Just a brief note that I’m shutting this blog soon. I’m rolling a couple of bits of my work and my general online life into one and have that be the ONE site. Makes a lot more sense than the cluttered crap that it is now. With bits astray all over the web, articles on Newsvine, comments on Tumblr, rants on Twitter, showcase on Flickr and Facebook and no central place…So next time your feed pings it’ll have the new feed URL and from then on out will re-direct to the new one.  

Heath Ledger’s sudden passing brought up something again today that I’ve been pondering for the last few days. Death.

When an actor or musician dies we have this vast recollection of things they leave behind. Posters, DVDs in stores and rentals, worn shirts.

When an online person dies what is left? The memories we have of them? Is their legacy fading with the final bill of their hosting company that is returned unpaid?

If we solely rely on Google’s cache to preserve our legacy, are we betting on oblivion?
I believe every person has a story worth preserving and for others to learn from. Some tragic, some humorous, inspiring, frightening, relatable.

How should we deal with this volatility of memory? Is there like a real “Terraserver” where we can just have something in our will that’ll transfer it over?

With all the money our governments extort from us (which I never agreed to in the first place) it should be possible to have at least one of these. Better than spending all the money to invade each other’s countries which becomes redundant after a while. Or in Germany’s case specifically, Mrs. Merkel you don’t need to raise your wages twice a year. Eat less old hen, you’re fat enough.

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Tags: death, life, oblivion, heath ledger, memories, politics, wtf?

As a compositor I’m used to the transparent workflow of a node-based creative environment where everything just flows. Makes changes back in the chain of thought possible, unlike Photoshop’s convoluted workflow where you often need to freeze states into a layer and keep going from there, locking you down to a fixed resolution.

Naked Light takes the more artist-friendly approach of a node-based editor and aims to put and end to Photoshop’s fundamentally broken “Smart Objects” metaphor.The public beta launches in a few hours, it’s Leopard only and requires a modern NVidia graphics card. They say it’s ATI too, but yeah, since ATI is so damn painful to support it’s probably like Apple’s Motion app under ATI not much more than a “nice science experiment”.

From the screenshots on the site it looks a little half-baked with the non arrangeable interface. In a real-world environmen you’ll want to have your node tree on a second screen apart from your main image as this contrains your entire image history.

Naked Light comes with some nice innovations like the noise brush which lets you brush on some dust and probably other garb too.

Why would I prefer this to Photoshop? Price for once, they don’t look like they overcharge and underdeliver like Adobe does on an annual basis. Another point is the easy workflow. Imagine building a complex composition that heavily relies on source images, but then you need to keep the locked down look but need other images: With a node-based workflow that’s a matter of seconds, with Photoshop it’s a day’s work.

I’m really excited on what the guys at Naked Light did with this.

technorati tags:photoshop, node-based, workflow

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The time is near.The shadows are drawing closer.

Soon there will be a knock on the door.

TRICK or TREAT!

And while you’re poinoning the neighbohood kids with sweets you look around you and find that your pumpkins are really lame?

Not this year guys.

I got your links right here! Some of the coolest carving patterns on the web and some tips on how to treat your artworks to last a little longer. And don’t we all need to have them till x-mas? A little Jack Skellington action under the old needler!

The Seven!

1. Zombie Pumpkins - THE coolest pumpkin site everrr!
2. Spook Master - Patterns galore!
3. Pumpkin Carving 101 - Check out the 80s hairdo, diggit!
4. Pumpkin Carving Tools - Yup the tools of the trade!
5. Funkins - Pumpkins that don’t rot, look pretty real.
6. Pumpkin Fresh - Makes your pumpkin last. And please guys, don’t spray this on old ladies!
7. Extreme Pumpkins - Your source of inspiration from some very sick guys! Love it!

technorati tags:halloween, pumpkin, tips, how-to

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OK and it had to happen too. The old design which is still lingering on the server for a bit was getting really old. I mean, hey this site stood for something I stopped doing like 5 years ago and never caught on as my main work.

So here’s the full reboot.

What will this be? I don’t know. How about just come abort and enjoy the ride?