Slaves of the Switchboard of Doom: something’s up

Filed under Slaves of the Switchboard of Doom, Thrilling Tales of the Downright Unusual, Works in Progress

Yes! has just told me that will , and – as you know – that means ! I couldn’t be more excited. I mean, .
 

PS: Those censors at are far more powerful than I realized.

A third untextured rocket model, and the provenance of rocket names

Filed under Works in Progress

With this third untextured, unfinished model of a retro rocket I’ve probably blown off all the steam I should. Tomorrow morning I’ll set these aside and get started on my revisions to the illustrations for Slaves of the Switchboard of Doom.

Someday I’ll want to use these rockets, and then I’ll go back to work on their textures, their other materials, and the final details on the dashboards. And I’ll come up with names for the three of them, too. Lately I’ve been leaning toward inappropriate names from mythology (like "Actaeon"), as though a rocket designer with very little knowledge of mythology paged through his Bullfinch at the last moment and picked a name. "Let’s call it the Icarus!", for example, although that one’s a little too obvious.

By the time I name these, though, I might have shifted over to something else. Like famous streamlined vacuum cleaners, or unsung character actors from Warner Brothers in the 1930’s. I’m unpredictable that way. And probably a little odd.

Another untextured rocket, and that high pitched whine that could mean anything

Filed under Computer Graphics, Works in Progress

I’m still being irresponsible and devil-may-care, which – since we’re talking about me – means that I’m still sitting in a dimly lit room while I build retro rocket models. This one, as untextured as the last, is more of the same.

Each of these September models is a variation on an iconic shape that I’ve played with before; but that was several years ago, with lower resolution on all fronts. These stand up much better in close-ups. Even their temporary textures are laid out at a higher resolution and so have a higher pixel density in the end product. I call that progress of the software-straining, RAM-chewing variety.

I’m expecting some news at the end of the week which, whether it will be good news or bad, seems to be distracting me. You know that thing that happens when you hear a high-pitched whine dopplering in from overhead, and you’re not sure whether it’s a drone delivery of some Really Cool New Thing, or a nuclear missile? It’s like that. Therefore, rockets.