Ablaze with the Fires of Haven’t a Clue

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Photo #381: Forest FireLocation Taken: Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming
Time Taken: October 2012

You ever have a day when you’re just irritable for no good reason?

I get them every so often, and today was one of them.

It’s an odd feeling, something like a mix between morbid amusement with the world and a desire to be alone no matter where you are or how feasible it is. It tends to come out as being a bit more gruff with everyone, and far more likely to abandon the fools you’re with to the fates they deserve.

…Ok, maybe I’ve still got a bit of that mood left.

It’s also vaguely unsettling since you can’t trace why you’re in that mood. It’s sort of like coming across a burned-down forest in one of the loveliest places in the world. The land is still pretty, and you know that fire renews the land, so it’s not really a tragedy, but still, it brings to mind the flames and the terror the animals who lived there must have felt, even though most of them escape controlled fires like the ones in Yellowstone.

Conflicted, that’s the word. It’s a state of believing that you’re both completely right for feeling this way and completely wrong at the same time.

Whatever the case, don’t cross me when I’m in one of these moods. I’m likely to bite your head off.

At least I warn people about it first.

  

Hmmm, I named this file Spy.jpg. I think my naming skills need more work…

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Photo #380: SpyTime Drawn: September 2007

Yay dramatic lighting!

Yay guns drawn with barely any reference!

Yay poorly done foreshortening!

Ok, that last one is an art term, maybe I should describe it. And for that matter, “reference” refers to looking up pictures of an object you’re drawing to make sure you get the details right.

Foreshortening refers to the technique of shifting the sizes and angles of an object to make it appear much further or closer to you than the rest of the picture. In this case, I want the gun to look like it’s pointing at the viewer, so I enlarged the hand and shrunk the arm in a certain pattern, making it larger for each segment closer.

Here’s a short yet to-the-point tutorial on how to do it, if you want to know more (or didn’t follow my somewhat muddled explanation above).

As for why it’s poorly done, well, I didn’t distort the arm enough. I’m used to thinking of arms as long cylindrical forms, while foreshortening shifts it to more of a sphere shape. If you look at the gun-arm, you can see the arm still has a pretty strong tilt towards the cylinder form.

And yes, I know, that’s more art terms. One of the easiest ways to figure out how to draw a form in perspective is to simplify it down as much as possible, draw those forms in the configuration you want, and then add the details back in. A lot of art tutorials go straight for the spheres, boxes, and cylinders. That tutorial I linked to above has more boxes than people, and even more people-made-of-boxes!

So yeah, that’s what all that fancy art education I had was for, learning how to turn people into boxes and cylinders into spheres.

  

Falling Water, Falling Fog, Falling Air

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Photo #379: Falling WaterLocation Taken: Multnomah Falls, Oregon
Time Taken: June 2008

When water falls, it does not have a smooth ride to the bottom, at least not on Earth. There’s rocks and trees and whatnot in the way, yes, but most of what it’s hitting is air.

It’s easy to think of air as not being there. It’s invisible and doesn’t really impede our movement unless it’s moving at a significant speed. Above all, we’re used to living in it. It may be necessary for life, but it doesn’t really affect our livelihoods in a significant way.

But it is there, and it does get in the way.

As the water comes off an edge and gets pulled downwards by gravity, it occasionally hits an air molecule. And as the air and the water mix and separate more and more, the falling water turns into falling fog.

It takes a pretty long fall for a significant percentage of the water to turn to vapor. And it has to be a direct drop rather than a more rapids-style waterfall. Air is lighter than water, after all, and if there’s no way for it to get under the water, well, there’s no way for vapor to be produced in this fashion.

As soon as that vapor hits something, though, it turns back into normal water. The air escapes and the water clings to the surface of whatever it landed on.

Well, until enough water hits that surface for the weight of the drop to exceed the surface tension of the water, and gravity takes over once more.

  

Awesome Anemones

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Photo #378: Awesome AnemonesLocation Taken: Seattle Aquarium, Seattle, Washington
Time Taken: June 2008

So, how are you today, I’m an anemone!

No, not an enemy, an anemone!

What, you’re an anemone too?! That’s awesome! I’m green and have wriggly bits and no eyes!

You too?! That’s awesome.

Don’t look now (hah! That’s funny because we have no eyes!), but there’s a yellow anemone right next to you.

Did you know the Green Lantern (you know, from the comic books) had his powers not work on yellow things! Isn’t that such an odd choice!? What’s more, his power originally didn’t work on wood of all things!

I mean, what self-respecting show would have an all powerful gizmo not work on WOOD!?!

What? Doctor Who does that too?

Um…

Ok, everything about the Doctor is awesome, so I’m declaring the wood thing the most awesome idea ever.

Sometimes I wish I had eyes, so I could go see all the awesome geeky places here in Seattle. I fit right in there, despite being all green and tentacle-y.

Or is that a plus? I think green and tentacle-y are pretty common in a lot of good Science Fiction…