Airbrushing, eh?

• March 29th, 2006 • 0 Comments • airbrushing, supplies •

I’ve always wanted to try out airbrushing (who hasn’t!). Fortunately, Michael’s Mother’s studio happened to have two hanging around. Before I go any further I will point out that I know nothing about airbrushes, except that one adds air and paint, and magically the combination of the two makes nifty effects on surfaces.

Model number one seems to be (as near as I can figure) a fairly generic model: Thayer & Chandler No. 46512 A. I took the durn thing apart to clean it as 1) it had a handy exploded view in the instructions and 2) the container it had been sitting in for 15+ years was filled with some sort of foam that disintegrated upon being touched and had corroded the sides of the brush a bit. As my technical pen cleaning tutorial shows, I loooooove taking apart stuff like this. Very enjoyable. Somehow I managed to get all the parts back into the pen in working order after cleaning them with warm water and BKF.

Model number two is a Paasche Double Action AB. It looks more complicated than the T&C model; further research online yielded the fact that this is considered one of if not the top o’ the line model for airbrushes. One of the many airbrush books in the studio refused to even discuss the Paasche AB, as it was just not for beginners! At a whopping $250(!) I would venture to say that beginners would in fact NOT use that brush. (Heck, even if I was a pro I don’t know if I could invest that kind of cabbage.) Good grief! Talk about a treasure!

Sadly, there was no compressor to accompany the finds. Michael and I stopped by my arch-nemisis Hobby Lobby on the way home to price the compressors. I found the prices strange: the cheapest compressor was $90. The ol’ hardware store has yielded compressors at reasonable prices, so, what’s the difference? As far as I know, most “standard” compressors can range from 20psi to enough to fill my tires. Obviously this warrants further investigation. Compressed air has always made me nervous ever since a bike tire blew up in my face when I was 12 due to overfilling using Dad’s SpeedyAire. Considering I’ve run across all sorts of moisture scrubbers, hose adapters and fittings, it seems feasible to hook up the airbrush to a standard air compressor I can use not only for running the fancy-schmancy Paasche, but fill the car tires, run the industrial air brush gun Dad gave me and use a nail gun. That’s right. I want it all. All from one machine. Why can’t the hardware store be open past midnight?

This Calls for an Investigation.

• March 22nd, 2006 • 2 Comments • type •

Hmm. I don’t agree with the The Partnership for a Drug-Free America’s new logomark. Call me crazy, but isn’t that an interrobang? I couldn’t find anything on their website that touted what this is all about, but then again I didn’t look very hard. Ha ha!

Hopefully my recent editorial rant will unearth some questions:

Dear PDFA,

I have a question not about the content of your campaign, but the content of your logo. Did you mean to use an interrobang for the newest incarnation? It seems somewhat inappropriate as the mark was invented for describing rhetorical questions or incredulity. I realize this probably isn’t a problem for the general public, but I read your new logo as “The Partnership for a Drug-Free America!?” or worse yet, “The Partnership?! For a Drug-Free America!?” It is as if one cannot believe that there is an organization for such a purpose or that such an organization is preposterous in its conception.

I can see that the intent might be to follow with the idea that if people have questions, you will happily provide them with an enthusiastic answer, but using an interrobang just screams out problems to me. Looking at the logomark from the standpoint of someone who doesn’t know what an interrobang is, having a questionmark featured so prominantly in your logo suggests to me that you’re not entirely sure of the content of your message or organization is!

Ultimately, I suppose the opinions of one type-nerd critiquing your organization’s graphic marks probably matter very little. Your recent commercials thankfully veer away from the preachy and irrelevant messages they have carried in the past. However, I might point out that visual graphics also have the power to identify and brand: is yours sending the right message?

More to follow, if I actually get a response!

Updated, hopefully.

• March 20th, 2006 • 0 Comments • computers •

Ahhh. All seems to be relatively well on the computer front. I took Pearl to see the Mac geniuses to fix the problem with Dreamweaver. Somehow, I think that being in a store with other intimidating Macs made her decide to start working correctly. So! Crisis averted.

For now.

In the meantime, the paperwork for Patchwork Faces to appear at a Japanese cartoon convention this June is in the clear. It should be an interesting experience! Currently, my little hobby business has been very busy with the MS Society Walk fundraisers, so getting to keep all the profits will be kinda nice!

Oh $#!+

• March 7th, 2006 • 0 Comments • computers, meandering •

Ug, ug, ug and UG.

As previously mentioned, the new computer is great. Little Pearl happily pulls her weight and everything goes so smoothly.

BUT. (Note the big, huge BUT.) For some bizarre reason Dreamweaver MX 2004 will not run on my operating system, Tiger 4.5. I install everything ok, it sits there and hangs when I try to start the program. Macromedia/Adobe has offered up a few “patches;” sadly one of the patches I installed locked up while it was installing. (Even worse, this is an issue with the newest version of the program, DW8.)

In both the DW forums and Apple forums, people are well aware of this problem. The best advice several had to offer was, “You have to decide which is more important: DW or Tiger.” Another stated that he called up Macromedia/Adobe’s tech support and was given the ol’ song and dance of “We are currently working to resolve these issues.” Well, good thing I didn’t waste any money calling them up.

There are two reasons this made me beyond angry last night: 1) I cannot do work for a small company I was going to revamp a website for. This is after me convincing them they needed a make-over badly. 2) Gallery work for the Epicycloids has come to a grinding halt. I’ve considered completely forgetting about DW, and trying to do the site in iWeb, Blogger or MSWord. Sadly, I like the way my website looks and functions much too much for that. (And I just figured out how to make .ASP headers and footers! Gimmie a break!)

I’ve mused that this is some divine sign telling me to get the hell out of the house and do a big, messy painting and take a break from neat and tidy watercolored ink drawings. Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. What frustrates me is I am still not sure what to do about the situation. The Internet has really become my own personal gallery, and right now it’s as if there has been some metal dome clapped over my means of sharing art (albiet in sporadic upgrades).

Extra Poor

• March 3rd, 2006 • 0 Comments • computers •

Well, a handy amount of money flowed in and I purchased Neptune’s replacement, Pearl.

Pearl is nearly causing me to go into convulsions with all the cool new things Tiger has, like Widgets. Like blogger widgets. EXTRA COOL blogger widgets.

[Insert sound of hyperventilating here.]

Computer Down

• March 1st, 2006 • 0 Comments • computers •

Bummer! Neptune went to visit the “Mac Geniuses” last week, and news was not good. Apparently she suffers from what is known as OLDNESS. The Mac Dude behind the bar ran all the diagnostics he could, and another ol’ Mac guy on my side of the bar marveled at the older machine. Outch, man.

While Neptune isn’t completely dead, I cannot risk working on it as there have been too many problems and SNAFUs which warranted a trip to the computer store in the first place. So! I’m stuck on the laptop, which is not really equipped for all the graphic work I do, plus it has a tiny screen that makes me cry.

Thus is born the Savings-o-meter to help me save for my new computer. Fortunately a recent birthday gave me a head start (Thank you, relatives!). In the meantime, I wonder what to do with an almost-working Mac G4. Rip it apart? Sell the remains? Mod it? (Even though it would be a semi-working mod?) Try to make an unreliable server? I’m not sure I have the time or the competence to do anything worthwhile with Neptune.

…anyone wanna buy a broken Mac?