Punished Pixels

Hey gang, I've moved my blog to a new, more permanent address. My new blog/photo blog/webcomic is located here:

http://www.punishedpixels.com

I will not be posting at this location here, please follow me at Punished Pixels. =D

Garage Photo Studio

Until recently, my photo studio has been in our basement laundry room. While the space was adequate, I quickly outgrew it. Fortune smiles on the patient, however, and some space cleared up in our garage!

I build a twelve foot wide backdrop from some PVC pipe and white, 108" wide muslin cloth. The cloth is suspend from the wood ceiling by the PVC pipe, string, and screw-eyes. The sides of the backdrop are pinned to the walls with clamps to stretch out wrinkles.

All the materials for this came in just around $50, a real deal. Nate and I are planning a snowy indoor shoot this weekend, so we will put this set-up to the test!

Avatar Scorpion Gunship Re-Finish

It has been too long since my last posting. Naturally, I have been crazy busy! One of the many things keeping my attention has been this Avatar Scorpion Gunship project. I picked up the toy at Fred Meyer, a little steep at $25, but I really like the design.

The toy came in pieces, which was actually quite helpful when re-finishing it. You can see the step-by-step progress on my flickr page here. My goal was to re-finish this so it looks like a piece of military tech that has seen some combat. I layered colored paint over metallic paint so that I could leave some metal exposed. The desired effect was to have it look like paint has worn off on the areas that would see more weather than others.

To finish it off I gave it a wash of brown paint to dirty it up a bit. What I ended up with is really close to my initial concept, so I am quite pleased with it!

Europe Trip - Part 3 - Amsterdam

Paris was my favorite, but Amsterdam was probably the most fun city we visited. We took the train from Paris to Amsterdam. It was just over 4 hours and we got to see the country side of France and Belgium. An interesting fact: we did not have to go through customs at the train station.

We stayed at a really nice hostel near Vondel Park. Amsterdam is a relatively small city so we were in a good position to see all the sights. Though we could have probably walked everywhere, we picked up a 72 hour tram pass, which helped out dramatically.

The sights in Amsterdam:

• Van Gogh Museum - This was really amazing, my mom would be so jealous!
• Canal Cruise - Though this was super-touristy, it was really cool and an amazing opportunity for photos. The photo above was taken off the stern of our canal boat.
• Heineken Experience - One of the most elaborate brewery tours I have ever been to. This is a must see if you are a beer drinker in Amsterdam!
• Rijksmuseum - Absolutely stunning. They have swords, guns, and a gigantic model of a 72-gun Dutch man of war ship. Though the real amazement came from the plethora of Rembrandt paintings, as well as many of his students, such as Vermeer.
• Red Light District - I was expecting the prostitute zone to be ferreted away on some back alley, but it is in the very center of the city. Though no one in our party was keen on soliciting the services of the local business ladies, it was really interesting to check out. We also checked out the Casa Rosso theater for some local uh... flair!

We spend our leisure times checking out local pubs and eateries. Mike tried a local delight: raw ox meat sausage. Though it sounds revolting, it was actually really good.

We spent two and a half days in Amsterdam before we had to head back to the States. I had an amazing time on the trip, I highly recommend that everyone take at least one trip through Europe, you will not regret it!

Europe Trip - Part 2 - Paris

We hopped a plane from London to Paris. This took a big chunk of the day and we ended up getting to our hostel in the Montmarte area of Paris later on in the day. After checking in we found a local pizza place and relaxed a bit for dinner. Somehow I kept getting anchovies on each of my meals throughout Paris, and come to find out that I hate anchovies. My pizza had anchovies, but it was still good. Later on that night I went for a walk and grabbed the photo shown here.

We spent the next two full days walking around Paris, seeing the sights and taking many photos. The metro in Paris is amazing and we were able to see a lot of sights:

• Notre Dame - Yes it is cliché, but it is amazing, also they allow photos inside, as the St. Paul Cathedral in London did not. I tried out getting some bracketed photos for HDR, here is what I ended up with.
• Musée d'Orsay - This was one of my favorite museums of the trip. Since the Louvre was closed that day, the Orsay was free! My favorite pieces were the Rodin sculptures and a couple of Van Goghs.
• Pompidou - Though it was closed, it the outside of the museum is a big part of the attraction. All of the technical fixtures (pipes, vents, etc) for the building are on the outside.
• Louvre - Another cliché, but it really is a must-see. The building itself is an amazingly gigantic palace. There is great art, but there is a lot of filler art as well to fill such a large space. I did see the Mona Lisa, even I am not immune to being a total tourist.
• Montparnasse - The tallest skyscraper in Paris is here, though on the day we visited the top was shrouded in fog, so we did not bother going to the top. We did, however, check out the cemetery here, which was really cool.
• Eiffel Tower - Again my touristy impulses drove me to this popular spot. We were not disappointed though, the sun had just gone down and the lights had come on. I nabbed this shot.

