Zelda Wind Waker grabbed my imagination the very first time I saw it many, many years ago now on a Gamecube in somebody else’s lounge room. Now, by the power of modern computing, I have been sharing the joy and frustration of this adorable game with my sons. Intermittent play has gotten us almost to the end after a few months now. I also now have two of three Zelda inspired projects complete and ready to share. The first is the newest one, Link’s boomerang (the protagonist is Link, Zelda is the eponymous princess). This was given to F for Christmas and was designed specifically to be light enough for indoor play as outdoors it is very likely to end up in a tree or on the roof.
The second is this papercraft model of the Link’s boat the ‘King of Red Lions’ This took way longer than anticipated and is far from the perfection I envisioned. But it is at least done. I have shared a gallery of images here on imgur and in r/papercraft here.
An extremely hot and quite busy couple of days here on the surface of the sun western New South Wales. I have accomplished a spot of wood chip shovelling and garden maintenance, A little video editing, the results of which are embedded below as well as some digital painting and I’ve finally gotten a long running paper-craft project near to completion.
The second episode of my going story reading project.
Today a box arrived from my mother. A box of art, mostly my art, mostly from ’82-’84. So 35 year old pictures by me the child. The boys and I had a lot of fun going through the box admiring and laughing at the pictures, comparing hand and foot prints to the boy’s and mine now and of course we were then inspired to make some fresh art of our own, which I’ll photograph and share sometime soon. For today here are a couple of the prize pieces:
Bravo indeed.
This particular Sith lord made many appearances.
One of the many bulldozer paintings had a treat on the back.
Started watching ‘Dirty Wars‘ while painting during nap time today. Infuriating stuff.
Finally got around to starting ‘Mr.Robot‘ last night. Widely recommended to us months ago. Two episodes in and loving on Christian Slater channeling Tyler Durden. Made easier no doubt, by the fact that there was a time when I thought he wasoneofthecoolestmenonearth. Looking forward to slamming another few episodes this evening.
I’ve been listening to ‘The Consolations of Philosophy‘ for a couple of hours now. Loving it and find excuses to snatch minutes here and there.
Creative
A pair of sketch drafts completed during nap time, though one was a redo of previously completed sketch. At fourteen of fourty-four as of now. Sharing the two cards I made a couple of weeks ago as I can now be sure they are safely with their recipients. Both are single layer papercut and ink on card.
Paving continues, nearly completed one section. Went for another swim and managed 250m today. The season pass has been so worth it, with L’s lessons plus other visits it has now paid for itself. But one of the best benefits is that we feel the need to use it, rather than balking at the cost of visiting the pool it is an imperative. Updated my voting registration this evening as a snap federal election is seeming more and more likely. Planning on getting my licence localised tomorrow too.
Creativity
Finished line work and cutting for two occasion cards to be posted tomorrow. I’ll post pictures when I am sure they have been delivered. Planning on some more drawing this evening.
Thoughts
Finished ‘Better Call Saul’ season one last night. Really impressive television, very moving, very attitude shifting. The principal character and Mike both play very important roles in Breaking Bad. The stories they tell in this season cast them in a very different light. I wonder how far back they were planning these parts of the characters stories. The episode about Mike’s son was particularly impressive and although they telegraphed the outcome of the climactic legal battle rather early it was gripping to the end. Although I desperately want to dive into season two, I’m going to hold off until the season finishes so we are not stuck in the week by week limbo.
Links
This review shows the best view I’ve had yet of a game I don’t intend on playing anytime soon.
For something more cheerful, Adam Savage makes a puppet:
Painting all day. N took the boys to the farm for the day so I sweated it out at home painting digitally, listening and peripherally watching docos. Despite hours of attention the bloody village card is still not done. It’s getting there but my goodness it has been time consuming. Some minor and some significant changes still to go. Had took take a break as my wrist got sore.
Edit: Finished the bugger.
I watched or rather mostly listened to the following today:
Deep Web The Silk Road story which has a particular focus on the case against the alleged Dread Pirate Roberts user/admin Ross Ulbricht who has been jailed for life in a trial that involved some significant miscarriages of justice in the name of making a statement with his sentencing. Interesting for a variety of reasons, particularly so for the old law enforcement officers acknowledgements that the online trade has a profound effect in the reduction of violence in the drug trade. Which as the formost stated aim of The Silk Road counts as a success for the market. Also like so many other examples of distributed access as quickly as one is shut down others spring open. It seems that finally the writing’s on the wall for the ‘drug war’. Thanks largely to capitalism and the internet.
The Island President Follows the interesting figure Mohamed Nasheed during his brief time as president of the Maldives as he attempts to convince national leaders from around the world to act decisively on global warming prior to and during the Copenhagen summit. A somewhat depressing film particularly so for the endnotes which told how the Maldives have since slid back under military rule.
Unhung Hero follows Patrick Moote as he recovers from a humiliating breakup in which his penis size is implicated by travelling the world exploring the weird and wonderful field of penis enlargement treatments, almost all of which are decidedly dodgy scams. Occasionally quite touching, mostly annoyingly American, self indulgent and trite.
Playing link aggregate with a few other interesting things from the feed today:
Very much enjoying Rubicon still. This vid is quite timely really, though it shows Roma a few centuries after what I’m listening to. I do wish I had read it before my last trip to Rome.
Come on 2016, it is going to be an exciting year. Love to all near and far, may 2016 bring you joys, triumphs and many many laughs.
A very quiet night here, I was the only member of the household still awake for 12 local.
