that armor to a con told me that I had hit on something new, something that gave me an edge, and if I didn’t share that info I could probably hang on to that edge for a year, or two, or three.  And I thought about it, and I was briefly tempted, but again, there were all of these others around me sharing what they knew, and I had seen for myself what I could do when I borrowed and adapted some of their ideas, and I felt the power of what could happen when a group of people came together and gave their creativity to the world.

And it changed the face of costuming.  People who had been intimidated by the sci-fi competition circuit suddenly found the confidence to try it themselves, and brought in their own ideas and discoveries.  And then the next wave of younger costumers took those ideas and ran, and built on them, and branched out off of them, and the wave after that had their own innovations, and suddenly here we are, with Youtube videos and Tumblr tutorials and Etsy patterns and step-by-step how-to books, and I am just so, so proud.  

So yeah, seeing appreciation for a 17-year-old technique I figured out on my dining-room table (and bless it, doesn’t that page just scream “I learned how to code on Geocities!”), and having it embraced as a springboard for newer and better things warms this fandom-old’s heart.  This is our legacy, and a legacy the current group of cosplayers is still creating, and it’s a good one.  

OP also invented armsocks.

Just made a little arm bone reference for myself and then thought why not share it with ya fellas! I actually first didn’t know how arm bones worked and it was difficult to imagine it too but when noticing that bone which moves top of other one is always on same side as thumbs it became rather simple. 

a. She’s 5′ 11″ and can never find pants long enough for her legs or shirts long enough for her arms.

b. She hates synthetic fibers as much as I do and it’s difficult to find natural fiber clothes that aren’t made of cotton

c. She’s a biologist and would physically fistfight microplastics if given half a chance

So her gift from mom and dad for her birthday was a sewing machine. Not a super expensive one but a good solid serviceable one.

And recently she asked “So where do I GET wool or linen and thread that isn’t polyester” and mom was like ‘go ask your sister’

“Bets, u know I’m a 15th degree blackbelt of buying shit on the internet”

cotton and Silk thread; https://redrockthreads.com/

Linen thread and wool fabric; https://burnleyandtrowbridge.com/ (they’ve got wool stuffs and worsted wool fabric for $15 a yard! I just got three yards of navy worsted wool I’m making a constellation winter skirt from)

More linen thread and wool; https://wmboothdraper.com/ (just ordered wool broadcloth to make a coat)

Silk fabric (THE best place to get silk lining fabrics and raw silk fabric):https://www.dharmatrading.com/

A varying assortment of wool and silk and cotton and even some leather, use coupon code  spring2020 for 50% off your full order, worked yesterday when I bought some stuff there; https://metrotextilesnyc.com/

The Linen Lab has a variety of weaves, weights, and colors available

back then i made a bunch of these but by now i lost the pic and dont know how to find the original post anymore

so anyway here is the diagram for anyone else who is interested!!

this requires pretty big carboard pieces, if you have a really big box or something you can make it from one piece, but if you don't, you can also just make each of the pieces individually and then tape them together

and then in the end you put it together like this!!

and then when you make a bunch you can put them all next to each other and stack your books like crazy

so i wanted to throw in some suggestions that, whenever I’m trying to find a character reference or otherwise draw very interesting-looking yet regular-looking people, which i usually have to do for bit characters in @ikroah​ or something, I tend to look for references in the following places. these are far from the only reliable way to get inspiration, this is just a non-exhaustive list of places i’ve looked before for visual inspiration when needing to create a character, whether starring characters or background ones:

pre-2000s television (The Sopranos and Twin Peaks especially having incredible character design)

extras in comedy sketch shows

esports players

real photos (not staged stock photos) of line cooks

70s baseball players

athletes from more obscure olympic sports like the javelin toss or greco-roman wrestling, especially if you’re looking for a specific body type

ska, jazz, and blues musicians

firefighters

improv troupes

for teenagers, searching “high school english class project” on youtube and sorting by Upload Date

state senators, small-town mayors, and generally obscure local government positions like comptroller or treasurer (yes i know politicians can be bad sometimes but smaller elections especially don’t really depend on looks)

people who walk by your window (if you live in a city like I do)

