Art-and-Technology: A Bit Of This, A Bit Of That

Who Doesn't Like a Musical Robot?

Upgraded my ancient MOHO pro12.2 to the not as ancient final 2013 MOHO pro12.5 with the $25 Humble Bundle offer around at the moment and it came with a few extra content packs of brushes and characters including this great Robot and rig. The robot animation here is just the sample it comes with.

I wanted to use it in a YouTube short, as that is the only thing that anyone looks at or listens too, so looked thru the last 40 pieces of music I made in the last 6 months and just grabbed one at 120BPM I didn't remember playing recently. That animation music was edited in Audacity to a 50 second clip taken from Bflat-Dorian-120BPM-Stop-The-Cough with 8 string guitar synths from this track:

https://megacurve.bandcamp.com/track/bflat-dorian-120bpm-stop-the-cough

It is just luck that the robot foot steps match perfectly to the kick drum. It just worked. Added the tracks moving waveform as the background in the second version, and had the robot walk off screen as it fades.

I think I have made a ton of music tracks, that I may have used in a music+comic that no one sees and then just upload it to a Bandcamp album where they get forgotten, even by myself.

This short gives part of this track another go at being heard. I should probably do that more, but I am currently driven to make new music while I can. I expect Arthritis or such will make that difficult in the coming years.

This version of MOHO, like my CorelDraw V12 and Illustrator CS3 are old versions, but they still have way more features than I ever use.

Recent Movies & Documentaries

I record many of the movies broadcast on TV here, and look at those on PRIME and NETFILX. I never watch a movie in one sitting. Usually over 2 nights in the time before I go to bed at night. So many I have started to watch, then couldn't be bothered finishing. Like the latest Beetlejuice Movie. I did see PATTON to the end, but boy that was a slog. Ad ASTRA was better, and it wasn't as bad as most of the reviews made it out to be. Quit on a Clint Eastwood directed and starred in Theif thing, and quit IT'S COMPLICATED (supposed to be a comedy) about halfway.

Recent movies I watched and actually enjoyed were LILO & STITCH, METAL LORDS (even though the first 1/3 until he can play the drums is slow, it really picks up) and KPOP DEMON SLAYERS ( the characters and music are great).

The LEMANS 24H is something I have followed since being a kid and seeing how amazing the PORSCHE 917s were, and PRIME has a multi part documentary on the LEMANS 2015 race. Most of that is really good. 2015 Mark Webber and the Porsche 919 HYBRID in the LMP1 class.

LMP1's last year was 2017, and the Porsche 919 above won that with the same team that won the 2015 race. Amazing technology, but that is all for some other of my comics.

The above Porsche 919 Hybrid is a wonderful second hand 1:43 scale diecast model from Mercari. Decades ago I would have bought a fantastic and expensive resin/white metal kit of a car I wanted, and spend 3 months making it. Like I did for this resin Provence Moulage 1:43 scale PORSCHE 917LH.

The diecast isn't quite as detailed as the resin kit, but my eyes, the floaters and age, means I have to look really closely to see the difference, and I just don't see well enough any more to build and do a 1:43 scale kit justice. I just can't see the small parts well enough, even with a magnifying head band.

I started watching a few other Movies and Animated things, some 4 or 5 I couldn't be bothered looking up the names of, and just haven't been in the mood for what they offered.

Then last night tried Netflix's Leviathan. This grabbed my interest, and I watched the first 3 episodes in one evening. An alternate steam punk history of the events causing World War I. One character has a wonderful Scottish accent that I could listen to all night.

Based on a popular book trilogy I had never heard of, then fascinated to read that it is an illustrated young adult book series.

The end credits have watercolor illustrations of scenes that occurred in that episode, but they aren't the black and white illustrations in the book.

Manga Catchup

I had been looking for Masamune Shirow's old DOMINION TANK POLICE, a work from before he made it big with APPLE SEED and GHOST IN THE SHELL for some time and finally found a reasonable copy. This is comedy action, and has furigana to make it easier for me. Always good.

Otomo Katsuhiro is one of the founders of modern Japanese Manga, after the Tezuka and Mizuki era and his work is something I should have a copy of and so have gotten APPLESAUCE and FIREBALL from the Complete Works Reprint series. The detail in the illustrations is superhuman. I ask myself though, do I want to do that? My answer is no.

I have also finally found a reasonable second hand set of his AKIRA manga in English, his 1000 page masterpiece. Should be interesting, and more than the Anime is.