I used to really like NYE. I have many times stayed up for the dawn of the new year, particularly so when at the Woodford festival. This is not so easy or desirable with small children in the house and as I’m on morning duty I’ll keep it brief tonight.
We are going out to the farm tomorrow for a big family gathering.
N was laid low with a migraine for much of the day, the boys were their usual delightful little whirlwinds of emotions. One moment paralysed with laughter, the next incandescent with fury. I didn’t accomplish as much ad I otherwise might have liked to, though the day had its moments. Like F curling up on me and falling straight to sleep having declined bed moments before.
Made a card for my stepfathers birthday today. Which would have arrived late anyway but I blew it at the last minute so I can share that one. I’ll have to make another to send in the morning.
It’s the final week of school. Tidy trays are packed, classrooms are striped bare.
We have had our long free swim and yes of course I joined in. On Thursday we will feast as a class and conduct our Secret Santa exchange. On Friday we will clean desks and classrooms and then put a film on for the students while the teachers feast.
Today I was taken off class again to put finishing touches on the template of a project for admin. This Chatterbox will be the interactive display tool for the new 5 year strategic plan at WESS. There are a number of fields still needing filled in and my template has spaces and text boxes ready for them.
This design also features my update of the school’s logo which I completed in my own time mostly out of irritation last year. The original had been hand painted and it seems that at some point somebody had live-traced a low quality scan. I made a number of subtle modifications and fixed a bunch of missing or garbled details from the original.
I had a discussion with my sister who is also a teacher a weekend or two ago in which we both expressed dismay at the present push for earlier and earlier instructional tuition in Australian schools. Today she shared an article, which I think I have seen quoted elsewhere but had not until today read.
Key quote:
Studies have compared groups of children in New Zealand who started formal literacy lessons at ages 5 and 7. Their results show that the early introduction of formal learning approaches to literacy does not improve children’s reading development, and may be damaging. By the age of 11 there was no difference in reading ability level between the two groups, but the children who started at 5 developed less positive attitudes to reading, and showed poorer text comprehension than those children who had started later. In a separate study of reading achievement in 15 year olds across 55 countries, researchers showed that there was no significant association between reading achievement and school entry age.
I maintain that forcing children to read before they want to sets them up for a lifelong distaste for reading rather than a lifelong love of it.
Yesterday we had the best sleep-in in 3 years. 8 am and not a peep out of either of our infants. By which point we were at the “should we check on them” stage.
Last night however… The worst night in months. L had a melt down about one and then F was up for almost two hours after that. I’ve been in a fog all day, in addition to the muscle ache from climbing yesterday.
A project I still haven’t taken beyond prototype. The prototype is now a bit the worse for wear 2 years later. I would like to take this and a few other similar ideas to production out of recycled and biodegradable materials.
My cardboard Christmas tree design:
Process shot.
This terrbily back lit shot seems to be the only one I have from the first build set that shows it assembled but not covered in decorations.
It was all about papercraft that Christmas. These papercraft polyhedra formed our basic gift to practically everyone that year.
Digitising the design is still in process. I hit a hurdle in creating an even helical shape to take slices from in the 3D programs I was using. Just the other day I think I may have found a workaround care of a project the amazing and crazy J Mantzel was working on. He is famous as the creator of a very cool toy as well as a house with a trampoline floor.
Today I completed what is for me the most drawn out process in creating report cards, the writing of personalised overall comments.
Most report card comments these days are entered by using codes where 42HEA\ Gives you:
[Name] completed health assessments to a very high standard this semester. [She,He] refrained from picking [her,his] nose with commendable fortitude.
Where fields in [square parenthesis] are automatically populated with the relevant gender and name. Overall comments on the other hand require a fine balance between friendly fluff and brutal honesty. Very little of that brutal honesty will make it through to the final printed report card after rigorous self and peer editing, but if there is not an element of it present then the whole document will be cheapened. My mentor described the best comments as being ‘Designed for the student themselves to read in 30 years time.’. My comments have in truth gotten tamer and tamer having over the last few years repeatedly butted heads over what it is and is not acceptable to put in the one little box where I am given authority to share opinions about my students development as learners. Anyway today was typical of reporting in that it took me about 8 hours to write 27 such comments and I will need to revisit each before I hand them on up the line.
Since I have not an ounce of energy to spare creatively this evening I will share one of my completed projects which I shared on r/papercraft about a year ago. I maybe linked it on Fbook at the time, I’m not sure though and I definitely haven’t posted it elsewhere online until now. I created this from scratch using Autodesk Maya, Photoshop and Pepakura. I’ve had another piece of similar type unfinished for six months now of the sword from Transistor.
Cogs are a common thematic element throughout the game. This cog is worn on the player character “The Kid’s” back throughout his beautifully narrated adventure.
Bastion is a superb little game by Supergiant Games which if you haven’t tried, and you have a controller, you really aught to.
The game is an isometric hack and slash, RPG, bullet hell hybrid. The gimmick of event triggered ever present narration by Logan Cunningham is simply extraordinary, at times dry and hilarious at others quite sad and moving.
I may continue in this vein, sharing completed works I have not posted on my sites for the next couple of days, at least until reporting is under control and A’s high school graduation is out of the way.
One more thing; While writing this afternoon I was struck with a memory of a story I had read in a bedroom at Crystal Waters that would place me at maybe 14 so 23 years ago. This story featured a prison which was a giant wheel of stone within a mountain and the wheel turned by the labour of the cells occupants realease only being available when the wheel returned completed a rotation. It was an extraordinary story and the images returned vivid in my mind so I immediately googled: “story about a prison that is a wheel within a mountain”
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