Well, Friday and Monday I worked out most of the details for this subsytem I'm writing (with a little help from Tuesday), and at this very moment it is sketched in and it compiles.
Now I need to test it.
This is the perfect moment in software, right now. I was just productive, which always feels good, writing a decent chunk of reasonably clever yet still straightforward software. It compiles, so all of the basic typing errors are fixed. But I don't know what all of its logical errors are -- so I can still pretend that it is perfect code.
Once I run it, my illusions will be shattered. My pristine vision will be sullied by the harsh textures of reality, the bumps and slashes, the oozing wounds and scabbed abrasions.
So I will draw out this moment just a little bit longer... ahhhh....
I ordered a stack of makeup supplies on Monday and I expect them to show up on my doorstep before too long. Makeup! What am I doing with matte cake foundations and creme colors and eyeshadow and rouge? Good grief. And this stuff is *expensive*, too.
Of course, I'll be working on the gore and guts aspect, too, so that's cool. I have some books and videos coming at the same time so I can finish my various plans before we start shooting in... ummm... very darn soon now.
Good God! April 30! AAAAAAaggghhhhh!
I've got some things to do. Soon. I still don't know (for sure) how I'm going to do, oh, HALF of the stuff I need to do.
Whee! Spent a few hours last night with Alain, Ronn, and Brad while they filmed a sequence in Austin on South Congress.
This time, Marla got to be in the audience, so SHE may be on TV in May. Fun for the entire family!
We finally have a schedule for the first two episodes. They will be aired during a Magic Week on TLC, along with four David Blain specials. The remaining two Alain Nu specials will be airing in May but I don't see those dates on TLC yet.
Check it out:
http://tinyurl.com/4nu3r
The elevator tells me that next weekend we Spring Ahead. Er, time change. The MENU in the elevator. Umm. Yeah.
A bit dazed today, only got about six hours sleep. Maybe five. Or five and a half. Yeah, I know, I'm a wimp, but I like my sleep!
Drove down to San Antonio last night to visit with Ronn and Alain, hung out with them and Brad Henderson (www.bradhenderson.com/). So that was cool.
I'm hoping to hook up with them this evening again when they do a shoot on South Congress, but we'll see. My weekday schedules are a bit constrained.
This weekend I played (briefly) with makeup (some borrowed cake and creme) and batched up a bit of foamy gelatin.
The cake makeup can be made very light so it's good for subtle bases. The creme is a bit easier to apply, I think, and blends well, but goes on heavier. I'll put in an order for a mix of products today so I'll get to play more later. Heck, I may even put up pictures!
The foamed gelatin was interesting. I used gelatin from the hombrew shop and it seemed to work find. I used 100 grams of gelatin powder in 450 grams of glycerin and this makes a good, firm base. It cooks up a golden tan color, though, which made me think it was burnt! So I steamed up some water and made a dollop of water-based, and did a dollop of half water and half glycerin... the water was pale golden and the glycerin mix was a midway between the dark and the pale gold.
So apparently glycerin makes it darker.
I took 100g of the base (still hot and fluid), hotted it up a bit more, and stirred in 1tsp of baking soda. Actually, it started foaming right then! I may have to start with the acid in the mixture first, though I would rather have it base than acid, I think, for application to the body. Oh, and I added 2tsp of a fairly heavy acrylic medium too.
Stirring in the acid it foamed WAY the heck up, talking 8x or 10x here. I was prepared for about 4x, since the foaming squish performed so badly. Heh. Like the squish, I wasn't able to refine (stir) it very much to break down the bubbles, but I did some.
Poured a blob into a polyurethane mold I had laying around (which had silicon ick in it from a previous use, which had some setting issues) and left bits in the cups I used.
While still fairly fresh the gelatin foam is *really* sticky so I had my doubts about its usability! Of course, years (if not decades) of use indicate that it is quite usable, somehow.
This morning it had set nicely, though the blob in the mold had collapsed a fair amount. I may need to add more medium, I may need to refine it more, and the nature of the mold may have affected it too. I'm going to buy some information with my makeup order to improve my process. Right now I have more money than time for this.
The foamed gelatin takes makeup a LOT like skin, so with a base stipple to redden it up to match skin, it should makeup quite nicely. The foamed squish doesn't take makeup the same, though it takes it okay. I couldn't find my cold-foamed rubber to test, but I know that solid latex takes makeup badly (you actually need to use a different kind of makeup for latex). And I think foamed latex is similar -- you need a grease-based makeup.
The foamed gelatin was very squishy, amazingly thin edges with good strength, and nicely flexible. Small cell structure overall. On squishing it, it took a bit of time to pop back out, but at least it didn't collapse.
Foamed squish is firmer (but can probably be softened with additives), makes thicker edges that aren't as stong, and doesn't makeup... but then, it is for props and not prosthetics. It will be decent for props due to its weight and flexibility.
