vector art, stuff, and water

Whats up, Tom, Dick and Harry!?

I do look charming, dont I? Yes, its another self portrait, but a much older one, not quite like the last one. Entirely different style, too. The inital idea was to fade in the background orange colour into a sort of base hue for the skin, and then add some darker shadows and bright highligths. Kinda added lots of other shit along the way though. I always kind of liked how it turned out, so ive been using it for a profile picture for different websites ever since I made it, which was a little bit more than a year ago.

I actually used a pretty fucked up reference photo, which I hope is disappeared from cyberspace for all future. It wasnt nice. My face was kind of like spazzing out of control. Any finders or witnesses of this photo will be dealt with, it is of utmost importance that this bedazzling photo does not resurface.

Hm, something I notice now in retrospect (Retro meaning backwards-ish-kinda, spect meaning to look, eyes, some foszhille like that depending on context. Anyway, looking back is the meaning of "in retrospect".), the strength of the highlight sorta makes my skin look wet ._. Thats not nice. Its usually something I strive to achieve while painting, because it looks very professional, but in this case the specular area is simply too damn big. You know something interesting about water and wetness? Its about why water feels so cold on your skin. Its not simply because water releases and absorbs heat energy better than air, or because the water may be colder than your skin when it hits it, but also because of chemical bonds forming between water molecules, H2O, and oxygen, causing it to evaporize. A precondition for these bonds to form is energy, and heat, in essence, is energy, and will be used as such. That means that in the forming of the bond, energy is encapsulated into this bond, converted from heat. THIS MEANS NET HEAT ENERGY LOSS. It also means that when these bonds release, heat is also released. Theres heat in the top of the rainy clouds, bro.

The forming of these bonds also partly explains why you feel so much colder if its windy and youre wet. Since there are more oxygen particles to be bound, bonds are created faster. VERY MUCH COLD. But we all know that no water can be absorbed if the air is too humid, yeah? That means we dont feel that part of the cold at all, standing in the wind, if its raining, and the air is very humid. Lots of interesting chemistry here. I actually have no sources or factual texts to recite on the matter, just my own weird theories.

You might scoff and think that this whole phenomenon is rather peripheral, and while I admit it may not at all be the reason water is so damn cold, I can tell you that so called swamp coolers actually work entirely by this principle. They blow hot air through watery spongy material, evaporating it, converting heat into chemical bonds, cooling the air down. Thats how that big air-space-cooler-fan-box-thing you might have standing around works.

Anyhow, heres the same picture, greyscaled, and with less layers, just so that you may be able to picture the creation process more clearly. Basically what I did was use the curve (Line) select-tool, selected for example all my hair, and filled a layer mask with full opacity white. This is easier than using real transparency, which would be really unsmooth, layer masks are a must when doing this kind of thing. Then I filled the actual layer with a gradient, and moved on to the next area, for example the highligts on my face. Rinse and repeat, until the whole picture is finished. Easy shit, really. Anyone with just the slightest hint of familiarity with GIMP or Photoshop can do it, doesnt really matter which one you want to use.

Oh, and for those of you who are wondering what I meant by "Tom, Dick, and Harry", thats an english idiom. For those of you who have never been interested in learning about idioms, its short for idiomatic expression, which are, well, expressions. Dont interpret these phrases literally, theyre mostly metaphors (Metaphor being another kind of expressions. Very confusing.), or just common sayings. Tom, Dick, and Harry, is an old way of refering to everyone, all the average joes of the world, and in my case, all my dear readers, of course. Tom, Dick, and Harry have in history been some pretty common names, so someone sorta figured thatd cover all of us. In essence, I couldve just said HI EVERYONE, but then we wouldnt have learned anything new or interesting, would we?