It's sooo good

this website is seriously fucking awesome it's got a shit ton of aggregated transfem endocrinology information

it's got comparable doses for different ROAs

an injectable estradiol simulator/steady state finder (sadly missing the functionality of a loading dose option but that's fine)

and scientific articles about various different minutiae of hrt

“I have often said that I wish there was a more solid body of Black trans-feminism. There is some — Marquis Bey's eponymous book,[viii] Janet Mock's memoirs,[ix] C Riley's Snorton's Black on Both Sides,[x] Jules Gill-Peterson's analysis of the racialization of trans identity and trans misogyny,[xi] essays by Farah Thompson,[xii] Elías Consenza Krell[xiii] and Cameron Awkward-Rich.[xiv] And yet, there has not been a Black trans woman writer who, with the clarity of Serano or Namaste or Stryker or Bhatt, has produced definitive theoretical work on Black trans women's experiences.“

“This absence is the fault of transmisogynoir (i.e., the triple intersection of transphobia, misogyny, and anti-Black racism). Black trans women — institutionally disempowered, economically exploited, and at high risk of violence — have been barred from access to professional writing. As a writer who is passionate about trans women's liberation and Black liberation, I hope to see this change. In my own work — particularly, my upcoming book Trans/Women — I have done my best to wed Black feminism, trans-feminism, and interviews with individual Black trans people (women and otherwise) to create work that, I hope, speaks on some level to the experiences of Black trans people. However, I still eagerly await the rise of a Black trans woman who can produce this theoretical body of work.”

First off, we be out here. It ain’t our fault you too busy being a white rapper and planning to appropriate the stories of Black transfemmes for your own benefit to put time and effort into finding the Black dolls already writing on Transfeminist Womanism/Black Transfeminism.

Second off, the shit you said in this article boils down to “none of the Black transfemmes I’ve read speak whitely eloquently enough for me to respect them.” How much of this boils down to your own racism and Transmisogynoir, their use of AAVE, and their own conscious decisions to write outside of white academia? How much of it is them speaking to an audience that does not include you?

Third off, we been doing the work whether you’ve seen it or not, miss whipping cracker. We do the work and tell our stories even while “institutionally disempowered, economically exploited, and at high risk of violence” because we don’t have a fucking choice because Yakubian devils like you choose over and over again to harm us, make us suffer, and exploit us any way you can benefit from, or even just for fun.

Fourth off, you naming a known antiblack author like Bhatt as an example of “why can’t The Blacks be good like her” is absolutely laughable, especially when she has a history of betraying her own transfeminist ideologies and both lying and misrepresenting things for her own benefit, including helping proliferate Hot Allostatic Load against other transfemmes.

If you want to read more works that, when compiled contribute to a comprehensive foundation for Transfeminist Womanism, I have a whole fucking archive right here for you with a wide variety of authors, including Black transfemme authors. If you want to stay on your honky shit and shame the Black trans women you apparently interviewed by association with your racist ass, I suppose you’re welcome to do that too. But based on the sheer amount of antiblackness and transmisogynoir I can see in this one article alone, you won’t be doing any wedding of Black and trans liberation lmfao.

Six-Spotted Tiger Beetle (Cicindela sexguttata)

Normally I have a policy of not talking about my cooking hobby but I'm pretty proud of this one. Good carnitas has a special place in my heart and I wanna share it with people. The original recipe was conveyed to me by @ashes-and-bone but I'm gonna give you my tweaked version.

INGREDIENTS:

2lbs Pork shoulder or butt. I used shoulder. 2lbs rendered pork lard 4 pork ears 1 cup water 2 limes (or rougly 4oz lime juice) 4 oranges. If you can get it, replace this with roughly 16oz bitter orange juice. This might be hard to find in the US, but you can order it on amazon. 4 garlic cloves, peeled 1 can beer. Cut this down to a half depending on how much you like the beer. 1 onion 1 large mexican cinnamon stick 4 bay leaves 1 tbsp dried or whole mexican oregano (its sweeter, crush it between your palms) 1 cup evaporated milk 1 tbsp dried thyme 2 tbsp kosher salt PREPARATION:

Cut the pork into 3 inch chunks, set aside. Add lard and water to a cold slow cooker. Once everything has been added, turn it on high and let everything liquify. Then turn it down to low. Add the meat, add the fruit juice. If you're using whole fruits, juice them and drop the whole thing in the pot. Let everything simmer covered for an hour. Check it at 15 minute intervals to make sure it isn't sticking. After an hour, add the garlic, cinnamon, bay, salt, oregano, thyme, milk, and beer. Cover. Cook on low for 8 hours. You are aiming for low and slow.

SERVING:

The meat should melt at the touch, to the point of being difficult to remove with anything but a slotted spoon. Scoop all the meat into a large bowl, and shred it. Let this cool. Put it on tacos. If you have access to masa dough and a tortilla press, you know what to do.

