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GIFPOP!

New Kickstarter campaign for service that easily converts animated gifs into physical animated lenticular prints - video embedded below:

Gifpop is a tool to make custom cards from animated gifs, using the magic of lenticular printing.

We’ve been working over the past several months on a way to print animated gifs onto lenticular cards. Each sheet of lenticular film has many tiny lenses, which allow us to print around ten frames of animation onto small cards. It’s been around since the 1940s, but has mostly been used for children’s toys. But we think that gifs and lenticular printing are two simple, lo-fi technologies that were made for each other.

We’ve been doing tons of test prints with different materials and different types of film, and have started working with a lenticular manufacturer that will allow us to do custom prints. We’ve also been building out a website where you can upload a gif, select a portion to print, and order a gif card in a variety of sizes. We’ve been sharing and showing these gif cards among friends — it’s been really fun, and addictive to play with. And now we’re finally got everything in place to do our first big production run, and we need your help.

One of the incentives you can receive from backing are print examples from three top-notch artists who post their work on Tumblr: DVDP, Mr Div and 89-A.

A service in a simpler, easier format like this has been crying out to be made available for ages (I’ve tried it before myself using expensive software and services, which can be trying …).

Heylo Everyone!

(EDIT 4/25/2013— I’ve made some small changes to my Star in a Daily Doodle/Commissions program, and I’ve added a brand spanking new fancy GIF option!)

Does the loneliness get too much to handle sometimes?  Don’t you wish there was a way to deal with the madness of modern life?

I found the solution— STARRING IN YOUR VERY OWN DAILY DOODLE!  Or even owning the original piece of art!  Everything is handmade, no Photoshop witchcraft is afoot here (except for gifs).

If you DONATE HERE:

$25 OR MORE: You get to star in your very own Daily Doodle!  I will draw you as sexy, as scandalously roguish, or as cute as you really are inside.  

or

$50 OR MORE:  You get to OWN the original art of your very own Daily Doodle!  Or, you can purchase an old favourite of yours— just ask!

$100 OR MORE: I will create an original GIF that stars you! They take longer to make and are fancy, thus they cost more. 

It’s very simple, I swearsies.  I am doing this because it is FUN, and because I am broke as a skunk.  EXTREMELY broke.  PATHETICALLY poor!  Could there BE any better reasons?

That’s all the IMPORTANT details, but if you wish to know more about the process of Starring In or Purchasing a Daily Doodle, read below:

Beyond the walls of Eryx

Gorgeous and sublime demoscene production by ASD from 2007 is isometric vectorpunk.

Video embedded below, but I HIGHLY RECOMMEND downloading it and play natively on your own computer as it was intended (and much more better):

[rebloggable by request]

Well, first of all, WELCOME TO ONE OF MY PET PEEVES.

A female character does not have to be “strong” (whatever your definition of that is) to be a good character.

Women can be strong, or wussy, or emotional, or stoic, or needy, or independent, and still be legitimate people and interesting characters.

In our totally understandable desire to see portrayals of strong women (in reaction to decades of damsels in distress and women as appendages), we’ve somehow backed ourselves into this corner where the only acceptable portrayal of a woman in the media is a strong, kick-ass woman.  That is not doing women any favors.  It just leads to the attitude that you have to be ONE WAY ONLY to be legit as a woman.  You shouldn’t have to be Natasha Romanoff or Xena to be considered a good character.  Don’t get me wrong, I love a good Buffy as much as the next person, but that should not be the only acceptable portrayal.  It should be okay for a female character NOT to be strong, too.  Let’s take Molly Hooper as an example.  She is not the stereotypical “strong” woman.  But hell, she went through medical school, didn’t she?  She’s smart, and she’s fuy, and she serves a story function - she is not a major character, but she doesn’t have to be.  But her character gets criticized because she pines after Sherlock.  What, you never pined after somebody?  Did it make you invalid as a person?  You never got a bit silly over a crush?  I know I did.  And I still consider myself a strong woman.  It should be okay for Molly to have a crush on Sherlock without getting the “oh, she’s so pathetic, what a terrible example, what a horrible female character” thing she so often gets.  Yes, because it’s so terrible that a female character should reflect an experience that like 99% of us have had.  

Screw writing “strong” women.  Write interesting women.  Write well-rounded women.  Write complicated women.  Write a woman who kicks ass, write a woman who cowers in a corner.  Write a woman who’s desperate for a husband.  Write a woman who doesn’t need a man.  Write women who cry, women who rant, women who are shy, women who don’t take no shit, women who need validation and women who don’t care what anybody thinks.  THEY ARE ALL OKAY, and all those things could exist in THE SAME WOMAN.  Women shouldn’t be valued because we are strong, or kick-ass, but because we are people.  So don’t focus on writing characters who are strong.  Write characters who are people.

The only bad female character, if you ask me (and you did), is one who’s flat.  One who isn’t realistic.  One who has no agency of her own, who only exists to define other characters (usually men).  Write each woman you write as if she has her own life story, her own motivations, her own fears and strengths, and even if she’s only in the story for one page, she will be a real person, and THAT is what we need.  Not a phalanx of women who can karate-chop your head off, but REAL women, who are people, with all the complexity and strong and not-strong that goes with it.

This is why I disagree with the “damsel in distress” criticism of Irene in the last scene of Scandal.  Here’s the thing about being a damsel in distress…it’s only bad if that’s all she is.  If the character’s defining characteristic is being a damsel in distress, that’s bad.  But if an otherwise complex character with lots of other agency and actions happens to be in distress, then…that’s all it is.  She is in distress.  That happens.  Characters are often in distress, or there would be no plots.  Should a female character never be allowed to be in distress, at ALL, to be valid?  No.

A strong female character is one who is defined by her own characteristics, history and personality, and not solely by the actions or needs of other characters.  She is a person in the story, not a prop.  That is the best definition I can come up with.  Note that my definition did not involve martial arts. 

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