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A FAIRLY HONEST TAKE ~ my new time lapse, process, and recent work blog
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Kepler

Kepler: "The Kepler mission is looking at this field of stars in Cygnus and Lyra. One of these stars will have an Earth-sized planet orbiting a star in the habitable zone.

Get this. This is the field. This is the image. Click on this 1000x1000 pixel image. Enjoy. Here is the medium resolution version. Enjoy a little more.

Now,
click on the full resolution. 11000x11000. 28 Megabytes. Now you see all the stars. Kepler is watching each one. All 4.5 million or so.


Kepler first light. Click on the image to make it bigger (and to start seeing the stars).

P.S. I originally wrote up the draft of this post two months ago and sat on it like I sit on everything. There is now a press conference coming up later in the week about early Kepler results.

via: http://dwarmstr.blogspot.com/
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Ahead of our time!Pantone selects Turquoiseas the color of 2010!

Ahead of our time!Pantone selects Turquoiseas the color of 2010!: "

turqoise


Seeing as Turqoise/Teal is the spot color used in both the newest issue of Faesthetic, as well as used throughout our recent show with Scion, I am very pleased to see that Pantone has selected Turqoise as their Color of the Year for 2010!


Pantone LLC, an X-Rite company (NASDAQ: XRIT), and the global authority on color and provider of professional color standards for the design industries, today announced PANTONE® 15-5519 Turquoise, an inviting, luminous hue, as the color of the year for 2010. Combining the serene qualities of blue and the invigorating aspects of green, Turquoise evokes thoughts of soothing, tropical waters and a languorous, effective escape from the everyday troubles of the world, while at the same time restoring our sense of wellbeing.” (Tks DB!)

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Tikky 1 2 3

Tikky 1 2 3: "The Rotring Tikky mechanical pencil has been around for many years and undergone many changes since it was first released. I’m not a Tikky expert so I can’t detail the various changes it has undergone, but if my memory is correct I recall that the author of the now deleted Pencil Box blog stated he had something like 30 or 40 different variants of the Tikky.

The latest incarnation of the Tikky mechanical pencil is significantly different from its immediate predecessor, so I’ll point out a few of the main changes below.

I have two older Rotring Tikky’s dating from the early to mid 2000’s. The white 0.9mm is logoed as a Rotring Tikky II (1.0mm) and the brown 0.5mm as a Rotring T. Apart from the name, there’s no obvious difference between them upon visual inspection. They are pictured below with the current Tikky.
old and new Rotring Tikky mechanical pencils
Comparing these two older Tikky’s to the current Tikky, it’s fairly obvious that the apart from the name “Tikky” and concept of the wave grip zone the current Tikky has virtually nothing in common with the old Tikky. Maybe some or all of the internal components are the same, but externally they have little in common.

Completely different pocket clips.
Rotring Tikky pocket clips
Different end caps. Also note the method of pocket clip attachment to the body.
Rotring Tikky end caps
Different tip sections, and grips, although conceptually similar.
Tikky tips and grips
Old Tikky has a round upper body whereas new Tikky transitions from a round lower body to a sort of rounded trapezium shape up at the end.
Tikky ends
Note the old Tikky had “Made in Germany” moulded into it.
Rotring Tikky made in Germany
The new Tikky has no country of origin either on the pencil or the packaging. It states distributed by, but not manufactured by or in.

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Animation: The History of the Chipmunks

Animation: The History of the Chipmunks: "Alvin Show
Two of my best friends, Michael Woodside and Danny Young, are hard at work at Rhythm & Hues putting the finishing touches on animation for the upcoming Alvin & the Chipmunks "squeakquel". I got my start in animation at Bagdasarian Productions producing the NBC Saturday morning series myself, so I've always been interested in the history of the Chipmunks. It's a real-life rags to riches story.

David Seville
Ross Bagdasarian Sr. (who went by the stage name "David Seville") was an actor who appeared in Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window and on Broadway in William Saroyan's Time of Your Life. He wrote novelty dialect songs, including Rosemary Clooney's huge hit "Come On-A My House", and released a few records but his successes never seemed to result in very much money in his pocket. He bought a tape recorder with his last $200 and played around with shifting the speeds, coming up with a novelty song titled "Witch Doctor". He got the single released and two weeks later, he found himself appearing on the Ed Sullivan Show performing the song.

