Virtua Fighter Love

Dark Butterfly Pai

Okay, I admit it.  I am a gamer.  I have loved the electronic video games since the craze started in the late 70s and 80s and I have spent who knows how many quarters in an arcade playing them.

I this day and age, I have been into Genshin Impact, Honkai Starrail, Cobra Kai and several others.

Lately though, I have been revisiting the fighting/dueling games such as Virtua Fighter and I decided to share a bit since SEGA released Virtua Fighter 5 REVO.

The thing I really love about Virtua Fighter is that there is such attention to detail that the developera took when designing the game.

Every fighter has a distinct moveset usually based on specific fighting styles and strategies.  I found the motion capture almost  hypnotic when I watch characters like Pai,(Enseiken), Shun Di(Drunken Fist) and Lion(Mantis).  Impressive work.

There is also a lack of the overly fantastic move sets and attacks(hadouken, shoruoken, etc.). 

The link above is from the arcade mode of VF5 using Pai Chan in what I call the Dark Butterfly outfit.

Enjoy!

In My Mother's Voice

Over the past few years, I have been working hard on my own creative writing, usually by following some prompts done by Reedsy Prompts.

However last month, I found myself troubled by the decisions made by the US Supreme Court regarding Presidential Immunity and I talked with my wife about it and she gave me some homework.  She asked me to write an essay about this in the way that my mother would have written.  My mother, who was a cat lady, was also very politically active in her time, especially after her retirement.  Now, after her passing and after my own retirement, I must take on that challenge.

So here is the essay that I wrote

Absolute Immunity

In My Mother's Voice: On the subject of power

 To the readers and all people who have ears I write to you to deliver a warning from the lessons of the past in order to have some measure of Hope for the future the future of all of our children and grandchildren

 The news of the day is not lost on those who have passed on even here we see the decisions of the Supreme Court to Grant absolute immunity for all official Acts the president of the United States and presumed immunity for all acts in the periphery.

I have lived through much while on Earth and I have heard many conservatives and other right wing operatives especially those amongst religious circles, speak of absolutes seeking to persuade followers of the need for adherence to the stated dogma and forbidding any questions to its authority.

 Most religious cult leaders such as Jim Jones of The People's Church, David Koresh of the Branch Davidians and many others have exercised their perceived “right” to “absolute authority” as leaders chosen by God, to commit acts of sexual violence, lead their followers commit acts of violence, or in some cases, commit suicide.  

These are just examples of some of the dangers of granting “absolute power” or “absolute immunity” to a political leader.

 Our Constitution guarantees its people the right to question authority and seek redress for injustice as well as the right to choose our leaders. The framers of the Constitution and the people who fought for our rights knew the value of democracy and liberty. Even the first sentence speaks of where the true power lies. It reads “We The People”

It is we the people who have the true power.

Use it well and treat it with respect. Do not give this priceless gem away.

Callback To Battlestar Galactica Reedsy

Being a Generation X'er, I am old enough to remember this show's first debut in 1978, including the movie that was made from the first 2 parts of the pilot, which I believed was called "Saga of the Starworld" although when I saw it in the theater, it was called "Battlestar Galactica Sensurround".

I also remember having the giant sized comic book which had some differences from both the movie and the series, such as the execution of Baltar.  My friend and I were a bit confused by that.  It didn't occur to us that the script had changed.

It is was with this series in mind that I wrote a short story for Reedsy Prompts contest.  In this case, the prompt required us to write an origin story for a notorious villain and I chose Baltar as portrayed by John Colicos.

I set the scene in the cell just after the first Imperious Leader sentenced Baltar for public execution.

https://blog.reedsy.com/short-story/x3d55c/

I set the scene in the cell just after the first Imperious Leader sentenced Baltar for public execution.

https://blog.reedsy.com/creative-writing-prompts/author/patrick-h/

Mixed Media woman

Hi All

I have a lot of fun with drawing people, especially when it comes to hair. I sort of go nuts with hair.

This one is mixed media; I draw this by hand, then I inked it, then scanned it into my machine.

GIMP was used to colorize it.  Enjoy!

Bogdanoff

This one is updated.  The inspiration comes from my mother's book, Befriending Aliens.  I hope to do a few b more drawings to introduce the universe in which these stories take place.  More will follow.

Sketcher Guru

I have been without my desktop for a while, so I have been using Sketcher Guru from Android Google or something.  It takes some time to learn it, of course, but the effort is worth it.

Here are a few samples

More Space Art with Mtpaint

Hey Readers

Again, I am experimenting with the program MtPaint by Mark Tyler.  It takes time to get used to it, but the more I play with it, the more I find I can do with mtpaint.  

It is a lower end program than Gimp or Photoshop, but it does not take as long to load on my machine, so that's why I tend to use it more than other programs.

On this pic, entitled Red Shift1, I used about 7 layers to get the effects I wanted.  The first is the starfield, and I used a blue spackling brush to get that effect.  On the second layer, I wanted to get some red in there, so I used the spackle brush again, lowering the size. After I finished with the brush, I lowered the opacity to a desired setting(forgot which one) and used a gaussian blur   This gives the pic a little red cloud effect in the background. 

On the third layer, I used the gradient tool to make the larger stars.  I used another layer for the spokes.  

The planet, I used the circle shape tool, with a linear gradient then I shaded it with red. 

On the ship, I used a white and grey gradient, to give it the silver effect. 

Feel free to ask me any questions on this, I will be posting more pix as time goes by.  

Free Bitcoins every 24 hours.

More fun with MTpaint

Hi All

I have been using Mtpaint a lot lately and I have discovered a few tricks.  Here are few examples of my experiments.

I was thinking of doing a tutorial for it, but not quite yet.  I will keep you up to date on it.

Arrival in RedSpace

The End of the Rainbow

Wanderer4

Music I've played in the past

Normally, I only use this space for visual artwork, but today I am making an exception to this rule.

I have been singing with Tennessee Line for almost 2 years now and I have enjoyed it thoroughly.  Lately, I have been waxing nostalgic for my college days when I was in the brass and wind ensemble and playing some rather intriguing pieces that I liked.  Here is one of them by David Holsinger called "Nilesdance" which was named after one of his children.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzsaN03Iyr4

Enjoy!

Patrick

GIMP work

Here is some more I did with Gimp

More space art

One day, when I was a college freshman, I went under my mom's house and found that someone had thrown away a old drafting table, so I took it myself and placed it in my room.  With that table, I was able to create any drawing that I liked,  I would turn on the music low and I would just continue to draw throughout the night.  I had pot of coffee nearby and this would just simply be my own little space for just me.

I am older now,with 2 children and I don't have a drafting table, so I am using the chromebook to draw. I closed the door on the bedroom so that I can draw in a quiet space, listening to ambiet music on Pandora.

This one is called "Where are you going?".

Where are you going?