STORING:

The remaining liquid will be extremely hot. Let it cool, but not solidify. Strain the ingredients and save the liquid. Congratulations. You are now the proud owner of roughly 2 pounds of high quality, lovingly seasoned, pork confit. Save this. Use it in cooking. If you've ever cooked with bacon fat, it has similar properties.

Remember how I said I might make a "short-ish post" exploring this mod? That was a lie. Since installing the mod, I've spent hours just making plants and fungi and other uncategorized sessile organisms, and there's no way that I'd be able to do it justice with just one or two paragraphs or pictures.

If you know much about Spore, you know that it ended up having a lot of scrapped and cut content. One such scrapped feature was the flora editor. The idea was that, much like making creatures, players would also be able to make flora to populate and decorate the environment. Unfortunately, that never made it to the final game, beyond a very buggy and incomplete version of it that's hidden within the game's files. The Flora Editor Reconstruction mod builds off of that and intends to recreate what could have been.

Join me, if you please, for 5 minutes as I make a simple plant and demonstrate the basics.

Unlike the other editors, you can't access the flora editor from the Create menu. To get there the first time, you have to look at the Maxis creations in the Sporepedia, pick one of the flora, and select Edit. You can either edit the Maxis creation, or you can click New Creation to start with a blank slate. In this video, I made a Small Tree, the "medium sized" flora.

If you start with a new creation, you'll see a little orb on the ground. That's the root, and it serves as an anchor for everything else.

The rest of the video is fairly self-explanatory. For the most part, the controls are just like the other editors--you click parts to select them, drag them away from the creation to get rid of them, change the size with the mouse wheel, copy with ALT, and rotate using Tab. Almost all of the parts have morph handles, allowing shapes to be changed for a more unique appearance. Placing parts, however, can be a little finicky, and takes some getting used to.

In the video, Paint Mode includes a color wheel along with the regular Spore color choices. This is not added by the Flora Editor Reconstruction mod, it is the work of the Enhanced Color Picker mod. There is also a tab on the right with a paintbrush icon. Again, this is not added by the Flora Editor Reconstruction mod. This is added by the Advanced Creature Paint mod.

As a side note, I was not initially expecting ACP to work with this editor, and I cannot properly describe the absolute delight I felt when I discovered that I could indeed use it to color parts individually and that my plants wouldn't be restricted to a three-color palette.

Towards the end of the video, it tells me that I need at least 3 fruit nodes to save the creation. This is true of Shrubs (small flora) and Small Trees (medium flora), but does not apply to Tall Trees (large flora). Personally, I would like to create smaller flora that doesn't have fruit, but I understand why it's forced: if you play the game as an herbivorous creature, you need fruit to survive, and if all the flora that generated on the planet happened to be fruitless, you'd be shit out of luck!

Since there are three types of flora, there are technically three editors.

However, they all have the same parts. The only real difference is their size (and the Tall Trees not requiring fruit nodes). Each editor has a height limit, and I discovered the limit for the Tall Trees when I made this one too tall.

The 2D background tree is a good reference for the size limit--if that's an intentional part of the editor design, I commend the mod makers for including that. I believe the circle on the ground in this editor is more or less the same as the one in the creature editor, so that also helps provide a sense of scale (pictured below).

Speaking of the creature editor, this mod includes the option to add all of the flora parts to the creature editor, as well (featuring a cameo from our old friend, Gary, The Example)

One unique feature of the flora editor is that parts of the creation can be underground. This is a feature in Maxis-made flora as well, so that they look less awkward when they generate on a hill--they have roots that extend downwards and make it look like an actual feature of the terrain.

I experimented with this feature a bit, and made this. On the surface, it looks like several different plants in a cluster, separate from each other. But if you move the camera underground, you can see they're all attached to one root system! I can see this being utilized for all sorts of funky designs that include multiple plants in one creation, especially when used with Advanced Creature Paints. Below is another example of this technique.

Finally, the best and most exciting part of this mod (in my opinion)...

... is that player-made plants appear in the game! It's a very refreshing and much-needed change to the environment of Spore, and in a way, it almost makes it feel brand new again. The world feels alien, and that's exactly how it should feel.

I don't know if there's any more major development planned for this mod, but I'm curious to see if anybody will make add-ons for it. Something I'd like to have is support for other creature paint mods; I'd love to be able to use paints from Dark Injection.