Project 6 : 100 Sketches

Over the years I've taken a few drawing classes and other kinds of art class. I've reached the point of being not terrible, but I'm never going to get better without practicing regularly which I haven't found the time and motivation to do. To give myself a kick to practicing more I'm starting a new project. My goal for this project is to practice sketching for at lest 15 minutes a day for 100 days in the next six months.

A sketching of things, using Paper on the iPad.

I'm not going to share all my sketches, since most of them probably won't be that good and I don't want to stress myself out about quality. If there are some I feel like showing off then you might see them in an update here.

The deadline for this project will be July 1, 2013 and I'm going to try to have 100 days of sketching between then and now.

Blog: Cool Things I Never Mentioned

So I decided not to keep going with the weekly Cool Things posts. I either had too many or too few things to post and then keeping cool things for a week doesn't make much sense. So from now on cool things will show up on my Twitter feed (and I might post a round up here from time to time).

I have a pretty big list of videos left over that I didn't post and I'm going to post a list of them here (just as links since I don't think any of us need a 40 video long post).

• Team Wheaton's 2012 Wiggle Waggle Walk
• God's Number and Rubik's Cube - Numberphile
• Archdukes, Cynicism, and World War I: Crash Course World History #36
• What To Do With Your Life
• Talking About Tape
• Hot Metal! (Megaman 2 Medley) - Ferdk16 and Laura Shigihara
• Tengami GameMaker Video - IndieCade 2012 Nominee
• XCOM: Enemy Unknown | Tactical Role-Playing Game Review
• Soundz
• Inside Adam Savage's Cave: Geeking Out about Bits and Bytes
• 6 Episodes of SciShow
• Hey It's Pomplamoose - Theme Song
• IDTIMWYTIM: Stochasticity - THAT'S Random
• HOME FOR A REST - Ukulele Cover by Fruity Ukuladies
• "BEN" (Official Trailer)
• Leslie - From Nataly Dawn's Upcoming Album "How I Knew Her"
• Problems with Zero - Numberphile
• Notes on Friendship
• How To Make a Mechanical Pumpkin
• Infographic Trick or Treat Bags - Halloween Craft Series #5
• Tested vs. The Slow Motion Camera
• For those of you who enjoy discovering cool new music...
• Mean Kitty Fight Training
• More Magnets - Sixty Symbols
• REMEMBER, REMEMBER [NOV.05.12 DAY 740]
• Hack To Power, Brian
• Still Untitled: The Adam Savage Project - Video Games - 11/20/2012
• John Green: The Paper Town Academy
• Penn and Teller - Fool Us S01E01

Favorite YouTube Videos (Volume 20)

In this volume of my favorite YouTube videos we have video game playing, vlogs an a short ad (which I don't get paid for, I should note).

• The first video is part 11 of Chuggaconroy's Let's Play of Mother 3. I have to confess first that I'm not entirely sure why I favorited this particular video and I think I recommend that if you're interested you start with the first video in the series (since this is rather in the middle of things).
  
  Mother 3 is quite an odd game, created by Shigesato Itoi it is the sequel to Earthbound (which was Mother 2 in japan). It's an RPG for the Gameboy Advance (after having been converted from a scrapped Nintendo 64 game. For a video game though, especially and RPG it's very interesting in how many topics it tackles and how deep a view it takes on life. It was never released in North America and as such Chugga is playing on a fan translated patch.
  
  Chuggaconroy's Let's Play of this game is quite good (although I think he's improved his videos over the years, these older ones show him being very young). And given that it's really a landmark video game I think the whole series is worth a watch.
• The next video is a vlogbrothers video in which John looks at some of the questions the people have asked google lately.
• The next video is also from John Green, vlogbrother. In this he talks about nerdfighteria, sports and a little book that he can't figure out the name for yet.
• Next we have a video from the incredibly talented Elmify. In this video she talks about home-made gifts and how some things just aren't quite the same as you grow up. I find her videos phenomenally well paced and when you consider the amount of work she actually has to do to put them together they're quite incredible. I recommend you look up more of them, but don't be surprised that you'll see her here again.
• The final video in this set is an ad / promotional video that Kater17 made for Mountain Dew Pitch Black. It's a bit slow to start, but it's creative, kinda fun and the effects work is really good.

Favorite YouTube Videos (Volume 19)

This is another musical volume of my favorite youtube videos (for the most part) inclues some interesting Pomplamoose, some home made music from Zelda and then an interesting play though of a fan-made hack of Chrono Trigger.

• The first video in this set is Pomplamoose's cover of Aerosmith's "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing." As with many songs Pomplamoose covers, I think this one is far superior to the original and it's always fun to watch Jack play with any instrument he can get his hands on.
• The second video is a version of the "Saria's Song" (from the "Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time") by Sp0ntanius. While this isn't may favorite of the songs from Zelda, the video song on blown bottles style is really creative and fun.
• The third video is by the always interesting, cool and creative ukulele wielding Molly Lewis. This is her open letter to Mr. Stephen Fry suggesting that if he ever wants to carry his genetic line on, she'd be happy to help.
• The fourth video in this volume is an interesting one. It's the first video in a play through of a game called "Crimson Echos." This probably isn't a game you've played since it was a fan made sequel to "Chrono Trigger," made by hacking the "Chrono Trigger" ROM. It was however hit by a cease and desist letter as it was nearing completion and so the people working on it stopped and put out this replay (which goes on for hundreds of parts) to show what they had done. 
  
  It's an interesting project with a lot of creativity that would have made a really interesting game. A lot of the music is new and the concept of the game is an interesting extension of the ideas laid out in "Chrono Trigger" (plus it's very fun to see new things in the "Chrono Trigger" universe). That said I also feel that it's a bit of a waste that all the tallent used on this project didn't go to something newly created. While this was just in the fan microcosm, I think that's probably true for a lot of the game development community.
• Finally we have a collaboration between Pomplamoose and Louis Cole & Genevieve Artadi. Very cool experimental sound and video.