Impressionism with Pastels

I was doodling in school the other day, and envisioned a beautiful picture inside my head. As my mom read American History I drew this out in pastels. I wasn't able to finish it in one sitting though, and I think by my second sitting I had a much less vivid picture in my head. I think that is why I like the grass and the house and the river (first sitting) and the rest is much more drab. The two large mountains in the background do have a nice commanding look to them. The house is very cheery and to my satisfaction.

Mr. Spacegun

This doodle was supposed to be replicating a kind of short cartoony style of character with bulging muscles. There's probably a name for this in the comic book world, but I'm not sure what it is. Not bad as a doodle, but I notice many more aspects I could have finessed when I look at the comic book cover.

Bruce Lee

I like this pencil sketch of Bruce Lee. Particularly the sharp contrast on his right hand. I had no wifi when I was drawing so I copied him off of the movie cover to Enter the Dragon even though the cover picture was pretty low quality.

Fun fact: While Bruce Lee is known as an Asian figure he was in fact part British, born in the United States and married Linda Lee Cadwell, an American women, who gave him two kids before his unexpected death in 1973.

If you are still interested in Bruce Lee, I recommend you look up his one inch punch.

Solving A Magic Square

You've probably heard of this puzzle. I read about it in a book and it's quite challenging. The goal is to fill a tic tac toe square with number 1-9 in a way that every row, column and diagonal add up to 15. if you think this is a piece of cake you are probably mistaken. I thought it would be fun to solve it, but it would be more fun to have a computer solve it for me.

At first I experimented with Apple code which is very easy to work with, but it wasn't really designed for this sort of operation. I started learning Python on a web sight called solo learn(it's not that hard, it's still english). I chose python mainly because it sounded like the coolest programing language.

My Dad and I discussed for a while and I couldn't find any systematic ways for rearranging the places in a way that would be sure to find all combinations except this method.

You change the places in the square to a list so that the computer can deal with it. We created 18 checks for the list to make sure it was a working combination and then it is added to the list of answers.

The program started at [0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0] adding one every time until it reached [9,9,9,9,9,9,9,9,9]. You can quickly notice that this can be shortened to [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9] to [9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1].

One snag we encountered was the append statement in python. This adds something onto the end of a list but what we didn't know is that is was, in a way, smart. If you append say, n to a list and then change n's value the list's value will then be changed as well. We did not know this so when the script spit out answerlist=[[9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1],[9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1],[9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1],[9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1],[9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1],[9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1],[9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1],[9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1],[9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1]] we didn't understand. However what it was doing was appending all nine answers in their current state which was the end of the script state [9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1]. This was an easy fix and the hole thing after about a month came together.

This was the end result:

All Done!

 Your answerlist was:['[2, 7, 6, 9, 5, 1, 4, 3, 8]', '[2, 9, 4, 7, 5, 3, 6, 1, 8]', '[4, 3, 8, 9, 5, 1, 2, 7, 6]', '[4, 9, 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 1, 6]', '[6, 1, 8, 7, 5, 3, 2, 9, 4]', '[6, 7, 2, 1, 5, 9, 8, 3, 4]', '[8, 1, 6, 3, 5, 7, 4, 9, 2]', '[8, 3, 4, 1, 5, 9, 6, 7, 2]']

 Your final x was:[9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1]

 and your try count was:375313600

Exit status: 0

logout

Saving session...

...copying shared history...

...saving history...truncating history files...

...completed.

[Process completed]

The Ultimate Tactical Helmet

This morning an idea of certain geeky importance seized me and captured my interest with a wondrous grip. It seems to have ocurred to me before, but this particular time it was irresistible. I mused upon a Helmet of numerous utility. Headgear so finally tuned that you could listen to tunes in surround sound and have infrared vision. I so far call it the Ultimate Tack Helmet! However I'd be open to suggestions. Please comment on what you think it should be called.

• Floodlights
• I thought there could be twelve, and you could turn them on in pairs to create six light levels.
• Night Vision
• I probably know the least about this feature, but the plan is to have infrared LEDs in the helmet and have some kind of drop-down/slide-out display so you can see the infrared light you are creating.
• Sunglasses
• No more "Ah the sun's in my eyes" excuses for you.

• Video Camera
• A great way of having a photographic memory "You did say that! Here I'll pull it up."
• Inner Cooling
• Not air conditioning as in air blown over a cold pipe; just a fan. Setting a thermostat would be easy.
• Microphone
• Would allow you to take calls from your helmet and record your conversations with yourself, the people you interogate, and maybe the milk man if he stands close by.
• Surround Sound
• Surround sound is so much easier in a helmet. You just have to have it!
• Retractable Rearview Mirrors
• No one can sneak up on this smart helmet wearer! And if they are too dorky for you, they're retractable!
• Color Scheme
• For some reason I always picture the helmet silver with a double racing stripe, but definitely comment on what color you would want your Tack Helmet in.
• Materials
• Plastic, Styrofoam, and Aluminum, it's cheap and light. I don't think this would be a great helmet for protection. But hey! Maybe floodlights and video cameras absorb shock better than you think.

I'm interested to see anyone's feedback. © Walters 2018 all rights reserved. The first to send me 5000 bars of Lindt's Swiss Dark chocolate will be the receiver of an exclusive production contract for the Ultimate Tack Helmet.

Seahorse

This was supposed to be a warm up in art class. It seems a bit complected for that, but I think mine came out quite well in the end.

Doodling

This is isn't exactly art like my other pieces but  think there's something aesthetically pleasing and friendly about it's commonness. I did this with a friend at church. It is sort of masculine game where I draw a formidable opponent such as the defiant-looking pirate on the island and he draws something spelling out it's certain doom. Then I draw certain doom for his certain doom for me... ad nauseam. An aggressive player would quickly elevate to Tzar nukes and Death Stars, however this makes the game boring so it was more like a playful contest to pass the time.

Guardians of the Galaxy

This was a quite detailed picture, but I think if I had done a better job on the faces it would have made a significant difference in the overall quality/look. But considering I never used white out I think it went very well.

This was a cover photo for Guardians of the Galaxy 2 and you can tell it's a mirror image of the actual cover photo because Nebula's mechanical eye is on her right when only a nerdy fan like me could tell you it's supposed to be on here left.

I made this rather cool gif.

Great Wall of China

This is actually a picture I did at the beginning of the year. It was supposed to be a warm up in art class, but every one's pictures were coming along so well we spent the rest of class on them. It was a while before my art teacher handed them back out to us.

Motorcycle Helmets

I made this comic strip from a recent article in the Journal of Forensic Biomechanics for a physics assignment. It was actually quite interesting and I there's lots more content if you are interested.

This the first appearance of my swav self-invented cartoon character!  Though I might change it, so far his name is Epi Cool standing for the epitome of cool. That's really where he came from, just a really really cool wolf wearing sunglasses.

I think Epi Cool and the Duck charicter resemble Spy Fox and Doctor Quack from an old computer game I played when I was younger.

 Please comment about your favorite character!