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What creative projects are you working on? (July 2019 edition)
it's that time of the month again, now hopefully aided by the changes in sort which will give this thread a bit of a longer half-life. here you can share/provide updates on some of the projects that you're working on. they can be of any kind--digital, physical, work related, passion project, whatever. pretty straightforward, i think.
november thread • february thread • march thread • april thread • may thread • june thread
Hitting that wall where in order to be a writer, you have to write. Working at a call center means it's pretty feast or famine as far as time to myself goes, and is not good for getting into writing grooves for extended periods of time. Time at home is at a premium to, mostly because I'm wiped from work and I kinda made peace that this is my job until I find a new one, so I guess I got to get on the horse and write.
I've been in the exact situation you're in and I wouldn't wish it on anybody. You have both my condolences and my encouragement, for what it's worth. Make sure to share what you write with us so we can deliver our honest praise! Even if people don't always comment on creative stuff around here, the general attitude is very supportive.
Is there a forum on tildes to exchange feedback on writing?
~Creative is probably what you're looking for
I'd be interested in this. I had a few topics for poetry workshops, but they weren't too populated. I'd definitely participate though, if it were a thing!
I've just given up and started writing on my lunch breaks, typically at my desk, which means they don't wind up feeling like lunch breaks. Phooey!
I went through a drought after an extended trip abroad. I didn't write during travel and it carried over on my return home. I recently came across a system that got me back on track: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomodoro_Technique
I recommend it. Even if you only get 25 minutes in every day, you're making progress. I find that the ticking of the timer is a great reminder that this is not time to daydream or research, it's time to write.
To quote a dear friend of mine... "Take gentle care" meaning don't be too hard on yourself. I'm sure you've heard what forced-writing produces :-)
If it helps any... I will offer a recommendation for a piece of software I just found for my own writing endeavors! Not sure if you already use an app for your writing or not, I never did but sure wish I had!
It's called FocusWriter, open-source, and basically it let's you (optionally) block out everything on the computer except the blank page! But you can bring up menus and tabs and such by hovering the mouse in the right place. And of course you can turn on/off all aspects. Really an outstanding app!
Hope this helps!!!
Thanks, I'm using WriterDuet since it's a comic I'm working on, but the thought is appreciated.
For the past few months I've been working on creating silicone molds that can turn out "medium" volumes of custom keycaps for common mechanical keyboards. So many hours of 3D printing and sanding has gone into it, but I finally have correctly shaped masters, can turn out consistent molds, and can cast batches of keys in common profiles.
This all started when I went on Etsy because I thought custom keycaps would be really cool, but almost all of them were in really niche profiles that wouldn't have matched up with my keyboard so I'd be stuck placing them in a position where they wouldn't interfere with my typing (like up on the Esc row). I assume for this reason almost nobody was selling WASD sets, and if they were it wasn't clear if they'd even look right when lined up with my other keys. The photos weren't helping determine that either since they were all pictured on super custom setups instead of off-the-shelf stuff I could actually compare to.
The thing about creating your own custom keycap setup is it's just as expensive to work out a process to cast one as it is to cast infinite. You basically need a miniature factory. As such, I finally got the keys I was wanting for my own board and then opened my own Etsy shop yesterday that I think solves some of the issues I was running into. Now I've just got to keep casting and thinking of new designs and maybe the little factory will pay itself off.
That's awesome! Sounds like a hell of an undertaking. I've been wanting to get into casting a bit using 3d printing, lost wax, silicone, and eventually get to the point that I can make metal components for art pieces. Just a matter of tooling up at some point for it.
If I may make some recommendations, the SparkMaker 3D printer is a fantastic and super cheap SLA printer that will give you much better results on small objects like this than a standard cartesian, and that will help a lot with your tolerances. I've heard UV resin is already great for lost wax, but I believe you can get even waxier resins for it too so you can print specifically for lost wax. Anything UV cure will work great in it once you figure out the cure timing for your resin brand. Get a UV nail dryer with it for post curing--putting parts out in the sun to cure is time-consuming and unnecessary. For silicone, don't waste your time on cheap junk--just go straight to a Smooth-On distributor and pick up some Mold Star. I love their 16 FAST for quick, small pieces and their 30 for large casts. You may prefer one of their tin cure silicones instead because they're cheaper and far easier to work with, but the platinum cure Mold Star is just lovely for extreme detail on small parts if you're okay with fiddly processes and figuring out your compatibilities through trial and error.
