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Adding details to a clip-art silhouette, for a project that will be released in a day or two. #design #aesthetics #modding

An important but small detail in a Blender3D project I just finished is this trench-coated character. I started with a clip-art silhouette, but it looked pretty drab. Thanks to a little pixel-doctoring in The GIMP, I touched up the center image. The schlubby pant cuffs on this guy don’t fit the character, so I smoothed them out. I also added details to his left hand. The middle result looked too…

Poetry Writing: 10 Tips for Writing Poems

If you are writing a poem because you want to capture a feeling that you experienced, then you don’t need these tips. Just write whatever feels right. Only you experienced the feeling that you want to express, so only you will know whether your poem succeeds. If, however, your goal is to communicate with a reader — drawing on the established conventions of a literary genre (conventions that will be familiar to the…

Beautiful News Writing: “Rampaging rooster attacks girl.”

I don’t want to make light of a little girl’s fear, but she wasn’t seriously hurt, and this is a damn fine lead: When they heard the screams, no one suspected the rooster. (Tampa Bay Times, 2002) And from a little farther into the story: The rooster struck around noon as Dechardonae ventured from her house in the middle of the cluster to visit her Uncle Tony, waiting in the…

Create Joy with Content Management System Hexcodes for Canvas LMS

I spent about 30 seconds eyeballing the hexcode colors for Starfleet uniforms so that, from now on, when I’m marking papers, my Canvas interface will remind me just a little bit of Star Trek. Where do you create joy? Captain’s log… supplemental entry. It’s not a perfect match, but the blue and gold are hard to read if they are as light as the shirts. AndI’m actually teaching four classes.…