15
votes
What creative projects have you been working on?
This topic is part of a series. It is meant to be a place for users to discuss creative projects they have been working on.
Projects can be personal, professional, physical, digital, or even just ideas.
If you have any creative projects that you have been working on or want to eventually work on, this is a place for discussing those.
I finally got around to making a YouTube channel and posting some of the video essays I've been working on about music theory in (offbeat or experimental) pop music.
https://www.youtube.com/@ThePopDescriptivist/
I made these videos in part as sort of a rejection of the kind of entertaining, click-bait-y video style that is so popular on YouTube. This is serious, no-frills content that may take some effort to be fully appreciated, though I also tried to make the content as concise as possible. Hopefully, people find that the reward of understanding the concepts in the video is worth the effort of paying attention. Maybe that's a pipe dream in today's content-climate, but perhaps one better regarded on Tildes than elsewhere.
Of course, a lot of this content will only be deeply comprehensible to people who are already familiar with basic music theory concepts like functional harmony. After all, if I had to stop and explain these basic concepts, the videos would be 2 hours long instead of 15 minutes, and I'd be repeating myself on every other video. But even if you're a beginner musician, it still might be worth watching - the tracks I choose to analyze are absolute behemoths of applied music theory, proof of why it is worth it to go and learn this stuff.
Maybe start with video #4 since it's more about rhythm than harmony, and that tends to be more intuitive. But listen to the track first and see how much you can figure out about it before I explain everything.
Believe it or not folks! I finished my stays with time to spare! Lots of trials and tribulations, literal blood, sweat, and tears went into this beaut and I could not be more happy with it. It was a really big trust the process kind of project, but I've only ever made and apron and shorts so this was WAY outside my wheel house.
Finished product w/ outfit and process album. I feel very proud of myself for making this. The fit is pretty good, though I may have been able to go down a partial size or take it in in certain spots. There's a gap at the center of the back panel piece, so it doesn't lay flat against my back but I'm okay with that! It's homemade, and I'm still the newbiest of noobs. I had a really hard time finding an answer to which way to insert the boning. It's plastic and comes curled up, so I didn't know if it was supposed to be concave or convex. Eventually figured it out.
If I were to do this again, there would be a couple of improvements I'd make. For one, I would sew the channels differently. I adjusted the channels already to be a little bigger because I can't sew in a straight line to save my life, so I made sure there was a little extra room. I'd rather the channels be a smidge too big for the boning than too small. I already had to pick apart several channels, especially when I managed to sew the sleeve to the bodice. I would also like to try adjusting the sizing a little better. I can wear it fully laced and it does pretty good but I'd like more dramatic results especially in the bust area so the sizing could be a smidge smaller.
Overall, I loved it. It was something fun I did after work and really helped me feel accomplished as a sewer. I'd like to try again, but it'll be a bit before I'm brave enough. I really did poke the shit out of myself a lot, I hate that part lol. I was considering making this its own post but this suffices well enough.
It's amazing!!! You going to ren faire in that? I made my first underbust corset last year and it was shoddy and awful but I loved wearing it. I'm excited to try again for this year's faire. I love your choice of fabrics, the contrast blue is really pretty.
Ps, pro tip I heard of that I am going to try this year... apparently you can get a big bag of zip ties to use as boning. The heavy duty ones are just as strong, maybe stronger, and they are straight, no curling.
Thank you!! Yes, that's my Ren Faire outfit! There's definitely something special about being able to make your own pieces and getting to wear them.
Wow! Zip ties would've been a WORLD easier, having the boning bent in made putting the boning in harder. That's a great suggestion, I'll have to try it when I make one again. Good luck with your own sewing adventures!
I'm recording a song. I used to be able to finish one in a few weeks but this one is taking a lot longer because I have a newborn at home and can only really record in the morning when she and her mom are sleeping. Plus it's more ambitious than most of my work.
