IlluxCon Memories

The educational opportunities abound. The funny thing is that often learn the most when I'm on the panel myself! This year, I spent most of the Live Art Critic in stunned silence as I watched the experts offer up brilliant critiques, technique advice, and some quick paint-overs to make a point. I wish we could have continued for hours. Next time I'll bring a laser pointer so I can talk about composition more, without the "software mastery" envy I had watching folks like Dan Dos Santos, Robh Ruppel, and Patrick Jones as they flew through photoshop. It was also a blast listening to Mark Nelson describe his concepting experiences and walk through his process in the "creature design by committee". I do a lot of concepting, but I learned a ton by being part of his class. There were a tone of other workshops that I would have loved to attend, but I was so busy I had to skip some of the ones I was aching to attend. I need more hours in the day!

Matthew Starbuck

The rendering on this is really strong. It took me a minute to realize that the left front leg was down and the left rear leg was back... the perspective puts that grounded front leg right in line with the right back leg / wing, so it felt very much like the two were intended to be bilaterally symmetrical rear legs. The head reads well, though I’m back and forth on the neck. The surface texture reads beautifully (as it does throughout the piece), but the structure reads like a puffy coat or wingback chair with deep upholstery. It almost feels inflated. If you can reign that puffiness in I think it’ll read better.

Rent-a-car Benefits

Renting a car may represent a very high benefit to the individuals who are bound to travel a lot from one country to another and to also relocate a lot inside such countries. You can reach your destination by train or by plane as to not exhaust yourself driving and to not lose much time, and then, renting a car is the perfect answer to a comfortable and well-timed relocation, anywhere you need it. Renting a car is convenient not just in the case of business travels but also in other cases such as: in vacation, when you can reach your destination by plane, which is very cost-effective in terms of time, and there, you can rent a car to take a ride and acquaint yourself with the surroundings; if you have many rides to take in your own town or outside it and your personal car is in service or you have sold it and it takes a while to buy another. 

For this precise reason, the rent-a-car companies have developed, they adjust to any kind of request and they are available to anyone, with any model of car and for any period, independently if it is about a few days or a few weeks. The purpose of a rent-a-car companie is to increase the comfort and to fast satisfy the needs of all prospects, from the most pretentious to the simplest. In any of these cases, a rent-a-car company may be helpful, by providing you a solution at hand, convenient and advantageous. To the very varied offer of models of cars of the rent-a-car centers, a generous offer regarding the car facilities is also added, in such way that you are able to choose from the simplest car to a car with additional facilities so that you feel comfortable and be able to meet your duties, whatever these are.

To Remember is an Act of Choice

To remember is an act of choice... and not merely an experience. Xan at Corrente chooses to remember the “independence day of our second american revolution”, and the debt all of us owe to those of us who paid the highest price possible for liberty, as well as the debt all of us owe to those of us that carry the conscience and memory of this nation. Today I want to remember my ancestor who fought many battles for the union army, and was imprisoned at andersonville and lived to tell the tale. Besides the fact that the only reason I am here today (along with many others of his descendants) is because the all-father did not call him to Valhalla from the battlefield, I feel that in many ways I owe him my understanding of freedom, and what it means to sacrifice everything for the sake of future generations. What sort of country would this be if the union had fragmented and slavery still practiced in the south? Some say that it would have ended on its own eventually - but how many would have had to suffer and die in chains?

Some say that the opportunistic north wanted to keep slavery for themselves and not for the south - that it was a war of economic competition. I don’t think that the historical record bears this out particularly, but I fear that for some it is an argument that is attractive in that it bestows upon them the righteousness of victimhood that is undeserved. Some that were there state that abolition was merely the strongest political argument for war, but from Lincoln’s point of view it was to preserve the union, and defend the constitution that the north waged war upon the south. I find this argument to be somewhat more supported by the historical record, but as I’m only an amateur at history I’d have to get back to you on that. I feel that what my ancestor would want me to think about and remember on this day is that the union as it stands, and the constitution which we are sworn to defend, is something that many men died to preserve, and so we oughtn’t to let it be bandied about lightly by vain and servile men without honor, who deem it “just a goddamned piece of paper“.