Edit: Also, to save you the weeks it took me figuring this out, platinum cure silicones don't like UV resins by default, so your molds using printed masters will fail unless you process the prints correctly. After much trial and error, here's my process to make them work perfectly: Print > Wash with isopropyl alcohol > Wash with water > Air dry > UV Cure > Heat to 200F for 3 minutes (if parts start to smoke before 3 minutes, they're done, take them out) > Dip and soak in Mann Inhibit X for a few minutes > Air dry > Repeat dip and dry a few times so the surface is thoroughly reacted. Get a toaster oven from the thrift store for the baking part--you don't want to do this in the same oven you make food in.
Thanks for the tips! I'll be hanging on to these for reference.
For all of the griping I do about reddit, I do like submitting detailed, longform content from time to time. I'm currently working on two writeups for various gridiron/American football subs, one about why Devin Hester doesn't belong in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and the other about the most famous play of each "branch" on the route tree.
Other than that, I've been streaming and working on my twitch channel on the regular. Some people wouldn't call that a "creative project" but I disagree; there's a lot of choices you have to make, both aesthetically and practically. Things like overlays, bot commands, etc. requires more creative thinking than what it seems on the surface. Specifically, right now I'm working on programming a bot that tweets out new followers and subs -- I don't know if I'm actually going to use it but it'd be kind of fun to have regardless.
I designed an addition for our house on CorelDraw (been using it for over 20 years already) and now I'm building it. I have done some renovations in the past but this is my first addition. The fun part is that I want to incorporate in floor heat using a hydronic (circulating heated water) heating that will be heated first by woodstove and then by our water heater, if needed.
Wood fire can generate such great heat, but often don't distribute it very well, this seems great. I assume you're in a more northern climate.
My brother and I have speculated a few times while camping that we could probably rig up a heat exchange system around a campfire that would power itself via Sterling engine. Hot showers for everyone!
Holy crap, you just reminded me of a stove-top sterling engine that I saw at a friend’s house in Maine, way long ago. I thought it was magic. Looks like there are some options now? https://www.stirlingengine.com/fans/
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B01CD2AIV8/ref=psdcmw_3735251_t1_B002Y4UOYM
Staining The Timbre's catalog continues to grow! Slowly. This past month I've been doing a review series (as I'm sure everyone's seen with my constant posting about it) on XXL's 2019 Freshman Class. In the month of June I posted three: One each for Dababy, Megan Thee Stallion, and Gunna. This puts me right in line with my 3-posts-a-month average I've been running, which is less than I might like to do but far more consistent than I expected myself to be. Truthfully I give no small credit of that success to Tildes' support. You guys are the best.
Next up will be BlueFace, likely followed by either Rico Nasty or Tierra Whack. Tbh I'm not terribly looking forward to the latter, because her most recent work is an album of 15 one-minute songs and that doesn't give me a lot to work with. Then again she's the artist, and it's not really her job to make sure I, the reviewer, have enough to go on. It's not a bad album by any means, it's just...very short. I was expecting something closer to this, but that's not what we got.
In the interim I've bulked up a couple stories I've been working on, one tentatively titled, "VR" and the other the first bones of a novel for which I got the idea almost a decade ago titled, "Travelers". I wrote a very rough, now-irrelevant version of Travelers for /r/nosleep many years ago, but it has little in common with this new project outside of the name and central idea. The themes, framework, characters, and pacing are all different, so I'm not too worried about it being a story "already told".
Now I just have to make sure not to stagnate and actually keep putting words on the screen with these. I'd really like to finish VR sometime soon, but I know the instant I give myself a deadline I'll just put it off until the deadline's passed because I suck, so I'm being patient with myself on that front, which is surprisingly difficult.
This past weekend, due to reader request, I also made, "The Weird and Wicked Wildlife of West Virginia" available to read for free on my Patreon temporarily (it's now back to being Patron-only content) and that went surprisingly well! A few dozen people actually read it and though no one commented or spoke to me about it, the fact that anyone was willing to take the time to sit and read through 8000+ words I wrote warms my heart.