We had my favorite meal on the trip in Paris. It was a local shop near Notre Dame. I had onion soup, and it was incredible. I guess they don't call it "French" onion soup for no good reason! We also met some great German, Canadian, British, and Australian people at our hostel and spent a night sharing drinks and stories with them.

Paris was my favorite city on the trip, I plan on learning to speak French and going back to France to investigate the country outside of the city. Much of the appeal of Paris to me was just walking around the city. It is absolutely stunning.

Europe Trip - Part 1 - London

From December 4th through December 13th 2009 I was traveling Europe with my two friends; Dave and Mike. Mike and I had some paid time off to cash in and Dave is on sabbatical from work until January, so the three of us decided to take a whirlwind trip through Europe. Our first stop was London, England.

London was the easiest and probably the most boring city to travel in. Everyone there speaks English, which is helpful, especially with it being our first stop in Europe. Our first day saw us hopping out of the metro at Piccadilly Circus. We hiked south to check out Big Ben, Parliament, and Westminster Abbey. These attractions are all near each other, making it a convenient first attraction for us to check out. Afterwards we hit up what ended up being a tourist trap Italian restaurant. While my pesto spinach lasagna was rather tasty, Dave's sheppard's pie and Mike's fish and chips were less than satisfactory. Also, it cost us an arm and a leg, not to mention that the only beer they had was lame.

After lunch we headed north and checked out the National Gallery and British Museum. In London most of the museums were free of charge and they allow photography, which was amazing! These two museums were what you would expect from a traditional museum. The National Gallery was full to the brim with paintings from throughout all of artistic history. The British Museum was similar to what you would find in a Hollywood history museum; Egypt sculptures, Greek statues, and old stuff from cultures around the world. Both museums were a bit generic, but still really cool.

After scouring London all day we checked into our hostel; Palmer's Lodge. We were in a 30-bed room, but the place had free wifi and a bar in the basement! We settled in then checked a nearby pizza chain called Pizza Express. It was actually one of our best and cheapest meals of the trip, I highly recommend it.

Day two saw us at St. Paul's Cathedral. This is one of the most massive and beautiful buildings in London, I was completely blown away. We walked around it and then checked out the inside, which was equally stunning. Though the do not allow photography inside, I was able to sneak a quick video. Shhhh its a secret!

We then took the Millennium Bridge across the River Thames to the Tate Museum. Above is a photo I took of the bridge as I passed under it. The Tate was full of a lot of modern art, which is not my favorite, but was fun nonetheless. Did I mention it was also free? I like free things! After the Tate we wandered east a bit and grabbed some food from a street vendor. To finish the night we crossed London Bridge and got a stunning view of Tower Bridge as the sun fled the sky.

By this time it was late afternoon on a Sunday in London, which apparently means that most every shop in town closes up. Fortunately for us our hostel had a bar! We spend the rest of the night drinking hard cider and enjoying free wifi internet.

The next morning we hit up a local joint for some English Breakfast and ciders before boarding the bus to the airport; for Paris awaited us!

I am processing photos from the trip as I type this, they will show up on my flickr photostream.

Doppleganger!

Well, I splurged a bit and bought a brand new Nikon D300s. It was probably going to happen eventually so it is best that I got it over with quickly. So far I have been extremely happy with it. I will be taking it with me to Europe for my adventure with Mike and Dave. In the coming weeks I expect to be posting many photos (and maybe even videos) of our European exploits.

The photo here is a project I have been playing with compositing several images of myself. My twin brother will find this ironic, no doubt. I was inspired to do the whole doppleganger composite thing from one of my favorite photographers Rebekka Guðleifsdóttir. She has a whole bunch of her "Gemini" photos with composites of two or more of herself.

You can see more of my photos on my flickr photostream.