The cold foam was definitely firmer than the gelatin, but then this wasn't prosthetic cold foam. I had a chance to handle some Kryolan cold foam when I was picking up the makeups, and it's fairly soft and has a nice texture, an extremely fine cell size too. But I bet if I refine the gelatin more, I'll get small bubbles, too.
The gelatin was a bit cold and clammy, but warms up quickly.
Overall, I think I like it. I'll be doing wounds with it in the show, I think, which shouldn't be too hard.
I may make the arm and leg attacks from it, too, but I'm undecided there.
As for foamed silicon... haven't tried it. I'll see what I can do later.
I did other stuff this weekend, too, but not so interesting as to take up space here.
So I'm going over a list of materials that I've either worked with or will be testing (soon, like this weekend) for making prosthetic makeup and lifelike props. And for me, "lifelike" not only includes "looking good" but often "feels good" and "moves realistically"... which rules out most foams for most props.
Cold Foam, played with it a bit, might be good for static props that don't get handled, or that are viewed from a distance. Hot foam is softer with better characteristics, but too complex to work with for this poor soul.
Liquid Latex, I've used for built-up wounds and stuff but I've never been happy with its stiffness and the difficulty in applying makeup to it. Of course, I've never had the RIGHT makeup, which is changing soon, so I need to re-visit liquid latex.
Silicon, lovely handling characteristics and can be made hard to really really squishy. A pain to paint but has lovely translucency, and should be able to hold punched-in hair nicely. Easy to work with and not very noxious. Expensive.
Foamed Silicon, which I've not tried but sounds interesting. The foaming should give it a softer feel and improve its compression characteristics, which might improve its use as facial prosthetics. Anything that makes a product move with the face helps. Foaming, however, makes materials opaque.
Gelatin, I've used this a bit in the dim, distant past. I'm going to try it again for wounds. Cheap, but melts in heat and with sweat. Sweat you can block with chemicals, but heat... in Texas... yeah. We'll see. Translucent. Cheap!
Foamed Gelatin, like Gelatin but softer, lighter, and will lose its translucency. But still neat!
Squish, or as it's formally called, hot-pour PVC. Cheaper than silicon, translucent, and has good handling characteristics. And it can be made harder or softer, though I've not used those additives. Noxious to work with, since it is worked at 250-300 degress F and smells bad (I wear a breathing filter). Also, has poor stretch and tear characteristics compared to silicon. I don't think it will be very good for prosthetics since it's slightly oily and may be icky for the skin. And it's hard to apply makeup to.
Foamed Squish, just to be cool. I do want to do a test of it as a wound prosthetic. It won't melt like gelatin and has similar cost and feel characteristics. Except the oiliness and the difficutly in sticking anything to it! But it should hold punched-in hair and I'm thinking gelatin won't.
Polyurethane, which I use for molds and the occasionl body part. Can also be made squishy with additives, and while still expensive, is cheaper than silicon.
As for mold-making materials, I've used polyurethane, body-safe silicon, alginate, and the usual varieties of plaster.
I like working with new materials... it's fun! I'll have to write a book or something, someday.
Looking at the Scorpius makeup from Farscape (the first use of Hotflesh), it is definitely NOT foamed anything. Foaming introduces all those tiny bubbles which in turn make the material more-or-less opaque.
I wonder what the HECK he is using? I still bet on a variation of hot pour pvc, but at this point I haven't got a good clue at all.
I still think that foamed hot-pour will make an interesting material, though. I wonder, though, how the oils will react with skin? I don't think I want to use it on the face, but as stand-alone body parts. This way I get some weight to them, they wobble nicely, and they are cheap.
Foam latex doesn't have the right wobbly feel for these things and silicon is too darned expensive.
Hmmm... foamed silicon?
Wheee!
Do you have any idea how hard it is to get good results when googling the term "hotflesh" ?? I suppose I would get better results if I turned on safe search...
Anyway, following up on some half-articulated thoughts I found on the web (1) I'm trying to foam hot-pour PVC.
A quick test last night had fair results, but wasn't giving me a very light foam. The result was squishy but heavy, and since I didn't have much time the results weren't very refined so there were some large-ish bubbles damaging the finish.
More news and recipes as they develop.
I'll also be playing with foamed gelatin (2)
Mmmmm, new materials.
(1)
http://missykat.com/pygram/interview17.html
http://www.imagecreative.net/press_articles_art05.html
(2)
http://www.sapsema.org/gelatin1.html
http://www.sapsema.org/gelatin2.html
Woo! I generate quite a charge. Even when I'm NOT wearing a silk or rayon shirt, when I'm sitting in plain vanilla cotton, I arc and spark and discharge all day long.
