With ten bottle babies in the house currently, pretty much every time I turn around it's time to feed a kitten. But it does mean that I have an abundance of kitten photos at the moment.
This kitten is actually adorable and sweet. I still think this image is funny.
Is it spooky? Meh.
I may have achieved either peak redneck or peak MacGyver over here. Or possibly I am just a cautionary tale about idiots owning a home.
Anyhow, I had my kitchen faucet replaced a few years ago. I was going to do it myself, but then I couldn't get the valves to turn off under the sink and my plumbing rule is that if the water to the house has to be shut off, I'm paying someone else to do it.
The problem is, the faucet I used to replace the previous one (which was literally crumbling to pieces, was a cheap piece of crap. After a couple years, the handle got loose. Then it started falling off, which is a pain because I had to slot it back on the stem while the water was running.
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| View of the underside of the handle |
But I lived with it like that until I realized I couldn't leave it like that when my petsitter came by. That was when I looked more closely and realized I could shove an allen wrench through the hole in the handle and tighten the screw that holds it on the stem. Problem solved.
... for about six months. Then it got loose again. I ignored it for a few months, then tightened it again. And so on. But lately the time between tightening and falling off has been decreasing to days, so I looked more closely — the metal ring that fits on the stem is broken. So every time I tighten it, it just opens a bit more.
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| View inside from the bottom |
Ideally, I would replace the faucet, but I'm between plumbers at the moment and I don't feel like dealing with it. This is my solution. How often do I need to use my socket wrench anyhow?
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| New handle created by parts from my socket wrench set |
It works great.
Once again, I'm realizing that I was influenced by Lisa Frank during my formative years, so asking me to produce "spooky" is like asking a neon dolphin to solve a Rubik's cube. I mean, it could happen, but it would probably be by accident.
Today I tried to draw a pumpkin. A four-year-old can draw a pumpkin, but I required an artistic filter to fix what I'd done. Then I tried to make it fun. Is it spooky? Not so much. But I kind of like it.
I decided to go back into DazStudio today and try to get the dForce stuff to work. The idea is that you have clothing with certain values set such that it hangs naturally on the 3D model when you tell it to run the simulation.
Since non-hooker clothing is rare in Daz, I was excited to see a nice shirt. It's a little hard to see here, but it's what's known as a "batwing shirt".
The problem is, when I put it on the 3D model it looks like a puffy jacket before I run the simulation, and when I run the simulation, it goes completely off the rails. This is where it was going when I finally killed it off today. The tornado of gold polygons heading off to the upper right corner is the shirt.
I have no idea what I'm doing wrong. Oh well.
Anyhow, while I was in Daz Studio, I messed around with some options and made a green person. I should have worked on the lighting a bit, but I'd already wasted a bunch of time on that shirt simulation, so... Yeah.
Is it spooky? No, not unless you are frightened by my complete lack of perfectionism. Maybe I'll re-render it someday with lighting that doesn't wash out all the features. But dang, those trousers look great!
Looking through some old photos for Halloween inspiration, I found one I'd taken last year of my dog next to a stack of pumpkins. They're at a bad angle, but I grabbed them anyhow, added some sparkles and some swirls, and there you go.
Is it spooky? No. I think it gives more of a cozy vibe, but I'm okay with that.
It's good to have a reason to practice, but I think we've confirmed I'm really not into the horror/spooky vibe.
For today's terrifying image, I wanted to once again to attempt blood drops from text, this time using this tutorial. After much screwing around trying to create a new dynamic brush option, I mostly figured things out, though I couldn't find a good font within GIMP.
(Do I understand how fonts are made available on my laptop? Absolutely not. It's one of the few reasons I haven't booted Adobe InDesign to the curb yet — I know I can use any font available there for commercial use and it has a bazillion fonts. Just not $23/month's worth.)
Anyhow, the "Run away!" was fine and all, but as an image, it was kind of boring. And then I thought: Kittens make everything better! I find this hilarious.
I could have blended the kitten image better, but that would have involved getting out the tablet and I was too lazy. The whole thing is still funny anyhow.
Be proud of me — I dropped by the shelter to pick up food for my (eight) foster kittens and did not pick up any new kittens, despite the foster coordinator sending out two emails today. Turns out this was a good thing because one of the litters later turned out to have ringworm and while I'm not against taking care of ringworm kittens, it's not a good surprise.
For today's image, I was playing around with gradients. Again, is it spooky? Hm. I think this may be the closest I've come to a Halloween theme. So I'm going to say: YES!
(Purchased image: DepositPhotos 376866310)
Today I did sort of the same thing I've been doing for the past two days, but this time I followed the directions... Well, not entirely. But I got within the 50th percentile, which for me is amazing.
Is it spooky? Not really. But it's black and white — does that count?
I've also started doing an alphabet in smoke, but it's not done yet, so I threw this together instead. Enjoy day 3 of Horrordailies!
(Original image is from DepositPhotos 10846953.)
In other news, I have five blobs sharing my office and they are pretty cute.
It's day two of Horrordailies. This one is better than yesterday's, but that's not saying much...
Anyhow, this uses an image I purchased from DepositPhotos (376866310). The background was created using Hurl noise with added sparkle.
I think this smoke fade technique works better with a close-up of a head, but I'm trying to use images that I already own.
Okay, so October is Horrordailies time. But I'm not really into horror. Or spooky things in general. Or even pumpkin spice.
But I'm willing to use this as an excuse to play around with photomanipulations because I got some new digital pens that imitate smoke and I'm still working out the best ways to use them. So why not?
This image is objectively terrible, but I like the vibe. So there. Day one is done. It can only get better.