Mad Caddies - Hell's Kitchen - Tacoma, WA

I don't know why it took so long to see the Mad Caddies in concert, but it was worth the wait. They were one of the bands that I listened to a LOT when I was in that really impressionable stage of music discovery in college. My friend Lisa and I got to go see them live at an extremely small venue called Hell's Kitchen in Tacoma, WA.

I contend that there is no better way to enjoy one of your favorite bands then live at a venue so small you can smell them. They did not disappoint, they rocked the crowd like they were in an arena of 10,000 people. Words cannot explain the electricity that was flowing through the room.

I split my time between dancing/ruining my voice singing and taking photos. I was surprised to get a couple of good photos despite the dark room and raucous crowd around me. At one point I even lost my SB-600 flash on the floor when I jumped into the fray. I was able to recover the flash later, so all was OK.

After the show I was completely exhausted, and I might have caught the flu, but it was worth it 100 times over. You can see some of the photos I nabbed on my flickr photostream.

Faux Finish - Toy Gun

I just finished up putting a new finish on this plastic toy gun. I employed a lot of the techniques I learned at Scott Allen Caplan's "Faux Finish" panel at SteamCon. You can see the work in progress photos along with descriptions of the process on my flickr page. This was a fun, cheap, and easy project. It is ideal for someone who is interested in prop making. I plan on using these techniques to finish some from-scratch project I have planned for the future.

50 posts and SteamCon!

Yay! This is my 50th blog post! To celebrate, I will tell of our adventure at the first ever Seattle SteamCon. As you can see in the corresponding photo (courtesy of Nate Zimmer) our regular costume crew is back at it. This time we got all steampunked out. The event was at the Marriot in Sea-Tac. The venue really hit the style, though it was a bit small.

To see photos I took at the event, check out my flickr at it's new URL: http://www.flickr.com/photos/doranwa/

We met some really cool people there, my two favorites were Andrew Fogel and Scott Allen Caplan. Both these guys did panels on building and finishing props. I learned a ton of stuff at the 'con and am really excited to get some good prop-building in for next year's event!

To-Do List

I recently found myself with a growing list of things I really should get around to doing. This list only existed in my head, so these things left my conscious thought as soon as something more important or shiny grabbed my attention. Most of these were little things like "call Bank of America to activate new credit card". After a while these things piled up so much that I decided to consolodate them all into one to-do list. I chose to get a to-do list plug-in for my Google home page since that is what pops up whenever I open a web browser. I am certain that almost every smart phone, computer OS, web browser, and toaster has some kind of application like this (I am looking at you iPhone users).

Once I had the list I organized it into high, medium, and low priorities. The high priority stuff gets done today, the medium priority stuff gets done this week and the low priority stuff gets done when I have time for it. At the end of every day I check off what I finished and promote new things to high priority for the next day.
I highly recommend that everyone comes up with some kind of system like this. Treat the high priority items as "do this before I get to play today" type of things. If you can stick to this system you will be astounded at how much you can get done in a week.

Photography Assistant and a Portrait

This past weekend I got to be a photo assistant for Ron Martinsen, an extremely helpful and talented Seattle area photographer. Mostly this meant I got to hold things and aim bounce reflectors at the model. I was able to glean some extremely helpful photography hints from Ron as he worked. Working with a pro is probably one of the best ways to improve your photography, hands down!

The next day I tried to put some of what I learned to practice and shot some portraits of my beautiful and patient fiance, Brittany. The photo here is my end result and I am extremely happy with how it turned out.

Where I Go to Get Crafting Supplies

One of my newest hobbies has been crafting costumes and props for events such as the Penny Arcade Expo, the Portland Pirate Festival, Steamcon, and Halloween. Over the past couple months I have amassed a collection of favorite shops in the greater Bellevue/Redmond, WA area to look for tools, parts, cloth, and materials. Here is a list of those shops:

Hobbytown USA

http://www.hobbytown.com/

Address: Cleveland Street Square

16421-A Cleveland Street

Redmond, WA 98052

Phone: (425) 558-0312

Tap Plastics

http://www.tapplastics.com/

12021 NE Northup Way

Bellevue, WA 98005

Mon-Fri 8:30 to 6, Sat 9 to 5

Phone: 425.861.0940

The guys here are super friendly and they are right across the street from Lowe's.

Vetco Electronics

http://www.vetco.net/

12718 Northup Way # 100

Bellevue, WA 98005

(425) 641-7275

Pacific Fabric

http://www.pacificfabrics.com/

1645 140th Ave NE

Bellevue, WA‎

(425) 747-3551‎

Be sure to check what they have in their "remainders" pile. It is th ends of rolls of cloth and are sold at a discount.

