marcusharwell.net

I didn’t sleep well last night, and that almost always brings troubled dreams along with it. Early in the morning, I had a dream that involved a medical clinic, a small office off a tree-lined street, and there were many academics milling around the area, so it might have been a university.

A professor there said to me, “The only permanent thing about man is his idiocy.”

I thought that was strange, but some of my best friends are cynics, so it was more amusing than anything else. When I woke up, I wondered if that thought had been original to my subconscious, or if I’d heard it before. A quick Google search turned up a similar quotation from the eminent Dr. Zaius.

You are right, I have always known about man. From the evidence, I believe his wisdom must walk hand in hand with his idiocy.

General

Here’s where it usually starts: a thumbnail concept.

This gets turned into a larger sketch . . .

Which gets refined in the computer . . .

Then bits are added that further complete the thing . . .

Once the drawing is done, it’s painted.

Finishing touches are added . . .

And, finally, a wash background makes it pop.

Illustration

Unrevolution 12 - In which some things are explained, some questions are answered, and more questions arise, erm, therefrom.

UPDATE, Feb. 5:
The fire had died to embers and was cool enough for Ronidez and his guest to sit close together on either side of it. Ronidez had seen much in his many years on this little world, but he preferred to be the observer. He was aloof, uninvolved in the lives of others. That would soon change.

“So, you have foreseen it as clearly as I, Mefota,” he said. The young Fulhufan before him waited some time before answering.

“Yes, I have. Change is upon us like a wind. Stronger than hate, stronger than war. As strong as death.”

Ronidez smiled.

“Change is not our enemy, Mefota, change just is. Más cosas cambian, más se quedan mismo.”

Mefota furrowed his brow and cocked his head a bit to the side.

“I don’t understand.”

“Is okay. I just mean that even though things look permanent, like they don’t change, that is an illusion. Time speeds on, we are just along for the ride. Entiende?”

“That one I know. Ah, si. Entien . . . do.”

“Bueno! Más mejor. One day we will be able to speak as brothers.” Ronidez caught himself just as he said this and smiled. “As if we were born brothers, I mean.”

“Perhaps,” said Mefota. “As soon as you learn the language of my people.”

“No. I am still the master, and you the estudent.”

Mefota spread his hands before him and mimed bowing in obeisance to Ronidez.

“So sorry, my master, forgive an ungrateful pupil. Please punish me to correct my rebellious tongue.”

Ronidez drew back his hand as if to strike his companion, but he was unable to contain a smirk as he did so. He reached over the dying fire and ruffled Mefota’s hair. His smile faded a bit as he studied his companion, then broadened into a grin.

“You may think it is a punishment before long. I am sending you on a journey. You will be a long time with this.”

“A quest?”

“No,” said Ronidez. He slapped both hands on his knees and got up. “A road trip.”

With that, he extended his hand through the thin trail of smoke and pulled Mefota to his feet.

O'Shea, Unrevolution 12

This is last year’s Xmas card. I’ll try to remember to link to a bigger view, since I’ve restricted myself to 450 pixels wide on the main page, here. The haiku at the left side of the image reads as follows:

Snow falls in silence
Over mountains in winter
Soft spheres in steel hands

Illustration

Something Friday

I don’t have the bandwidth to support lots of songs, but since I write music, I wanted to start publishing it as well. This little trifle is a loop I threw together one night last year to experiment with Ableton Live, which has become my favorite production app. I’m still not comfortable with it as a mixing/mastering tool, but that will come in time, I expect.

As a loop, it’s just four bars, so it is really best used as background music for podcasts and the like, with the player set to “loop” or “repeat,” which should be an option for most of them. If anyone wants to use this it’s under a Creative Commons license, specifically the Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5. This means you have to credit me if you re-use or re-purpose the thing, by name or link to this site, and also grant the same permissions for whatever you make of it. I’d prefer to publish most of my stuff under the slightly more restrictive Attribution-Non-Commercial-ShareAlike, but c’mon, people, this is a nine-second loop.

Music

I got a request from a friend for more posts . . . more, more, MORE! Woe betide, I have been frustrated since late last year in getting work onto this thing, problems from basic computing (lousy 3-year-old hard drives), to access to the internets, to scanning. Oy oy oy.

Nevertheless, I’ve got a backlog to scan and post now, so let’s begin, shall we? Let’s further hope that I don’t screw things up when I upgrade to Wordpress 2.01.

I’d love to backdate these from the first of the year December of last year. I’m finishing out the old O’Shea/Greymatter storyline and it would really look good to have finished it before the end of the 12-year mark, but I’m not going to do that. It smacks of revisionism. Well, it is revisionism. There’s enough of that on-line, and I shouldn’t contribute.

General, Sketches