I Made a Teeny, Tiny 8-bit Man

Tonight I went to the library to play around with Photoshop. I used an online tutorial to make this 8-bit dude:

The idea was to learn how to draw 8-bit characters to make a poster for a big event the chapbook press I'm interning with is hosting, but I've learned that this is actually harder than the tutorial makes it sound, and I would have to practice quite a bit before I was ready to make something good enough to put on a poster.

Here's the tutorial I was using: http://blog.learntoprogram.tv/pixel-art-with-photoshop-part-1/

He's very tiny because I was following the instructions on the tutorial almost to the letter, and the tutorial was designed for people who want to make sprites for video games on platforms that prefer smaller graphics. The tutorial did give a method for making the image larger, though. I tried it, but I had to fix a few things that got distorted during the transformation. Not sure I got them all, but here it is:

I think it looks better small. But... oh well! I had fun and I learned something new.

The State of My Journal

Yesterday I explained that one of the pages in my Wreck This Journal is about to fall out because I left the book sitting open for a long time and then I assaulted it with a hair dryer, which I fear melted the glue in the binding a little bit.

I'm not worried about that page anymore. I'm too busy worrying about the entire last third of the book. I'm afraid it's going to fall right off if I'm not careful.

Unfortunately, I have no intention of being careful with this book.

Mwahahahaha.

The Continuing Saga of the Dish Soap in the Journal

Well, the dish soap never dried, so I tried the hair dryer. I had... mixed results. Fortunately, the soap is now dry enough that I feel safe shutting the book. Unfortunately, the soap is not exactly dry. It's still a little sticky, although I pressed another piece of paper on top of it to remove excess stickiness, and it's got this almost waxy feel. It'll probably stick to the previous page. It's also got all kinds of dust particles stuck in it from when it was sitting open. Yaaaaay.

The book itself really suffered from the experience. Leaving the book sitting propped open flat for so long was bad for the binding, and I think the hair dryer actually melted the glue a little bit. This page has halfway detached from the binding. It's also got all kinds of waves and ripples in it from having liquids dry on it. Heh. Good thing this is Wreck This Journal and not Keep This Journal In Perfect Condition.

So if any of you were considering using liquid dish soap as a substance sample for your own Wreck This Journal, my recommendation is: don't. In fact, now I'm afraid to try any other kind of soap or sticky thing. I had really good experiences with very watery liquids, such as perfume and hand sanitizer, and things that were meant to eventually dry, like nail polish. Paint would obviously work quite well, and I'm sure food coloring would be a good choice. But not soap. Maybe shampoo? I know that, if you don't rinse shampoo out of your hair, sometimes it can become dry and flaky (and itchy). But I'm not about to try it. If I do continue with this page (and after my experience, I might just leave it the way it is), I'm going to steer very clear of any kind of soap and anything with glycerin.

24 Hours Later

24 hours later, the dish soap sample that I put in my Wreck This Journal has still not dried.

This is getting a bit frustrating.

If it's not dry by tomorrow morning, I think I'll try taking a hair dryer to it. If that doesn't work, I'll probably try to scrub it off somehow. It won't be good for the paper, but hey- the book's called Wreck This Journal.


Rebecca sits, watching the blob of dish soap, tapping her fingers on her desk.

Random Fact #23

Random Fact #23: Liquid dish soap takes a very long time to dry. That is, if it dries at all.

To be honest, I don't know yet. I've been sitting here watching liquid dish soap dry off-and-on for the past eight or eighteen or nineteen hours, and it's still very liquid-like. It might never dry at all, for all I know.

I really hope it does dry. I put it on one of the pages of my Wreck This Journal, the page which instructs the reader/wrecker to sample various substances within the home, and it won't dry. Now I can't work on other pages.

Pencil Rubbings

Tonight I completed the page in Keri Smith's Wreck My Journal that instructed me to do some pencil rubbings. I wanted to make sure I got a photo of the page because it turned out kinda cool and I'm pretty sure it's going to get smudged pretty soon.

I just did a few small rubbings of some coins, a paper clip, and two keys.

Left-handed

I've been working on Keri Smith's Wreck This Journal for the past few years. It's been taking a long time because I've always been waiting for the perfect time and perfect idea for each page. Lately, however, I've been completing a ton of pages.

You should definitely pick up a copy of Wreck This Journal! Each page gives you instructions on how to destroy the book, and it's actually really cathartic and a lot of fun. The instructions range from cracking the spine to rubbing the book on a dirty car. It's a great creative project, especially for perfectionists. You really start to see the potential for beauty in destruction.

The instructions on one of the pages I did today was to write or draw with your left hand. So I did.

My handwriting with my left hand is bad yet surprisingly legible. Yay me! Also, I might be better at drawing horses with my left hand than I am with my right.

Hail!

It started raining and then hailing during my Sigma Tau Delta meeting today. We watched out the window. Some despaired for their cars while others wondered exactly how dangerous it would be to walk outside. The hail was very pretty to look at once it stopped falling from the sky, though. It was like a piece of the sky that I could hold in my hand. I also really liked the way the hail looked against the mulch, so I took the photo.