Mystic Symbolic: the progressing-in-progress

Still no color, still no backgrounds, still no animation, but I’ve had plenty to do designing more symbols and getting the hang of the specification system we came up with. I spend hours hitting the “randomize” button (Atul created a keyboard shortcut, control-option-r, so my arm doesn’t get as sore), watching the shapes interact, then making revisions, re-exporting, and re-uploading. Every once in a while I take a screenshot and write a title, and I share some of those here:

She Holds the Moon
Trainer
Mama Power
Tree of Knowledge
Vehicle of Enlightenment
The Book of Life
Lamb of God
Mask of the Goddess
Crush the Hebrews
Strength
Rebirth

Generate your own at https://toolness.github.io/mystic-symbolic/?p=creature

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Mystic Symbolic: the developening

On January 27 I awoke with an idea for a mystic symbolic art generator. I immediately sketched copious notes and put out word I was looking for a coder to collaborate with. By some miracle, Atul Varma responded within an hour, which makes me believe this project really wants to exist.

My plans are vast and sprawling, so we’re starting simple. And by simple we mean bonkers:

Atul and I are on the same page regarding Free Software and Free Culture, so we’re both happy to share as we go along. You can generate your own strange images like the ones above by clicking the “randomize” button here:

https://toolness.github.io/mystic-symbolic/?p=creature

Here is the main Mystic Symbolic work-in-progress page:

https://toolness.github.io/mystic-symbolic/

And if you’re on guthub, which I am not yet but will be soon, there is this:

https://github.com/toolness/mystic-symbolic

This is a mere taste of things to come.

 

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Peep Toes and Eye Heels

In these dark days of Winter, boredom has driven me to craft:

A year or two ago I had a dream about a high-heeled shoe with an eye on the heel, much like the re-creation above. The heel itself was a unicorn horn. I sketched it upon awakening, and while I no longer remember the dream, I remember the drawing. I recently obtained polymer clay, a glue gun, and plastic eyes, to make these:

I didn’t make the shoes themselves; they are dance shoes I bought used for $5 at the local theater’s annual sale a few years ago. The eyes are plastic, which complicated things; the Fimo clay I shaped around them needs to be baked in an oven to harden, but the plastic would melt, so I had to make aluminum foil dummies. Also, they are life-size, which I think is too small. So I ordered some robust oven-safe 20mm glass irises, which finally arrived today, allowing me to make these:

I bought these shoes online, the red ones new, the brown ones used, both made of plastic and very cheap. I’m still developing my eye-making technique, getting closer to what I want. And when I reach my goal, I’ll…what? Look into mass production? I sure don’t want to spend my days hand-making Fimo shoe eyes, but injection-molded ones might be cool. Then people could hot-glue them to their own shoes, and my work would be done.

 

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