I've been recording most of my ideas / journals publicly (some of these are more than 10 years old but I just made them public): https://github.com/chapmanjacobd/journal/tree/main/public
Similarly, I've been religiously recording my dotfiles by making my whole home folder a git repo: https://github.com/chapmanjacobd/computer/
This is the first time I've heard of github being used for something other than a programming project - clever!
Now I really should figure out how that platform works so I can use it properly...
Github is used for lots of stuff that isn't just programming. Pretty much anything you need repository hosting, backup, and/or version control for, someone has likely used Github for at some point. E.g. For websites they even have Github Pages
Wonderful usage of Git! And this is genuinely so cool. Lil snapshots of parts of you, like the house lists, and journals, and miscellaneous ideas. This is very awesome to see.
I'm working on my first draft for a novel I'm writing. It's easy now, because I'm just outlining, but when I get to the actual writing, it's going to be rough.
So, obviously, I'm putting that part off for as long as possible.
Just write! Jk, jk. How much do you like to plan out the story? Do you like to make detailed outlines of what's going to happen, or do you keep it more top level and what beats you want to hit? I like pretty high, top level outlines myself for writing, especially short stories. Novels are separate beasts, but good luck with your writing! The first step is always to just start.
Thanks, haha. I tend to use the snowflake technique, so starting off with a broad story outline, then go over it again in more detail, and keep doing it until I get to the point I'm writing the novel. At the moment, I'm doing chapter outlines basically moment by moment - an outline ends up at about a thousand words. It makes the jump from outline to writing much less terrifying, haha.
That's a cool technique, I don't think I've heard of it before. Do you have an idea on overall length, or are you aiming to just get the full story done and then see where you can cut and adjust from there if you have a word/page count you want to hit?
I've always struggled with being too brief in my writing, even since writing 500 word essays in school. Detail is definitely something I need to refine - I wrote a full first draft for a novel length story last year and it came in at about 47,000 words. I'm aiming to eventually be published traditionally, and I understand that a debut novel will be around 70-80k words, which means I just need to slow down a little and add more.
I imagine my first draft of this novel will be a similar length, but that's okay - the first draft is just telling the story to myself. As I revise it, I'll add more detail and descriptions, and then maybe I'll end up having to cut things out.
I am 90 percent done with three octopus crocheted stuffed animals
from this site: https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/the-color-octopus
Now i just need to add faces, sew in ends and mail to my aunt so she can give them to my mom. It's so mom can give them out to her favorite people at her nursing home. My mom's most favorite thing is giving to others so I think she will be really happy with these. I sent her a blanket and one octopus for her birthday and she mentioned one of the CNAs wanted one.
I recently installed a couple of two TB disks into an unused Ubuntu system, created a mirrored (i.e., RAID 1) disk pair, and turned the machine into a NAS server. I back up the RHEL machine and another Ubuntu machine onto the NAS server.
Several days ago I sent a 4.5 GB file from the Ubuntu system to the NAS server; the average rate was 81.66 MB/s. This is the fastest network transfer rate I've ever seen, and that includes the multi-million dollar data center I worked in for a number of years!
My only regret is that I didn't do this years ago!
I will try to listen to a full episode later. I started one and the phone rang about 30 seconds in. I wanted to pop in immediately in case I don't remember later and tell you that you have a fantastic podcasting voice. I could easily picture your voice on one of the comedy or left-leaning news podcasts. I envy that!
I'm working on finishing up an allegory. Kinda in the vein of 'The Little Prince.' My allegory is about communication. I almost have the text solidified, and once that's done I can start on the illustrations. It's very different from my other work, but I'm pleased with how it's shaping up.
I was learning blender by making a scene with a cartoon astronaut on the moon. This was for my soon-to-be-born son's bedroom.
Unfortunately I got frustrated because the scene looked doughy and "too 3-dimensional" if that makes sense. It all looked like playdough and I was hoping for more of a cartoonish look. I wanted to use blender to basically make a nice 2-d scene with shadows and lighting.
So now I'm just building things in games like Trailmakers and Scrap Mechanic while getting distracted by toy-coding puzzles in Shenzhen IO.