Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Monday, April 13, 2009
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
New item: "Hate Me"
The new "Hate Me" shirt is up on CynicWear.
I don't remember the specifics of the conversation this one came out of, but I do remember ending it with this line, followed by, "man, I need that on a shirt," which is often how these things get started. I think I'll get it next, right after the remade Quantum Physics shirt. (And now you know where my so-called "profits" go.)
It's true, though, it drives me nuts when people simply don't have reasons for why they hate someone/something; they're simply reacting. Let's just take one example: I used to end up in arguments with coworkers and classmates about President Bush's merits/lack thereof. Once their objections had been heard out and evaluated, they almost always boiled down to "he's stupid," or "he's an idiot," or "he's a stupid idiot." (There were a few pleasant exceptions.)
And I thought that sucked. I mean, I had my problems with the guy, sure, but I wasn't going to use "he's stupid" for the justification of why I was mad at him. Any idiot could do that. Lots and lots of them did. No, no, I had reasons. I used to tell them that if they were going to damn the man, they should do it for something important. Damn him for betraying the ideals he claimed to believe in, for spending us into oblivion in the name of fiscal restraint, starting another declaration-less war against a tactic instead of an enemy, or the Patriot Acts, wiretaps, the creation of the housing bubble that is now bursting, logging regulations, Terri Schiavo, corruption, Brownie's "heck of a job", whatever, take your pick.
See? Do it on principle; it's more forceful when you've got good reasons. Beats the hell out of "stupid" any day. And sometimes, you just have to remind people you're right when you're done. :)
I don't remember the specifics of the conversation this one came out of, but I do remember ending it with this line, followed by, "man, I need that on a shirt," which is often how these things get started. I think I'll get it next, right after the remade Quantum Physics shirt. (And now you know where my so-called "profits" go.)
It's true, though, it drives me nuts when people simply don't have reasons for why they hate someone/something; they're simply reacting. Let's just take one example: I used to end up in arguments with coworkers and classmates about President Bush's merits/lack thereof. Once their objections had been heard out and evaluated, they almost always boiled down to "he's stupid," or "he's an idiot," or "he's a stupid idiot." (There were a few pleasant exceptions.)
And I thought that sucked. I mean, I had my problems with the guy, sure, but I wasn't going to use "he's stupid" for the justification of why I was mad at him. Any idiot could do that. Lots and lots of them did. No, no, I had reasons. I used to tell them that if they were going to damn the man, they should do it for something important. Damn him for betraying the ideals he claimed to believe in, for spending us into oblivion in the name of fiscal restraint, starting another declaration-less war against a tactic instead of an enemy, or the Patriot Acts, wiretaps, the creation of the housing bubble that is now bursting, logging regulations, Terri Schiavo, corruption, Brownie's "heck of a job", whatever, take your pick.
See? Do it on principle; it's more forceful when you've got good reasons. Beats the hell out of "stupid" any day. And sometimes, you just have to remind people you're right when you're done. :)
Monday, April 6, 2009
Working on the description page for a new shirt design, "hate me." I had a questioning moment on the text - is it too harsh, I asked myself? I had to stop and think about it. I'm so jaded in some ways, that sometimes I can't tell what's "too harsh" for "most people."
I'm like a smoker who can't tell when things are on fire. :)
I'm like a smoker who can't tell when things are on fire. :)
Sunday, April 5, 2009
Rambling; Perfectionism will be the death of me.
On the advice of an old, good friend, I've decided to make two changes.
One, I'm going to be spending more time on CynicWear. College is turning into a real grind, and I need something to give me a break from it. In a way, CynicWear is an escape for me; it's a surprising lot of fun to put silly/funny/awesome drawings or sayings on shirts/bumper stickers/etc. Sometimes it's even more fun coming up with descriptions.
Two, I'm going to try being less of a perfectionist. I end up scrapping almost-perfectly-good drawings all the time over little details that no-one else even notices. For CynicWear, as I go I've found that even though the software I use is getting better and better, I've still been taking at least as much time to make an image. (I'm not counting the periods where real life has kicked me in the head and I'm not even doing CynicWear.)
So: I'm going to stop worrying about it as much, try to get more posted, etc. Not that it's going to be a "quantity, not quality" approach, it's just that when I try to make sure everything's perfect, I end up never putting stuff up. Yay me.
Stats, and rambling!:
Death By Ramen. Created using AutoCAD, in bits of spare time over the course of 3 or 4 days. Longer than it should have taken. It's my first design and still one of my favorites. I wear it on campus a lot and always get nods & smiles or comments.
God Bless the USSA. Also done in AutoCAD, believe it or not. Spare-time bits of a couple of weeks, because I kept tinkering with it. Several more weeks before I put it up on the site, because I wasn't sure how to explain it properly: I consider myself a genuine patriot, frankly, but without explanation ahead of time, people I showed it to in person immediately assumed I was a raving anti-American reactionary zealot. Whee.
Angel of Death. Another favorite, made in Blender this time. I love Blender; it's a seriously sexy piece of software, but it's also a major pain at times, and kind of wasted on vector art. Took about a week or so. (Was originally going to be 3D-ish.) Would have had it in an hour or two in Inkscape, tops. Might redo the halo later, at that. Oops, perfectionism creeping in! Back, back!
Tobacco Breeze. Much closer to the ideal. After beating my head in using Blender, I decided to switch to Inkscape. 1 hour later, I had exactly what I wanted, right out of the box. I do all my stuff in Inkscape now, especially now that I have a decent tablet.
One, I'm going to be spending more time on CynicWear. College is turning into a real grind, and I need something to give me a break from it. In a way, CynicWear is an escape for me; it's a surprising lot of fun to put silly/funny/awesome drawings or sayings on shirts/bumper stickers/etc. Sometimes it's even more fun coming up with descriptions.
Two, I'm going to try being less of a perfectionist. I end up scrapping almost-perfectly-good drawings all the time over little details that no-one else even notices. For CynicWear, as I go I've found that even though the software I use is getting better and better, I've still been taking at least as much time to make an image. (I'm not counting the periods where real life has kicked me in the head and I'm not even doing CynicWear.)
So: I'm going to stop worrying about it as much, try to get more posted, etc. Not that it's going to be a "quantity, not quality" approach, it's just that when I try to make sure everything's perfect, I end up never putting stuff up. Yay me.
Stats, and rambling!:
Death By Ramen. Created using AutoCAD, in bits of spare time over the course of 3 or 4 days. Longer than it should have taken. It's my first design and still one of my favorites. I wear it on campus a lot and always get nods & smiles or comments.
God Bless the USSA. Also done in AutoCAD, believe it or not. Spare-time bits of a couple of weeks, because I kept tinkering with it. Several more weeks before I put it up on the site, because I wasn't sure how to explain it properly: I consider myself a genuine patriot, frankly, but without explanation ahead of time, people I showed it to in person immediately assumed I was a raving anti-American reactionary zealot. Whee.
Angel of Death. Another favorite, made in Blender this time. I love Blender; it's a seriously sexy piece of software, but it's also a major pain at times, and kind of wasted on vector art. Took about a week or so. (Was originally going to be 3D-ish.) Would have had it in an hour or two in Inkscape, tops. Might redo the halo later, at that. Oops, perfectionism creeping in! Back, back!
Tobacco Breeze. Much closer to the ideal. After beating my head in using Blender, I decided to switch to Inkscape. 1 hour later, I had exactly what I wanted, right out of the box. I do all my stuff in Inkscape now, especially now that I have a decent tablet.
Saturday, April 4, 2009
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