Hardware:

Lowe's

11959 Northup Way

Bellevue, WA 98005-1919

(425) 646-9031

Harbor Freight Tools

http://www.harborfreight.com/

14506 NE 20th St

Bellevue, WA 98007-3764

(425) 746-1303

This is THE place to get cheap tools.

Crafts:

Ben Franklin Crafts

http://www.craftsandframes.com/

15756 Redmond Way

Redmond, WA 98052-3830

(425) 883-2050

Michael's

http://www.michaels.com

15600 NE 8th St # D4

Bellevue, WA 98008-3927

(425) 747-1221

Thrift Stores:

Goodwill

14515 NE 20th St

Bellevue, WA?

(425) 649-2080

Value Village

16771 Redmond Way

Redmond, WA 98052-4472

(425) 883-2049

I hope this isn't my only 15 minutes...

It looks like we got a little recognition from the folks over at G4 for our PAX 2009 Team Fortress 2 costumes. We also made it into a piece Kotaku did on the cosplay at PAX.

G4
Kotaku

September and the Portland Pirate Festival

September has been a crazy busy month. Work has been a madhouse, we have all been pulling some long hours, hence, no blog post in a couple weeks. This past weekend, however, was the Portland Pirate Festival. Each year around this time our gang puts on our best pirate garb and heads down to PDX for merriment and fun... dressed as pirates!

This is an extremely memorable event as last year I took the opportunity to propose to my now-fiance Brittany.

We also went to the Chinese Gardens in Portland, of course I took a bunch of photos. You can see a couple of them on my flickr photo stream.

Completed Rocket Launcher and PAX 2009

After many long nights and hard work, I completed my Team Fortress 2 rocket launcher. We also made props for the medic, engineer, sniper, scout, and spy. Our gang put in a lot of long ours to get it done for the Penny Arcade Expo and it was well worth the effort.

We were not the only TF2 cosplayers at PAX by a long shot, but we were among the best. All day we were asked for photos of our gang, it was quite a celebrity moment.

For some studio shots of the costumes, check out my flickr page.

Team Fortress 2 Rocket Launcher

Over the last week I have been puting a lot of time into the rocket launcher for my Team Fortress 2 soldier costume. A good reference of the rocket launcher in-game can be found at TF2wiki.net. Here is my progress:

This is the removeable nose-cap. It is designed to pop out so I can put things in the body of the rocket launcher while I walk around PAX. The cap is made out of a piece of styrofoam that was carved to shape then finished with Bondo all-purpose putty.

This is the flanged tail end of the launcher, also carved out of styrofoam, epoxied to the main body piece of PVC pipe, then slathered in Bondo. Here you can see it before and after being covered in Bondo and adding the two rings to the back end.

Here is the sanded flanged end with the two rings and the cone-shaped part on the back end of the launcher. The cone is a funnel that I picked up at an auto parts store. The ring at the end of the cone is cardboard that has been expoxied to the cone then covered in Bondo.

PAX Costume: Team Fortress 2

The Penny-Arcade Expo is less than 2 weeks away so our gang is putting together our costumes! We've decided to go as the blue Team Fortress 2 characters. I will be going as the soldier. So far, I bought a WWII helmet, some combat boots, pouches, and materials to make my rocket launcher. Over the next week I will have more updates on the status of the rocket launcher. The main body of it is a 3" diameter PVC pipe.

Britt is going as the sniper, so she needs a rifle!

Hurricane Hill Hike

Me, Britt, Mike, and Erin spent the weekend camping and hiking in the wilds south of Port Angeles, WA near Lake Mills. The hike up Hurricane Hill was a real challenge, but Mike and Erin pushed us to get to the top. I am extremely glad that we made it to the top, we were rewarded witha breathtaking view of the lake and valley far below us. Along with some photos, I shot made a time-lapse by putting together 120 photos that were shot every 5 seconds.

Flickr photostream

High atop Hurricane Hill from William Doran on Vimeo.

Formula D

This weekend we got fast and furious! I am not usually into tuner cars or drifting, but I was not planning on missing this exciting photography oppertunity. I actually had a lot of fun for my first drifting event. I had a little trouble shooting the cars through the fence, but I was able to nab a couple decent shots. Check them out on my flicker photostream.