I've frogged a knitting project for the 3rd time and started over again. This time, I've translated and adapted the pattern so it's easier to follow. I'm really proud of myself for doing it!
Bless you for your post... which while scrolling I read as "I've started a frog knitting project" and immediately my mind seized up by not being able to decide if you were teaching frogs to knit, or knitting a blanked out of frogs! LOL
(Sorry, I know, my mind is so very broken and crusty :-) but it gave me the only laugh I've had today and I'd hate to go to bed without filling that requisite)
I've started another project on my blog, this time writing something every day off a list of AI-generated titles: https://www.acdw.net/10568/photographing-the-moon-in-color-for-a-year/
It might be too much, but I'm planning on having fun from it.
Slowly adding to my game. The working title (as you'll see in the accompanying gif) is Tales of Kingsgrave. I've introduced two additional items alongside the sword: bombs and arrows. if you've played a Zelda game, you'll understand them. They're still works in progress, as I don't have the pick-up/put-down aspect of the bombs showing (though they are programmed now), as well as you cannot throw bombs yet, nor can you bomb-arrow, which is all planned.
Bombs & Arrows
Feel free to ask me anything you'd like about the game. :) It's a major WIP and I have no story elements in the game yet but I'm getting closer to building out a demo.
Hey that's great! I really like what I saw in your video!
I would offer to help out but I doubt my programming expertise would help much. But shoot me a pm anyway, I'd love to know more and who knows maybe I can help!
I'm not renewing my webhost or domain so I'll be switching over, temporarily, to a blog with my progress. I don't have anything done on it yet but it's https://skwastelogs.blogspot.com/
I'll still try and keep Tildes up to date with project updates likely via the weekly/weekend threads, and/or creative threads.
Plus I'm considering restarting my project to get a better understanding of everything I've done to date. I need to wrap my head around some concepts from the tutorials that I just watched, copied, but didn't understand while writing the code down (I understand the what, but not the how).
I want to set up a blog and write every day about anything.
The blog set up needs to be some effort - not blogger, or Medium, or anything like that. It needs to be something that requires effort/technical input. I'm currently fighting with Hugo and Github Pages. Figuring that out should be some reasonable amount of effort that I can be proud of it when it's finally working. And then writing about something each day will be the creative effort which flows from it.
Best of luck! Writing every day has been really useful for me. I find the more I "force" myself to write, the more writing I do naturally, since the juices are already flowing. If you'd like to share the URL once you get it running, I'd love to read it!
Thanks - I'm up an running now. www.madsky.co.uk
Looks great! And I like your writing style -- subscribed!
Not to diminish your efforts, but I just bit the bullet and bought a Wordpress theme for 50 dollars that looked exactly like I wanted. I just had to make a few adjustments. I know Wordpress is not the fastest, most solid technology out there, but it's okay for a simple blog.
Your blog looks great, I'll keep an eye on it!
Thanks for the suggestion re: WP. One of the main things about this incarnation of my blogging was that it would be a semi-technical effort - I wasn't going to commit to writing about tech the entire time (yawn) but I definitely wanted to have to go to some technical effort to make it happen. I've used Medium before - and I liked it for what it was at the time - but I'm less excited about it today.
As it happens I'm up and running now and actually enjoying playing with it so I'm hopeful I can continue to use it.
I understand. My goal was just to write, so getting fussing with tech was fueling my procrastination. And web development is not something I'm inclined to learn - even though I'll eventually need to.
It's a plugin: Meks Time Ago.
I can join the conversation this time! A few weeks back I thought about making a little dice bag for each of the guys I play D&D with, I've been trying to get one of them to join ~ for the longest time then just as I was going to post up the bags that were ready to be gifted, he joined... but no matter they are done now.
I plan on making a free standing bag next because my girls are asking for a little bag for their treasures. I'm also going to try and tackle a multi pocket bag once I can work out why my wife's sewing machine isn't working.. I did the others all by hand and while it was enjoyable enough it also took far longer than it should have.
I am continuing the "three apps in three months challenge" I started last month, although I have to admit that I am behind schedule.
The first app I'm working on is an app that combines time tracking and habit tracking named Percent Done. It allows you to set daily goals like "write for an hour" and track the time you spend on them, together with how many days in a row you have been working on a given goal.
