In anticipation of Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day, I’ve been tinkering around with pinhole photos. In an ideal world, I would make a pinhole camera out of an oatmeal canister or other household box, stick in some photo paper, and go crazy like I once did in my high school Introduction to Photography class. But, absent a darkroom and the necessary chemicals, I’ve improvised: remove the lens of the digital SLR camera, put some foil over top, and poke hole(s) into the center with a pin; turn the camera to the manual/bulb setting, compose a picture, hold down the shutter button for a length of time that seems appropriate; if later revealed to be a non-optimal length of time, do it again for a slightly longer or shorter period.
I had some trouble with dust on the sensor of the camera; it’s much more evident in the pinhole photos than in ones taken with a lens, for reasons I could guess at but of which I lack actual knowledge. I blew it out a few times, and the changing patterns of dust show that a change was at least effected by doing this, though I wouldn’t say it went from a state of “Dust” to a state of “Less Dust” overall.
The advantage of digital is the immediate feedback. I plan to do this with real film for Pinhole Day, so I’ll have to do a little reading and experimenting on appropriate exposure times beforehand.
Persona 4 was my first RPG in many years. Near the end, I was feverishly playing during every spare moment I could finagle, drawing up little schedules to squeeze in as many Social Link and side quest opportunities as possible, and dungeon-grinding rigorously even though I enjoyed that the least. I wouldn’t say it’s a perfect game, but it’s not too far from for me and I love it a lot. Good thing, too, since a 100+ hour investment in something less than spectacular would’ve been…silly.
At the same time that I was playing and finishing Persona 4, I was also coming back to fanart as a Thing to Do. Cowboy Bebop introduced me to the notion when I was all young and fresh in high school; I was profuse in making pictures of Spike and gang, got better at drawing as a result, then became occupied with other things and left off. Out of university now, I’m working to become more constant in my practice of art in general (I’ve always been horrible at keeping sketchbooks), and getting back to fanart is part of that.
After some lackluster attempts to pick up a drawing tablet and do some painterly pictures, I decided to start with what I can do better and work with vectors in Illustrator, learning the look of the characters in a somewhat more controlled environment. I am making paper dolls of the main playable cast, and plan to do at least two series. The first one will be more or less canon, the second will be fun. Here’s an in-progress preview.
Three heads out of eight isn’t a huge amount of progress, but…::puts nose to grindstone, sweats::
Here it is: the first post on this blog. What I hope for morsel to be is a partial record of my engagement with making, and with the world in general as it relates to making. You know, tidbits of art (including fanart! comicking!), design, illustration, and crafting. I do have a separate knitting blog, but as my post output there seems to be <1/four months, I may as well stick such things here.
How about an inaugural quickie comic?
More on Pixton later. Also stay tuned for: Persona 4 Paper Dolls!
