Hurakan Project

Hurakan part 4 is over... long live Hurakan part 5! Okay, maybe that was a bit cheesy, but I'm getting really excited about wrapping up this challenge. Note to self, long arc challenges are informative, but they are looong! Not to mention, if you caught my post the other day concerning my changing role, then I've got a new focus, and I want to focus some of the challenges towards finding artists that can help me in that role (nudge, nudge). New Challenge. Concept name Hurakan, God of storms. Concept Description. Do you remember the description of Hurakan? If not, swing by and check out the original post. An in case you don't remember the steps in the 5 part process we are using. Here's how the challenge arc is going to go. Phase 1 character silhouettes (completed). Phase 2 character thumbs (completed). Phase 3 Black and White detailed character drawings & compositional Book Cover thumbnails (completed). Phase 4 Character color roughs & Black & White Book Cover detailed drawings (completed). Phase 5 Final color Character development & Book Cover color rough. Phase 6 Book Cover Final. Were moving into phase 5. This part of the challenge has two parts to it. Character, final color and Cover, color rough.
 

Part 1. We coming down to the end of the line with our characters. It's time to pull out all the stops and do the final render on our character. Do you remember the dwarf that Kieran Yanner was working on last week? Well, he took his tight drawing and his color palette, and gave me a tight render. Now I've got myself a solid concept piece. Something that I can either develop further, drop into a style guide, or use for the basis for further explorations. In case you missed it, here was the progression, rough, tight drawing, color palette, final render. Part 2. So we've played with our composition, we've looked at the details of the image, now it's time to take the lessons learned and start looking at the palette of the image. While you working on this portion of the challenge, remember that our marketing professionals from cartoon coloring pages have told us that they think that blue and green will be big colors next season. Think about how you will let this information influence your color decisions. It is also very important to think about how hue and contrast will affect the visual impact of the image. It will either enhance, or detract from your composition and overall image quality.

Details. For part 5, I would like to see the final character render, and the detailed cover drawing with it's color palette in a single file, no larger than 1600 x 1600 pixels. Arrangement and presentation is up to you. Requirements. Image should be submitted as RGB, jpg format files. A link to the image should be sent to Hurakan challenge Part 5. Do not send attachments! The Judging. There will not be any judging, per se. I will select submissions for discussion and critiques only. The goal of these challenges is to build towards the final judged book cover challenge. Speaking of, keep your eyes peeled for upcoming announcements concerning our judging panel for the final segment of the challenge! From ArtDrop. I've been seeing a lot of stellar submissions at ArtDrop lately, and it feels like a great time to grab a submission and throw it into the spotlight. I've been watching this artists work for a bit, and she keep stepping up her game. One of the things I appreciate about Nicole, is that she updates her website pretty often. There's nothing I hate more than to get a note from an artists about the "great work they are doing", and when I go to their website it hasn't been updated for two years. Shameful! Go forth and Create!

That Familiar Feeling

There was a familiarity to this day, the kind you never want to be familiar with. The breeze was cold, my lungs struggled to breath the chill of the morning during my run. I am again in this city I have come to relate with emergencies, tragedy, doctors, hospitals. A large contrast to what it has always been fun, runs, laughs, friends. The heaviness in my eyes, the result of less hours of sleep than I need, is also familiar. I turned a corner and see people busy with their day, kids walking to school, cars barely stopping at red lights while I cross the street. There is a large feeling of impotence to this new turn of events in the life of someone I love dearly. I have to get my run in before going back to the hospital. I had to stop at a light to compose and continue my run. Funny how we relate places and moments with feelings and emotions, there are memories that bring back anxiety, tears, sadness. Today my mind is remembering moments like that, remembering that months ago I ran these streets awaiting the passing of my aunt. I am remembering that day. And when one strong emotion invades me others of similar nature follow. Other memories assault me, some totally unrelated. I am remembering the days when I would rush to a bathroom to hide my sadness. Sadness is a powerful emotion and not a very useful one. It renders us worthless far longer than any emotion should. But there are times when we can't do anything other than feel what we need to feel. Today seems to be one of those days. Today is familiar, way too familiar. 

Asteroid Collisions

In recent years, astronomers, paleontologists and geologists have given us one more thing to worry about. That a large meteor or comet may strike the earth and destroy humanity or at least a good portion of it. If a collision occurred between Earth and an asteroid a few kilometers in diameter, it would release as much energy as several million nuclear weapons detonating simultaneously. This would be enough to trigger a nuclear winter. Those who survived the blast might starve to death as all plant life died. Recently we have seen a spate of science fiction movies with this theme, and it has been a staple of SF and doomsayers for a long time. How real is the threat? That is the question I intend to answer here. Note: Much of the information I gleaned from a Wikipedia article entitled Impact Event. The Wikipedia has a lot more information about possible asteroid collisions with earth and other planets in the solar system. Throughout recorded history, hundreds impact events have been reported, with some occurrences causing deaths, injuries, property damage or other significant localized consequences. An impact event in an ocean or sea could create a tsunami that would cause destruction both at sea and on land near a seashore. Small objects frequently collide with the Earth. There is an inverse relationship between the size of the object and the frequency that such objects hit the earth. Asteroids with a 1 km (0.62 miles) diameter strike the Earth every 500,000 years on average. Large collisions, with 5 km (3 miles) objects, happen approximately once every ten million years. 