Chipmunk SongChipmunk SongThe success of "Witch Doctor" gave him the idea of creating characters with sped up voices, so he quickly knocked out a Christmas demo titled "The Chipmunk Song" and took it to record executives Simon "Sy" Waronker, Theodore "Ted" Keep and Alvin "Al" Bennett at Liberty Records. The label was close to bankruptcy, but Bagdasarian convinced them that they might as well press Chipmunk singles with the leftover vinyl pucks and labels in their warehouse rather than just turn the unused stock over to the bank when the business went under. Production commenced and in just a few months leading up to Christmas of 1958, the record shot to the top of the charts, becoming one of the best selling singles of all time. Bagdasarian won two Grammy Awards, Liberty Records was saved from bankruptcy, and the Chipmunks became a household name with children all over the world.

Chipmunk LP
In 1962, the string of successful Chipmunk LP records led to a television series produced by Format Films. Story man Leo Salkin was the Associate Producer, working closely with Bagdasarian and a team of story artists to sketch up animated adaptations of the record routines and new stories featuring the characters. In his youth, Bagdasarian would take road trips across country with his cousin William Saroyan, singing songs and coming up with wild stories the whole way. One eccentric character they came up with on one of these trips was Clyde Crashcup, an inventor who only invented things that had already been invented. Salkin expanded on the premise and created a regular feature for it on the show.

Record Cover
Ross Bagdasarian Sr. sat alongside Music Director Johnny Mann on the piano bench humming out tunes for Mann to pick out on the piano and write down as musical notation. Jules Engel was the Art Director for the series, creating simple stylized backgrounds that set the tone for the whole series. Alan Zaslove, Gil Turner, Rudy Larriva and Osmond Evans directed the series, substituting clever rhythmic timing and spirited poses for inbetweens and smooth animation.

Jules Engel The Alvin Show
Even though it only ran for one season, The Alvin Show was one of the best television cartoons of the era. It was unique because it didn't rely on the crutch of dialogue to make up for the limited animation. Instead, the show was built around music, clever timing and design. Like UPA's Gerald McBoing Boing Show, many of the musical segments featured abstract animation and modern background paintings. But unlike the Gerald McBoing Boing Show, The Alvin Show always remained entertaining and fun- never didactic or self important. The voice cast included Bagdasarian as David Seville and the Chipmunks and Shepherd Menken as Clyde Crashcup. along with June Foray, Don Messick and Joe Besser as incidental characters.

Alvin Show
Ross Bagdasarian Sr. retired the Chipmunks in 1969, but by then he was a very wealthy man with a booming grape growing business. At one point, Bagdasarian's fields were the largest supplier of grapes to Gallo Wines. He passed away from a heart attack in 1972. His son, Ross Jr. took over the franchise in 1980, creating more records- including the album "Chipmunk Punk", an NBC television series, prime time specials, and an animated feature- The Chipmunk Adventure. The character designs have varied widely over the years. The current CGI models look similar to the first incarnation of the characters, which appeared on record covers in 1958 and 1959. This Christmas, Fox will be releasing a new Chipmunks movie, Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel.

"Are you all ready, Chipmunks?" "OOOOOoooooKAYYY!"

ALVIN SHOW PRESSBOOK
Alvin Show
Alvin Show
Alvin Show
Simon may have read the dictionary,
but he still can't spell "incidentally" correctly!

Alvin Show
Alvin Show
Alvin Show
Alvin Show
Alvin Show

ALVIN SHOW GREETING CARDS

Alvin Show
Alvin Show
Alvin Show
I've posted on this show here in the past, so I am pulling together links to some of that older material into this post to give you a passel of great Chipmunk stuff to enjoy. Click through and check out all the amazing art...

Jules Engel The Alvin Show
JULES ENGEL'S COLOR KEYS

Alvin Show Pilot Board
ALVIN SHOW PILOT STORYBOARD

The Alvin Show
The Alvin Show
THE WHISTLER STORYBOARD

Thanks!
Stephen Worth
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive
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December 5th at Roots

December 5th at Roots: "

This show is free. You should come.


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