h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hypatia, I mostly use Corel Painter - so does Lil for that matter although we use very different techniques. Other Community Artists use CorelDraw, Illustrator, Photoshop, PaintShopPro and The GIMP.

Lil and I use Bryce (for 3D landscapes) and Poser (3D people) too.

I don't know of any software specifically for designing clothes. There must be something out there though.

Why do you ask?

Oops, simulpost.

I'm sorry to hear your news, Marv . Hopefully things will improve from now on.

Great photos, GL .

*Far to tired for it to be only Wednesday and seriously needing the pace of work to slow down*

*Finding it refreshing and intimidating to find such backlog and frontlog*

Z - I wasn't familiar with Francis Bacon's work or Lucian Freud's until I went to an exhibit that compared and contrasted their work (during my only visit to Europe ) Their works seems so different on the surface, but the motivation behind it shares striking similarities. I fell in love with both artist's work. They both really appeal to me, but in different ways.

Books - *Having wonderful thoughts of traveling the world building libraries and bookshelves for people in exchange for room and board*

Well, you wouldn't have to travel far, but bookcases at my place? After the big STBX cleanout, mind you. Because then I will actually have room for bookcases.

In some ways, I have no choice on the books, since I rather like keeping some of the books I will be using to teach later around. I have gone beyond buying all of the books I am supposed to read, and instead check them out of the library, but when I know I am going to need a book for later research/ teaching, I buy it. This is because I REALLY HATE people who underline, highlight, and generally muck up library books. So I try not to be that person, and just go buy the thing.

I never really got into underlining and highlighting things in the books that I use to study. I just don't like altering a book from it's original condition. The exception is my copy of the Hackers dictionary that is marked with post-it's on teh fun entries.

Amy, I have a budding fashion designer on my staff. We've looked for a software program for her and can't locate anything she's interested in. I was wondering if she could use a general art software. I'll give her your list. Thanks.

Hey dw2 - I'll give you room and board in exchange for building bookshelves and moving books. And I'm a good cook.

I completely agree with Garius--some books that I considered timeless and brillant ten years ago now bore me to tears. My new policy, established after the last time I moved, is that I will only keep those books that I want to read, re-read, re-read again, and re-read until I croak. I know the feeling about forgetting the details--even with my favorite books. Right now, I am re-reading King Leopold's Ghost (a potential keeper) and am enjoying it all over again. And there *were* a lot of books I was keeping around for pretentious reasons. Like I would ever crack open a Bronte or a Hesse again? (Garius is right again about Wuthering Heights ) While my bookshelves are still crammed tight, they're only one row deep, not the previous three or four (with more hidden somewhere else).

As for Francis Bacon--those screaming popes! I remember the first time I saw one of those. It was in a modern art history class in college, and I was drowsing through the professor's slide show Pollocks, Lichtensteins, Johns and what not when on popped a Bacon. I yelped and sat up straight!

I agree about Wuthering Heights, but Charlotte wrote some good stuff. In particular, I will re-read Shirley, and I re-read Jane Eyre a couple of years ago.

I am fairly good at not keeping, (or indeed buying), pretentious books. I loved War and Peace, but found Anna Karennina tedious beyond permission, and I managed to get half way through it before giving up in irritated boredom.

The pretentious books I do buy which then lurk in my shelves and look at me are mainly semi-technical books.

B

Thanks GL - your posting made me realize that I have some 'pretentious' books too - there is one thick book I tried reading several times, but I only get past the first chapters before becoming too bored - I'd better give it up, and then I really ought to get rid of the... *drifting off to inspect her bookshelves (currently 5)*

I'm having trouble remembering the stable boy's name...

Sporky, are you refering to Heathcliff?

The two most pretentious books I have is The History of Art (set book for a short Uni course) and The Greatest Benefit to Mankind, The History of Medicine from Antiquity to the Present. Pretentious in that I'm unlikely to look at them ever again, but they look good in the bookcase

Now I'm going on battle.net for a bit of mindless hacking and whacking in Diablo. Yay!

"Stiff" Is by Mary Roach. Where is the Guardian? Is that part of H2G2?
I am enjoying this book very much. It's just full of interesting information. I've underlined and highlighted a few things and drew a flip book in the courner of a decomposing body.

The Guardian is a left wing broadsheet newspaper, in the UK, well it's in fact the only left wing broadsheet newspaper in the UK. Being a leftie it's the only newspaper I can stand to read without my blood boiling. The right wing press use the phrase "Guardian Reader" as an insult meaning the same thing as "bleeding heart liberal", or that Americans use "socialist". They also publish their content online www.guardian.co.uk .

I hope I'm not pretenious but I've got "A Greatest Benifit to Mankind" and rather enjoyed reading it. After I read it I even applied to intercalate in History of Medicine.

Normally medical degrees are 5 years here and result in a qualifcations that's meant to be equivelent to two degrees, but you can extend it for a year and get an extra degree. I didn't get on the course though, my exam results weren't good enough I'm rather glad i didn't it wouldn't have given me any advantage whenit comes to getting a job, or any skills that would have been useful to my career.

stinky, I also am fascinated by forensic pathology, even though I can't be in the same room with a dead body. I think I am unable to divorce the meat from the soul, and regard decomposition as a gross insult. It's purest cognitive dissonance, because I don't have any problem with kicking off my own body and could care less what happens to it after I'm dead. Perhaps, wrt other people's remains, I am over-empathizing.

A psychologist I was seeing about 10 years ago told me that she ran wild as a child and one of the places she liked to visit was the morgue at the undertakers. I'll never forget her description of a disinterred body; it had tears of moss, she said.

But getting back to the art, what draws you to this subject, npi? There's a lot of mortality in your art, by which I don't mean corpses, but a sense of the flesh as a disfiguring burden on the spirit. I hope that doesn't sound pretentious.

You lot have convinced me. I am going to donate my Great Books to the Lincoln Jumble Sale. I haven't opened them in 15 years; it's not gonna happen. And I think Melville is much more boring than Brontë.

Z, "liberal" is a dirty word over here too, almost as dirty as "humanist."

Z,So What was it like working in a morgue? I may like to read about and draw that kind of stuff, but I know if I saw it in real life I would be disgusted.

Lil, what is npi? Were talking to me or someone else? Sorry, I'm confused.

Annnd... about art software, Amy has described our modus operandi accurately; I'm not able to make art the way she does, even though I use the same software.

There is a way to use Poser to make clothes, but the object is a clothed model, as opposed to a pattern for making the item. There are a lot of grown men preoccupied with a Poser figure known as Victoria; if you don't believe me, check out Renderosity dot com or 3DCommune dot com. They like her clothes to be very brief and/or suggestive and/or leather, though. I imagine these guys alone with their computer, modelling Victoria into Viking knickers and a come-hither look just for them...

npi = no pun intended, and yes, I wuz talkin to you.

"flesh as a disfiguring burden on the spirit," I like the way you describe it. I guess I draw it because that's the way I feel sometimes. The physical body can be a desgusting and inconveniant thing. Also, I have a morbid sense of humor and a bit of a pessimist.