Giant Robot Store and GR2 News
Souther and Saelee sitting in a tree… I’ll say no more, since it’s going to end up as a juvenile nursery rhyme that’ll just mess me and maybe some of you up for the day. This is what I’ve been working on. Is it art? No way. I can’t do art. It’s actually a sculpy (not sculpty) item, that I collabed with Diana K on. I made the tree, she made the figures, I made the owl, she made the cat, she painted, I painted, and wallah. It’s them and their grey cat. They don’t have an owl yet, but if they did, it would be a light blue one. The painting is the tough part. I’m into the fine detail I guess, and as their “student,” I’m trying to learn the finer aspects of how they do art. These aren’t secret… right? Here’s lesson 1. 1) Materials are important. a) Know what they are, how they act and can act. For example, acrylic paint. It’s plastic like, acrylic… get it? Wo what happens when plastic gets mixed with water? It gets thin, and therefore more see through… Does plastic mix with water? It’s weird, you can, but maybe you shouldn’t… Want to see what’s on your painting surface? Then water it down. If not, it’ll take multiple coats to get things opaque. But there’s so much to talk about here. b) There’s different levels of acrylic paint. You can get some more opaque stuff, but it depends on levels. The higher the level the more money! Also there’s mixing mediums. Want to thin it down, you can use that stuff… c) What’s Gesso? It’s an undercoat. You have to establish a base before you can go out and explore and paint. No base, crappy exploration, although I guess it might work out sometimes. That’s my quick interpretation of materials. d) Use a paint pan that’s metal. Use damp vellum in it to keep your paint moist! It’ll last longer! e) Wash your damn brush and dry it out before you use it. You can also dry brush paint onto an item. I thought I was making a discovery, but in the end, it’s a technique that started at least in the 50s, since I saw it on some original art from that time. You have a dry brush and you basically paint on something, until the paint seems totally dry as pasty. I was doing this under the fine tree bark to make different shades of brown. f) Don’t mix with too much white, it gets chalky. g) The thinnest brush doesn’t always give you the finest point to work with. A thicker one might give you the best tip. (this was from Seonna Hong and Jacob Magraw) h) After you’re done painting, spray with some coating. Spray Shellac might look yellow, but Souther seems to like that look. Otherwise, try some other clear stuff. It’ll protect your work. When you spray, this is key. Don’t just point it...
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Giant Robot on You Tube. We just started a You Tube page, which sort of goes with our myspace page. We’ll put some of our videos that we make up here. Maybe we’ll even put some of yours! It’s fun making short films. Maybe we’ll eventually do a GR video contest on different topics.
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Fearless. You won’t see too many film reviews from me here, since the last one I think I saw in a theater was Syriana in December. I missed every film fest and film screening, but at my local video store, they had Ronny Yu’s Fearless. We interviewed him in GR42, and I never did get to see this film. The typical videos don’t have English subtitles, but leave it to the Koreans, when it doubt, Korean versions often have them. This one did. I’ve seen my share of martial arts flicks. They’re roughly the same. From way back, it’s the (in fast nasal man subtitle voice), “You killed my brother… prepare to die” genres. Then it’s the “you shamed my family” genres. Bruce Lee did his share of good films that stand alone from that time period. But then somewhere in the later 90s it became the flying shit. Like The Greatest American Hero or even The Monkeys, people started to fly. Jet Li brings everything together, but takes things one step further in Fearless. This isn’t a film just about fighting, although those scenes are fun. It’s basically about a family of kung fu fighters in a town in Shanghai, battling in each other in a public forum – a center stage. Jet look like he’s at his peak in these scenes even though he’s probably in his 40s! After misunderstandings, pompous times as a champ, then misguided decisions based on fists and not heart, Jet Li starts back on the bottom. Mixing martial arts with weapons, acrobatics, and choreography by Yuen Woo Ping, and with a heavy dose of philosophy, this film is more than a fairy tale. Remember when kung fu films included thought? Although it’s overt it fits Jet Li’s character and his own personal legend as well. Jet didn’t write the shit, but he delivered the lines as if they were from his heart. Martial arts isn’t about fighting or defending honor, it’s more than that, right? Even though you could have easily learned it from Miyagi in the Karate Kid, or Kane from Kung Fu, those are long gone. Fearless brings the thought and mind back to martial arts. Forget the dog collars to hide his bad English, stupid Asian mystical massage potions disguised as kisses of dragons, or long rat tail hair cuts, he’s best as an old school martial artist. If Jet Li decided to retire from film today, then this is a way to go out.
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Closure on softball season. So we met, ate burritos, nachos, pizza, chicken, softdrinks, and watched the game. At times, we slowed down the funny parts, close calls, and greedy moments. What went wrong, what went right, what can we do better, what’s happening next season, and so on. There’s not too much more to add, except, there’ll be more softball meetings. Some will come in the form of fishing expeditions between some members of the team, others might be at concerts, through emails, and maybe at softball practice. Each smaller faction will talk their side, if at all and then we’ll take the field. We have no idea where the next season will take place. We don’t know who’s playing exactly, but things will be different. I might actually play. With me on the field with gimpy finger, is GR ready for a .500 season? Are we expecting to go undefeated? There’s a lot of pieces that need to fit for a great season, it’s like any other team. Some things just click and some need to be worked at. Look at Greg laughing on the left side!
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Business idea: One way to profit on terrorism. I thought of this, told some folks, but I’m not doing it. Fire away, it’s a good idea. Because there’s a terror alert, start a company, who’s services are to ship back or forward the liquid that they’re confiscating at security. (are security guards just stealing the good stuff?) What if you have a limited edition Shu Uemura set? Or a bottle of Kheils? Cosmetics can run hundreds of dollars, and instead of throwing them out, I’d station one person at each of the detectors who will grab your stuff, package it, and send it on it’s way. I suggest $15 or $20 per package including shipping. So that means, $10 a head profit per person (this is conservative). Imagine at least 10-15 people an hour, maybe 20? Maybe even 30. Imagine how many people walk through these things in an hour. So this means, $200 an hour. How many hours a day? 10? 12? 15? So one person might take in $2000 a day. How many security gates are there at LAX alone? 50? So that means $100,000. How many airports are there? 100? $10,000,000 a day? I hope you get on your planes safely and leave the liquids at home or in your bladder.
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