I Started Using The Internets To Teach Myself Hobby Electronics A Little Less Than Two Years Ago And

I started using the internets to teach myself hobby electronics a little less than two years ago and struggling with whatever random 101 sites, blogs, tutorials, and instructables I could find. Slowly piecing together info that is never presented in an incremental-increase-of-difficulty way because its not class... It's always a continuous struggle to find information that is at your level when it is pretty much always going to be something you've already sort of learned, and therefore less useful, or something way too advanced and HOW do you fill in the gap, its always there at every level as you learn more things

I think it's useful to point out that I'm not really a self-taught artist. So while there is a TON of stuff I taught myself (particularly digital art/photoshop/coloring), I had the benefit of classes in the fundamentals (lifedrawing, construction drawing, figure drawing, etc) and that makes it SO much easier to expand from a solid knowledge base. So I'm sayin it is not the case here, while I learn to make gadgets and it is taking FOR EVER and driving me up all of the walls. But I want it so badly.

Then Adafruit put up their revised learning system site and I s2g every time I have a neat idea for a project but not sure how I'd make it, they put up a relevant tutorial basically the next freakin day. This has been happening without fail for SEVERAL MONTHS! I LOVE ADAFRUIT AND ADAFRUIT LOVES ME BACK

I always have a cosplay/props/gadgets wishlist that is miles long and an ever-expanding list of ways to make things blinky, beepy, and/or animatronic and going NUTS because I don't yet have the skills to accomplish what I want to do (which is everything), learning a skill is HARD, harder still if there are parts of it that are not interesting but sort of a necessary evil- which for me is programming, I hate it so much, its so painful, ughhg uugghhh it hurts, I have not studied this hard to learn something I dislike so much EVER but there is a blog I like called HOW TO GET WHAT YOU WANT and that has stuck with me all this time. It's how to get what I want and I'm not gonna let my hatred of programming actually stop me from typing up terrible buggy code and uploading it to a microcontroller to make leds blink and animate and change colors because I love lights and I love COLORS. Join me!

LETS PUT LEDS IN THINGS

I know this was posted a million tumblr years ago but it's... STILL bothering me so rant forthcoming! This... was just so heartbreaking... like I seriously took the Pini's behavior personally because Elfquest was a HUGE inspiration to me as a kid and Leetah has always had a special place in my heart as a character (because representation IS important don't ever let anyone tell you otherwise) and I've considered cosplaying her many times. I still have trouble understanding why so many white cosplayers are so OBTUSE about brownface seriously. Just don't do the thing. Its like every damn halloween when all the articles go around asking "is your costume racist?" Probably. Wear. Something. Else!

Posting from mobile and won't let me make a cut so tl;dr I guess.

Its offensive to treat brown skin like a costume because poc and especially darker skinned poc everywhere have to deal with BS specific to their skin color that white people don't ever have to, its dehumanising and disrespectful to dress up to look like people who get discriminated against for FUN. I guarantee you many poc have had experiences where they wish they could just wash their skin color off at the end of the day. PLUS it usually looks TERRIBLE :p I've seen some white cosplayers whinge about it cos nobody gets mad about dressing up as blue or green or purple-skinned people COS THATS TOTALLY THE SAME THING? What would you do if a suddenly real purple person came up to you and told you your purpleface was offensive- make up another fucking fictional skin color for your justification??

Cosplayers already rank so low on the "geek hierarchy" for having the NERVE to be SO openly geeky. Black cosplayers get called the "ghetto" version of whatever character they're dressed as, women who dare to show any skin dressing as characters usually designed by MEN get creeped on (and omg don't get me started on the creepy creepy treatment of mlp cosplayers by bronies)... People post photos without permission to point and laugh, women, poc, fat cosplayers, cosplayers who aren't super goodlooking, or technically skilled at making stuff ALL get majorly harassed and god forbid if you're several of those things HOW DARE YOU HAVE FUN IN PUBLIC. USUALLY even at a place where THE ENTIRE PURPOSE is nerds getting together to have fun in public.

It's gross behavior that stifles creativity and that will always be really infuriating to me. Personally it hasnt been something I've experienced much because my cosplay wishlists have always been entirely giant robots and power armor. :P Currently daydreaming about Striker Eureka, Samus, SEVERAL transformers, Bunny/Barnaby Brooks Jr, and the yellow Power Ranger I share a name with (another special place in my heart for her! She came on tv at a super important impressionable time in my nerdy childhood for sure). But cosplayers deserve to oh I dunno, NOT get harassed, whoever they are.

