I’m not dead; I’ve been working on this Hallowe'en story all month. It’s a twenty-nine-page mini-epic about a very strange LARP which wreaks all kinds of changes on its participants. No, it’s not particularly Hallowe'en-themed … on the other hand, it’s the kind of story I probably wouldn’t do any other time of the year but Hallowe'en.
These are links to adult content. Amid the transformations and general mayhem there is a fair bit of sex, and also some of the characters don’t wear clothes through a lot of it.
On a publié l'intégralité des petits strips du nouveau album d'Astérix. Bah, en fait, pas exactement ; ces planches feront pas partie de l'album, mais elles sont « riches en indices » ! Je la traduis plus tard
My translation, made with just the right amount of fanlation photoshop crunchiness
Note these strips will not be in the book, but they are “full of hints”.
Marvel movies have completely eliminated the concept of practical effects from the movie-watching public’s consciousness
Not just practical effects just like. Basic set design lol
How… How do they think sci-fi was done before CGI?
Really badly? Do you remember sci-fi before CGI? It was shit. And don’t say Star Wars because they went back and fixed that with CGI later.
*big sigh* *puts head in hands* heathens who’ve never watched pre-MCU sci-fi movies OR the unedited Star Wars movies, my beloathed
So first of all, most people agree that the majority of the “CGI fixes” in the Star Wars original trilogy (excluding minor visual/sound effects like lightsaber colors and blaster sounds) are unececssary, extremely conspicuous, and/or bad. This is not news to literally anyone older than about 20 who has consumed Star Wars content on any level. There are quite literally two very famous ‘despecialized’ fan projects explicitly dedicated to un-doing all of the shitty “fixed” CGI effects while simultaneously restoring the OT in HD.
And yes, I do, in fact, remember sci-fi special effects before CGI was the foundational cornerstone of moviemaking. It was not, in fact, shit:
Also, ironically I can show you by….*gasp* using fucking Star Wars, of all things. Welcome to the Tatooine pod race set of The Phantom Menace, which was not, as popularly believed, CGI’d but was instead a fully-built miniature set:
Yes, they built the entire set as a minature, built life-sized pod racers for the actors, then spliced the two together using digital effects. Yes, they did such a fantastic job that people think the entire set and scene sequence was basically completely CGI’d to this day. You’re fucking welcome for undervaluing the time, effort, and talents of set designers by implying that set design and practical effects inherently mean things will look like shit.
CGI also ages really poorly. What you think looks incredibly realistic now is going to look terrible in a few years. Just look at the original vs remastered Star Trek. They “restored” Star Trek around 2006 and replaced a lot of the practical effects with CGI, and maybe it looked ok in 2006, but it looks so bad and fake now.
In the 60s they built a whole model of the Enterprise, complete with blinking lights and beautifully sculpted/painted details. It looks stunning! Then they replaced it with that horribly smooth and fake looking cgi ship.
Just look at this beauty
You can see the model at the Air and Space Museum in DC
Unfortunately the remastered version is the only version available to stream, but you can still find DVDs with the original effect.
made in 1968 and still stunning 2001 A Space
Odyssey
the designers worked with engineers at NASA to make realistic futuristic special effects using models and matte paintings no computer effects at all! - and incidentally inspired David Bowie to write Space Oddity, later performed in space by astronaut Chris Hadfield
The CGI of the original Jurassic Park may not be aging well (though arguably still better than some), but the practical effects will always look stunning.
This wild-looking shot (and similar manipulations) was famously achieved by having a professional juggler in a duplicate of Bowie’s jacket and gloves sitting behind him, basically with Bowie in his lap, doing the handwork while Bowie kept his arms behind the juggler. You may have seen a game based on this on Whose Line Is It Anyway.
This? Wires! Splicing! THE CGI TO DO THIS DIDN’T EXIST YET! (The juggler is hidden under the cape. If there’s a scene where he’s wearing a cape, that’s actually probably why.)