Haven't been around in a while, but it's good to see creative is still around and kicking! I haven't really checked in much since we were trying to do weekly competitions here sometime last summer.
I've been getting back into making videos recently after a short break (mostly due to work). I'm also trying to get my glass shop back in working order. So I figured I'd combine the two and do a series I started calling Shop Scrub.
If anyone would like to check out the finished ones, here are the youtube links.
Shop Scrub 1 (4:49)
Shop Scrub 2 (4:44)
I've been chugging away working on the third one for almost 3 weeks now. The first couple are under five minutes and mainly consist of me moving a bunch of crap around and sweeping, but time warp style. The one I'm working on now is already coming out at over 20 minutes long and I'm not even done filming yet. It's not so much moving boxes around as it is about fixing up one of my beloved hand tools for glass work. I definitely feel like it got away from me though. It was never supposed to be this long, it just ended up taking on a life of its own.
It's been a hell of an undertaking for me and I've learned a lot from making this episode so far, but I'm honestly really looking forward to getting back and doing some short 1-2 day edits and getting outside away from the computer a bit.
(Also, I'm an idiot and accidentally posted this in the November 2018 thread. I shamefully removed it, and am now shamelessly reposting in the correct thread.)
Edit: the third one is finished! Shop Scrub 3 (28 minutes)
The cleanup videos were so satisfying! Very good :D
Thanks! I just finished the third one last night! I'm still feeling giddy from having finished it. That was a fun project.
my late contribution to my own thread: continuing to work on a comprehensive (small) city map for something.
here it is, layer by layer:
there's also an address layer for meta purposes, but that only adds clutter and would be nearly impossible to see, so i'm not adding that.
Putting in work improving arrow. If you fancy helping out feel free to jump in!
I will be continuing work on my latest software project (obsession), which I posted about here a few months ago. It's a data manager that goes way beyond Windows Explorer. It allows the user to control what is displayed and how, regardless of data type and location as well as protocol used. So local F:\MyHome is managed the same as my GoogleDrive, to name 2 data locations. Ok enough rambling! Right now I'm trying to finish basic functionality of Explorer so I can begin using it myself as I add in the real key functionality. I will probably put up the web-site in the next few weeks as this will all be open-source and multi-platform, and I want to share the source, the concepts, and hopefully find a few fellow geeks who would like to help out! :-) Anyone interested can contact me of course! The project is called "Project Agnes" and the web-site will be http://www.ProjectAgnes.com (and .org).
So there is about 26 hours of every day in July for me! :-)
(and also, being ever-grateful that I love what I do and am free to pursue such projects)
Peace!
/D
I've started to get a bit more serious about photography. It's always been a medium I've been interested in. I'm just afraid of what a lack of formal education in the field might mean for me. The thing that I have the most trouble with at the moment is having my photos to tell a story. I've always been in the mindset of capturing beautiful scenes and it seems that it's not enough. Maybe I'm setting the bar too high?
Anyway, I'm looking for a good platform to host and display my photos (don't mind if I have to pay). Flickr seems like a good one but for the life of me I cannot create an account, it always refuses. Any alternative?
I'm trying to write an AI short-story, but my own ignorance drove me into a writers' block. So I decided to study the subject. I'm currently reading the Chinese Room Argument (SEP) and will study several related articles, such as:
Hopefully, these brief philosophical readings will help me come up with something interesting.
I've just started experimenting with making cheese! For anyone who's tried it before, you're probably well aware that most cheeses are very difficult to make, but ricotta is absurdly easy. I was able to make a batch of ricotta in less than an hour, which made for an excellent lasagna. I got the recipe from Joshua Weissman's YouTube channel who you should definitely check out. Here's a link if anyone is interested: https://youtu.be/O-B2TEm2TYE
Oh my gosh, fresh ricotta is the best! If you haven't tried it yet, do a mozzarella first and use the whey left over from that to do the ricotta. Mozzarella is not quite as easy, but still stupid easy compared to a lot of other cheeses. If you haven't already, google fresh cheeses. I make farner's cheese all the time because it's easy and delicious.
It's very quickly become a favorite of mine! Thanks for the recommendation, I'll have to look into it!!!
here is another census form. compare the other one, for an adjacent country. (race gets weird when you start dealing with species lines.)