It seems to be worse in the mornings, but I guess that depends on the weather conditions.
I fear for my hardware. But so far nothing has fried.
The real fun is when I'm wearing my headphones and shift in my chair. Zap! Through the ears!
Today I *finally* (and about damn time) started my drum practices. So that's cool. And the nice thing about drumming is you don't have to play Twinkle Twinkle Little !@#$% Star, or Mary had a !@#$% Little Lamb.
And even the boring early rhythms aren't THAT boring, since you're tuning in your coordination. And even a basic 4-4 rock beat with no ornamentation is still drumming. Which, no matter what, sounds better than We Three !@#$% Kings.
Pushing pushing... I'm pushing the big rock of code at work. Updating the journal isn't working at work since I got busy. I'm not complaining. I'd rather be busy.
Code reviews beget changes beget more reviews beget trunk checkins.
And now we have a proper trunk of code (the "gold standard" that we touch only carefully), though it doesn't quite work yet.
Next week, more pushing. Parsers, interpreters, message packers, debugging, supporting the test guy (thank God we have a test guy!), and more reviews and check-ins.
This project is critical path for a dozen products or more, so we have to keep moving.
Tai Chi has settled back into routine for now, though I have lost my home-practice habit (again). Dammit. Had a GREAT workshop in push-hands last Sunday with Christophe Clark. Good stuff. Made sense. Our sifu, Tom, is great at teaching many things but he is still learning how to teach push hands. Fortunately, he and Christophe seemed to hit it off famously. We'll see Christophe again.
School is cranking along. I scheduled a final for CS110 for the 26th (yeah, it's Easter weekend, what of it?), and that's a week later than it should have been except the person I talked to on the library had their facts a bit off.
A couple weeks later I'll have another, and the third the week after -- at the rate I'm going. Then on to the next round! 9 credit hours in four months, not too bad. I actually started work in the February timeframe, so 3 months of actual work.
This weekend, among doing taxes (Refund! Score!) and finances and schoolwork and stuff, we are watching Penn and Teller's Bullshit on DVD. Great stuff! Lots of fun. Good to fume along with them at the intelligent design (e.g. creationism) people, and so forth.
Anyway, I'm off to do dishes or dinner or laundry or the Deadbacks FX and makeup script breakdown or...
... well, you get the idea.
I was sick quite a lot when I was younger. When I was school age, I *wanted* to be sick, to avoid the horror that was school. I actually stopped shitting one time, in order to make myself sick. I don't recall if it worked, but that wasn't my best idea ever.
Once, when I was honestly sick (in the big house in Washington, I think), I remember waking up in the middle of the night with a fever. I couldn't see anything, just blackness and spots of light like stars... and not because it was dark out, either. Blind as a really blind thing.
I felt my way through the house and found the stairs. My parents were up the stairs and I was at their foot.
That's all I remember.
Well, I don't update the journal so much right now. Which sucks, I guess.
I need to get back into the daily update thing.
My code at work is functioning correctly, finally. We'll have a big code review tomorrow or Friday, which will surely highlight problems to be fixed... or something.
I want it to go well, of course, since the quality of my code determines my worth as a human being.
I've been enjoying the lack of major projects recently, though I guess the Deadbacks project will become major very soon.
I haven't forgotten about you, really! I'm still here...
I'm still coughing, too. Damn it. But it's fading. Slowly. Maybe I'll OD on expectorants this weekend in an attempt to clear the last of the crap out.
Now that I've advanced into Brown sash, sifu has changed the requirements to get into brown... making it much easier! And everyone ELSE will have easier requirements to first brown, too, but not us existing browns.
Not that it actually matters. We all learn the same stuff by the end, just shifted around a bit.
I've worked up some tests for an effect for Alain yesterday. I'll hopefully make a nicer version and put video up by Saturday AM. THIS is a cheap one -- not like the $1,500 worth of effort the other two had. I'll charge a pittance.
Work has been madness this week, which is why the journal has been stagnent.
At the beginning of the week, I had a decently working chunk of code... but it wouldn't do a particular thing.
So I restructured stuff to make it nicer than the hacky version I had, and tried to get the certain thing to work.
Everything broke.
I just now got the nicely structured code so it works again! Yay me!
I'm afraid to test the certain thing, though, because I'm sure it won't work.
I can't actually do stuff yet, since I upgraded a stack of calls to match a protocol that hasn't been checked in yet... I'm waiting for it.
So now I type in the journal.
Hmmm...
I recently read a REALLY good book on screenwriting called, ummm, I don't recall. But it was really good!
With the new information, I feel better prepared to attack my fiction writing again... and I know better the terrible mistakes I was making in my story.
Of course, movies and TV aren't novels, but many of the concepts apply... and I've never found a decent book about writing novels. Screenplays, however... that's a well-analyzed craft.