This is an art/creativity blog. So before anyone gets mad that I made some sort of "sjw" post instead of art just know that you can't divorce that stuff from reality. POC are artists and nerds too, OBVIOUSLY. I know people in general have trouble treating each other with respect but just... try? Its worth doing. This specific way of treating people decently is NOT that hard. Dooooon't brownface. THE END. Kinda dreading any attention this might get me but it's just been on my mind so much cos I'm going to get back into cosplay this year and I just wish it was possible to be a huge nerd and have a good time without also risking having to deal with tons of BS over it? Maybe?

....That would be great ffff

Planning to Honeybee at Wild Wild West Con, btw :D STEAMPUNK ROBOT BEE FAIRY BALLERINAAAA

ElfQuest, the Pini's, and Racism.

This is something I’ve been putting off writing for at least a month, because it’s been so hard on me. When I say hard, I mean just kind of spirit-breaking to even revisit in my memory. If you care about what I am saying, if you really care about racism in the artistic industries and such, SHARE THIS. Read this, and if you REALLY feel it, SHARE IT. Please.

Anyone who knows me, knows that I adore - sorry - adored ElfQuest. Wendy and Richard Pini were my role models for a long long time. I started reading the series when I was very very young. Sure, there’s questionable content, but to me it was a fantastically constructed world. There was also something about it that stood out to me in bright vivid colours.

There were elves of colour in it. Deep, rich, beautiful brown elves with their own distinct (although vaguely familiar) culture. Elves in a fantasy setting that felt no need to be justified. Elves that I, as a minority individual, could cling to and feel as though I belonged to their world.

Now, if you have already made your mind up on whether or not you want to accept what I’m going to write, don’t click on. If you become offended, if you decide to come after me for writing this, be very very aware that you were warned that the content of this may upset you. You had the choice to move on, and to be ignorant of the following information.

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If you want to paint yourself and your friends weird colors for Halloween season (OR if you’re a nerd who cosplays at every opportunity, or even when there aren’t opportunities because you’re obsessed with makeup like meeeee) I would like to reccomend airbrushing :D

Top photo is my airbrush kit which fits in a toiletry bag from ikea. It includes a mini compressor which you can get for about $40 on amazon.

I use a $20 Badger airbrush from Michaels. I honestly use it more often than my nicer double-action professional airbrush because ngl I get tired of cleaning that thing out. Paint doesn’t actually go through the Badger air gun at all so its easy to clean.

BEST of all, if you also make props or paint fabric for costumes, you can stop spending money on spray paint! Seriously, airbrushes are where it’s at.

THE KEY ITEM is the Badger to Master brand adapter! The most annoying thing about airbrushes is there’s no standard sizing and shapes for ANY brush item or accessory between brands. I got mine in a set from Amazon for about $9. This way you have the choice to use any compressor instead of the expensive air cans.

Anyone who’s tried to do white makeup knows how ANNOYING it is no matter what! Creme makeup has good coverage but it’s gross and gets everywhere no matter how much powder you use to set it! Airbrushing lets you get 100% coverage with water-based liquid body paint. I got the best results with two layers of white and two of Ben Nye final seal (a layer of sealer FIRST helps the color stick and adds a small amount of protective barrier from sweat/oil). The key is to get full coverage with the thinnest possible layers, it flakes off more easily the thicker the paint is applied. Diluting liquid makeup with sealer instead of water or mixing liquid helps too, I don’t have a brand preference and have Ben Nye and Mehron colors, and some more expensive alcohol-based brands for experiments.

Examples! My QT frans (and me, whatever lol) :3 I painted em and they did the rest of makeup and powder. Powder pigments for colors and shading seem to work best before paint is entirely dry, if it gets too dry for blush/shading/etc, I’ve had good results with a light spritz of sealer to make it tacky again. Riles glows in the dark because Mehron has glow body paint so I had to try it, NATURALLY! Also used pure glow pigment as ~gremlin blush~, TKB has it I want to buy it by the pound, lol LOOK AT THAT SPOOKY GLOW THO

OK hope that was informative enough, I’m trying not to make this twenty pages long ok? K.

Its Friday the Thirteenth and also my birthday and also I'm thirty. Whaaaat

LED STOCKINGS made with materials from Adafruit and firewalkers circuit and code :D I intended to record better video, make gifs, whatever, but that takes away time from making more blinky stuff! So that's been unacceptable ;p I HAVE been documenting all my cosplay and crafty blinkybeepy things so that I have the OPTION to make writeups buuuut I have a functionally infinite project list while I slowly work on the skills to make the light and sound and animatronic costumes of my dreams 83

Am I gonna apologize for not posting? Ever? NAaaah. xD I rarely have time to draw while I'm away for work and when I'm home I'd rather MAKE STUFF. Even then I have to make annoyingly hard choices about what to work on cos I just can't do everything I want, weh

Buuut here's some semi-recent Jak & Daxter fanart I'm probably not going to finish cos I don't have tiiiiiime :C Fuzzy little douche was very fun to draw tho