The last known impact of an object of 10 km (6 miles) or more in diameter was at the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction event 65 million years ago which wiped out the dinosaurs. Asteroids with diameters of 5 to 10 meters (16 to 33 feat) enter the Earth's atmosphere approximately once per year, with as much energy as the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, approximately 15 kilotons of TNT. Usually they explode in the upper atmosphere, and most or all of the solids are vaporized. Objects with diameters over 50 meters (164 feat) strike the Earth approximately once every thousand years, producing explosions comparable to the one known to have detonated above Tunguska in 1908. At least one known asteroid with a diameter of over 1 km (0.62 miles) may collide with Earth on March 16, 2880. Objects with diameters smaller than 10 meters (33 feat) are called meteoroids (or meteorites if they strike the ground). An estimated 500 meteorites reach the surface each year, but only 5 or 6 of these are recovered and made known to scientists. The most significant recorded impact on earth in recent times was the Tunguska event, which occurred in Siberia, Russia, in 1908. This incident involved an explosion that was probably caused by the air burst of an asteroid or comet 5 to 10 km (3.1 to 6.2 miles) above the Earth's surface. It caused an estimated 80 million trees over 2,150 km2 (830 square miles) to be knocked over. In my latest Morgaine novel, Morgaine and the Necromancer, this event plays a part in the plot.

Numerous science fiction stories and novels center around an impact event; possibly the best-selling was the novel Lucifer's Hammer by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. In 1992 a Congressional study in the U.S. led to NASA being directed to undertake a Spaceguard Survey with the novel being named as the inspiration for the name to search for Earth-impacting asteroids. This in turn inspired Clarke's 1993 novel The Hammer of God. Jack McDevitt's 1999 novel Moonfall, in which a very large comet travelling at interstellar velocities collides with and partially destroys the Moon, fragments of which then collide with the Earth. Several disaster movies have also been made: When Worlds Collide (1951) dealt with two planets on a collision course with Earth, the smaller planet a "near miss," causing extensive damage and destruction, followed by a direct hit from the larger planet. Meteor (1979) features small asteroid fragments and a large 8 km (5 miles) wide asteroid heading for Earth. In 1998 two films were released in the United States on the subject of attempting to stop impact events: Touchstone Pictures' Armageddon, about an asteroid, and Paramount / DreamWorks' Deep Impact, about a comet. The prophesies in the Book of Revelation in the Christian bible seem to indicate that part of the devastation of the Apocalypse will be caused by objects falling down from the sky. I used this scenario in the fifth book of my Morgaine series of novels, Morgaine and Armageddon. Whether a catastrophic asteroid collision with earth will occur within our lifetime is problematical. What is certain is that sooner or later, one will strike the earth. Will we be ready to either divert it or deal with the consequences?

Cheap Car Insurance

This cheap car insurence publication wants to offer you the facts you must know, to feel that you have a set grasp on this subject. Facts that might seem insignificant or small when you look for auto assurance policy plan will play a major role when it is time to write a insurance check or at the time of filing an insurance claim. A handful to remember. Loss-of-use coverage: What this actually implies is that the online autos assurance policy plan will pay for a rental motor-vehicle for the time your auto is at the repair shop. In most cases this is optional. Nevertheless if in case you're rendered without a motor-car, it could be worth it. Check out if you had been insured, how much you'd be given in a day and how long you would receive it. Repairs: Would you be allowed to drive your car to any repair center, or does your insurance provider give you a list of its own repair shops? Will the repair center use brand-name parts in your vehicle or after market service accessories, not made by the company which manufactured your automobile? In case you opt for a shop that is not in their list of preference, do you have to compensate for the difference in the charges of repair? Also, if your automobile has been repaired using after-market parts, would the guarantee still be valid? Check the requirements of your warranty and Be sure Make certain that you are comfortable with how a online vehicle assurance company deals with collision claims ahead of signing the deal. In addition, get in touch with your state insurance office in order to find out what the rules are of car repairs where you live. Gap-insurance: In case you rent a motor-car or buy an auto with little or no money down, go for gap insurance. Gap insurance takes care of the difference in the amount you owe and the cost of the vehicle. In a grave accident for instance, if it would be costlier to fix the auto than the actual worth, the car assurance on-line firm might even give a check to you for the current price of the motor-car. Nonetheless what in case you have to pay a higher amount? Gap insurance will pay the difference. 

Umbrella coverage: This insurance policy is significant over and above your automobile coverages on line coverage that you buy to insure your possessions if a lawsuit is brought against you for a large amount of property damage or injury to the other person. When you set it up properly, after your coverage limits ends, the umbrella policy would start and cover the rest of the amount. If you have valuable property, for instance, a home or market shares, umbrella policies, which you can buy after paying a small amount annually have been found to be an effective means to keep away from losing your properties towards a liability claim. Alternative disagreement resolution: A large number of insurance companies ask for mediation or arbitration in the event of a dispute. So ask what, if any, legal privileges you might be giving up in case you sign up for the policy. Credit record: A few insurance companies ask for your credit record and make use of it in order to assess your premium rates. There is a correlation in between good credit and a low risk to the insurance company. The better the credit, the less likely somebody is to file a claim. Nevertheless, not every insurance provider considers credit history to calculate the premium. Thus, if in case you don't have an excellent credit record, look around. Motor-car and driver: A simple way to lower your insurance rates is include only those people on the policy who have to be on the policy. Once your teenage child graduates or gets his own autos insurence online withdraw him from the coverage policy. Furthermore, if they go off to school most of the time and will not have a chance to use the car you might get a break for that, too. If in case you have teen drivers staying in your house, that is another reason for purchasing a policy. One of the biggest things we fail to notice when they shop around for a new motor-vehicle is the kind of car insurence charges they would have to give. Therefore, if in case you've picked up the insurer of your choice, telephone your agent and have her run the numbers for you. Ask insurance and car rental agencies like rent a car bucuresti whether the addition of any other accessories like curtain, air-bags or a security system could make a difference to your policy. If you're including a teen driver in your policy you might avail more discounts for your vehicle insurence online premium by giving them something sturdy and safe in place of a speedy sports car or a Sports Utility Vehicle that might be prone to roll over.