—CGI THAT WAS USED TO ERASE THE SHADOW FROM THE PRACTICAL EFFECT.
The shot itself hasn’t changed. The lift itself was done with wires and Bowie was given some propulsion with an air cannon so he could make that turn at speed. A minor amount of CGI was used in the 30th anniversary to “touch up” the work done in 1986, and one of the things they did was to remove a shadow on the wall from one of the wires.
You don’t know it, but you’re looking at a practical effect. In real life, the Ruby Slippers are almost orange. That luxe, rich ruby color showed up on the film as black when the shoes were the correct color, so the costumers adjusted the actual costume to give the color they wanted.
And this? This is where it would’ve been useful to have CGI. Margaret Hamilton got really badly burned on the steam doing one of her entrance/exits, and ended up in the hospital. THIS is what you use CGI for.
You come into my house and insult practical effects?
I’ll just finish off by reminding you THIS IS ONE, TOO.
That last one, iirc, was there was a double in a sepia-toned costume, and the interior door and wall there was painted brown, so when it was lit and shot it all appeared to still be in the sepia tone of the Kansas scenes, and part of why Dorothy stepped back out of the frame was so the double and Judy Garland (in the proper blue-and-white costume) could swap.
You are correct. The double’s name, by the way, was Bobbi Koshay.
There are also a lot of backgrounds that are matte paintings!
Lord of The Rings used some incredible miniature sets too.
The real reason CGI has taken over is not because it creates better effects (although it is very useful!) but because it’s cheaper. The practical effects artists have union protections. CGI artists don’t.
CGI (at this point) works well to do things like smooth out practical effects (erase wires, etc).
And when you want a bit of uncanny valley effect, to make actors look like animated characters without hours in the makeup chair.
Use CGI to remove safety gear from the shot, so the stunt people are safer.
And unionize CGI artists so they have safer working conditions & are properly compensated.
A new standard pc repair step has been discovered: trans your gender and try again
I think I’m gonna make a joke adventure game inspired by this. It’ll be like the old Sierra games, except the solution to every puzzle will somehow involve transing your gender
plot 150 words bed-sharing 200 words smut 800 words projecting my fears, insecurities, and anxieties onto a fictional character 9,356 words fluff 150 words someone who is good at fan fiction please help me budget my WIP, my family is dying
[Full comic transcript under cut in addition to the alt text.]
So I’ve been working on a short comic, and here’s a preview of the first five pages and the cover. They still need some cleanup and editing, and the rest of the pages of course, but I hope you enjoy them!
i am going to tell you guys something and it’s going to sound made up but i need you to believe me just this once
the staff at the café i frequent have a fucking betting pool going about what gender i am
i told my ex about this and they admitted that they didn’t know if i was transmasc or transfem until our fourth date and they figured it wasn’t their business so they just didn’t ask
????????
I think some people would kill in cold blood to have whatever gender presentation you have going on
I forget where it was but I saw jeans for sale and like they were labeled as “girlfriend cut” instead of ‘boyfriend’ and like the irony to me is that the term “boyfriend style jeans” was originally done as this weird way to heterosexualize the dangerous idea of women wearing slightly loose pants so you knew you weren’t a dyke but like apparently the use of the term “boyfriend” was like too much of a gender confusion crisis for the buyer so they had to change it *again* as opposed to just calling it “loose fitting” to begin w and now it has fully no-homo’d itself into a corner and it just sounds like yr stealing yr jeans from some butch girl yr dating
My fave quirk w boyfriend jeans is that time the gap didn’t realize that having jeans that were “boyfriend” cut and “pegged” style would turn out greater than the sum of its parts
excerpted material is used for purposes of comment or criticism as specifically permitted by fair use doctrine, which is still legal despite continual attempts by the forces of evil to make it go away. so i not only get to say your work is stupid, i get to show a picture of it or quote part of it to prove my point. that is the law, at least for the next five minutes. so fuck off.
